Satoru Sayama was born in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi, Japan on 11/27/57. When he was young, he grew up watching wrestlers like Antonio Inoki and Mil Mascaras. In July 1974, Sayama entered the New Japan Pro-Wrestling dojo to pursue his dream of becoming a pro wrestler, against the wishes of his parents. Sayama made his pro wrestling debut on 5/28/76 in Tokyo at Korakuen Hall.  

In NJPW in 1977, Sayama took part in a wrestler vs. kickboxer match when he battled Mark Costello. This was still before Sayama had any real extensive kickboxing training, so he took what basically was somewhat of a crash course in kickboxing and ended up losing the bout. However, he had learned valuable lessons, and was motivated to keep pursuing the striking aspects of combat sports, which was a precursor to Sayama’s vision and dream to create a new combat sport. Before he was able to accomplish that, he had to go through several more years of pro wrestling first, and in those years, he used his physical gifts to the best of his ability and became a revolutionary in-ring performer. Sayama would always keep in the back of his mind that he wanted to pursue learning more about striking and incorporate it more into the pro wrestling game.

Sayama was sent to Mexico for excursion from June 1978 until September 1980. This is something NJPW would usually do with wrestlers who were relatively small in stature, since the Mexican lucha libre scene was a great way for relatively smaller wrestlers to excel due to its emphasis on a faster paced, more athletic and acrobatic style that catered to lower weight classes. However, Sayama couldn’t be further removed from what he actually wanted to do, because Mexican wrestling was almost the opposite of what Sayama liked about combat sports. Sayama was more interested in the hard-hitting aspects, while lucha libre Mexicana focused on spectacle and not so much on stiffness and realism. Whenever he wasn’t wrestling, Sayama used his spare time to train in kendo, karate, aikido, judo and other martial arts. Around this time, Sayama also got the opportunity to spend some time with Karl Gotch in Florida. This helped Sayama feel encouraged again to pursue his dream and believe in his dream to make a difference in the world of combat sports. After wrestling in Mexico, Sayama toured England for a bit, but Sayama was told to come back to Japan by NJPW, as they wanted to turn him into Tiger Mask, which was a Japanese anime character. Sayama didn’t like the idea of being a masked cartoon gimmick, but he did it because he realized he had to do it in order to become successful in the pro wrestling business. 

On 4/23/81, Sayama became the famous masked wrestler known as Tiger Mask. Two of the many aspects of Sayama’s game that made him so thrilling to watch in action were his tremendous speed and his ability to hit a surprise move from any angle. He was decades ahead of basically every wrestler from his generation in terms of innovation and his ability to raise the bar of what is possible in pro wrestling. It’s not surprising that his 1981-1983 feud with Dynamite Kid is one of the legendary feuds of all time, since Dynamite Kid was also one of the few wrestlers during that era who was able to have matches that were so ahead of their time that they seemed like they belonged decades into the future. The feud focused on fast-paced and athletic junior heavyweight action, and their series of matches inspired generations of pro wrestlers. Satoru Sayama vs. Dynamite Kid was a feud that helped wrestling slowly shift away from the big, slow power guys and shift slowly towards favoring more athletically skilled talents.

NJPW 4/21/83 Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask is still one of the greatest pro wrestling matches ever, because everything they did felt like they did while engaged in a competitive match, not just for the sake of being spectacular. Them being so competitive and intense, yet still being able to be lightyears ahead of their time, made this match so advanced that a lot of people in wrestling today still fail to understand what made a match like this so great, since a lot of wrestlers nowadays are obsessed with getting good ratings from reviewers, forgetting the fact they’re supposed to put over their matches as a fight and not a posing exhibition. What’s also impressive is that the Sayama vs. Dynamite matches never needed more than 20 minutes to show what great wrestling was able to look like. That’s definitely something a large part of today’s wrestling in the 2020s seemingly hasn’t fully caught on. Unlike most wrestlers nowadays, Sayama and Dynamite had the fans in the palms of their hands through their display of creativity and risk taking. Meanwhile, nowadays it seems the wrestlers are too worried about having to wrestle a certain type of match to be fully accepted. Sayama’s feud with Kuniaki Kobayashi in 1982-1983 was another top-notch feud in NJPW. During the second half of 1982, Sayama would appear several times on WWF TV. The WWF and its fans couldn’t believe what they were seeing, since Sayama’s style was lightyears ahead of the clunky style of the simplistic WWF workers. The only way the WWF commentators could describe what they were witnessing was by describing Sayama as a quicker version of Mil Mascaras.

It’s not uncommon for people to think that Sayama was only great and relevant in 1981-1983, because that’s when he had his famous run as Tiger Mask in NJPW. However, his run in the original UWF in 1984-1985 oftentimes seems to be overlooked. This is why it’s important to have a closer look at his work in UWF. He was initially known as The Tiger in UWF, but he would soon become known as Super Tiger, which was fitting since he was a super worker.

Sayama must have been bitter from him not being a main eventer in NJPW despite being the most amazing performer, while duller performers like Antonio Inoki and Tatsumi Fujinami got all the spotlight. Of course, there were also money issues that led to a bunch of workers leaving NJPW. That being said, Inoki deserves some credit for planting the seeds of the UWF mindset of having matches between people with a variety of martial arts backgrounds. Inoki had always been interested in the idea of pitting fighters of different disciplines against each other, but it was UWF that went further than just toying with the idea from time to time, and eventually became one of the most important leagues in pro wrestling history due to its influence on pro wrestling and even MMA. 

Sayama’s awesome run as Tiger Mask in 1981-1983 showcased his physical gifts and his high flying ability, but his run in UWF showcased his passion for shoot style fighting. Initially, he would still rely a lot on flashiness and spectacle in UWF, but eventually he started letting go of more and more aspects of the style that made him famous as Tiger Mask in NJPW, and he excelled in UWF shoot style to the point that he was better at it than anyone else at the time (1984-1985). Along with his ability to hit great-looking kicks, Sayama’s ability to use footwork and feints to set things up made him the best of the best at striking. Now with more of a focus on strikes, takedowns and submissions, and with less of the regular pro wrestling silliness, Sayama was fighting in a style that was a lot closer to how he wanted combat sports to be. In particular, Sayama’s feud with Yoshiaki Fujiwara produced top-notch bouts in UWF. Sayama unmasked himself to emphasize that he felt that his legacy in shoot wrestling was more important than the glory of Tiger Mask.

The UWF was a unique and groundbreaking league, as it really put shoot style wrestling on the map, and was somewhat of a precursor to proto-Mixed Martial Arts. The UWF shoot style matches were worked (pre-determined), but they were worked in a way that was a lot more realistic than standard pro wrestling, so it really was the bridge between pro wrestling and MMA. The UWF was a very promising league, and had its fair share of quality bouts, but the ending of the league was very disappointing. Sayama and Akira Maeda used to get along well, but by 1985, they didn’t see eye to eye anymore and had different ideas about the direction of the UWF, as Sayama wanted more focus on striking and was thinking of changing some rules, while Maeda felt that grappling should be the main focus. Sayama believed that the kickboxing and striking aspect of the matches was necessary to make the UWF style more exciting. The heat between the two culminated on 9/2/85 in a one-on-one match when Maeda gave Sayama a shoot low blow. Sayama stayed around for a little while longer in UWF, but he was fed up with the backstage politics, and decided to once again retire from pro wrestling. The original UWF never had another show after Sayama’s final UWF match on 9/11/85, and folded soon after.

In 1985, disgruntled by pro wrestling’s backstage politics, Sayama released a book called “Kayfabe” in which he exposed the pro wrestling world he had started disliking more and more. That same year, Sayama became the founder of one of the very first MMA leagues in the world (about a decade before the term MMA was coined) when he founded the Shooto league. Shooto wasn’t just a league, as the combat sport Shooto (originally called Shooting) was a fighting system created by Sayama. It was a precursor to modern MMA. Sayama wanted to capture the essence of combat sport by combining key elements of various combat sport traditions. You could say that in a way, Sayama was the godfather of MMA. The Shooto sport was created in 1985, and the Shooto league was founded in 1989. Sayama also owned his (Super) Tiger Gym. During the second half of the 1980s, Sayama spent a lot of time training fighters, and Sayama’s training method was quite ruthless. Some of the people Sayama helped train include Yuki Nakai, Noboru Asahi and Yori Nakamura. Sayama was so ahead of his time with his visions for the future of combat sports that the world wasn’t quite ready for it. By the time the world started getting ready for it, Sayama started having disagreements with the board of directors of Shooto, leaving the company he founded to return to the pro wrestling scene in the summer of ‘96. In between the years of his retirement from pro wrestling and his return to pro wrestling, he would occasionally appear in exhibition or demonstration fights.

From the 1990s onwards, whenever he wasn’t known as Satoru Sayama or Super Tiger, he would be known as the First Tiger Mask or Shodai Tiger Mask to emphasize that he was indeed the original Tiger Mask. After Sayama’s successful run as Tiger Mask in 1981-1983, there were several wrestlers who had a Tiger Mask successor type gimmick. Mitsuharu Misawa was Tiger Mask II in AJPW in 1984-1990. Koji Kanemoto was Tiger Mask III in NJPW in 1992-1994. Tiger Mask IV (Yoshihiro Yamazaki) made his debut in 1995, and spent most of his first four years embodying the Tiger Mask gimmick in Michinoku Pro. In RJPW, Super Tiger II (Yuji Sakuragi) and Tiger Shark (Kozo Urita) emerged on the scene. Women’s wrestler Candy Okutsu was known as Tiger Dream in 1998 in ARSION. A women’s wrestler trained by Sayama and Jaguar Yokota known as Tiger Queen made her debut in 2021. Apart from all the successor gimmicks, there have literally been a countless amount of wrestlers that were influenced by Sayama’s in-ring work, and to even begin to list those who have been influenced either directly or indirectly would be a nearly impossible task.

Satoru Sayama is an extremely important figure in the history of professional wrestling, and he should be considered one of the all-time greats. Sayama stands out as an all-time great not only because of him being so ahead of his time and so influential, but also because of his ability to do everything he did with a high level of explosiveness. 

Now let’s first have a look at a selection of more than eighty of Sayama’s most noteworthy matches. This will then be followed by a list of Sayama’s 20 best matches of his career, which are all highly recommended viewing.

NJPW 7/28/77 Fukuoka Kyuden Memorial Gymnasium: Satoru Sayama vs. Seiei Kimura 6:45 of 11:03. This is the earliest footage we currently have available of Satoru Sayama’s career. He had been wrestling for a little over a year at that point. Sayama always followed his own vision. He had gone in against the wishes of his parents and had pursued his dream of becoming a pro wrestler. Sayama’s opponent here was Kengo Kimura (who was still known by his real name Seiei Kimura back then). It was obviously interesting to watch this match, because here we got a glimpse of what his work was like before Sayama became famous as the First Tiger Mask. Sayama, who was in green trucks and green boots, didn’t wrestle like a green wrestler. He showed a lot of ferocity, trying to escape holds with all his might. He executed spectacular kicks and dropkicks that we would come to know from his years as Tiger Mask. Sayama was very athletic and light on his feet, and it’s not a surprise he was chosen for the role of the superhero character. Sayama wasn’t quite the superhero in 1977 yet though, as the far more experienced Kimura, who debuted in 1972, won this match. **¾  

NJPW 11/14/77 Nippon Budokan, Wrestler vs. Kickboxer: Satoru Sayama vs. Mark Costello. Antonio Inoki was in attendance looking on. This was a frustrating match for Sayama, because he took Mark Costello down several times via suplexes, but the rules didn’t allow any follow-up once someone was down on the mat. Satoru Sayama had taken a crash course on kickboxing before the match, but Costello was clearly the superior kickboxer here. However, as an overall martial artist, things could have worked out in Sayama’s favor if ground submissions and/or ground and pound would have been a thing in this fight.

