AJPW You Might Have Missed - 2013 - Final
Entry posted by G. Badger
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I've got a pretty big gap in coverage for end of the year unfortunately. So I'm quoting the prowrestling.fandom Kento Miyahara entry to fill in some gaps for me & you:
"In August 2013, it was announced that Miyahara would be taking part in AJPW's 2013 Ōdō Tournament the following month. On September 9, Miyahara announced he was officially breaking off his affiliation with Diamond Ring and becoming a freelancer. On September 14, Miyahara was eliminated from the Ōdō Tournament in his first round match by Suwama. In AJPW, Miyahara formed a new partnership with Go Shiozaki due to the similarities between the two in both size and age."
Ok so this is where I pick up with the 10/27/13 show.
Hikaru Sato & Masao Inoue vs. Kazushi Miyamoto & Nobutaka Araya - skip
Masanobu Fuchi & Osamu Nishimura vs. Dory Funk Jr & Terry Funk - fast forward to see how bad it was. This picture shows what I'm talking about...no disrespect. Those tee shirts are sweet though!
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James Raideen & Joe Doering vs. Bambikiller & D-Lo Brown - This was fun. D-lo vs Doering could have been a singles match.
Atsushi Aoki & Kotaro Suzuki vs. Keisuke Ishii & Shigehiro Irie - Nice lead in video showing both teams training and developing new tag moves. The DDT team does a 2 man Go To Sleep but uses one guy's head instead of a knee. Then Burning uses a combination move that culminates in a back heel & running elbow strike that compresses the opponents head - very MCMG style. Anyhow this was a great match that is scratching at the door of a near classic. Like ****+ rating. Just fast action packed wrestling. Aoki & Suzuki are the tag team of the first half of 2022. Like MCMG or The Briscoes they are just putting on excellent matches regardless of familiarity.
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Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. SUSHI - jip A good junior title match with SUSHI getting elevated by earning a shot at a previous show. He takes Kanemaru to the limit but I thought it could have been better. Not sure why...maybe I was groggy or something. I don't feel that Kanemaru did a lot extra here. It felt performed by rote.
Jun Akiyama & Takao Omori vs. Go Shiozaki & Kento Miyahara - jip I really wish this wasn't joined in progress to the point where the guys have wrestled enough to be visibly sweaty. Nothing I can do about it. That being said what it shown is fantastic, fantastic stuff. This is the precursor to Shiozaki breaking away from Akiyama's Burning stable. Miyahara is a very welcome addition. He's like KAI was - a junior who's transitioned into a heavyweight...like Eddie Guerrero. As a jip match, I'll say near classic but perhaps if shown in full, it'd be a classic tag. What sucks is some post match angle stuff happens including D-lo Brown & Kenso which is pretty fun BUT I think that's why they clipped off the first few minutes of the bout. * Edit: see comments below*
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Suwama vs. Akebono - This is for the Triple Crown and before I watch it I bet Akebono wins. Let's see if this is any good. Well I was right...sorry for the spoiler! But it was a pretty good match. Suwama knew he needed to level the playing field and talked before the match about using the sleeper hold. And boy did he use it to good effect. Akebono truly looked like the monster he his. This is probably the best and most physical 'bono match I've seen. He looks in great (?) shape and scary when attacking. The smirks on his face when he knew that Suwama couldn't stop him were pretty great. So yeah a pretty good match and I'm kinda glad Suwama lost the belts so he can go on to do more interesting stuff in the promotion.
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Okay let's see what happens for the close of 2013:
"On November 14, Voodoo Murders held a press conference to announce that Miyahara was also leaving the stable to fully concentrate on working for AJPW. On November 21, Miyahara and Shiozaki came together with Atsushi Aoki and Kotaro Suzuki to form the new Xceed stable. The following month, Miyahara and Shiozaki made it to the finals of the 2013 World's Strongest Tag Determination League, but were defeated there by Evolution (Suwama & Doering)."
Sucks that I wasn't able to find this Tag League match. I think that along with a few other tag league matches would have been a good end to this project. But 2014 should be pretty cool. I have to look at my notes but it should be a shorter project than 2013. I lost steam a couple times but all in all it was a rewarding experience. Just look at my Best Match Watched contenders list for the proof. You can can add the two tag matches from this show to that list.
Thanks for reading!
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