This final installment of my brief look into AJPW in 2012 takes place on 11/27/12. There's some other stuff on the show but I'm giving you the last 3 matches as those interested me most.
Masakatsu Funaki/Masayuki Kono/Minoru Tanaka/Koji Kanemoto -vs- KENSO/Hiroshi Yamato/Kaz Hayashi/Shuji Kondo : A very good 8 man match that I was surprised that I enjoyed as much as I did. The opening was pretty exciting but a good portion was Yamato getting his ass kicked by the very dangerous Stack of Arms team. His comeback and tag out to KENSO was really great! He is a fantastic AJPW-as-Indie star. The finishing section was really good and at 16 minutes this was well paced. A good story, nice action and an impressive ending - this was quite enjoyable.
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Takao Omori/Manabu Soya -vs- Taiyo Kea/Seiya Sanada- Great Real World Tag match! Hard hitting, excellent grappling, tons of heart and although we don't get a definitive outcome, this was top notch stuff. Everyone was just on the top of their game.
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Akebono/Ryota Hama -vs- Suwama/Joe Doering - Hama is a big fat guy like Jerry Blackwell who can work. He works best with hard hitters such as SUWAMA & Doering. Akebono is more like Bill Kazmier - a great perhaps legendary athlete from another sport who has the build and aura that would work in wrestling but it just doesn't belong in the ring. That being said, this was a good match especially when Hama was in the ring. Akebono is overpowered or Doering & SUWAMA are nerfed when he's in the ring. The previous match is your real main event. but this has its moments. I can't wait to see Doeing & SUWAMA (Last Revolution) in a real match.
2012 AJ has been pretty good. Daisuke Sekimoto had the two best matches of the year with SUWAMA in singles and tag in March. Since then there has been a smattering of great stuff especially tags. 2013 marks the beginning of the Akiyama era and the exodus of some of the Muto loyalists to form Wrestle-1, RIP. So I'd recommend checking some stuff out from this period. I was pretty brief but tried to pick out quality stuff with no reviews available. So now you've got mine to help guide you a little bit. I'm sure you'll find some more diamonds in the rough.
Thanks for reading folks!
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