Following Masakatsu Funaki’s major upset wins over Yamazaki in June and Nobuhiko Takada in August, the kid goes for another major one against the third of what objectively feels like the four big UWF wrestlers.
It’s not only the best match of the bunch yet, but also the most effective.
The match is better simply because they simply have longer to work with than either other big Funaki victory match, and they feel freer to really get into it, being the main event of the show.
More than just that, it’s also another classic kind of Yoshiaki Fujiwara showcase. It’s essentially the same basic idea as their celebrated match from May of the previous year, with Fujiwara plugging in a fast and ultra-talented young wrestler into his formula, getting a lot of of the natural comparison between the two to emphasize the strengths of both, and helping him through some of the more advanced things on the ground. Fujiwara, for the millionth time, uses every piece of the thing and makes every part of the match interesting in some way. Be it sly little looks when something goes right, slight facial sells when it doesn’t, or slight shifts and cranks on holds so that it never feels as though nothing is happening and there is no struggle, few other wrestlers ever are as skilled at maximizing their time on camera like Fujiwara. Again, it is not some all-time performance in an all-time career, but it’s the smaller ones like these that I always find so impressive.
Beyond the scientific delights, it also handles the rocket on Funaki better than either other match since it got put there.
The strength of Masakatsu Funaki is speed. This isn’t to say his kicks and slaps do not have power or that he is hopeless on the ground, the UWF is the UWF and shoot-style is shoot-style after all, but those shots land like they do because nobody has faster hands or moves into kicks faster and those holds work because of how quickly he gets them on. Yamazaki and Takada both communicated this very well by getting rocked in flashes with wild slap flurries, but this match works like it does because it presents a greater struggle before that moment.
Lightning does not strike twice in the same place, let alone three times, and while one can buy Takada being arrogant enough to think that what happened to Yamazaki would never happen to him, the point of this match is that Fujiwara is smart enough to be the first major star to know about it and to try and shut it down by leaning on the kid heavy on the mat and almost never letting him up. He does so for like seventy five percent of the match, and although it slips when he lands his own shots and stays too long on his feet, getting a little too into punishing the boy with his own body shots and headbutts, there’s still an accomplishment there.
Slipping free against world-class wrestlers for flash knockouts is one thing, but doing it when someone like Fujiwara sees it coming and plans for it comes off as so much more impressive for Funaki when he pushes past that to succeed anyways.
Funaki finally breaks through all the defense, and when he gets moving with the speedy palm strike combinations, Fujiwara eventually has no defense. Funaki is still unrefined in terms of, like, the idea that it never feels like he knows which one will do it and throws ten of them when someone more experienced often feels like they have one or two they know will do it, but he gets him anyways, and Fujiwara can’t meet the ten count.
It’s still an offense that feels young and a little undisciplined and that absolutely feels like eventually will be beaten and/or ground into the dirt the very moment it doesn’t work perfectly, but (a) again, the UWF Real Sports shit & (b) showing some real guts behind all that flash makes such a difference.
The best elevation of Funaki yet, handled with the edge of a knife precision and care that only the real greats are capable of.
HANDWERK 