Minoru Suzuki vs. Osamu Nishimura (NJPW, 1/4/04)

A short and sweet little affair between surfer dude Minoru Suzuki and Osamu Nishimura, with Suzuki hyper vigilant with his armwork, snatching it at any given opportunity. After a clean break in the corner, Suzuki reminds Nishimura who he is with a smack across the face. Oh boy. They work the mat a bit, running through some counters and reversals. When Nishimura tries for his patented headstand escape, Suzuki snags the prone arm and lays back with a cross armbreaker. Simple but awesome. Suzuki continues to target the arm with kicks and stomps but Nishimura catches a stray, taking him down with the dragon screw legwhip and going into the spinning toeholds to set-up the figure four. But when he goes for it, Suzuki counters again into another armbar. He delivers the Gotch-style piledriver but opts for the submission attempt instead with a reverse armbar. Nishimura's able to survive and tries a few desperate roll ups but on the final backslide, Suzuki seizes the arm with yet another cross armbreaker. The dude's on fire...until the end, when he tries for another takedown and Nishimura's able to pin him with the backslide. Suzuki at his best here.