Tiger came out to almost no reaction. I'm not sure if that was because his initial mask was pretty lame or no one would give a positive reaction while this pathetic band was playing this lame song that Jimmy Hart would have been proud of where they just repeated the same three words over and over (I think it was "Tiger! Go Tiger!" In any case, it was in the class with "American Males, American Males"). Actually, I think I just described all the songs they play 10 times a day for three months on top 40 radio. Anyway, the point is the fans didn't know what to make of Tiger. Dynamite came out acting all heelish; kicking at the ring boys, flipping off the crowd, and so on to make sure the fans would root for his opposition.

The match started off with Tiger bouncing around and throwing some athletic kicks to awe the crowd. He caught Dynamite's leg and did a spinning leg sweep then Dynamite caught his leg, but Tiger gave him a spinning kick. Tiger was just so quick and athletic. It didn't matter whether you were holding him or throwing him, if he didn't find a way to do a move to you, he'd often at least be able to land on his feet to counter your move. Dynamite was no slouch when it came to countering moves, or anything else for that matter, but Tiger was so incredible that he'd counter Dynamite's series of counters.

Dynamite eventually got frustrated at his lack of success against Tiger, who was quickly becoming a phenom that was actually phenomenal (as opposed to a big stiff that plods around the circus no selling moves left and right), so he tried to rip off his mask to find out who this guy was. Of course, Dynamite knew who he was, it was the same guy he'd been doing these things with in England en route to great matches there, except now he was under a hood and supposed to be a super hero. Dynamite was the perfect opponent to start Tiger off against because they already had great chemistry, and although Dynamite was the better all around wrestler, he didn't have a problem with being there just to make Tiger look great. Anyway, unlike brilliant Matsunaga booking, Tiger didn't lose his mask in his first match. Instead, he warded off this violation with a jump spinning heel kick.

The thing that made this match special was that it was like nothing seen before in Japan. The sequences of counters were out of this world because of the speed and athleticism. It was like watching gymnasts that could wrestle, rather than wrestlers that would occasionally do a basic gymnastics move. Hardly any damage was done because it took so many moves for Tiger to finally hit Dynamite, but nobody cared because seeing Tiger land on his feet to stop all these moves was far more impressive than it would have been had the snapmare, back body drop, etc. been successful. It seems weird to write, but Tiger was over for his spots before he really even did a wrestling move.

Tiger wasn't perfect in this match when it came to execution, but Dynamite did his best job of covering the mistakes to make it look like nothing went wrong. My favorite instance saw Tiger try to turn Dynamite's Canadian backbreaker into an arm drag. Unfortunately, he lost Dynamite's arm on the way over. Dynamite was going to take the bump, but realized how ridiculous it would have looked had he jumped after Tiger was lying on the mat not holding any part of Dynamite's body. Instead of exposing the business, Dynamite decided that Tiger injured his forearm during the counter. Tiger did nothing of the sort, but it all happened so quickly that who really knew what happened. All most people saw was Tiger had Dynamite's arm for a split secondt, and then Dynamite was selling it. Tiger was up right away, giving Dynamite a forearm then showing his salto mortal (backflip off the ropes where you just land on your feet, basically a moonsault footstomp except you aren't landing on some poor saps gut) for the first time, so there was no time for the audience to contemplate what had really transpired.

One of the best things about Dynamite was when he did a move to you, he really did a move to you. He's wasn't shooting on his opponent or anything (well, maybe once in a while he'd "accidentally" bust them up a little bit), but everything has real solid impact and he doesn't give his opponents the opportunity to wuss out. For instance, when he threw Tiger through the ropes to the floor, he projected him through the ropes so Tiger had no choice but to crash into the concrete floor. There's none of this landing on the apron and quickly rolling off stuff.

This would have been a great match if the finish was on the level with the rest. Unfortunately, the finish was weak. Dynamite missed his diving headbutt and took a bump over the top rope to the floor on a Tiger dropkick that, at best, grazed him. On the floor, Tiger did a series of nasty high and middle kicks, but Dynamite came back with an enzuigiri. Dynamite reentered the ring and tried to suplex Tiger in, but Tiger landed on his feet once again and did a German suplex hold for the win. Dynamite's left shoulder wasn't even down until after the 1 count, but the referee was on the other side so their bodies blocked him from seeing this. Dynamite got right up and kicked Tiger, but Tiger kicked him back. Tiger needed to go over to prove he was as good as the fans were starting to think he was, and they wanted to build a rivalry between him and Dynamite because they worked so well together, but both men were really too healthy to even be caught in a flash pin. The match got Tiger over though, which was the important thing.

9:28 shown

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