LLI 4/13/80 Naucalpan, Mexico El Toreo: Gran Hamada & Satoru Sayama vs. Perro Aguayo & Babe Face 17:04. Satoru Sayama was the best worker in this match, closely followed by Gran Hamada. Perro Aguayo showed some good rudo attitude, and was quite okay as a no-nonsense type of brawler. He certainly isn't known for his technical skills, but he's one of the most well-known brawlers in Mexican lucha libre history. Aguayo was able to take Hamada's offense quite well, which was a good thing, because they were in the middle of a long feud. Babe Face was his usual self, a solid rudo who was a decent base for his opponent's offense, but his own input certainly was nothing fancy, other than a pretty good missile dropkick. Early in the match, Sayama was being roughed up by the Mexicans. A bit later on, when Sayama was in the ring with Babe Face, Sayama did some of the moves he would become famous for during his run as Shodai Tiger Mask. Some of the things Sayama did here against Babe Face were a kickup followed up by a dropkick, a lucha armdrag, a spin kick and a backwards flip off of his opponent’s chest. In this match, Aguayo executed his signature senton, and he showed some pretty good intensity, both when on offense and when selling. When he was in the ring with Sayama, he was on the receiving-end of some of Sayama’s spectacular offense. When Sayama was thrown into the ropes, Sayama springboarded off the second rope and hit Aguayo with a flying crossbody block. Since this took place in Mexico, this was a 2-out-of-3 falls match. The advantage of this being 2-out-of-3 falls is that the second fall was used to give the Mexican team some credibility without taking steam aways from the Japanese team. The Japanese won the first fall, and the Mexicans won the second fall. In the third fall, the Mexicans became more vicious, and the Japanese juiced. Hamada showed a lot of intensity when he fought back. This was on its way to potentially becoming more than just a pretty good match, due to the fire shown by both sides, with Hamada and Aguayo in particular putting this over like a war in the final stages of the match. However, the match ended a bit abruptly when the referees awarded the match to the Japanese team after Aguayo hit Hamada with a vicious low blow. This was a decent bout with a bit of a disappointing finish. **¾

Joint Promotions 4/4/81 Hemel Hempstead, England: Sammy Lee vs. Mark Rocco 9:36 (5:00, 3:36, 1:00). Satoru Sayama was known as Sammy Lee during his run in England. Mark Rocco was easily Sayama’s best opponent during Sayama’s tours of England. This was an excellent way for Sayama to prepare for his run as the First Tiger Mask, which would start later that month in Japan. Sayama moved around at an amazing pace and with amazing agility. He executed flips, spin kicks and all kinds of exciting stuff. Rocco bumped and sold well for Sayama’s offense. Of the few pre-Tiger Mask matches that we have available of Sayama’s early career, this is the best one. Rocco didn’t bring nearly as much to the table as Dynamite Kid would, but Rocco was definitely a suitable opponent for Sayama. It’s not a surprise that Rocco was chosen to be repackaged as the villainous Black Tiger and to become one of Sayama’s main rivals. The match slowed down a bit when Rocco was on offense, but Sayama would still be able to impress through impressive counters. For example, when Rocco executed a monkey flip, Sayama would land on his feet and hit a spin kick. Sayama scored a pinfall in the second round, and he won the third round by DQ after Rocco had broken the rules too many times. The match potentially could have been excellent, but it felt more like a teaser for the next phase of Sayama’s career, the phase in which he is a superhero in Japan. ***½

NJPW 4/23/81 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan: Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask 9:29. This was the first match in the famous feud between Dynamite Kid and Shodai Tiger Mask (First Tiger Mask), Satoru Sayama. It was also the first time Sayama had a match with this gimmick. Unfortunately, he was given a crappy mask that was created pretty much as a last-minute thing as NJPW had forgotten to get Sayama’s mask ready. It’s kinda ironic they forgot the part that basically the name of the gimmick describes. However, that didn’t take anything away from the in-ring work. These two worked sequences at incredible speed. The work was flashy and way ahead of its time. Dynamite worked stiff. Sayama showed his incredible skills. This was an excellent match overall. They worked some really good reversals and counters. Dynamite told the ref to “ask him” when he had Sayama in a submission hold. Dynamite took some big bumps, and acted heelish. Sayama showed his tremendous athleticism, and he threw some good kicks. At some point, they appeared to botch a spot, as Sayama’s armdrag attempt didn’t quite work, but Dynamite covered it up well by selling his arm. Sayama won this match by pinning Dynamite with a German suplex. For two workers who wrestled against each other for the first time, this was certainly an incredible display of pro wrestling, especially considering that this feud would end up changing pro wrestling forever. This is not their most graceful match, and they would end up having better matches in 1982 and 1983, but this first match between these two is like a new beginning for pro wrestling, and it’s one of the most important matches in pro wrestling history. These two had superior speed, agility and ability, compared to most wrestlers at the time. They really changed the potential of what pro wrestling could be like, and they were about to raise things to new heights in the next year or two. ****¼ 

NJPW 6/24/81 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan: Tiger Mask vs. Villano III 15:55. Mexican luchador Villano III was the best of the five sons of Ray Mendoza that wrestled as numbered Villanos. Tiger & Villano made the initial lockup really feel like something important, which was cool. The early portion of the match was all about them trying to get the advantage over the other through grappling. Villano Tercero was an interesting opponent for Shodai Tiger Mask, because Villano was interested in trying to put over the struggle of the grappling. Satoru Sayama had plenty of experience in the lucha libre style, since he had been on an extensive excursion to Mexico. By the way, while Sayama was in Mexico, Sayama got to team with the legendary luchador El Santo a couple of times in 1979. Unfortunately, there is no footage available of the two legends teaming up. Sayama also got to team with Mil Mascaras on at least a couple of occasions during the Mexican excursion. In this bout against Villano III, once things started speeding up in brief spurts of fast-paced lucha spectacle, Sayama had a clear advantage in this bout, but Villano was at least able to work the sequences smoothly. They did the spot that would become a staple in the NJPW junior heavyweight division where Villano tried to break Sayama’s strong bridge, but Sayama then did a couple of monkey flips while holding onto his opponent. Villano tried to execute a back body drop as Sayama came off the ropes, but Sayama landed on his feet. During his peak years as Tiger Mask, he showed such great body control that he was seemingly able to always land on his feet, proving that a Tiger is indeed a large cat species. Villano quickly performed a monkey flip, but Sayama once again landed on his feet. Sayama blocked Villano’s strike attempts and then took Villano down with a leg sweep. Even the slower portions were interesting, because they were really putting over the struggle. Sayama did the Tiger kick in the corner where he backflips off of his opponent’s chest. What followed was some fast-paced lucha. At some point, Villano took a flashy tumble to the floor. While Sayama was on the apron, he executed a springboard plancha to the floor onto Villano. This got Sayama the count-out win. ***¾ 

NJPW 8/2/81 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Tiger Mask vs. Scorpio 8:55. Scorpio was an unsophisticated rudo (heel) who certainly wasn’t Satoru Sayama’s most graceful opponent. Sayama executed beautiful ways to escape and counter moves. At some point, Sayama started viciously attacking Scorpio’s leg. When Scorpio tumbled to the floor after a dropkick, Sayama immediately hit a pescado on Scorpio. Once back in the ring, Sayama hit a sunset flip off the top rope for the win. While Scorpio was solid in his role as rudo, it didn’t feel like a very competitive match, and it was more like a Sayama showcase. **¾ 

NJPW 9/18/81 Hiroshima Prefectural Gymnasium: Tiger Mask & Tatsumi Fujinami vs. El Solitario & El Solar 11:36. The two main superstars of the NJPW junior heavyweight division battled two Mexican luchadores in what looked like an interesting tag team match-up on paper. Tatsumi Fujinami had been the top guy in the NJPW junior heavyweight division for several years, but he would end up moving to the heavyweight division in 1982, and that’s when the First Tiger Mask (Satoru Sayama) became the top star of the division. El Solitario would have a very good match with Fujinami just five days after this match, and Solar would have a match with Sayama on that same 9/23/81 show. In a way, this tag team match felt more like a preview of those singles matches, even though we got a lot of Sayama vs. Solitario and Fujinami vs. Solar during the first half of this tag match. When the action spilled to the floor, that’s when things got more heated. Sayama went for a plancha, but Solitario moved. Solitario tried to hold Sayama so that Solar could go for a pescado, but Sayama moved. Fujinami then hit a tope suicida on Solar. All four started brawling on the floor until they were all counted out. This was a disappointing finish to a disappointing match. The work wasn’t always very smooth in this match, but the main issue with this match is that it never really started taking off until the very end. **¾ 

NJPW 9/23/81 Tokyo Denen Coliseum: Tiger Mask vs. El Solar 8:51. This was good while it lasted. They started off with fast-paced sequences until El Solar (a.k.a. Solar I/Solar Primero), took things to the mat. No matter whether Solar was grappling or was going for fast-paces lucha sequences, Sayama would constantly counter. Solar kept trying to get the best of his opponent, and Sayama kept countering. At some point, Solar’s left shoulder started really bothering him, and Solar could barely do anything. At some point, Sayama had enough and started kicking the living hell out of Solar’s left shoulder. Sayama put Solar out of his misery and started yanking Solar’s left arm until Solar finally submitted. This wasn’t a good match, but it was an interesting one. It’s definitely a shame things took a different turn than expected once Solar’s arm got hurt. **¾

NJPW 10/23/81 Naha Onoyama Gymnasium: Tiger Mask & Gran Hamada vs. El Signo & Negro Navarro 3:28 shown. Along with El Texano, El Signo & Negro Navarro were known as Los Misioneros de la Muerte, and they were one of the main trios that helped popularize trios matches (six-man tag team matches) in Mexico in the early 1980s. In the 1970s, there was usually one trios match on a LLI card, but once Los Misioneros started becoming a trio in 1980, trios matches became so popular that by the mid 1980s, LLI cards and also EMLL cards often featured at least three trios matches (sometimes even four or five). It's a shame Texano isn't in this match, because he was the best worker of Los Misioneros. Gran Hamada bumped big for the rudos, and put them over as menacing foes. El Signo was a solid but unspectacular rudo. Negro Navarro was okay, but it's hard to figure out why people think he's a great luchador after watching footage of his work in the past four decades (1980s onward). This appeared to be a good match, but only three minutes were shown. ***

SNJPW 11/5/81 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan: Gran Hamada vs. Tiger Mask 17:01. This was a very interesting match-up because these two were Japanese workers who had come out of the NJPW dojo and had made a big impression in Mexico, learning the Mexican lucha libre way of working, and successfully incorporating this into their NJPW background-influenced style. Gran Hamada showed a lot of intensity and certainly gave Shodai Tiger Mask (Satoru Sayama) a run for his money. Both guys showed their great athleticism, and one of Hamada's coolest spots was landing on his feet after being on the receiving-end of a back body drop. Sayama was easily the best opponent Hamada faced during the 1980s, and this was probably one of Hamada's best singles matches from the 1980s (at least based on what is available at the moment). Tiger hit a few of his kicks, but he didn't seem to use a lot of striking for his offense in this match. Both workers did some submission holds, but they often didn't really lead to anything. At times, Tiger would try to find an interesting way to try to escape and counter a hold though. Both workers started hitting a suplex here and there, and the match became more intense. Despite them being tag team partners less than a couple of weeks ago, they really took it to each other here, which was clear to see when they had a heated slap exchange. Hamada hit a tremendous tope suicida, and followed it up with a plancha off the top to the floor. However, Tiger was able to move away and Hamada landed on the floor without hitting Tiger. This enabled Tiger to roll back into the ring. Hamada was such a tough opponent that Tiger was only able to get a count-out win over Hamada here. It was a bit of a disappointing finish to a somewhat disappointing match. It was a good match, but they didn't quite deliver the dream match you'd perhaps think it would have been. One of the reasons is probably Hamada and Tiger both being babyfaces, and Tiger's matches around that time were usually at their best when there was an opponent in the role of a true heel. Both workers ended up becoming legendary names in puroresu history, and it was interesting seeing both of them meet each other during the early stages of their respective primes. While Sayama is an all-time great pro wrestler, his run as Tiger Mask was relatively short, and even though it was a very influential run, he changed directions in his career, as he started focusing more on shoot style puroresu. Hamada, on the other hand, went on to continue shaping proto-lucharesu into the lucharesu of the modern era through his work in Universal and Michinoku Pro. ***¼  

NJPW 12/8/81 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan: Tiger Mask vs. El Canek 11:36. This was an interesting match-up that saw Satoru Sayama battle Mexican heavyweight superstar Canek, who was the top guy in the Mexican UWA league, thus often competing at heavyweight in NJPW, though never challenging for a title above the Junior until facing his old rival Fujinami for the WWF International Heavyweight Title on 7/5/84. Sayama executed all kinds of fancy moves, including a handspring into a flying cross body block, and a flying kick off the apron to the floor. Canek tried to keep Sayama calm by putting him in a chinlock. Whenever Sayama was on offense, things got a lot more compelling, as Sayama kept doing interesting moves. Canek, on the other hand, tried to slow things down and keep things simple. After a tiger feint, Sayama hit a plancha off the top to the floor. The match ended in a double count-out. This was a pretty good match overall, thanks to Sayama. ***

