The marquee match of the July 31, 2020, Summer Struggle tour event saw Yuji Nagata and Minoru Suzuki meet for the 12th time in singles competition.
Coming into the contest Nagata had a 6-5 advantage over Suzuki, in a rivalry that has seen many high profile matches between the two, and won their last contest during the 2020 New Japan Cup.
Over the past several weeks the two have gone after one another during multi-person tag team matches, leading to this match being made before the August 29th Summer Struggle in Jingu featured event.
The match on the 31st didn’t feature much amateur wrestling, despite Suzuki being a proficient Catch Wrestler and Nagata having class as a Greco Roman competition. Nagata and Suzuki relied on brawling which matched the tone of the rivalry over the past several weeks.
The two veterans over fifty-years-old battered one another with forearms, kicks, headbutts, and didn’t use traditional wrestling techniques until they were in trouble.
Neither seemingly wanted to relent, as if their legacies were on the line. It wasn’t until Nagata used an Exploder Suplex that the match saw Suzuki attempt to settle and focus on beating instead of hurting Nagata.
Despite his demeanor, Suzuki is well aware of Nagata’s skill and didn’t want to drop two matches in a row to his generation rival. After a vicious exchange between the athletes, Suzuki was able to pin Nagata with a Gotch Style Piledriver technique at the 20 minute and 36-second mark.
Following the contest, Suzuki would gloat, and likely stretch the truth as to how he felt after facing Nagata.
Suzuki: Korakuen Hall, your claps are a pain in the ass! Shut up and listen! You and I have been tied together for 35 years. How many times have we done this?
But today, those blows….. Hahaha! None of them hurt at all! Moron!LIVE: https://t.co/QXL27SqVCk#njpw #njsst
— NJPW Global (@njpwglobal) July 31, 2020
During his post-match comments in the back Suzuki said the following (translation provided by New Japan Pro Wrestling Commentator Chris Charlton):
That ring is where the strong survive, the strong win! The weak lose! That’s it! That’s all! We don’t need those morons with their stupid clapping! I know what’s next. I’m moving on. You think I’m gonna tell you! Ha!
It’s possible Suzuki could have his eyes on the KOPW Title. Another theory is that he may angle to become the v4 challenger of Shingo Takagi’s current reign as NEVER Openweight Champion.
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