UWF MIND

July 20, 1990

Minoru Suzuki . . . finally shows some real growth and moves beyond the curtain jerking jobber level.

Akira Maeda . . . puts fourth a respectable effort, but he’s no match for the legend known as “The Fuj” on this night.

Kazuo Yamazaki . . . once again finds himself across the ring from his fellow young gun turned borderline top guy.

MINORU SUZUKI vs. NORMAN SMILEY

If nothing else, this isn’t a bad way to rehab Suzuki after his recent string of non-wins (five losses and a draw with Nakano). Smiley has never been amazing in a UWF ring, although he’s probably the best foreigner they’ve used. But he’s no match at all for Suzuki here. Suzuki takes everything that he dishes out and doesn’t lose a single point, while he makes Norman burn through his rope breaks and points, seemingly at will. There are a few times that Norman is able to give Suzuki a scare, like the attempted single leg crab late in the match and the front neck lock that he gets him in, but Suzuki manages to escape without the aid of the ropes. Norman gets angrier and more aggressive after he loses his first point, but he isn’t any more successful. He does have a few nice moments, like Suzuki’s juji-gatame where he gets it on twice and Norman manages to re-clasp his hands both times, and when Suzuki finally exerts enough pressure to get it back on, he’s right by the ropes for the break. Suzuki even shows a little bit of craftiness by hooking up Norman’s arms, seemingly for a suplex, but instead he opts to take him down and trap him in a reverse full nelson for the submission. He’s still a long way from being a genuine threat to the likes of Takada and Yamazaki, or even Anjo, but matches like this show that Suzuki is trending in the right direction.

MASAKATZU FUNAKI vs. SHIGEO MIYATO

Coming off of Funaki’s win over Yamazaki, nobody would have thought that he’d have much trouble with someone like Miyato; and he doesn’t, for the most part. Aside from his selling after a couple of hard strikes, Funaki doesn’t do much of anything to make Miyato look good, but Miyato doesn’t do much of anything to make himself look good either. The disparity between them is fully on display when Miyato unloads some kicks and Funaki easily scouts them, and then a simple palm strike connects and results in a down and Miyato losing a point. It seems like they’re setting up a legbar finish when a leg kick puts Miyato down for a nine count, and Funaki keeps at the leg and another leg kick knocks Miyato back down and takes off another point. But they veer off track when Miyato hits a kick to the ribs that seems to genuinely hurt Funaki. He immediately goes down with the ref checking on him, but there’s no call of down and no point lost. Funaki gets his bearings, and they go right to the finish with Funaki hitting a palm strike and then submitting Miyato with a sleeper. Funaki initially seemed legit angry about the kick, but after the match they do the customary showing of respect to each other, as opposed to what Maeda probably would have done if he was in Funaki’s shoes.

YOJI ANJO vs. TATSUO NAKANO

This is the first match of the show that’s skippable. It picks up in the last couple of minutes when Anjo starts firing off knees to the face and Nakano responds with a couple of nasty suplexes, including a capture suplex that almost drops Anjo on his head. But before that they spend most of the match on the mat and the results are not pretty, which is to be expected with Nakano. They both lay on the mat and wrench limbs and get the match exactly nowhere in the process, they don’t even use it as a way to trim some points and give the impression that they’re working toward something. The only time it seems like Nakano has any sort of advantage at all on the mat is with an ugly legbar and Anjo is able to roll his way into the ropes and force a break, rather than give up a point. Nakano escapes a Triangle choke, which I guess gives the idea that he does have some skills on the mat, but his escape is predicated on Anjo doing the hold loose enough for him to get out of it. When Anjo starts throwing knees and busts Nakano’s nose, Nakano gets angry, and the match gets more exciting in a hurry. But Anjo is just too good a fighter to get outdone by someone like Nakano, and he counters a German into a chickenwing for the submission. As a whole, the match wasn’t anything special, but Anjo’s smarminess and Nakano’s blood made sure that its last impression was a good one.

