I got the creeping sense that Brody didn't respect Yatsu and wasn't planning to sell for him. But Yatsu worked his ass off and almost forced Brody into a decent performance. Yatsu came in with a wrapped legged and turned it into the tragic flaw in his hero quest. He kept working to set up his leg hold but when he got it on, it hurt him as bad as Brody. To his credit, Brody put over the move, fighting like hell to punch his way out of it and limping around down the stretch. But Yatsu had to break the hold both times and did a great job of selling the frustration. The ending played off the leg as well; Brody flipped Yatsu into the third row and Yatsu simply couldn't drag his leg back to the ring to beat the count. Damn, I ended up liking this a lot more than expected. Nomination.

 

All Japan Classics 167

Bruiser Brody vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu, 4/4/88 (All Japan Classics 167)

- Yatsu has a taped up foot. Lets see if it plays into the match. Yep, it does, after some non descript action, Yatsu ends up outside and Brody attacks the leg. Yatsu makes it inside only to be thrown out again and Brody goes after the foot again with a chair. Inside, Brody works a leglock to continue the punishment. Yatsu does some nice comeback sequences but Brody isn’t the one to sell them. After some Yatsu offense, Brody goes back to the foot and Yatsu ends up back outside where Brody attacks and gets the countout win. I liked the attack on the foot, and while I enjoyed the comebacks from Yatsu, Brody isn’t going to be the guy to make those comebacks believable. Mild nomination.

NWA International Heavyweight Title: Bruiser Brody © vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu (4/4/88)

 

Yatsu has some weird type of wrap around his right foot selling an injury which is interesting plus they broke out a wacky camera angle too from the apron. After some back and forth action, Brody would throw Yatsu to the floor and finally started working over the foot using a steel chair then grabbing a legbar when they got back in the ring. Yatsu would fight through the pain though getting some offense on Brody including a powerslam and a belly-to-belly suplex while on the bad foot. Yatsu would even get the Prison Lock but it would hurt him as much if not more than Brody so he had to release it on his own. Yatsu would comeback though with a backdrop suplex before going for the Prison Lock again but again it weakened him seriously so Brody would get a kneebreaker on him sending him to the floor. Yatsu would fight back though but missed a running attack on Brody and went over the railing allowing Brody to return to the ring to win by countout. Yatsu's selling was fine and this had some good action but I'm not sold on this as a nomination.