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| Minoru Suzuki vs. Yoshiki Takahashi | |
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Suzuki was one of the greats in this style in the early days. Unfortunately, like Yamada, the toll of working this style has for all intents and purposes finished him. You could see right away that Suzuki was in for another long day because Takahashi is quicker and stronger. Suzuki had little success at taking Takahashi down, and he couldn't do much when they were standing either. Thus, he took another hellacious beating in standup, including getting a bloody nose. Takahashi was able to clock Suzuki in the head at will with open hands to the point where it seemed like he felt sorry for Suzuki. For long-time Suzuki fans, this had to be a really hard to watch. One of his big problems is all the blows he's taken to the head, and it's not like he's never got a concussion before, so it was pretty scary seeing him basically unable to prevent them. The thing about Suzuki, and also Funaki, is he has too much heart to quit even when there's no chance he'll win. Thus, Takahashi had no choice but to turn up the heat once again and get some more knockdowns. Luckily, when Takahashi was reigning blows and Suzuki just bent over unable to defend himself, the ref didn't worry about Suzuki complaining (Suzuki had protested the ref giving him a standing 8 count earlier, perhaps because he did stay up after taking the roundhouse although he was really wobbly) and finally put him out of his misery. I've been saying this for two years, but even though he's one of the only "name fighters" in Pancrase, Suzuki absolutely has to hang it up before he suffers a serious injury such as brain damage. 8:06 |
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