Posted July 1, 201213 yr comment_5508738 Tamura is much smaller than he'd become in 1993. He's a great young upstart here, and Takada does a great job selling for him. I'm not sure if Tamura had any big matches before this really, but I love kingpin vs young guy matches when done right, which this one was. There is some gorgeous matwork. Tamura would become much more polished later than he is here, but he has a certain charisma in this match and he's still really good on the mat, so you get a different side of him. Takada trying to slap his way out of a hold, making Tamura mad, with Tamura turning over into a half crab and then Takada taking the advantage is awesome! He's The Man and he outsmarted this punk kid. It gets even better a few minutes later when they do the same sequence in reversed position. Tamura reminds me of Otani in '96 in many ways in this match. I've seen Takada in better matches, but this is my favorite Takada performance in terms of understanding his role, portraying himself as the top guy, getting his opponent over and laying out a nice match.
