Once more, the most reliable thing in wrestling at this point — the Tatsuo Nakano opening scrap — comes through.
Part of what is what’s always there.
Nakano’s meanness is matched by a few, albeit in different quieter ways, but none comes quite close to his anger. He is, yet again, the most pissed off man in the world, even in a match more about elevating an opponent and in which Nakano begins from a steadier place than usual. It takes longer to bubble up, but when it does, it’s one of the most beautiful things in wrestling, not only for the joy of his transformation in the last year, but for the simpler pleasure of a man who looks like this getting indignant and slapping and kicking the shit out of someone.
The other part is that this is especially mean-spirited, and that goes both ways.
In terms of being an obscenely petty little bastard prick son of a bitch, this feels like Minoru Suzuki’s coming out party, and he has the perfect complement for that. It’s not that Baby Suzuki was ever reticent, but against Nakano, he really explodes. Overly aggressive head stomping or knee dropping after every down, hurling shots out faster than usual, and in my favorite touch, constantly either laughing or yelling at Tatsuo Nakano and being continually punished for it.
My personal favorite — and really the section that sums the entire fight up — comes early on down on the ground. Suzuki and Nakano are shouting each other while Nakano is on top, shoving their elbows into each other’s faces, before Suzuki begins laughing. Nakano’s response, before anything else, is to simply put his hand over Minoru Suzuki’s mouth to shut him up, before then slapping his face really hard and later headbutting him in the mouth. It is mean and petty, but it also breaks though any sort of cowardly subtext, with Nakano literally shutting Suzuki’s mouth as best he can.
The match carries on in that fashion until the end. Call and response, question and answer, things of that nature. Suzuki proves himself on a slightly higher level by hanging in there for some big downs, even if it takes him the Gotch-style Piledriver and several knees to the head on the ground to equal the power of a few Nakano kicks. Nakano delivers one more beautiful ass beating in an opening match scrap, hitting on multiple levels and delivering both these nasty strikes as well as classical pro-wrestling style babyface comeback moments of miniature triumph.
Following the third or fourth back and forth frantic exchange of wild and reckless shots, Nakano dives down with this brutal and wonderful sort of half-lariat half-closed fist punch to the side of the head. Suzuki never comes close to making it to his feet, and although Nakano does, he does so RIGHT at ten, without raising his arms in time to signal that he’s good, and in another arguable robbery, the match is called a double knock out.
It’s false to anyone who watched the match of course, but it’s another one of many times in the UWF that what’s on paper matters far less than what actually happened in the match.
Nakano is called out and positively whips ass in response. Young Minoru Suzuki gains something, but while it looks like on paper that he took Nakano to this, it’s more that he hung in there and turned this into the dogfight that it became. It’s a draw and double knock out in name only, a fight clearly ending with Nakano standing, with the pound of flesh in his hand in return to even the slight elevation. Usually, the stuff I love about the second UWF is when they translate real sports stories into pro wrestling settings, but like a lot of the Nakano work, this is something different and that I think translates far easier, which is to say that it a lovely little chunk of violence, both in action and far far more importantly, in spirit.
One of the reborn UWF’s better kept secrets, but there’s no reason for it to stay that way.
HANDWERK 