According to Cagematch, this happened at an AWA House Show, but watching the match it was aired on some sort of TV, so I don’t know. I just saw a match listed with two dudes I’ve always liked and figured why not?
Hennig is very weary of Saito to start. Saito keeps trying to get a handshake after every initial move where Hennig bests him, and Hennig is nervous about accepting. He finally falls for it and Saito kicks him low and sneaks in a throat thrust behind the refs back. Fantastic. Hennig sells it incredibly well, too.
Saito goes to work on the neck and head, sneaking in throat shots when he can. He’s slow and methodical, and Hennig is spry, almost a nervous energy which comes across admirable and easy to root for. He makes a decent enough comeback on Saito and tries some leg work, including wrapping the knee around the post, but it doesn’t really go anywhere
Hennig senses the need to end this quick before Saito gets him with a kill shot, so he tries various pinning combinations that come close but no cigar once again.
Hennig’s frustration boils over enough that Saito’s able to quick scoop him up after kicking out of a pin attempt and hit him with the Saito Suplex. He kicks out at 2.999 and Saito tries it again, but Hennig stats throwing a fury right hands to send Saito into the corner. Saito then WALLOPS Hennig with a right hand and Hennig goes down. Saito covers with his feet on the ropes to steal the win.
Fine and formulaic. Saito is starting to get up there at this point and is the old pro. Meanwhile Hennig is still a little green but the pieces are certainly there. He figures it out very quickly in the AWA before really becoming one of the better performers of his time in the WWF. As I said, some of the pieces are already there. The leg work he tried to do on Saito mirrors a lot of what he would do as Mr. Perfect, the patience or maybe just the know how wasn’t there yet to turn it in to a worth while segment of the match.
But for this match in particular, there wasn’t anything outwardly bad or unentertaining about this. Solid little house show match.
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