Yoji Anjoh & Tatsuo Nakano vs. Masakatsu Funaki & Akira Nogami, NJPW 2/28/1987
What a sick upload. This was 4 young guys going close to 20 minutes doing awesome grappling and kicking the shit out of each other. My god do all these guys look great hitting the mat, just hitting awesome throws and super tight submissions left and right. Anjoh and Nakano already show shades of their later shitkicker personae and Funaki even in his black trunks and on a grainy handheld looks like a star in the making. The second half was really great because black trunks rookie factor is at play, so dropkicks and boston crabs become edge-of-your-seat stuff. Funaki running in to break up submissions by blasting people with dropkicks felt epic and while they largely kept the action basic they mixed in some sweet highlights, for example there was an awesome armbar counter to a backslide, Anjoh getting thrown to the outside by a dropkick, a New Japan guy running into a surprise high kick etc. The scrappy moments where guys would kick or slap the shit out of each other were fantastic and super heated. Great great stuff, this period where you saw New Japan guys mix it up with UWF guys regularily may have been the peak of the promotion.
Yoji Anjoh & Tatsuo Nakano vs. Masakatsu Funaki & Akira Nogami, NJPW 3/26/1987
Very good rematch in the same way as the first one. Anjo and Nakano were really a pair of pricks here brutalizing Nogami with knees and kicks. They did the same things as in the first match in some parts but the general scrappiness and improvized-feeling structure made it still feel different enough. Great heated finish and I dig how the UWF guys keep refusing to run the ropes.
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