Talk about it here.

Excellent match. It's not on the level of the best Japanese matches of the year. But this is the sort of match that if it happened in the U.S. would be remembered as a classic. Oya is a great, old-school heel and works over Hayabusa's knee for the early part of this match, eventually leading to a big comeback and hot series of nearfalls. The comeback feels more organic because Oya still has gas in the tank and is putting up a good fight, which makes sense considering that he's taken less of a beating. Hayabusa's selling is really strong, and so are his ... um ... eye expressions. I think it's a credit to him that he was able to get a storyline over in the way he did showing only his eyes. I know plenty of masked wrestlers have done the same, but I think it's even harder for Hayabusa, because his mask covers even more of his face. But there are times when he seems genuinely surprised that Oya is coming back from something he just threw at him and his eyes tell the story. He also times his kickouts perfectly to get the maximum reaction. So much of what I have said has focused on how they work nearfalls. There's really a lot more to the match than that, but they do so many things so well that I can't help but point them out. This doesn't feel like "my turn, your turn" at all -- it's more that each guy overestimates how much damage he's done repeatedly, and ends up paying for it. Aside from Kudo/Toyota, this is the best FMW match I have ever seen. They probably did a few too many kickouts in the last few minutes, but the match accomplished its goals nicely and this was a great showing for both.

Yeah, Oya's one of the lost super workers of the 90's. His peak isn't that long but from about 94 - 99 he was one of the best guys around. Course, I haven't seen much of his pre 94 work to judge so he may have been great earlier then that too. He was originally a NJPW dojo grad in the 80's.

 

I'm torn between this & the August match on which is better (been too long since I last watched either) but him & Hayabusa had a lot of great matches together and the 2 in 95 were a big part of establishing Hayabusa early in his run.

Super match. Ohya is one of the lost great worker of the 90's. I was surprised when I went though FMW last year that he was still as good in 98/99, it's just that he wasn't pushed anymore.

This felt very New Japan Juniors style and was not what I was expecting. First 10 minutes or so was kinda boring with the mat work but it got better. Especially when Hayabusa did the dive. Oya is very very 90's.

Neither of these two people gave me a single solitary reason to care about them or if they won or lost, so with all the kickouts at the end, this was nothing more than a match that felt like it went on for about 6 years. The work wasn't *bad* and I admire the attempts to build up to the big offensive bombs, but in the end it was horrifically overindulgent for the level of star power these guys projected.