Posted October 25, 200816 yr comment_5435361 DVD 2 1/17/86: Nobuhiko Takada vs. Kazuo Yamazaki - JIP and the part shown was basically a Takada squash. Keichii Yamada vs. Black Tiger - Plenty of action here but the match struck me as soulless. Definitely not something that would stand out among the huge pack of junior matches. If we do an NJ stock report anytime soon, Rocco would definitely go on my falling list. I've seen few matches where he showed any character or ring intelligence as Black Tiger. He controlled this most of the way, so I blame him more than Yamada. Kendo Nagasaki vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan - Poor Hacksaw. This sucked. Antonio Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Madd Maxx & Super Maxx - Please, no more Maxxes. 1/24/86: Seiji Sakaguchi & Kantaro Hoshino vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Osamu Kido - Fun opener but it was JIP and hurt by a double countout finish. Hoshino kept trying to pick a fight with Fujiwara, who'd beat on him for a few seconds and then tag out to Kido. The Fujiwara-Sakaguchi exchanges were promising too as Sakaguchi ostensibly controlled with his greater power, but Fujiwara always worked to catch him in a submission. Anyway, it fell short of a nomination. Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Kevin Von Erich - Speaking of annoying double countouts. I had high expectations for this match-up, and they seemed on their way to meeting them. After an opening matwork sequence that showed how even they were, Kevin took over with some stiff strikes and high flying. He slapped the claw on Fujinami and held onto it as they tumbled outside. This led to a near-countout, but Fujinami slid in at 17. Kevin then missed a claw attempt and hurt his hand. Fujinami worked it over a bit, though he could've done more. Kevin did a nice job of selling the pain, switching from punches to elbows when he rallied. I thought they easily had another 10 minutes in them when they tumbled outside for the countout. Fujinami had hardly used any of his offense, and they had the hand story to play with. I'm tempted to nominate it anyway, because they were so well-matched and Kevin looked really good. But the finish was just too frustrating. Antonio Inoki & Kengo Kimura vs. Madd Maxx & Super Maxx - More suckiness.