NJPW 1/1/82 Tokyo Korakuen Hall, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title Decision Match: Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask 8:31. This was the second singles match between Dynamite Kid and the original Tiger Mask (Satoru Sayama). This time, just like his wrestling, Sayama’s mask looked great. Dynamite and Sayama worked amazing sequences at an incredible speed. They were so ahead of their time that it was almost like they had come from the future and showed everyone in 1982 what wrestling in the future could look like. The winner would become the Champion, as the WWF Junior Heavyweight Title had been vacated with Tatsumi Fujinami moving to the heavyweight division. Dynamite was very focused on working over Sayama’s left knee. Sayama was able to fight back with some kicks. Dynamite hit a backdrop and a wicked tombstone piledriver. Dynamite went to the top rope and executed a flying headbutt. Dynamite flew across half the ring and hit Sayama perfectly. Dynamite wasn’t done yet, and executed another tombstone piledriver, but Sayama rolled away. Dynamite went for a figure-four leglock. After some more fast sequences, Sayama was able to surprise Dynamite with a rollup pin to win the match. Even by today’s standards in the 2020s, these matches between Dynamite and Sayama are a great joy to watch. What stood out most in this match was Dynamite’s aggressiveness and viciousness, along with his explosiveness. ****¼ 

NJPW 1/22/82 Kanoya City Gymnasium: Dynamite Kid & Bret Hart vs. Tiger Mask & Kantaro Hoshino 9:32. This match was at its most interesting whenever Dynamite Kid and Tiger Mask worked against each other. Bret was on this NJPW tour because his father Stu insisted that if NJPW wanted Dynamite for this tour, they’d also have to take Bret. This tour certainly was a great learning experience for Bret, who wasn’t an international star yet, much less "The Best There Is, The Best There Was, The Best There Ever Will Be" despite even close relatives Dynamite & Owen Hart clearly being miles ahead of him in the ring. Dynamite hit a tombstone piledriver, but Sayama kicked out. Bret Hart was a solid tag team partner for Dynamite. Bret bumped well for Tiger Mask’s dropkick. At some point, Dynamite hit a well-placed flying knee drop on Hoshino. Sayama pinned Bret via a victory roll. Kantaro Hoshino did a couple of good moves, but didn’t play much of a role in this match. As a matter of fact, at some point he literally ran to Sayama to tag out because he didn’t want to have anything to do with Dynamite after their uncooperative encounter from 1/15/82, which had almost ended up in a shoot. This was a very good match overall, even though it felt more like a warm-up for the next match between Dynamite and Tiger, which would take place six days later. ***½ 

NJPW 1/28/82 Tokyo Taiikukan, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Dynamite Kid 12:38. This was the third singles match between Dynamite Kid and Shodai Tiger Mask (Satoru Sayama). They were given a little bit more time for this match. Dynamite took some huge bumps for some of Sayama’s moves. At the ten-minute mark, Dynamite hit a backbreaker, went for the cover, but Sayama kicked out. Dynamite’s tombstone piledriver was tremendous, as usual. Dynamite went for his diving headbutt, but Sayama moved out of the way. Sayama hit Dynamite with a vicious DDT. Sayama went for a diving headbutt, but Dynamite moved out of the way. The roles were reversed for once. Dynamite ended up on the floor after some more Sayama offense. Sayama then hit a tremendous tope suicida. Sayama suplexed Dynamite back into the ring. Dynamite landed on his feet and they went for reversals until Sayama nailed the German suplex for the pinfall victory. This was a really good match, but it didn’t feel like they utilized the few extra minutes they were given very well. The best way to describe this match is by saying this was slightly disappointing for the high standards these two had set, but it was still really good and better than what most other wrestlers were doing. ***¾

NJPW 2/5/82 Sapporo Nakajima Taiiku Center, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Bret Hart 17:34. Bret Hart knocked Tiger Mask down with some punches, but Sayama kipped right back up and hit a spin kick. Bret gave a solid performance, but not surprisingly this was clearly a step down from Sayama’s matches with Dynamite Kid. They weren’t in a hurry, but what they did looked pretty good, even though it lacked urgency. The best part of the match was the finish. As Bret made his way towards Sayama, Sayama leaped from the apron and executed a tremendous springboard dropkick. Sayama then executed a double underhook suplex for the pinfall victory. **¾

NJPW 3/5/82 Yokohama Bunka Gym: Tiger Mask & Gran Hamada & Kengo Kimura vs. Black Man & Steve Wright & Coloso Colosetti 12:40 of 13:14. After Blackman and Gran Hamada wrestled each other in a brief lucha segment, Satoru Sayama and Steve Wright worked some good sequences together. Wright’s unique counters made him stand out, and Sayama’s quick reactions made him fun to watch, as always. Kimura and especially Coloso Colosetti came off as more generic, since they didn’t have the fancy moveset of the other four. Hamada landed on his feet after Wright had back body dropped him high into the air. Sayama and Wright once again battled. They kept countering each other with technical wrestling moves. Tiger didn’t want to sell for Colosetti’s weak strikes, and he seemed to encourage the Argentine wrestler to hit harder. Argentina produced some of the greatest soccer players of all time, but the country clearly never produced great pro wrestlers. There was a small 30-second portion of the match cut during the Sayama vs. Colosetti segment. Finally we got Sayama vs. Black Man, but not for long, unfortunately. In general, it felt that this match was just short standalone segments that didn’t feel like an actual six-man tag. Sayama hit a couple of nice-looking flying cross body blocks on Black Man, and that was the end of the match. It was a pretty good match, but it never lived up to its full potential. ***

NJPW 3/12/82 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Tiger Mask vs. Black Man 12:27. Black Man was a Mexican luchador who was quite a spectacular worker, originally teaming with White Man, and later as Los Fantasticos with Kung Fu & Kato Kung Lee. This match started off with some cool lucha stuff. Then they went to the mat, where they traded leg holds. The match was at its best when they did fast-paced athletic spots, because that’s what these two guys did best. It wasn’t just the cool athletic spots that made this such a good match though, because they treated the work on the mat that was worth struggling for, as they did their best to not make it seem like they were just lying around in submission holds to kill time. In other words, their matwork didn’t just consist of restmissions, because the holds they executed and the way they executed them made it plausible that they could potentially lead to someone submitting. The final minutes were the most exciting. Satoru Sayama showed his speed and explosiveness. Black Man hit a tope suicida. After they got back into the ring, Black Man took a big bump over the top rope to the floor after getting propelled into the air by Sayama, who didn’t waste any time and immediately executed a tope suicida. Sayama almost pinned Black Man with a victory roll, but Black Man kicked out. Sayama executed a bridging German Suplex for the win. Out of all of Sayama’s Mexican opponents, Black Man was arguably the best, especially because Black Man was one of the few wrestlers who was able to come somewhat close to Sayama’s speed and agility. Unfortunately, the 5th Madison Square Garden Series in March 1982 was his only tour of New Japan. ****

NJPW 3/31/82 Nagoya Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium: Kengo Kimura & Tiger Mask vs. Black Man & Steve Wright 14:51. Satoru Sayama worked good British-style technical wrestling sequences with Steve Wright. Once Black Man was in, Sayama worked spectacular fast-paced lucha sequences with him. Most of Kengo Kimura’s work was cut, since the version that is available was on a Tiger Mask DVD. Sayama pinned Black Man with the tiger suplex to win the match. Of course, Kimura’s work being cut made the match feel shorter than it was, but still, even when aware of that fact, it felt like the finish came abruptly before the match truly reached its potential. It seemed like this match could have potentially been very good, yet it turned out to be just another good match involving Sayama. Black Man wouldn't have another match in Japan until he emerged in Hamada's Universal in 1990, 25 years into his career. *** 

NJPW 4/1/82 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Steve Wright 17:50. Steve Wright was a wrestler from England whose more famous son who he trained, "Das Wunderkind" Alex Wright, was born in Nuremberg. There was a cool sequence that saw Wright do a kip up, a cartwheel, a front flip, a kip up, a cartwheel, a front flip, a British-style escape where he stepped out of Sayama’s wrist lock and a dropkick. Satoru Sayama responded by kipping up and having a look on his face that was like: “not bad.” The pace slowed down a lot when Wright started working over Sayama’s left leg with half Boston crabs. Sayama tried to escape a chinlock, but Wright kept hanging on. Sayama had enough and started hitting Wright with strikes. Sayama executed a double underhook suplex, but Wright kicked out and went back to the chinlock. Sayama found a nice way to escape, by crawling backwards underneath Wright’s legs. Sayama executed a dropkick that Wright bumped big for. The match got a bit more lively now that Sayama was on offense more. In a final attempt to steal the show, Wright executed the Romero special. They did some monkey flip reversals and some more counters that eventually led to Sayama pinning Wright after a fallaway slam. Apart from the cool spots and sequences, the long periods of time that Wright was in control were not the most exciting and didn’t necessarily help showcase Tiger Mask as the spectacular superhero as much as the matches against Sayama’s more exciting opponents did. Still, this was a pretty good match and it’s interesting to see Sayama in action against a wide variety of opponents with different styles. ***¼ 

NJPW 4/21/82 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Black Tiger 14:17. The First Tiger Mask (Satoru Sayama) started feuding with his new foe, Black Tiger (Mark Rocco). Sayama and Rocco had battled each other before in England, but this was the first time they wrestled each other with the tiger gimmicks in Japan. After lots of fast-paced and exciting action in the ring, Rocco threw Sayama out of the ring and executed a tope suicida. Sayama showed his quickness and explosiveness when Rocco threw Sayama off the ropes and Sayama countered with a handspring followed up by a dropkick that sent Rocco through the ropes to the floor. The action went back and forth. Black Tiger was a tough opponent, but Tiger Mask kept fighting back harder. Sayama executed a Mil Mascaras-esque flying cross body block. After a tombstone piledriver, Sayama went for a move off the top rope, but Rocco moved. Rocco executed a back suplex and started showing more ferocity. The villainous Black Tiger hit a low blow. Tiger Mask fought fire with fire when he threw Rocco crotch-first onto the top rope. Sayama then dove on top of Rocco with a pescado. Rocco tried to make it into the ring, but Sayama held on to his legs and threw Rocco into the ringpost. Sayama was now acting like a wild animal and snapped, as he kept attacking his foe on the floor, even after the bell had rung. Despite the double count-out finish, this was an excellent high-workrate match. ****    

NJPW 4/30/82 Yamato Auto Body Gymnasium: Tiger Mask & Gran Hamada vs. Les Thornton & Perro Aguayo 10:00 shown. This was quite an interesting match. Tiger Mask spent most of the match selling. Les Thornton, amidst the 5th of his 6 reigns with the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title, seemed a bit out of place here, but he was okay for a basic second-rate gaijin that was deeply entrenched in the much slower and less athletically oriented American style. Gran Hamada didn't play too much of a role until the final stages of the match when he started showing his incredible fast-paced lucharesu moves. Hamada was clearly an excellent worker in 1982, despite there unfortunately not really being any truly memorable Hamada matches available from that year. The final minute saw Hamada and Aguayo continue their feud with some cool-looking action. Despite Aguayo's limitations as a worker, he was familiar enough with Hamada to make his sequences with Hamada stand out as some of the best moments in the match. Aguayo missed a tope suicida intended for Hamada, and he hit Thornton instead. Hamada immediately hit a tope suicida of his own, and this one hit Aguayo. All four workers were brawling on the outside when the referee counted everyone out for the double count-out. It was a decent match with solid work, and everyone gave a good performance, but it wasn't necessarily anyone's best performance here. **¾

NJPW 5/26/82 Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Black Tiger vs. Tiger Mask 14:15. Tiger Mask had won the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title the day prior to this match by beating Les Thornton, which was a match that was kinda average because of Thornton not being able to come even remotely close to matching Satoru Sayama’s speed and ability. In this match against Black Tiger (Mark Rocco), Sayama found himself once again in the challenging position, as Black Tiger had won the vacant WWF Junior Heavyweight Title on 5/6/82 by defeating Gran Hamada. The reason the title was vacant was because of Sayama getting injured on 4/30/82 and missing more than two weeks of the tour. By the way, in case someone wasn’t aware of this, the WWF Junior Heavyweight Title was used in NJPW at the time because of NJPW’s working agreement with WWF. Now that Sayama was back in action, he wanted to take revenge on his villainous foe for giving him a low blow in their previous match, and Sayama obviously wanted to win back the title that he never was defeated for. The wrestling in this match was very good, but it took a little while for the match to become really heated. Sayama did the tiger feint as he teased a dive, but then went for a pescado that he missed because of Mark Rocco stepping aside. Just like in their previous match, Rocco hit a low blow on Sayama. Rocco went for a backwards elbow drop off the top rope, but Sayama moved. Sayama hit a tremendous tombstone piledriver, followed up by an amazing moonsault that got him the win. It was a really good match with action that was quite advanced for the time, but because it took a while to get really interesting, it wasn’t quite as excellent as their previous match. Still, along with Sayama’s feud with Dynamite Kid, this was one of the most exciting feuds in wrestling at the time. ***¾ 

