I liked this match a whole lot more than I expected to. Both men were fired up and they went at it hard and fast for 15 minutes, wasting little time. It wasn't a technical masterpiece, not that it was bad technically, but mainly it was exciting because it was all action. When all was said and done, it turned out to be one of the best openers I've ever seen from UWF-I.

Maeda was the better striker, but Kanehara had the submission skills. This made for a dynamic match because Kanehara would take a lot of punishment trying to get Maeda down. Kanehara had the better stamina though, so he would be able to get in some big strikes in the second half of the match because Maeda's skills waned due to fatigue.

Just when you thought Maeda was too tired and demoralized, he came back with a few knee lifts and a German suplex. Maeda wanted to go right into the udehishigigyakujujigatame, but Kanehara blocked it, rolled to his knees, and went into a hizajujigatame. Maeda did a great job of showing the pain he was in before getting to the ropes.

Kanehara really put the pressure on Maeda after this escape, and quickly had him down with a series of fast strikes. The theme of the match was that Maeda was overmatched becase he didn't have the all around skill or the conditioning of Kanehara, but he had a lot of heart and wouldn't give up. Maeda got up from this knockdown kicking, and when he saw the opening he caught Kanehara with a nice rolling savate. Maeda followed with a high kick that did a good amount of damage, then went right into a suplex. Once they were on the mat, Maeda couldn't maintain the momentum or come close to winning, and that was really his downfall.

Both men were running out of points, but Kanehara seemed stronger. He planted Maeda in the center with a suisha otoshi to set up his gyakukataebigatame. Maeda sucked it up and slowly made his way toward the ropes, only to have Kanehara switch to a crossface to impede his forward progress. Still, Maeda kept pushing himself and eventually made it to the ropes to force the break. Maeda was on his final down now.

Even Kanehara was starting to seem gassed, but that was no surprise since they'd been going full force for 14+ minutes. Kanehara finally used a German suplex hold, judo takedown, and udehishigigyakujujigatame in succession for the win. It's amazing Kanehara has always been so underrated because he was doing good work even in the days when he was a young punk in one of the first few matches on the show.

15:08

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