WWE In Japan: 5 Great Matches You Need To Know

It's common knowledge that Vince McMahon was hesitant to letting Randy Savage wrestle on WWF television in 1993 and 94. He felt that Savage, then in his mid-40s, was too old to be headlining and that he didn't fit the so-called New Generation that McMahon was promoting.

Savage resented this, feeling he had plenty left in the tank. He also wanted to work with the likes of Shawn Michaels and his longtime friend Bret Hart. Despite being in the company together for almost a decade in 94, the two superstars had never had a great, long match with one another.

They wanted to remedy this and planned to contest an epic in the main event of a Yokohama Arena card in May of that year. According to Dave Meltzer in Savage's obit in the Wrestling Observer, they were told by the road agents on the day of the show that this would not be the case and that they would only have around fifteen minutes to have their WWE Title match.

While they may have been disappointed, they still put in the work that night and had a great, competitive match-up. The whole thing is on YouTube (for now at least) and shows just how good Savage was then, despite what his superiors might have believed. He's keeping up with the younger Hart, working hard to put on a great show for the Japanese fans.

Crisp technical wrestling, dives, tight psychology, exciting near falls - they managed to cram a lot into the time they had, but clearly had a better, longer match in them. In the end, The Hitman kicks out of Macho Man's flying elbow and gets the duke with his trusty Sharpshooter.