NJPW 6/18/82 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Ultraman 12:37. Ultraman, despite being a Mexican Luchador, was a gimmick based on the first Japanese Kyodai Hero TV Series from 1966 called Ultraman. Satoru Sayama executed a rolling savate kick that sent Ultraman to the floor. Ultraman grabbed Sayama’s arm and executed a lucha armdrag as he was coming off the top rope, but Sayama landed on his feet with cat-like agility. Ultraman’s gutwrench suplex looked good as well. Sayama’s space flying tiger drop looked incredible. There were a few spots that got botched, but, overall, this was a fun match with very good lucha action. ***½ 

NJPW 7/6/82 Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Ultraman 12:12. When Ultraman had Satoru Sayama in an armlock, Sayama backflipped and executed a hip toss. Sayama bumped big for a back body drop. Sayama executed a nice rolling savate kick that sent Ultraman into the ropes. Sayama’s dropkick looked fantastic and almost sent Ultraman out of the ring. It seemed they didn’t try to make things too complicated this time, which was probably because of them botching a few moves in their previous meeting. We still got to see some nice flying towards the end though. Ultraman executed a tope suicida. Sayama dropkicked Ultraman in mid air while Ultraman attempted a flying cross body block off the second rope out of the corner. When Sayama tried to do the same move, Ultraman caught him on his knee. This was a good example of the timing and precision being better than in their previous match. Sayama pinned Ultraman via a bridging German suplex. It was a very good match. Compared to their previous one-on-one battle, it was slightly better wrestled overall, but it was slightly less thrilling. ***½  

NJPW 7/16/82 Nakama Athletic Culture Center: Dynamite Kid & Bret Hart vs. Tiger Mask & Kengo Kimura 14:20. The work in this match was crisp. Dynamite Kid & Bret Hart showed good teamwork, which was a bit ironic because they were feuding in Stampede Wrestling. Dynamite bumped high for a backdrop by Kimura. Dynamite executed a vicious tombstone piledriver on Sayama on the floor. Sayama attempted a dive over the top rope, but Dynamite & Bret caught him and slammed him on the floor. Dynamite pinned Kimura after a diving headbutt. Dynamite and Tiger Mask were spectacular. Kengo Kimura and Bret Hart gave a decent showing. If anything, this is one of the lesser known matches that featured both Dynamite and Sayama (which makes it a somewhat underrated match, I guess). It was a really fun match to watch, and it’s definitely worth watching. ***½

NJPW 7/23/82 Ishikawa Prefectural Industrial Exhibition Hall #3: Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask 13:54. The action was so smooth in this match. Both workers were great at this point in time.  The execution is so crisp and superb. I like how they kept a steady pace, with the match never getting dull in any way, yet at the same time, they weren’t rushing things either because they were given some extra time. The match was on its way to possibly become even greater, but then we got the DQ finish instead of a few more minutes of greatness. Tiger Mask was disqualified when he threw Dynamite Kid over the guardrail. Bret Hart was in Dynamite’s corner, and he briefly got involved in the action near the finish. This match had a lot more intensity than their slightly disappointing match from 1/28/82. This time they actually made proper use of the extra time given. ****½ 

NJPW 7/30/82 Nagoya Aichi-ken Taiikukan, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Bret Hart 17:03. This was significantly better of a match than their better-than-average match on 2/5/82, because this one from 7/30/82 had a lot more intensity and liveliness. Thanks to Sayama pushing for the pace to be higher, Bret followed Sayama’s lead as much as he could and showed more urgency than in the 2/5/82 match, which was a match that was more of a Bret-style match. Still, this was obviously nowhere near any of the battles Sayama had with Dynamite Kid. Regardless of that, it is always interesting to see Sayama against a wide variety of different opponents. Dynamite Kid tried to help Bret, but it backfired, and Sayama pinned Bret via a German suplex. Good match. ***¼  

NJPW 7/31/82 Osaka: Dynamite Kid & Bret Hart & Greg Valentine vs. Tiger Mask & Tatsumi Fujinami & Kengo Kimura 13:03; 1:49; 2:04. This was a fun match. Dynamite Kid bumped around whenever he was in. Bret Hart gave a solid performance and worked well with Sayama. Greg Valentine was okay, but easily the weak link in this match. Shodai Tiger Mask played a big role for his team. Kengo Kimura helped contribute quite a bit. Kimura sold well and was pretty good at getting beat up by the gaijin team. Fujinami didn’t play too much of a role, but he was good when he was in. The first fall was more than three times as long as the second and third falls combined, making the ending seem a bit lackluster. **¾ 

NJPW 8/3/82 Okayama Budokan: Dynamite Kid & Bret Hart vs. Tiger Mask & Kantaro Hoshino 15:08 of 18:08. This was a very good NJPW junior heavyweight tag team match. There was lots of back-and-forth action in this match. Shodai Tiger Mask showed his speed and agility. Dynamite Kid showed his intensity. I guess that’s why the Japanese nicknamed him “kamisori fighter” (which translates to “razor fighter”). Kantaro Hoshino and Bret Hart were solid backups for their respective tag team partners. Sayama had Bret in all kinds of trouble early in the match. Bret threw a couple of uppercuts that took Sayama down, but Sayama kicked up after the second one and hit Bret with a spin kick. Hoshino and Dynamite Kid were tagged in. Dynamite showed great intensity and threw Hoshino out on the floor, where Bret greeted him with a bodyslam. Back in the ring, Hoshino picked up the pace and Dynamite sold well for his moves, including a sunset flip and armdrag. Hoshino took Dynamite down with another armdrag, but Dynamite kicked up. Hoshino jumped and hit Dynamite with a headbutt. Sayama ended up landing on the floor, and Dynamite beat him up on the floor. Dynamite briefly worked with Sayama in the ring. Dynamite hit a back suplex on Sayama and a knee drop. Bret was tagged in again and had Sayama in a Boston crab, but Hoshino entered the ring to break it up. Dyanamite bumped huge for a Sayama back body drop. Sayama tagged Hoshino in, and Dynamite bumped huge for his back body drop as well. Hoshino hit a running clothesline. Bret and Hoshino then worked against each other. Hoshino dropkicked Bret over the top rope onto the apron. Sayama entered the ring with a flurry of kicks and then hit a back suplex on Bret. Dynamite & Bret hit Hoshino with a double elbow drop. Dynamite hit a wicked tombstone piledriver on Hoshino. Bret entered the ring, and Hoshino tagged out as soon as he could. Sayama hit a beautiful flying cross body block on Bret. A bit later on, Dynamite and Bret were brawling with Hoshino outside of the ring. Sayama decided to join the party and hit a huge dive off the top to the outside. Eventually, when they were back in the ring, Sayama was able to pin Bret for the win. We probably didn’t get to see as much Dynamite vs. Sayama in this match because they wanted to save most of that for their upcoming match in two days. Still, we got enough to whet our appetite, and it was a very good match overall. ***½

NJPW 8/5/82 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Dynamite Kid 15:57. This match is highly recommended. Dynamite Kid and the original Tiger Mask were so great. They were ahead of their time and game-changing. Dynamite took a huge bump when Sayama suplexed him over the top to the floor. Dynamite was then thrown into the guardrail. Dynamite tried to escape a headscissors, but was then driven head-first into the canvas by Sayama. Sayama then hit a piledriver that got him a two-count. Dynamite threw a dropkick at Sayama, kicked up after hitting the dropkick, but then was kicked over the top-rope by Sayama. Dynamite quickly re-entered the ring. Sayama was so good at escaping headscissors in a resourceful way. Dynamite would come close to victory after a flying headbutt, but Sayama kicked out. Dynamite ended up on the floor again and Sayama charged at him with a huge dive over the top rope. It was an incredible dive where he just ran across the ring and leaped over the top rope onto Dynamite, who crashed into the guardrail. Sayama then brought Dynamite back into the ring and hit a modified piledriver. Sayama got the win when he pinned Dynamite for the three-count after a tremendous moonsault. What they were showing here was so much more advanced than what anyone else was doing at the time. This match still holds up as a truly great match. ****¾ 

NJPW 8/27/82 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Tatsumi Fujinami & Tiger Mask vs. Black Tiger & Pete Roberts 10:47. Black Tiger attacked Tiger Mask before the match even started, which helped put over the heated rivalry they were in. Tatsumi Fujinami and Pete Roberts both gave solid performances, but the match was definitely at its best when the Tigers were in the ring together. Satoru Sayama’s speed and explosiveness are always a joy to watch, and in Mark Rocco he had an opponent who was fast and agile enough to work exciting sequences with. Fujinami pinned Roberts to win the match. The finish kinda came out of nowhere, but this was a good match overall. ***¼   

WWF 8/30/82 New York City MSG, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Dynamite Kid 8:20 of 9:36. A rare appearance for both these workers at Madison Square Garden. NJPW had a working relationship with this promoter in the New York area at the time, and that’s why these two ended up working at a MSG show. The MSG crowd was very impressed as they, like most people at the time, had never seen anything like this before. This wasn't as amazing as their New Japan matches, but it opened the minds of the US fans up to new possibilities, and made an indelible mark on the minds of video collectors, even though it took another decade for the American junior style to really even begin to think about catching up with the rest of the world. Sayama was light on his feet and quick as a cat. Dynamite reacted and bumped well for Sayama. Dynamite hit an amazing knee drop off the second rope. He hit a gutwrench suplex and ended up headscissoring Sayama, who escaped in spectacular fashion via a kick up, which got a good pop from the crowd. Dynamite bumped huge for a back body drop and was dropkicked to the outside. Sayama then did the tiger feint, and the crowd applauded for this tremendous spectacle, which was unlike anything they’d ever seen before. Dynamite took Sayama down with an enzuigiri. Dynamite went for the flying headbutt, but Sayama moved, and Dynamite went face-first onto the canvas. Sayama hit a suplex and followed it up with a moonsault. Sayama scored the pinfall win and got a standing ovation. The American fans had gotten a brief glimpse of futuristic pro wrestling. This is the sort of match that's difficult to rate because it's groundbreaking for US junior heavyweight wrestling, but at the same time, more of a greatest hits for the actual performers. ***¾ 

NJPW 9/3/82 Fukuoka Sports Center, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Villano III 7:02. They worked an exciting lucha match. It’s a shame it was a short one. Some of the sequences looked a bit roughly executed, but Satoru Sayama covered up the rougher moments quite well. The crowd was really into it, and supported Sayama by chanting: “Tai-ga! Tai-ga!” After hitting a couple of flying headscissors, Sayama won the match by pinfall via a bridging German suplex hold. **¾ 

NJPW 9/21/82 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Black Tiger 19:08. Mark Rocco gave a very strong performance. He mainly worked over Satoru Sayama’s knee while he also kept the action going so that it never felt like a dull match. Sayama spent a large part of the match selling his knee. Rocco hit Sayama with a low bow again, but Sayama would pin Rocco soon after that. The finish kinda came out of nowhere and felt odd after Rocco had been in control so much. It was definitely a good match, but it was not quite as good as their previous matches. ***¼    

NJPW 10/8/82 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Tiger Mask vs. Marty Jones 12:09. English pro wrestler Marty Jones wasn’t nearly as spectacular of a worker as Dynamite Kid and Mark Rocco, the two main English foes of The First Tiger Mask, and Jones definitely wasn’t as much of a big deal in Japan as those two, despite being a key player in his own country, but he was a solid performer who was able to have good technical matches. In this match, Jones did some technical stuff, but he mixed it up with some more standard heelish roughhousing. Satoru Sayama spent a great deal of this match selling for Jones’ offense, but Sayama eventually won via a sunset flip. I could totally imagine that if they were given the opportunity, these two would have been able to have an excellent 20-minute match together in a World of Sport setting perhaps. What we got here was very good, but you can’t help wondering if they would have been able to have a better match together here. Luckily, they would have the opportunity to have a singles match in UWF in 1985. ***¼  

