The beauty of this match is that El Samurai and Ryusuke Taguchi have plenty of familiarity with one another. Still, the two feel each other out a bit before locking up. Samurai pulls ahead in the match first by performing a series of submissions working on one of Taguchi’s arms. The two do some mat wrestling and Taguchi soon gets Samurai in a chinlock followed by wrapping his legs around Samurai’s neck. Taguchi switches things up by going for Samurai’s legs, but Samurai is not having it and wraps his legs around Taguchi.

Some more submissions are exchanged until they have a chopfest contest and Taguchi dropkicks Samurai to the ring apron. Samurai comes back inside and hits a clothesline. Taguchi goes outside and Samurai hits a suicide dive which either really connects with a lot of impact or they do a darn good job of selling the move.

Back inside Samurai gets in a dropkick off of the top, but it is not long before Taguchi is jumping to the outside on Samurai. Before the big finish Taguchi gets in some impressive looking moves including three rolling suplexes, a hurricanrana and a German suplex. They are no match though for Samurai’s top rope reverse DDT and a submission that causes Taguchi to tap.

This bout would be far from the last time Samurai and Taguchi would tangle. In fact the two hold the distinction of teaming to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship and compete against each other with different partners for the belts.

Categories: Wrestling Clips

Tags: chopfest, El Samurai, IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship, Japan, NJPW, Ryusuke Taguchi