The 2000 AJPW matches were very encouraging. I'm going to keep watching All Japan into 2001. Call me crazy but this is fun stuff! Again, tag team matches are going to be featured and they really are the bread and butter of this period of AJPW. Since there's a full years worth of wrestling, I'm going to do this in two parts.

Taiyo Kea & Mohammed Yone vs. Masahito Kakihara & Mitsuya Nagai (01/02): This looked good on paper but I wasn't feeling it at all. It's kinda aimless and there's no inherent excitement. Plus they don't really generate any energy with a good story or neat moves. I think a Kakihara vs Kea match would have been good to very good. This was just OK.

Hiroshi Hase vs. Masanobu Fuchi (01/02): A little bit of comedy but still some quality wrestling. Of course we only get a portion but I would have liked to see more of the early stuff. Glad to see Hase. It's been awhile!

Masanobu Fuchi, Nobutaka Araya, Shigeo Okumura & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Masahito Kakihara, Mitsuya Nagai, Mohammed Yone & Taiyo Kea (01/10/01): That's a lot of 0's and 1's Anyway this is a really good elimination Tag endurance match. So it's a series of different tag matches with the man who gets pinned/submitted must leave and a new team member replaces him. Blah blah it's cool. The teams don't make a bunch of sense to me. But maybe Kea's team has something to do with the above tag match? What keeps this from being great is there's just not enough Kawada and too much Okumura (who isn't bad but isn't Dangerous K). Also there's probably not enough Kea vs Kawada either. You want to see your big star captains square off but it really doesn't happen. I don't think there's any meaning behind this bout other than a New Year novelty match. I saw the full version (40+ min) but there's a clipped version too. You would be OK watching the clipped one I think. Kakihara and Fuchi doing some shoot style stuff and Fuchi face punching Nagai were my favorite parts btw.

Masanobu Fuchi & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Johnny Smith & Taiyo Kea (01/14): 24 minutes long and shown in full on the New Year Giant Series commercial tape. Very good tag match between AJ's's top old school teams. It didn't really seem to have a fourth gear but every one looked pretty good nonetheless. It was a very hard fought match. They are definitely giving Kea a push and I'm all for it

Taiyo Kea & Johnny Smith vs. Steve Williams & Mike Rotundo (02/24) : We only get the the last third but it's quite enjoyable stuff. In this format, this would be a very good TV match in the States at about 7 minutes shown.

Taiyo Kea vs Tenryu (03/03): Sadly only 8 of 20 minutes are shown. So I'm hesitant to say this is great but I really liked what was shown. Nice little touches from Tenryu and Kea. Kea definitely is showing he belongs in the upper echelon of AJPW. Quality strike exchange here where you can actually hear Tenryu's punches landing!

Toshiaki Kawada vs. Mitsuya Nagai (03/03): This is exactly what I was looking for. Nagai & Kawada do an excellent shoot-flavor match. The hit the crap outta each other. Nagai whiffs on a head kick and grazes Kawada on the next and wisely never does another. This is in the first minute and the recover wonderfully. Ultimately it's one of those younger guy showing he's got toughness by withstanding the vet's attacks. Since they work this like a MMA type match, Nagai is still getting shots in and is hurting Kawada without necessarily doing anything significantly damaging. I don't want to say it's great but yeah it's pretty damn close to being great. More singles matches like this please!

Taiyo Kea vs Tenryu (04/11): 8 of 17 minutes shown. This was also really good stuff. It didn't have the great strike exchange but they have good chemistry. I think if we see the full thing we might have some added drama here but as it is Taiyo trying to take on the legend Tenryu yet again.

Dr. Death & George Hines vs Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan (04/14/01): A great keep it simple stupid match. About 15 minutes of action where the crowd was going nuts seeing the NJ team in an AJ ring plus taking on Dr. Death who was still pretty awesome. Having watched a good deal of NOAH stuff at this time...man it would have been sweet to see Dr. Death vs Akiyama in a title fight. George Hines is pretty good too...awesome drop kick and lariat...wouldn't mind seeing more of him. 

Also recommend Toshiaki Kawada vs. Keiji Muto (04/14/2001) as it's a great match. So on those two matches, A pretty good night of wrestling.

Nobutaka Araya & Shigeo Okumura vs. Masato Tanaka & Hideki Hosaka (05/20): Holy crap! ECW/FMW era Tanaka was in AJPW! And they showed the full thing! I would have liked him up against a couple bigger status guys but Araya & Okumura step up and have an excellent showing. It's not ground breaking but it's great stuff... especially if you're a Masato Tanaka fan. This was a treat!

Taiyo Kea & Hiroshi Hase vs. Tatsutoshi Goto & Michiyoshi Ohara (05/20): Sadly 5 of 18 shown...and I'm not sure we need 18 minutes of Goto & Ohara but this was very solid... brawling in the stands, good action...this felt like a late 70's-early 80's match in the best way but then again we get only 5 minutes. Glad to see more Hase

Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Masa Fuchi vs. Mitsuya Nagai & Masahito Kakihara (05/20): Another one that's pretty truncated but it was fun. I'm not sure I wanted to actually see this whole thing but at 5-6 minutes, it's neat. If they did more shoot flavored stuff then I think this could have been something.

Should have Part 2 next week!  Should have some Gaora footy too. Thanks for reading!