Knowing well in advance that this was going the full 60:00, I had some trepidation about sitting down to watch it. Turned out, this was quite the match, with solid limbwork and selling throughout, and a ton of offense in the back half. Bob “Whoa! Whoa!” Backlund trades holds with Inoki in the early goings, with Inoki working him all over before settling on the arm. Backlund shows of his strength by deadlifting Inoki while Inoki’s got the arm but finds himself grounded quickly, slapping the bloodflow into his hand. Seriously, Backlund has deadman hands. Terrific submission finish to the first fall with Inoki’s manjigatame, Backlund teasing the rope break and the crowd brewing in anticipation. For the second fall, Backlund initially focuses on the left leg, building up to a great bow-and-arrow hold, and then switching the focus to the back. Love his big releases on those back-to-back double arm suplexes. Backlund gets a few more two counts and out of frustration, scoop slams Inoki on the floor before picking up the fall after a running atomic drop.
They fire up the offensive engines for the third fall, as Backlund continues targeting Inoki’s back, booting out of a leglock, applying a crab hold and even delivering a ridiculous over-the-shoulder backbreaker onto his knee! Shit! Inoki keeps coming after Backlund with the manjigatame attempts but Backlund manages to evade them and in turn, delivers suplexes and a piledriver. As the clock winds down, Inoki slips out of a suplex attempt and tries for a backdrop but when Backlund struggles, he turns it into the manjigatame! Backlund is able to force them both out of the ring, albeit a bit comically, before he hits a backdrop on the outside onto uh, himself as the time limit expires. A little messy there at the very end but a good match overall, probably my third favorite 70’s Inoki match behind Robinson and Brisco.
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