NJPW 10/26/82 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi 16:57. This was the first singles meeting between these two since Satoru Sayama had become Tiger Mask. They had wrestled each other many times when Sayama still wrestled maskless under his real name. Interestingly enough, Kuniaki Kobayashi had won the vast majority of their matches during the mid/late 1970s. By this point, in October 1982, Kobayashi had just returned to NJPW after a Mexican excursion. This was a very well-worked match, and it became clear that a new top foe had arrived on the scene for Sayama to worry about. The wrestling wasn’t always spectacular in this match, but it was always very snug. Kobayashi stayed on top of Sayama as much as possible, and Sayama did an extremely good job of selling it. Sayama executed a tremendous backdrop suplex that got people standing up in awe. Sayama followed this up with a Dynamite Kid-style flying headbutt, but Kobayashi kicked out. After making Sayama fall to the floor, Kobyashi executed a pescado. Kobayashi threw Sayama into the ringpost. Once Sayama was back in the ring, Kobayashi got Sayama tied up in the tree of woe in the corner. Kobayashi got too aggressive and kept attacking Sayama while showing no respect for the referee. This led to Kobayashi getting disqualified. The match was over, but it was only the beginning of this excellent feud. ****    

NJPW 11/4/82 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan, NWA World & WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi 13:40. Satoru Sayama hit a tremendous tope suicida before the match started. This set the tone of this great match. It was a war, and they were willing to take risks in order to take the other out. The referee had to hold Kuniaki Kobayashi back during the wrestler's introductions. The crowd heat was great. Unlike their previous match, it wasn’t a slow methodical match, but it was a more aggressive and action-packed match. Sayama went for a flying headbutt, but Kobayashi moved. Around this time in his career, Sayama started going for more striking than before, which was cool. Sayama landed on his feet after a back body drop attempt by Kobayashi, who then hit a dropkick on Sayama and followed this up with a spin kick that sent Sayama to the floor. Kobayashi executed an arm bar, but Sayama managed to touch the ropes after trying to get out of the hold. The crowd popped when Sayama went for an armbar. At some point in the match, Sayama executed a standing moonsault that ended with his knees landing on top of Kobayashi. Sayama then hit a move that was called the tiger driver at the time, but it was more like a DDT-like move. The finishing minutes were super hot. Sayama executed a tremendous backflip kick that sent Kobayashi to the floor, and after doing the tiger feint, Sayama went for a pescado. Kobayashi side-stepped, so Sayama went crashing to the floor. Kobayashi started ripping Sayama’s mask apart, and the ref called for the bell. Sayama and Kobayashi kept beating each other up, and a whole bunch of people had to come and break up the fight. This was a super competitive and a very heated match. ****½  

NJPW 1/6/83 Tokyo Korakuen Hall, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi 23:10. This wasn’t nearly as spectacular as their previous match. The matwork was really intense and interesting though. They made the matwork feel important pretty much all the time. Near the finish, Satoru Sayama overshot his amazing dive over the top rope so much that he not only cleared the ropes with ease but he flew over Kuniaki Kobayashi and crashed into the guardrail. Because they went for dives and big bumps near the end of the match, it made those moves feel extra special, because it seemed they were doing it out of desperation to beat the other. It was interesting to see Sayama have to struggle so much in a match, which really made Kobayashi stand out as one of the most difficult opponents for The First Tiger Mask. ****¼ 

NJPW 1/14/83 Tokuyama City Gym: Gran Hamada & Tiger Mask & Kantaro Hoshino vs. El Texano & El Signo & Negro Navarro 13:25. Animal Hamaguchi, Rusher Kimura, Isamu Teranishi and Mike George attacked Tiger Mask before the match. Los Misioneros de la Muerte worked together as a unit, but their offense lacked stiffness, and didn't look impressive compared to that of the Japanese team. After selling most of the early portion of the match, Gran Hamada worked some cool-looking lucha sequences with all three members of Los Misioneros. Hamada was probably the second-most impressive worker in the match, behind Tiger, of course. The thing that set Hamada's offense apart from that of the Mexican team, was that while Hamada was also doing lucha, he was combining it with the intensity of puroresu. It's not a surprise that Hamada played a big role in the birth of lucharesu. Tiger worked some really spectacular sequences, in particular with El Texano, who was easily the best worker on his team. Kantaro Hoshino was an underdog who tried hard, but he didn't have anywhere near the athletic ability his two tag team partners here had. The finish came out of nowhere, but the work was generally very good throughout this match, and this was one of those rare matches in which Los Misioneros actually really lived up to their reputation as a legendary trio. ***½  

NJPW 2/3/83 Hokkaido Sapporo Nakajima Taiiku Center, NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title Match: Tiger Mask vs. Gran Hamada 17:19. This was disappointing when you consider these were two of the most spectacular babyfaces in the NJPW junior heavyweight division at the time. They spent a lot of time in holds that didn't really lead to anything, and Hamada lacked the energy he usually showed. Tiger Mask seemed fine with this, and he also didn't really do anything to change the direction of the match. At times, they'd do a nice looking lucha sequence, but then they'd go right back to the rest holds. The abundance of wear down holds wouldn't have been so much of an issue if there was more urgency shown. Things finally started picking up during the final two minutes, but it was already too late, since they hadn't spent the first 15 minutes very usefully at all. The work was decent overall, and these two were such excellent workers that this almost still was a pretty good match at times, but this match certainly was not as good as their 11/5/81 encounter and nowhere near as good as one would expect from these workers. **¾

NJPW 2/7/83 Tokyo Sumo Hall, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Black Tiger 6:23 of 15:18. This match seemingly became progressively more spectacular. It’s a shame less than half the match was shown. This appeared to possibly have been one of their best matches against each other, judging from the six minutes that were shown. After hitting a tombstone on the floor, Satoru Sayama went for a splash off the top rope to the floor, but Mark Rocco rolled away. Once back in the ring, Sayama managed to avoid a couple of low blow attempts by his villainous foe and took Rocco down with a spin kick to the back. Sayama then lifted Rocco up for a bridging German suplex, which resulted in a pinfall victory for Sayama. ***¾  

NJPW 2/8/83 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi 9:30 of 16:50. After some solid matwork, the match got gradually more intense. They started going for more desperation-type moves as the match went on. Satoru Sayama’s tope suicida looked tremendous, as he came flying towards Kobayashi like a torpedo, sending Kobayashi into the ringside guardrail. Kobayashi did some flying of his own, as he hit a pescado. The workrate was high, and especially during the final minute, the action was extremely spectacular. It’s a shame the match isn’t available in full form. Excellent match. ****¼   

NJPW 2/10/83 Gamagori Civic Gymnasium: Gran Hamada & Kuniaki Kobayashi vs. Tiger Mask & Kantaro Hoshino 13:10 shown. The match was joined in progress during the second fall. Unlike in his most recent singles meeting with Tiger Mask on 2/3/83, Gran Hamada showed a lot of fire. Tiger also seemed way more eager here than in the 2/3/83 match, and he showed quite a bit of that great ability of his. Kantaro Hoshino was the least impressive worker here (and there's no shame in that, since the other three are considered top talent), but he played his role of underdog babyface tag team partner well enough. Kuniaki Kobayashi was an underrated worker who had become one of Tiger's main opponents. Hamada & Kobayashi desperately tried to unmask Tiger in an attempt to demoralize Tiger. This was a very good match with very good heat. The finish was spectacular with Tiger hitting a tope con giro that sent both him and Kobayashi over the guardrail. ***¾   

NJPW 4/15/83 Fukuyama City Gym: Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi 10:33 of 15:45. This match was good, but it was not nearly as good as their best battles. It wasn’t as heated and urgent as those top matches of theirs. Satoru Sayama threw some good kicks though. Sayama went for a flying headbutt, but Kobyashi moved away. Sayama blocked an enzuigiri attempt by Kuniaki Kobayashi. Sayama hit the flying headbutt, but Kobayashi kicked out. Kobyashi went for a double underhook suplex, but Sayama blocked it and threw Kobayashi over the top rope to the floor. Kobayashi then got disqualified when he threw Sayama over the guardrail. ***¼

NJPW 4/21/83 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan, NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title Decision Match: Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask 11:11; 6:52. This is a must-see match. If you consider yourself a fan of professional wrestling, you should at least watch this match. These two once again showed their great chemistry together. The action was incredible, and these two once again showed they were years ahead of their time. After 11 minutes of great action, they both end up over the guardrail. However, as icing on the cake, the match got restarted. When it got announced that the match would continue, the crowd erupted because they loved seeing these two work against each other. Dynamite hit a wicked tombstone piledriver and a tremendous flying headbutt. Dynamite felt that victory was now his. However, Sayama suplexed him and hit a well-executed tombstone piledriver of his own. Sayama went for a pescado, but Dynamite moved away. Dynamite suplexed Tiger into the ring, they went for several reversals on each other, and both ended up on the floor. Dynamite threw Sayama into the guardrail and then suplexed him on the floor. Dynamite was rammed into the ringpost by Sayama. Dynamite was about to throw Sayama into the guardrail, but Sayama reversed it, and Dynamite went crashing into the guardrail. The action went back into the ring. Dynamite tried to attack with a broken bottle, but the ref stopped him. Dynamite then almost attacked the ref with the bottle, which resulted in loud shrieks from the crowd, but Dynamite had a change of heart and threw the bottle out of the ring. Dynamite tried to unmask Sayama, but unsuccessfully so. Dynamite hit the ref and got another stern warning by the ref. Dynamite and Sayama ended up on the floor again. Sayama hit a tombstone on the floor. Dynamite then hit a tombstone of his own. The bell rang, and the result was a double count-out. This match truly was a great spectacle of athleticism and drama. Not only is this one of the best junior heavyweight matches ever, but one of the best pro wrestling matches ever. *****

NJPW 6/2/83 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan, NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title Decision Match: Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi 18:03. After a hot start, they were more careful with their approach for a while. What they did really well was to put this match over as a big struggle for both. They didn’t just do some random wrestling. They tried to make sure the other didn’t get the upper hand for too long. They tried to fight back as effectively as possible, while showing caution in order to avoid a surprise move by the other. There were several cool sequences and counters. Early in the match, they executed some cool-looking spin kicks. Later in the match, after blocking an enzuigiri attempt by Kobyashi, Sayama then went for a flying cross body press off the second rope, but Kobayashi caught him midsection-first onto his knee. Kobayashi’s superplex and Sayama’s bridging fisherman’s buster looked really good. The execution of the finish looked a bit rough though, because after Kobayashi had moved away when Sayama went for a flying headbutt, Sayama randomly managed to win with a random rollup that wasn’t particularly slick-looking. In his series with Kobayashi, Sayama has definitely shown that he’s able to have different matches with the same opponent, just like he showed in his great series against Dynamite Kid. Excellent match. ****¼  

NJPW 7/14/83 Sapporo Nakajima Taiiku Center, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi 16:52. This started off promising with them having an intriguing few minutes where they would have a stand off and were cautiously trying to test each other out. Then they kinda went into a long and slow phase with not too much happening, at least for their standards. The execution was always very good, but the pace was more of a methodical one. Things finally picked up at some point, because they started wrestling faster paced sequences. However, it never really reached the quality they had managed to reach in most of their previous bouts. All in all, this wasn’t as good as hoped, but it was still a good match overall. Satoru Sayama would only have two more televised NJPW bouts after this one (until his next appearance in NJPW on 5/1/94). Kobayashi would end up having a decent rest of his career after this feud with Sayama, but it’s a shame that it seems Kobayashi never again really was able to reach the levels he reached in 1982-1983. ***¼  

UWF 7/23/84 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: The Tiger & Nobuhiko Takada vs. Akira Maeda & Yoshiaki Fujiwara 16:24. This was Satoru Sayama’s first match since leaving NJPW in August 1983, and it was his first match in UWF (and it was his first match in nearly a year). Here he was simply known as The Tiger (at least for now, as he would eventually realize that he is Super Tiger). This was generally wrestled as a pretty serious contest. If this was truly supposed to be a realistic contest, headbutts should have been illegal and an automatic disqualification. Tiger was the flashiest of these four, and he threw some nice kick attempts. Fujiwara and Takada did a couple of cool counters where they would bridge out of each other’s holds. Takada did quite well for himself, even though he was clearly the least experienced of these four. Fujiwara’s headbutts kinda felt out of place amidst the efforts of making this look like a serious contest. This was a very good match, and it helped wet everyone’s appetites for more UWF matches like this. This match ended when Fujiwara pinned Takada with a bridging German suplex. ***½  

UWF 7/24/84 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: The Tiger vs. Mach Hayato 9:17. Mach Hayato hit a wicked slingshot senton to the floor on Satoru Sayama. The Tiger was impressive, as he was doing things that were similar to the things he used to do as Tiger Mask in NJPW back in 1981-1983, but with a bit more strikes and submission holds, which he started to favor instead of high flying. We still got to see plenty of high flying in this junior heavyweight-style match. Sayama attempted a moonsault, but he landed on his feet as he noticed Hayato moving away. Soon after this, Sayama won the match via a tiger suplex. UWF didn’t really have one particular style around this time, which was kinda cool because it meant you never really knew what you were going to get. This match was lots of fun, and it was good. *** 

