I had never heard much about this match, but it was another hot elimination tag. Inoki's team subbed Murdoch for Hoshino at the last minute and that somehow led to a controversy which removed both Dick and Choshu from the match. The match featured more Fujiwara-Maeda goodness but the ending was the most notable part, as Fujinami battled through a horrible cut against both Saito and Inoki. Inoki became disgusted with Saito's ruthlessness in going after the wounded man, so the postmatch seemed to suggest that Inoki and Fujinami were realigning as were Choshu and Saito. This doesn't rank with 3/26/86 or 8/19/87 but was still a damn fine effort with a wild crowd, a ton of action and lots of stories swirling. So it's a nomination.

Absolute nomination, great shit throughout, with Fujiwara being awesome as usual and your crazy hot finish with your traditional big match Fujinami blade job, I loved all the jiving that Inoki and Saito were doing with the bloody Fujinami. It does look a little JIP though, is there a classics or commercial tape version?

Elimination Match: Antonio Inoki, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Dick Murdoch, Masa Saito, & Seiji Sakaguchi vs. Tatsumi Fujinami, Akira Maeda, Riki Choshu, Super Strong Machine, & Nobuhiko Takada (9/17/87)

 

The crowd is of course molten hot for this especially for Inoki. Inoki tells Hoshino to leave the ring and Murdoch comes out wanting to be in the match. Choshu couldn’t wrestle on TV yet thanks to his legal dispute with Giant Baba so they got him & Murdoch out of here quickly in a minute thanks to a double countout so that’s what we missed from the start of the match. Fujiwara & Masa were all sorts of awesome here as guys who just wanted to beat some fucking ass with the other side being great at taking the punishment. Inoki again is a dick to Fujinami and won’t wrestle him so he tags out to Fujiwara. Maeda & Takada were great here bringing the UWF hate to this especially against Inoki but Fujiwara would get the tag and he upped the hate to another level with brutal shots. The action then gets hot & heavy as the eliminations start happening and it comes down to Fujinami by himself against Inoki & Masa. Fujinami would pop a gusher of his right eye that the old generation would work over but Fujinami showed off his fighting spirit standing tall to both men. They would finish Fujinami off though but Inoki didn’t approve of Saito’s ways setting up their feud. This isn’t on the level of the more famous elimination matches but it is still fucking great and a easy nomination.

OK, just checked both Sky A and the Classics and both jumped from March 87 to October 87. Who pissed off the company enough that they would skip 7 months of the company's history in their classics? Anyone have any idea?

That might be the period where the regular TV was replaced with this so maybe there are tape/availabilty/whatever issues from then?

Goddammit, Why did they kick Choshu and Murdoch out??? Anyway, really hot match through the 1st elimination. The early Fujinami-Fujiwara lift section stood out. THe Fujiwara-Fujinami section that led to Fujiwara being eliminated was awesome since I thought Maeda was toast. However, Fujiwara softened him up enough for Saito to put him out of his misery. Inoki and Fujinami showed more fire in 90 seconds when it was 2-on-1 then in their entire 35 minute match. OH SHIT!!! This is a prelude to the 1988 match. Badass. Wish the ending was better but this goes on too.