In the age of purple Mountain Dew and 100% marshmallow Lucky Charms, this is a match I could see the modern wrestling fan hating. Two Japanese dads heating the crowd up with sometimes tired matwork, slow reversals, and zero high spots. But this is a throwback between teacher and student, and while Fujinami isn't near his peak...at all...Nishimura steals the show with his well-sold performance, intuition, and sense of struggle. I loved the way the figure-four played such a central role in this match, with Nishimura scouting it early on and turning the attempt into a small package to pick-up a fall. He goes after Fujinami's arm, supplementing holds with elbow strikes, but really, the story being told is based around Nishimura's leg and Nishimura playing defense. He cracks Fujinami with a desperate kick to the leg and in a moment of delayed selling, Fujinami crumbles...but it's not enough and Fujinami evens the score with a figure-four leglock submission. Nishimura's selling during the final fall is fantastic and he's able to block the succeeding figure-four attempts, finally reversing the third attempt to submit Fujinami in a...well, odd finish, as Nishimura had been working on the arm primarily but you could tell Fujinami's knees weren't in great shape. A charming match that was fun to revisit.
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