UWF 9/7/84 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 19:07. Karl Gotch was at ringside. Satoru Sayama and Yoshiaki Fujiwara were both trainees of Gotch back in the 1970s in the early days of the New Japan dojo. Sayama was now known as Super Tiger. He’d still wrestle with a mask, but he’d show his face during the backstage promos. Stylistically, this was a far more serious match than pretty much any of the previous UWF matches. I like how they put this over as a true struggle, which made the more standard pro wrestling moves seem less silly than you’d imagine they look in the context of a proto-shoot style match. This was similar to a high-end NJPW heavyweight match. It was a very good match, mostly because of the way they wrestled. The intensity and the way they were able to build suspense made this a very intriguing match. Regardless of its role in further shaping the mold of shoot style wrestling, this match is a very enjoyable, and very good technical pro wrestling match that deserves praise. ***¾ 

UWF 9/11/84 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger vs. Akira Maeda 18:58. Karl Gotch entered the ring before the match and greeted everyone. The UWF matches were clearly becoming more and more shoot style. This match featuring two former NJPW workers was so advanced that it didn’t resemble NJPW-style wrestling anymore, as it had turned into a true UWF-style match. There were still some overly spectacular moments that felt somewhat out of place in a match that was aiming to be quite serious, but that’s fine and more than welcome, because in the end it’s still mid 1980s pro wrestling. A particularly cool moment happened when Satoru Sayama went for a spin kick, but instead of the usual being okay with the opponent avoiding it, Sayama went after the leg and grabbed onto Akira Maeda’s ankle to take him down. It felt like Sayama was more relentless and vicious in this match than he’d ever been before. Maeda gave a strong performance, which must have been the best performance of his career. Sayama gave a great performance, showing that he was still a super versatile and super progressive pro wrestler. Excellent match! ****¼   

UWF 10/5/84 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger & Akira Maeda vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Osamu Kido 25:35. Satoru Sayama started the match off quite well, attacking Osamu Kido, who briefly managed to stop Sayama’s attack with some grappling, but only until Sayama escaped and countered with a throw. Sayama tagged Akira Maeda in. Kido took Maeda down, but Maeda was able to counter on the mat. Kido gave one of his better performances here, as he is normally quite dull. When Yoshiaki Fujiwara was tagged in, Maeda took him down with a throw, but Maeda wasn’t able to keep Fujimara on the mat. Maeda went for some strikes, but Fujiwara caught Maeda’s leg and took him down. Maeda quickly tagged Sayama back in. Sayama attempted to control Fujiwara on the mat, but Fujiwara countered and escaped. When Kido was back in the ring, Sayama blasted him with strikes. When Maeda was in the ring, he followed Sayama’s example. Maeda vs. Kido on the mat was one of the least interesting portions of this match, as you could probably imagine, given the proclivity of both to do little to truly advance the match. Sayama hit several well-placed kicks on Fujiwara. Sayama then hit a tombstone piledriver, which was followed up by a flying headbutt attempt. Fujiwara moved, and Sayama hit the canvas. Fujiwara executed a piledriver of his own, but Sayama managed to get a rope escape. Of course, there were unlimited rope escapes here in the original UWF. Fujiwara hit a couple of headbutts and a double underhook suplex. Fujiwara vs. Maeda had its moments, but they didn’t show enough urgency to make this segment work. Kido tried his best to beat Sayama with some fast-paced puroresu. It seemed the match was gradually less shoot style-ish and less focused, almost to the point of it falling apart. The finish wasn’t clear because of the video quality issues, but it appears Fujiwara managed to reverse Sayama’s attempt for a submission victory. It was definitely a big shock to see Sayama lose. While there were several moves that clearly belonged more in standard pro wrestling, this was a good proto-shoot style match overall. Despite coming across as a more serious league than what all other pro wrestling leagues were doing at the time, UWF wasn’t quite a full-fledged shoot style league, since there was definitely a hodgepodge of styles on their cards. ***¼     

UWF 12/5/84 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 25:34 of 27:19. Satoru Sayama used submission holds, suplexes and strikes. You never knew what Sayama would do, especially because he moved quickly, and this made him a very tough opponent. When it came to striking, Sayama was a lot stronger and more dangerous than Yoshiaki Fujiwara was. Fujiwara’s submissions were his strongest point, and he was wisely doing his best to rely on them, as he was the stronger grappler than Sayama, the issue was keeping Sayama from just beating him in standup. Sayama was struggling a lot once he was caught in a submission hold. Sayama was able to avoid several submission attempts, which helped put over how fatal it could be to be caught in one of Fujiwara’s submissions. Fujiwara attempted his Fujiwara armbar, but Sayama managed to avoid it, though it took a considerable amount of effort. Also, it presented an opportunity for Fujiwara to go for a different submission hold. When Fujiwara was caught in a hold, he was sometimes able to counter it. Basically, this entire match was an intense struggle for both, and it was intriguing from start to finish. Towards the end, they were selling the toll the match had taken on them. Fujiwara was struggling to get to his feet, and he almost lost the match by KO on a few occasions. Sayama was brutal in his attack, as he kept beating Fujiwara up and attempted to get the KO win. Sayama succeeded in his quest to win via KO as Fujiwara eventually wasn’t able to answer the count. ****½  

UWF 1/7/85 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger vs. Akira Maeda 22:18. This was a step down from Satoru Sayama’s match with Yoshiaki Fujiwara on 12/5/84, since Akira Maeda predictably wasn’t able to be as dangerous and interesting on the mat as Fujiwara was. When Maeda was in control, it felt more like Sayama was waiting for the right moment to counter, and it wasn’t so much that it felt like he was hanging in there trying to survive and fight for his life like in the Fujiwara match. Maeda’s control segments being relatively slow and uninteresting also meant this step was a step down from when Sayama and Maeda faced each other on 9/11/84, which was an excellent and exciting match. Sayama’s strikes were greatly executed and among the highlights of the match. What also stood out was the caution they showed before they went for a move, which really helped make things more dramatic and helped make things appear more realistic. They definitely weren’t engaging in overly cooperative sequences that don’t make sense like almost all of the non-shoot style wrestlers do. Overall, this was a very good match. ***½  

UWF 1/16/85 Osaka Rinkai Sports Center: Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 22:40. The video quality of this hand-held footage is not great, but let's try to not let that influence the review of this match. Once again, Satoru Sayama was clearly superior in striking, but when it came to submission holds, Yoshiaki Fujiwara was dominating. However, that didn’t discourage Sayama from trying to beat Fujiwara on the mat. When Sayama was on the offense, he was brutal and aggressive. His kneedrops looked particularly vicious, because Sayama really made it appear he was trying to destroy Fujiwara’s body with those kneedrops. As always in their battles against each other, Sayama and Fujiwara really put over the struggle very well. In a shocking turn of events, Sayama lost a singles match cleanly in the middle of the ring! ****  

UWF 1/20/85 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger vs. Nobuhiko Takada 13:07. Super Tiger’s strikes looked incredible. Tiger’s left shoulder was taped up. It took a while before it seemed like Takada was able to cause any problems for Tiger. Eventually, the match got quite competitive, and Tiger was in all kinds of trouble, especially since Takada started targeting the injured left shoulder area more. The crowd started fearing for Tiger’s chances, as the “Taigaa~!” supportive chants increased when Takada tried to do further damage to Tiger’s left arm. The referee decided Tiger could no longer continue due to the state of his injured left arm. The result was a huge upset, as Tiger lost once again after having lost to Fujiwara four days prior. ***¼  

UWF 3/2/85 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger vs. Marty Jones 14:38. Marty Jones did a good job using his World of Sport-style grappling, which was his main strength, to his advantage. Unfortunately, that only got him so far in a UWF setting against one of the top fighters in the world. Satoru Sayama’s striking really stopped Jones’ momentum each time Sayama would decide to strike. Sayama’s ability to fluently move from one style and strategy within the match really made this match so interesting. He managed to get Jones all fired up and excited about increasing the intensity as the bout progressed. While Jones didn’t come off as someone who was technically able to compete with Sayama, his tenacity and perseverance made it plausible that he was able to give Sayama some trouble in this match. Sayama tried to escape Jones' headscissors, but Jones then quickly transitioned into a crossface chickenwing that made the crowd mark out and made Sayama run towards the ropes. Jones bumped big for Sayama’s enzuigiri. Eventually, Sayama got the expected win. ***¾   

UWF 5/18/85 Shimonoseki Baseball Stadium: Super Tiger & Joe Solkoff vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Osamu Kido 14:44 of 22:59. Satoru Sayama threw several great strikes. Yoshiaki Fujiwara focused on grappling. The match was at its best whenever those two were in the ring together. However, it was interesting to see Joe Malenko (who was known as Joe Solkoff on this tour, and again later when he worked for Fujiwara in PWFG) in UWF in May 1985, which was his first tour of Japan. It was mostly thanks to Karl Gotch that Joe had the opportunity to start touring Japan at this time, since Gotch knew the Malenko family very well. Joe gave quite an okay performance here, but he was kinda plain, mostly focusing on wear down holds without really following up or working more intriguing sequences, and he ultimately didn’t play much of a role in this match. Osamu Kido was quite solid in this match, and occasionally he would have some bursts of energy that led to some interesting moments. Near the finish, Sayama hit vicious kicks on Yoshiaki Fujiwara, but Fujiwara grabbed Sayama’s leg and made Sayama submit! ***

UWF 5/31/85 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 24:10. They displayed a sensible amount of cautiousness early on, yet they were still showing enough courage for there be some interesting action from the beginning stages onward. Satoru Sayama threw some excellent kicks. Yoshiaki Fujiwara focused on grappling, and he kept trying to keep Sayama on the mat, which is where Fujiwara knew he’d have the advantage, while Sayama would have the advantage in the standup striking. Sayama wasn’t all about kicks though, as Sayama hit a tremendous double-arm suplex. Fujiwara caught Sayama’s kick at some point, but Sayama managed to surprise Fujiwara with a spin kick, which proved that Sayama was even still dangerous when you’d catch his leg. This match was intriguing at all times. Fujiwara made Sayama submit! It was an excellent match, but it missed just that extra bit of drama and intensity that made their 12/25/84 match so great. ****¼   

UWF 7/17/85 Osaka Rinkai Sports Center: Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 11:54 of 15:15. Satoru Sayama started off with some flashy strikes. Then we got a portion missing from the footage. Yoshiaki Fujiwara had Sayama stuck in a leglock, which was significant because that’s how Sayama lost to Fujiwara in their last meeting. This time, Sayama managed to reach the ropes. These two showed some intriguing counter sequences. Sayama brutally assaulted Fujiwara with strikes and then grabbed a leglock on Fujiwara. The intensity level was even higher than in their previous matches. Fujiwara had Sayama caught in a leglock again, but Sayama managed to grab the ropes. Sayama knocked Fujiwara down a few times. After a tremendous spin kick, Fujiwara was not able to get up, which resulted in Sayama winning the match via KO. Great match. ****½ 

UWF 7/21/85 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger vs. Nobuhiko Takada 14:47. This match was intriguing from start to finish, helped somewhat by their 1/20/85 match proving young Takada could actually beat Sayama. Satoru Sayama started off with super fast movements. This was a reminder for Nobuhiko Takada to be cautious and yet aggressive at the same time if he wanted to have any kind of success in this match. Cautious whenever the time felt right to be cautious, and aggressive whenever there was an opening to go for the attack. Sayama came across as smart and confident in his approach. They alternated between mat wrestling and stand up striking, as they went for whatever the moment called for. The takedowns were often very spectacular, especially when they came in the form of a well-executed suplex. The workrate was high, and the display of urgency helped make this match very exciting and intriguing. Sayama was super explosive, and he had proven he was still a great in-ring performer in 1985. Takada was at the peak of his career and motivated to show what he was capable of. Both men showed courage and kept taking it to each other. Despite there being unlimited rope breaks in UWF, they only used rope breaks when really necessary. The finish was quite exciting, as Takada went for a suplex, but Sayama blocked and tripped Takada, and Sayama then immediately grabbed an armlock for the submission victory. Great match! ****¾      

UWF 8/25/85 Gifu Industry Pavilion: Super Tiger vs. Kazuo Yamazaki 12:49 of 13:49. Kazuo Yamazaki did well for himself, but you could tell he wasn’t a top tier name at the time, as it didn’t feel like he gave Satoru Sayama a run for his money as much as guys like Yoshiaki Fujiwara or Nobuhiko Takada had been doing. Sayama was Yamazaki's mentor, and while Yamazaki gave Sayama enough trouble to make this a competitive and excellent match, you knew which one was the student and which one was the teacher. Thanks to Sayama’s excellent counter abilities, he was able to score the win via submission. ***¾  

