Naoki Sano vs. Wayne Shamrock (PWFG, 5/19/91)

When Wayne Kenneth Shamrock was wrestling in WWF as the “Most Dangerous Man”, I wasn’t watching. My only exposure to him prior to this was in Pancrase and UFC. That being said, this has to be one of Shamrock’s first matches wrestling the shoot-style and what I enjoy about Shamrock is how exciting he makes the groundwork look as he slides around the mat and snaps off takedowns. Shamrock, along with Minoru Suzuki, both here and in Pancrase, are really good at incorporating a strong quickness to overwhelm their opponents. Naoki, on the other hand, doesn’t do a whole lot on the ground – in fact, it’s more or less him grabbing an arm or a leg and holding it there. This is noticeably evident late in the match when he has control of Shamrock’s leg and doesn’t do shit with it.

After picking ankles and trying to roll through into armbars or kneebars, they take the fight to a vertical base and start swatting at each other with open hands. Sano spikes Shamrock with a shoot DDT and Shamrock pops those hips with a beautiful takedown on Sano. The struggle conveyed, whether they’re on their feet with heated open hand exchanges, or on the ground fighting for a hold, was really well done.  While some of the matwork wasn’t all that captivating, when it was on, it was on. I really liked Shamrock using the headscissors to try and get control of Sano’s arm. At times, his striking looks watered down, especially the knees and elbows, but he has some of the best takedowns here, including that awesome German suplex transition off the mat. The finish was brutal, with Shamrock catching him hard with a slap and a knee, and then Sano promptly destroying him with a dragon suplex to set-up the wakigatame submission.