AKIRA MAEDA vs. YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA

Between this and the Takada match from last month, it looks like the summer of 1990 is the Maeda Apology Tour after he spent most of the first half of the year stinking up the promotion. Although this doesn’t hit the same level as the Takada match from last month or the match these two had the year before, it’s still another good effort from both men, even if it feels one sided. It’s not exactly a squash match, but Maeda comes out of it looking like an incomplete (or at least ill prepared) fighter, compared with Fujiwara. No matter what Maeda tries to throw at him, The Fuj is seemingly ready for it. Maeda mostly sticks to his kicks, which are already established as lethal strikes, and Fujiwara manages to deflect them and catch the leg and take Maeda down and control things from there. Even when Maeda seems to have control on the mat, he can’t get Fujiwara in real trouble; at one point Maeda gets hold of the legs and tries for the crab hold, but Fujiwara is able to heighten his base to stave off the pressure. Maeda does finally sink it in, but Fujiwara is already twisting his body to escape the hold with his signature throw. There’s a bit of a reminder of their match from February when Fujiwara gets Maeda in a sleeper, but Maeda is able to escape it before Fujiwara can put him out. And just when it seems like Maeda is finally going to get him in trouble, Fujiwara responds by winning the match. Maeda connects with some kicks and Fujiwara scoops up the leg, but Maeda starts unloading with slaps to break his grip. And indeed, the slaps cause him to release the leg, but instead he snags one of Maeda’s arms and takes him down into a Fujiwara armbar. Maeda realizes that he’s trapped with no chance of escape and submits to a thunderous reaction from the crowd. A longer and more competitive match would have been nice for something as significant as Fujiwara’s first win over Maeda in the Newborn UWF, but the way that the match plays out isn’t exactly out of place considering Fujiwara’s penchant for craftiness. After his two previous losses to Maeda, Fujiwara knew both what to expect from him and what he needed to do in order to come out on top.

NOBUHIKO TAKADA vs. KAZUO YAMAZAKI

With this card having the theme of establishing or reaffirming the hierarchy of the company, this winds up as a fitting main event. Takada has always been seen as being essentially on equal ground with Maeda. Hell, until earlier on the card, Takada was the only person who could say they’d beaten Maeda. Yamazaki may be amongst the best workers in the UWF, but he’s been stuck on the next rung down from Takada, the bottom of the top or the top of the bottom. With Yamazaki being the one with something to prove, it makes sense that Takada leaves the bulk of the match to him. That’s not to say that Takada is lazy or even performs badly, he’s perfectly good throughout. But, for more or less thirteen minutes of the sixteen minute match, it’s all Yamazaki. He fires away with his low kicks, and their extended mat exchanges end with him winning out. It seems like Takada may finally have him in a compromising position when he gets Yamazaki’s arm wrapped up in position for a kimura lock, but Yamazaki makes sure that he can’t get it completely applied and when Takada tries to force the hold, Yamazaki easily gets out of it. Takada nearly gets the juji-gatame but Yamazaki clasps his hands to stop it. Takada is able to break his grip, but Yamazaki uses the momentum from Takada leaning back to roll onto his feet and take away his leverage.

If the match had ended with Yamazaki countering the backdrop suplex into the cross kneelock, it would have been the perfect way to cap off Yamazaki’s self-redemption. Unfortunately for Yamazaki, Takada gets the ropes to break the hold and goes on to win the match. One could look at the last couple of sequences with Takada getting the down from the jumping spin kick and then the sleeper that forces the submission and get the impression that he was easily able to put Yamazaki away. But that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. Yamazaki recovers fairly quickly from the kick and uses the count to get a breath. Takada surprises him with a waterwheel drop and gets the sleeper, but he has to work at it for a bit before it’s cinched in enough to force the tap out. Despite ultimately losing, Yamazaki is still able to make the point that he wanted to make. He makes Takada burn through his allotted rope breaks and also takes a few points away, compared with Takada only taking away a single one of his. Yamazaki’s loss wasn’t due to any sort of careless error that he made, or a weakness that Takada needed to exploit. Takada simply found a good opening and managed to parlay that into a win. It’s too bad that Yamazaki was about to take a hiatus from the company (this would be his last appearance until December, at the final show). It’s certainly interesting to wonder how this might have been followed up, could he have finally gotten that win over Maeda? It also makes one wonder where Yamazaki might have fit in after Maeda’s exit, if the Newborn UWF hadn’t closed their doors at the end of the year.

Conclusion: There isn’t anything amazing to see here, but it’s a perfectly solid outing from the UWF.