UWF 9/2/85 Osaka Rinkai Sports Center: Super Tiger vs. Akira Maeda. The two top stars of the promotion, Sayama & Maeda, weren't getting along in real life, and had very different ideas about where the league should be going. It all came to a head in what turned out to be the match between the two, which featured some overly stiff and snug stand up striking. Akira Maeda’s performance became less intense when they did his typical dull type of unthreatening matwork. Then when they went back to stand up striking, he got all upset and agitated, and hit Super Tiger with a cheap shot low blow. Maeda would eventually give us RINGS, but man, the ending of this match and the ending of the UWF that this brought on is such a downer. ***¾ 

UWF 9/6/85 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger vs. Nobuhiko Takada 8:01 of 13:44. This was a spectacular bout with many flashy kicks. The flashiness didn’t look out of place because of them not being overly cooperative, so it still felt a lot more realistic than most pro wrestling. Both men showed a lot of urgency, and the execution was great. The crowd heat was tremendous as well. This match was overall not quite on the level of their great 7/21/85 match, but it was still an excellent battle worth recommending. ****¼   

UWF 9/11/85 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 19:31. Satoru Sayama threw many spectacular kicks. Yoshiaki Fujiwara gave a strong showing himself, and his no-nonsense style complimented Sayama’s flashy style quite well. This was the last match of the last show of the original UWF, and it was the last match Sayama would have until ten years later (if we’re not counting the few exhibition fights he participated in). This was the final excellent match of Sayama’s career, because Sayama was fed up with the wrestling business and decided to retire from pro wrestling. It’s a real shame, because Sayama was still at his peak and still had so much more to give to pro wrestling. Who knows how different pro wrestling history would have been if Sayama would have stayed around for a few more years on the pro wrestling scene. ****

NJPW 5/1/94 Fukuoka Dome, Dream Exhibition: Satoru Sayama vs. Jushin Thunder Liger. It was cool to see Jushin Thunder Liger try to work shoot style, but Satoru Sayama clearly was showing signs of ring rust. Of course, this was merely an exhibition match, but it was the first match Sayama had in a wrestling ring since the final match of the original UWF on 9/11/85. Sayama had been focusing on Shooto after retiring from pro wrestling, but training fighters is different than competing yourself. Sayama wouldn’t fully return as a regular competitor in pro wrestling until the summer of ‘96. Sayama’s kicks looked excellent in this exhibition bout. Liger hit a koppo kick, which got a big pop from the crowd and put a smile on Sayama’s face. This was a match that was more really interesting than really good. The work was pretty good, but when you think of the dream match that Sayama vs. Liger is on paper, you would expect something more spectacular than what we got here. Still, it was really cool that this happened. **¾  

Vale Tudo Japan 7/29/94 Urayasu Tokyo Bay NK Hall, Exhibition: Satoru Sayama vs. Yuji Ito 2R. Vale Tudo Japan was an MMA competition organized by Satoru Sayama. This particular match involving Sayama himself was just a worked exhibition fight though. Sayama showed a lot more intensity and a lot more flashiness here than in the 5/1/94 exhibition match vs. Jushin Thunder Liger. Sayama scored a few submissions, and Yuji Ito scored a submission, but it didn’t really matter since it was an exhibition anyway. Still, it was cool to see Sayama put on display his vision of what a fight should look like, spectacular kicks, effective takedowns and decisive submissions. Even though this was a work, this match kinda gave a glimpse of what it would have been like if Sayama would have been involved in an actual shoot fight. *** 

UWF-I 8/17/96 Tokyo Jingu Stadium: Shodai Tiger Mask vs. Gran Hamada 15:00. In the summer of ‘96, Satoru Sayama had returned to the pro wrestling business for the first time as an active competitor since 1985. Sayama’s kicks looked impressive throughout this match. He went for a plancha, but Gran Hamada moved. Hamada hit a plancha off the top to the floor onto Sayama. Things slowed down a bit when they were doing some rest holds. Sayama executed the tiger feint. Hamada executed a swinging DDT off the second rope. Hamada also executed a top-rope huracarrana. Sayama almost won via a tiger suplex, but Hamada kicked out. Soon after that, the time limit expired. This was a noteworthy match, because, around this time, Sayama didn’t have too many matches that were worth mentioning. For Hamada, however, this was just another match, as Hamada was involved in many matches that year that were a lot more noteworthy than this one, with the classic Sekigun vs. Kaientai tags in Michinoku. **¾   

UWF-I 9/30/96 Morioka Iwate Kenei Taiikukan: Shodai Tiger Mask vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa 15:23. Hoshikawa was an extremely promising young wrestler, who was one of the best strikers in the purolucha league Michinoku Pro, and had just branched out into the sometimes sort of shooty Battlarts, but this was his first match in the more serious and restrictive UWF-I. Naohiro Hoshikawa’s main focus was keeping Sayama on the mat in order to try to keep Sayama from hitting more of his moves. Satoru Sayama threw some good kicks and did some of his famous spots. At some point, Hoshikawa hit a nice tope suicida. The match was pretty good, but it never turned out to be the match you’d hope to see. Also, the finish was kinda lame. ***  

UWF-I 10/23/96 Shizuoka Twin Messe Shizuoka: Shodai Tiger Mask vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa 8:54. This is the crispest Satoru Sayama’s work has looked since his return to pro wrestling. It was a joy watching him do his stuff. The big issue with this match is that it really seemed to be just a Sayama showcase, while their previous match felt more competitive. This match featured pretty much the same things Sayama had been displaying during his post-prime era, so it felt kinda like an exhibition. Naohiro Hoshikawa got to do something back near the end, but Sayama finished him off rather easily via a tiger suplex. **¾  

UWF-I 11/23/96 Sendai Miyagi-ken Sports Center: Shodai Tiger Mask vs. Shoichi Funaki 11:43. Shoichi Funaki kinda oversold the whole time. Satoru Sayama’s work looked pretty crisp. Sayama’s kicks looked great. He hit a tremendous bridging German suplex, but Funaki kicked out. Sayama then hit a vicious tombstone that was followed up by a tiger suplex for the win. **¾    

WAR 12/13/96 Tokyo Ryogoku Kokugikan, International Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Title: Yuji Yasuraoka & Lance Storm vs. Shodai Tiger Mask & Masaaki Mochizuki 11:03. Satoru Sayama started showing off his excellent striking skills. When Masaaki Mochizuki was tagged in, he showed his excellent striking skills. Both Yasuraoka and Storm did a good job selling for the opponents. Sayama executed a tombstone that was followed up with a flying headbutt on Lance Storm, but the Canadian kicked out. A tag team match like this allowed Sayama to do his fancy moves and then tag out, so this was ideal at this post-prime stage of his career. Yasuraoka walked the ropes and hit a spectacular plancha to the floor onto Mochizuki. Storm’s performance here was quite solid. Yasuraoka hit a top-rope quebrada on Mochizuki for the win. This was a decent match, but the finish came so abruptly that it’s hard to not feel that this match never quite reached its potential. They should have been given maybe five or six more minutes to get the chance to turn this into a good match. While this match was decent, there were two matches on this show that were a lot better (Ultimo Dragon vs. Rey Misterio Jr. and Tenryu vs. Nobuhiko Takada, which were both very good matches). **¾ 

MPW 1/4/97 Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center: Shodai Tiger Mask vs. TAKA Michinoku 10:41. The main event of this show was an excellent trios match that is worth seeking out. Here in this interesting semi-main event match, the legendary Satoru Sayama battled TAKA Michinoku, who was at the time arguably the best pure men’s worker in pro wrestling. TAKA’s explosiveness, combined with his great athletic ability, made him a very enjoyable in-ring performer. Even though singles matches weren’t his specialty because he wasn't great at building them, as with other great pure workers such as Great Sasuke & Manami Toyota, he particularly had a difficult time making the early matwork add anything to the match, but he gave strong efforts in these days, resulting in one of the more enjoyable matches involving Sayama from this era of Sayama’s career. TAKA really approached this with the intention to make this a competitive match, he wasn’t just going to let this become the Sayama show. Yet, he still showed great respect for the aging legend. It was TAKA’s way of acting and reacting that made his performance better than most of Sayama’s other opponents around this time. TAKA’s selling really helped put Sayama’s flashy strikes over. Sayama didn’t just focus on strikes, as he also executed some more acrobatic moves, like a handspring body press and the tiger feint. Sayama gave quite a strong effort himself, perhaps inspired by the energy shown by TAKA. There was a decent amount of mat grappling. The biggest high flying spot was TAKA going for a springboard plancha to the floor, but TAKA came crashing to the floor when Sayama moved out of the way. Sayama hit a tombstone piledriver, followed up with a tremendous flying headbutt. When Sayama attempted a kick, TAKA caught him and executed the Michinoku Driver. TAKA attempted another Michinoku Driver, but Sayama escaped. TAKA hit a tremendous springboard dropkick and then hit the Michinoku Driver, but Sayama kicked out. Taka went for a missile dropkick, but Sayama caught him in mid air with a dropkick of his own. Sayama then finished his opponent off with the tiger suplex. ***½ 

Battlarts 1/21/97 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger vs. Minoru Tanaka 10:23. This match had the tough task of following a great Michinoku Pro 8-man tag team match. Another interesting fact about this show is that the opening match was the debut match of Ikuto Hidaka (vs. Shoichi Funaki), which was quite a decent match that clearly showed Hidaka’s potential. By the way, the main event of this show was an excellent match between the tag teams of Daisuke Ikeda & Katsumi Usuda and Yuki Ishikawa & Takeshi Ono. In other words, this is a show definitely worth seeking out. Let’s now focus on the match featuring Satoru Sayama and Minoru Tanaka. Sayama and Tanaka both were able to display their striking skills and their mat grappling skills. Tanaka had been a pro wrestler for two years at this point, and he mostly competed for PWFG, Michinoku Pro and Battlarts during those first two years of his career. This match was particularly interesting because it was basically a shoot style match between two workers who excelled in shoot style. It was a very good match overall, but what kept it from being more than 3.5 stars was the fact that it wasn’t competitive enough, which made sense given the huge difference in experience and status between these two competitors at this point in time. Still, it was really good to see Tanaka display his impressive skills and his potential for excellence, and it was nice to see Sayama in a very good match in 1997. In the end, Sayama won this match when referee Ted Tanabe had to end the match because of Tanaka no longer being responsive while stuck in a crossface chickenwing. ***½ 

Tiger Mask Festival 10/12/97 Tokyo Ryogoku Kokugikan: Shodai Tiger Mask & Tiger Mask IV vs. Tiger Mask III & Tiger Mask Kanemaru 12:08. Four Tiger Masks in the same match. Mitsuharu Misawa (who was Tiger Mask II in 1984-1990) wasn’t in this match (probably because Giant Baba wouldn’t allow him to be in this match), so he was replaced by Yoshinobu Kanemaru in the role of Tiger Mask II for this occasion. The guest referee for this match was Great Sasuke. Koji Kanemoto was Tiger Mask III in 1992-1994, and it was interesting to see him in this role against the First Tiger Mask, Satoru Sayama. It was fun to see everyone do Tiger Mask stuff, but it felt more like a novelty-type exhibition match with everyone trying to play the same role. Kanemoto was the most impressive worker of these four at the time, but he was limiting himself to play the role he used to play in his earlier years. Tiger Mask IV was very impressive, and showed that he was a great choice to play the role of Tiger Mask for the next several years to come. **¾  

NJPW 11/2/97 Fukuoka Dome: Tiger King & Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Koji Kanemoto & Tatsuhito Takaiwa 14:18. It was cool to see the two greatest Japanese junior heavyweights ever team up together. Of course, Satoru Sayama was years removed from his prime, while Jushin Thunder Liger was still in the middle of his prime. Sayama looked good during the relatively brief moments he was in the ring. Liger worked the majority of the match, which was the logical and sensible thing to do. Sayama vs. Kanemoto provided some of the most interesting work in this match, because their matwork against each other was more compelling than what the others did on the mat. Liger vs. Kanemoto obviously featured the most crisp work of the match. Takaiwa was solid but unspectacular, as always. It would have been interesting to have seen Sayama show up more often in the NJPW junior heavyweight division at the time, but it turned out that he wouldn’t return to NJPW until 2008. ***½ 

