Posted October 19, 200816 yr comment_5435288 DVD #21 9/20/85 (taped 9/19) - Match also on Classics 208 Antonio Inoki vs. Tatsumi Fujinami - I imagine this will be divisive. They went about 35 minutes and stayed on the mat for the first 25 or so. I thought they killed the time fairly well, working a wide enough variety of holds and showing enough intensity to keep it interesting. But some folks will probably find the body of the match dull. Fujinami popped the crowd with a mid-match scorpion and ultimately put Inoki in the figure four for several minutes (Inoki did his part by selling the leg work well.) That led into a 10-minute build to the finish, which featured some great back-and-forth action and had the crowd going apeshit. I particularly liked it when Inoki ducked Fujinami's enziguiri and hit his own to shift the momentum only to have Fujinami come back and connect with the enziguiri after all. The ending, with Fujinami fighting out of Inoki's octopus hold several times, also worked. Both men showed genuine emotion postmatch in a nice cap to an effective master vs. protege story. Nomination. 10/4/85 (taped 10/4) - Matches also on Classics 210 and 211 The Cobra vs. Fishman - A bunch of sluggish matwork topped off by a sloppy ending in which Cobra concussed Fishman by losing his grip in the middle of a superplex. Cobra then made the mistake of trying to pin him with a German into a bridge, even though Fishman was too woozy to stay in position for three. A confused Cobra then tried to come up with another finish that wouldn't require too much from Fishman. Just ridiculous to watch. Hoshino/Sakaguchi vs. Roger Smith/Bad News Allen - Decent tag though it was pretty obvious from the start that the finish would come whenever Bad News and Smith managed to isolate Hoshino. Gotoh/Sakurada vs. Rick Oliver/Barbarian - Didn't stand out one way or another. Kengo Kimura/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Kerry/Kevin Von Erich - A few sloppy moments from Kerry aside, this was an all-action title match that went over big with the crowd. In a parallel universe, Kevin could've been a huge star in Japan, given his stiffness and innovative offense. Match ended with double claws on the outside. I would love to have seen these teams go 20 minutes to a clean finish, but this was enough fun to go on the block. Antonio Inoki vs. Bruiser Brody - This continues on the next disk so I'll review it there.
