Abdullah The Butcher vs. Antonio Inoki, 25.01.1985
Match #7 of the Thank you Antonio Inoki project.
NJPW New Year Golden Series 1985 - Tag 20
City Gymnasium, Kurashiki, Okayama, Japan.
Honestly, more of the same we saw on the last match for this project.
Abdullah strikes before the bell rings and throws Inoki to the outside, fending him off each time he tries climbing back through the ropes. Given that it’s the Butcher instead of Kimura, you get more knife-hand chops and headbutts that come with his overall shtick, just not to the extent where he’s pulling out his signature fork. He’s also somehow bleeding from the start of the match. It takes Inoki four or five attempts to get back in before he can dish out some of his own offense, but it gets quickly cut off as Abdullah transitions to a nerve hold that serves as the basis for his heat segment. For as good as Inoki’s facial selling is - constantly balancing between frustration and pain - it’s not at all interesting to watch. By the point in his career, Abdullah is well past his physical prime and working on top like this forces Inoki to also restrict his movements. You don’t get any sort of interesting matwork or swift bursts of action sprinkled in. Even the heel work on its own is competent at best, and it leaves the action feeling dull, plodding along as we all wait for Inoki’s big comeback.
He manages to fight out of the hold and uses the turnbuckle to wrench at Abdullah’s arm. The damage keeps him at bay long enough for Inoki to recover and start punching him in his already bloodied, scarred forehead. He alternates his attack from the arm and face, but Abdullah regains control with a jab to the throat, following up with biting and choking. There’s definitely more in the way of dirty tricks used here compared to the previous match, however the crowd is never as raucous or compelled like they were back then. It’s even more noticeable with the finish, as a series of enziguris and vertical suplex barely elicit pops from the fans, who were more content with applauding in their seats, than jumping out of them.
Verdict: An elongated and derivative version of the Kimura match covered already. This is the first real disappointment of the project so far. I don’t expect all of these matches to be great that I shower with praise, but until now, each match had left me with a more positive impression of Inoki, especially from how he was perceived by audiences. He was the hero of his promotion that fans would live and die by. This made him out as more man than myth, and there’s always something lost having to realize that.