MOVING ON 6^th

September 26, 1991

Tatsuo Nakano . . . pretty much has his way with the young blue chipper of the company.

Gary Albright . . . is anointed as the original mayor of Suplex City.

Yoji Anjo . . . puts on a performance to remind everyone that an off night for him is still much better than the best of a lot of others.

KIYOSHI TAMURA vs. TATSUO NAKANO

Tamura was firmly established by this point as the ‘top guy’ of the U-Inter undercard, so the result here isn’t much of a surprise. But it’s how they go about getting there that’s unexpected. Until the tap out, Tamura doesn’t take a single point away from Nakano, meanwhile Nakano almost runs roughshod over Tamura, scoring two knockdowns (and it’s arguable that it should have been three) and forcing Tamura to use three rope breaks, and having a comfortable nine point lead. Despite Tamura’s speed and advantage on the mat, it looks as though Nakano’s size and experience is too much for him to overcome. And it’s not like Nakano is schooling him on the mat or anything, his holds either come as surprise counters, like the kick that Nakano snagged into an ankle lock (for which Tamura returned the favor for the submission), or using his size to control the action to get what he’s looking for, like the back mount that gets his first sleeper. Even though he loses in the end, Nakano doesn’t go down without a fight. Tamura snags the leg and gets the ankle lock, but he also eats several elbows from Nakano in his fight to escape, it’s only when Tamura sucks them up and keeps the hold applied that Nakano finally concedes.

GARY ALBRIGHT vs. YUKO MIYATO

It’s another match with zero doubt as to the outcome. Not that anyone would expect Gary to have trouble with Miyato, after the thrashing that he gave to Anjo. Miyato briefly keeps Gary at bay with his kicks, and surprises him with a rolling kick to the stomach, but it appears to make Albright angry more than hurt him. Once Gary gets ahold of Miyato he suplexes and slams him until he’s smart and/or loopy enough to stay down.

KAZUO YAMAZAKI vs, YOJI ANJO

This winds up being a fine match, but ‘fine’ is just about all that it is. The matwork is smooth, they both add smart touches, and the strikes are appropriately stiff, but there’s almost nothing that’s really outstanding about it. It’s even more strange considering the thrashing that Yamazaki gave Miyato back in June, and now he’s matched up against the ringleader of that outfit. Then again, it says a lot about just how good they both are when a perfectly fine and watchable match like this comes off like a disappointment, but that’s what happens.

They have their moments to remind everyone that, yes, they are two of the best at this style: Yamazaki rolls out of an ankle lock, but Anjo is crafty enough to connect a kick to the back while he’s doing so. A bit later, Yamazaki catches a kick and works his way to a backdrop suplex and then keeps his grip on the leg and transitions to a legbar. It doesn’t seem too damaging at first, but after a bit, Anjo’s attempts to escape get more and more desperate. But, outside of the last couple of minutes, when Anjo hits a wicked kick to the midsection that causes Yamazaki to get called down and almost stops him from answering the count, nothing feels like it will truly decide the outcome of the match. And right after he recovers from the kick, Yamazaki counters Anjo’s knee strike and takes him down into a single leg crab and torques it until he gives up. Yamazaki winning by outsmarting and outwrestling Anjo is fine and makes perfect sense, but it’d have been nice to see something more to build up to the finish than in the last minute or so.

NOBUHIKO TAKADA vs. BOB BACKLUND

For the first minute, this looks like the natural follow up to their 12/88 Newborn UWF match, right down to Backlund once again digging out the backdrop suplex. But then Takada hits a single kick to the midsection that hurts Backlund, to the point that he’s physically unable to answer the count. I suppose that’s the big risk of shootstyle, that the ‘shoot’ part of it can play a bigger role than intended.

Conclusion: This definitely isn’t a banner night for the company, but nothing it outright bad and the Tamura and Albright matches are both worth checking out.