UFO 12/30/98 Osaka-Jo Hall: The First Tiger Mask vs. Alexander Otsuka 7:51. Satoru Sayama’s kicks were fast and explosive. Alexander Otsuka tried to beat him on the mat. When they would get back to their feet, Otsuka would always try to take things back to the mat, like when he hit Sayama with a German suplex. Sayama was also dangerous on the mat though, as he had Otsuka stuck in a leg submission that Otsuka just barely escaped from thanks to quick reflexes. A thunderous spin kick took Otsuka down, but only temporarily, as Otsuka quickly managed to continue and stay on top of Sayama on the mat for a bit. Otsuka became more aggressive towards the end of the match, perhaps sensing that a victory over the legendary Sayama was a possibility. When Sayama was stuck in a leg submission, they rolled underneath the ropes, but they didn’t land on the floor because of the UFO’s disc-shaped ring, and Sayama had no choice but to tap out. ***½  

UFO 3/14/99 Yokohama Arena: The First Tiger Mask vs. Alexander Otsuka 9:26. Alexander Otsuka managed to escape from a sleeper hold applied by Satoru Sayama. Otsuka then was on the receiving-end of several kicks before trying to tame the Tiger on the mat. Sayama took Otsuka down with a Tiger suplex, but Otsuka managed to win the match with a leg submission soon afterwards anyway. This was not as good as their previous match, but still quite decent. It lacked the urgency and intensity that made their previous match memorable. It also felt less competitive because of Satoru Sayama being more dominant for the most part, while still losing this battle that didn’t feature that many interesting counters and momentum changes. The work and execution overall was pretty good though, which helped make this a decent match in the end. **¾ 

AJPW 1/3/04 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Toshiaki Kawada & The Mask of Tiger vs. Nobutaka Araya & Ryuji Hijikata 13:43. Toshiaki Kawada gave a strong performance, carrying the match very well. Kawada’s selling was great, and his offense looked stiff and crisp. Satoru Sayama was okay, and he executed some of his signature moves. Sayama’s flying headbutt looked pretty good, even though it took him a while to climb the ropes and execute the move. Kawada vs. Ryuji Hijikata was the best part of the match. While Kawada hit Nobutaka Araya with some vicious knife edge chops, Sayama pinned Hijikata to win the match. It was neat to see Kawada and Sayama team up together, and it was a pretty good match overall. *** 

Dragon Fire 10/14/04 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: The First Tiger Mask & Tiger Mask III & Tiger Mask IV vs. Jushin Liger & Ultimo Dragon & Great Sasuke 20:41. This was a junior heavyweight dream match featuring six of the most well known junior heavyweights from the 1980s and 1990s. Koji Kanemoto performed under his old role of Tiger Mask III (which was his gimmick in NJPW in 1992-1994). At some point during the match, Kanemoto took the mask off, revealing his face. He now started acting more like Kanemoto and less like Tiger Mask III. Jushin Thunder Liger performed under his old 1989 Jushin Liger gimmick with the red and gold-colored gear. Satoru Sayama showed that he was still decently agile (nothing like the tremendous agility he used to show in his prime years, of course), but he was the slowest performer in this match. His overall performance was quite okay though when you consider he was the oldest performer, and it was good to see him in this junior heavyweight legends match, since he is one of the most legendary juniors of all time. Great Sasuke spent quite some time selling his leg, which was being worked over in an aggressive manner by Kanemoto. At some point, Kanemoto and Sasuke hit each other with a spin kick. Despite this being his show, Ultimo Dragon seemingly didn’t really play much of a role in this match. Whenever he was in the ring, his work was very good though, and at least he hit his famous Asai moonsault. Tiger Mask IV gave a solid performance, and he was arguably the best at playing the Tiger Mask role in this match. Nonetheless, after Kanemoto hit a tremendous moonsault on Dragon, it was The First Tiger Mask who pinned Dragon to win the match. *** 

dragondoor 7/19/05 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Gran Hamada & Shodai Tiger Mask vs. Solar I & Ultraman 11:44. Gran Hamada teamed with the original Tiger Mask, two of the pioneers of lucharesu back in the early 1980s who paved the way for leagues such as Toryumon, Dragon Gate, and dragondoor in the 2000s. Solar I and Ultraman were old school luchadores, both former opponents of Tiger Mask I in his heyday, so this was a match filled with quite a bit of nostalgia, to say the least. Satoru Sayama was 47 years old, Solar was 48, Gran Hamada was 54, and Ultraman was 58. Hamada and Solar did some mat wrestling in the beginning of this legends match. Sayama hit a nice back kick that Ultraman sold well. Everything these workers did was pretty good, especially considering their age, because they were working a style they excelled in when they were in their 20s and 30s. It wasn't a very good match, because they did everything a lot slower than they used to do, but it was fun watching these legends in the ring together. Most wrestling fans appreciate nostalgia, and it appeared that the crowd appreciated the efforts of these veterans. Sayama and Hamada showed quite a bit of agility, and Solar mostly focused on technical wrestling. Ultraman, probably the least legendary of these three, did well for himself, and he hit a nice tope suicida. The lack of speed in this match wasn't too much of a problem, because they clearly tried their best here. This was a decent match, and while the wrestling wasn't that noteworthy, it was interesting to see how these guys were doing in 2005, and it was fun watching these legends wrestling each other. **½     

RJPW 9/20/06 Korakuen Hall: Shodai Tiger Mask vs. Kota Ibushi 5:33. Kota Ibushi had been wrestling for a little over two years at this point. The young Ibushi started this match off with fast kicks. Sayama was selling his left leg, which was taped up after Minoru Suzuki had attacked Sayama during the ring entrance. When Sayama would strike, it would be a thunderous kick he’d throw, but since the left leg that was his main weapon was the same leg that was taped up, Sayama would have to take a short break after time he’d strike. Ibushi went for a moonsault, but he ended up landing on his feet when Sayama rolled out of the way and then hit Sayama with a standing moonsault. After Sayama missed a pescado, Ibushi hit the space flying tiger drop on the man who popularized the move. Sayama was not able to continue, and Ibushi was awarded the win. **½

Showa Puroresu Legend Nostalgic Major 5/12/08 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Gran Hamada & Shodai Tiger Mask vs. Sammy Lee Jr. & Yuki Ishikawa 8:46. This was a show that mostly focused on paying tribute to wrestlers from the era of Emperor Showa, who was the Japanese Emperor until his death in January 1989. The two pioneers of 1980s lucharesu, Gran Hamada and Satoru Sayama once again teamed up. One of their opponents was Battlarts legend Yuki Ishikawa, and the other opponent was spectacular young talent Kota Ibushi, who mainly wrestled in the DDT Pro-Wrestling league at the time. Ibushi's gimmick here, Sammy Lee Jr., was a tribute to Sayama, who wrestled as Sammy Lee in England around the year 1980. Ibushi was obviously the quickest, most agile and most spectacular worker in this match. However, the fans came to see the legends. Gran Hamada rules for being a 57-year old man with blonde highlights in his mullet in the year 2008. Hamada never acted old during his in-ring career, and that's probably why he was able to have such a long career. Shodai Tiger Mask is one of the all-time greats, and him getting the pinfall over Ibushi felt completely fine. This wasn't a very good match, but it was an interesting match-up that turned out to be a decent wrestling match overall. **¾ 

NJPW 10/12/09 Ryogoku Kokugikan: Shodai Tiger Mask & Kota Ibushi & Tiger Mask IV vs. Jushin Thunder Liger & AKIRA & Riki Choshu 8:52. It was interesting to see Shodai Tiger Mask in a NJPW ring in 2009. This would be the last time Sayama wrestled at a NJPW show. Kota Ibushi gave a spectacular showing and stood out the most in this match. Liger and the Tigers gave solid performances. AKIRA worked hard. Riki Choshu didn’t stand out in any way. The Tigers hit a double flying headbutt on AKIRA, and it was Tiger Mask IV who pinned AKIRA to win the match. **¾      

1977-1979: Very good

1980: Excellent

1981-1985: Great

1986-1993: N/A (retired from pro wrestling)

1994-2000: Pretty good

2003-2014: Average

As an in-ring worker, Satoru Sayama was at his best during the 1980s. Not much footage exists of his pre-1981 work, but during the little footage we have of his pre-1981 work, it is clear that he already showed the potential to eventually become the great worker he ended up becoming. Even though one could say he was carried by Dynamite Kid and Kuniaki Kobayashi in their best matches in NJPW, Sayama was easy to carry, and Dynamite and Kobayashi never had matches as great against anyone else. It is clear that Sayama was one of the greatest wrestlers on the planet during his revolutionary peak years as Tiger Mask (1981-1983). He was also probably the most spectacular wrestler in the world (with Dynamite Kid being the only real competition). In UWF in 1984-1985, he was the one who was best at the UWF style, which was against all odds, since a heavyweight shoot style is obviously something quite different from the high flying junior heavyweight style he excelled at in NJPW. Sayama was far ahead of his time at whatever he did. Sayama reinvented himself and evolved as a more complete and realistic shoot style worker in UWF. This also shows that he was able to be great in different styles, and he was able to raise the bar of the styles he was a pioneer in. As great as he was in 1981-1984, it was perhaps in 1985 that he truly reached the peak of his peak as an overall performer. Obviously, this is debatable, since his run as Tiger Mask in 1981-1983 was far more legendary and featured more spectacular in-ring work overall. However, if there is one year of his career that Sayama was easily the best professional wrestler in the world, it has to be the year 1985, as nobody else came close to being as great as he was that year.

Sayama was not active as a pro wrestler after retiring in 1985 until returning as an active pro wrestler in the summer of ‘96. He was pretty good during the 1990s, but it was nothing like his peak years of the 1980s. After the late 1990s, his work really declined drastically. This was understandable, because he was older, heavier and many years removed from his peak years. 

Sayama’s work in the 2000s and beyond is very underwhelming. Of course, this was understandable and expected. He would throw some good kicks here and there, and for the rest it just felt like he was being a nostalgia act, relying on some of his old tricks that were now executed in far less spectacular and far less convincing fashion. In the period of the 2000s and beyond, it seems like he only gave a couple of decent performances. With that being said, the post-peak era really isn’t that important in reviewing the career of the legendary Sayama, as his greatness of the 1980s should forever receive high praise.

In closing, Satoru Sayama should definitely be remembered as one of the all-time greats. His run as Tiger Mask in 1981-1983 in NJPW was groundbreaking and influential. His run as Super Tiger in the shoot style league UWF in 1984-1985 was super interesting. A general misconception is that Satoru Sayama was just great for two years and that’s it. However, this is an erroneous view caused by people tending to forget and/or not being aware of Sayama’s run in UWF and his influence on the shoot wrestling scene. Also, even those who know about Sayama’s legendary run as Tiger Mask haven’t always fully paid close attention to his matches. That’s why it’s important to at least be aware of Sayama’s best matches. Without further ado, let’s have a look at the list of Sayama’s 20 best matches. 

NJPW 4/23/81 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan: Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask 9:29. ****¼ 

NJPW 1/1/82 Tokyo Korakuen Hall, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title Decision Match: Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask 8:31. ****¼ 

NJPW 3/12/82 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Tiger Mask vs. Black Man 12:27. ****

NJPW 4/21/82 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Black Tiger 14:17. ****

NJPW 7/23/82 Ishikawa Prefectural Industrial Exhibition Hall #3: Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask 13:54. ****½ 

NJPW 8/5/82 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Dynamite Kid 15:57. ****¾ 

NJPW 10/26/82 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi 16:57. **** 

NJPW 11/4/82 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan, NWA World & WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi 13:40. ****½  

NJPW 1/6/83 Tokyo Korakuen Hall, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi 23:10. ****¼ 

NJPW 2/8/83 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan, WWF Junior Heavyweight Title: Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi 9:30 of 16:50. ****¼ 

NJPW 4/21/83 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan, NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title Decision Match: Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask 11:11; 6:52. *****

NJPW 6/2/83 Tokyo Kuramae Kokugikan, NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title Decision Match: Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi 18:03. ****¼  

UWF 9/11/84 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger vs. Akira Maeda 18:58. ****¼ 

UWF 12/5/84 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 25:34 of 27:19. ****½ 

UWF 1/16/85 Osaka Rinkai Sports Center: Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 22:40. **** 

UWF 5/31/85 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 24:10. ****¼ 

UWF 7/17/85 Osaka Rinkai Sports Center: Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 11:54 of 15:15. ****½ 

UWF 7/21/85 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger vs. Nobuhiko Takada 14:47. ****¾   

UWF 9/6/85 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger vs. Nobuhiko Takada 8:01 of 13:44. ****¼ 

UWF 9/11/85 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Super Tiger vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 19:31. ****

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