This was a ton of fun, worked as much of a sprint as the other tag. Fujiwara was sick here, jumping Fujinami at the bell, ridiculous counter wrestling of everything guys try. There is a Muto v. Fujiwara mat wrestling section with Muto trying leglocks, and Fujiwara countering in a ton of cool ways. Could have used 10 more minutes to be epic, but it is pretty awesome.

 

NJC 251

I liked the Fujiwara/Fujinami stuff a lot, but the sections of limbwork on Inoki bored me. I'd prefer less dull stuff in a match that only went 14 minutes. Given the volume of great stuff we have from all these guys, I'm actually leaning no on this one.

Antonio Inoki & Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Tatsumi Fujinami & Keiji Muto (12/8/86)

 

Fujinami had this great quasi Japanese version of Party All the Time by Eddie Murphy as his theme song at this time and it fucking ruled. Fujiwara was fucking great at the bell jumping Fujinami and immediately hitting him with a piledriver before working him over. The match then went into a fast paced mode with quick tags on the Fujinami side as they worked over Inoki's legs with figure-fours and sasorigatames. Fujiwara decides he has had enough and jumps Muto throwing him to the floor where he throws him into the guardrail but the Dragon System team again finds a way to take over and they go to work on Fujiwara’s left leg. Fujiwara would counter Muto’s legwork though using some fun counters before getting the tag to Inoki who would soon succumb back to the Dragon System team as they tried to put him down with sleeper holds. This would go back to being back-and-forth action with all four men shining especially Muto who was showing heart trying to put away Inoki but eventually would fall to 2 backdrop suplexes. Like Phil said this was really fun and had a hint of Southern tag formula with Fujinami & Muto being the heel dominators although they weren’t playing heel. This should move forward for consideration.

Didn't like the piledriver being treated like a hip toss early on but we expect that by now. Also, Inoki whiffed a dropkick pretty bad and it was sold anyway. Fujinami and Inoki locked in a figure four are giving me flashbacks to last night. OOf. I did like the focus on the leg and cutting off Inoki making the tag. WHen Fujiwara was in, I enjoyed the strategy of taking his legs out also. Fujinami and Fujiwara were really fun in this but I liked them better in the six man tag. I enjoyed the stretch run but not the actual finish. I think overall I enjoyed the Bad News/Doc tag more so I am giving this a no.