Hayato "Jr." Fujita vs. MUSASHI, Michinoku Pro 7/1/2022
Fujita comes back from cancer and a really bad leg injury to take on the champ. Obviously a match that had an insanely emotional story behind it, but the wrestling matched that backstory. Fujita showed pretty much no signs of ring rust and instead went out to destroy MUSASHI with incredibly vicious, Hashimoto-esque kicks and submissions. The match ramped up quickly when both guys started to try and kill each other with some insane headbutts, and they only kept building from there. There were some excellent control, comeback and cut off spots, such as Fujita slipping into his choke hold when Musashi attempted a suplex, Musashi attempting to work Fujitas legs only for Fujita to go to town on him with chairs, Fujitas insane finger bending etc. I haven't seen Musashi since he was a rookie and while he is a bit generic he actually looked like he wanted to defend his place in the world from this old veteran. Fujitas performance was a mixture of returning badass standing tall and also slowly falling apart and trying to push on, which was fascinating. They did a great job with the ending run, building to an epic violent conclusion which had to be one of the best "going out on your sword" finishes in forever. The match had some unfortunate 2022isms (back and forth strike exchanges, some no-selling) that kept this from being a classic, but the match told a story, was noticably tighter than the contemporary main events you see from NJPW, NOAH etc., and overall just an infinitely more engaging bout.
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