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G. Badger

Entry posted by G. Badger in You Might Have Missed

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We're back with Part Four of my review of Muto's AJPW 2002. Thanks for waiting! There's a bunch of tag matches this post.

Arashi, Dr. Death, Tenryu, Koki Kitahara, & Masao Orihara vs. Keiji Muto, Hiroshi Hase, Jinsei Shinzaki, George Hines & Kaz Hayashi (08/31): A very good elimination match that was best earlier on. In all fairness, this would have been great if it were a single fall match and kept the pace up. In this form, things dragged on too long with the younger/athletic guys like Hayashi, Hines and Orihara already eliminated. Shinzaki didn't seem motivated and well the WAR team were generally plodding except for Kitahara. All that said, this is still enjoyable but unfortunately with how they booked it, it over stayed it's welcome. It's a big show main event so I think it definitely delivered, if that makes sense. Watching it now, I would have booked it differently but I think it had a big time impact for the fans.

Dragon Kid, Jimmy Yang & Masaaki Mochizuki vs. M2K (Darkness Dragon, Magnum TOKYO & Susumu Yokosuka) (08/31): Absolutely bananas in pajamas! Wow, this was super dialed in for 2002. The fans loved it as did I. And in all honesty, it's a chaotic spot fest that's more about "wows!" rather than "wows + story/drama" (which is something that these guys do improve on...). But yeah if you're itching for Dragon Gate action - check this out below. 

 

 

Satoshi Kojima & Kaz Hayashi vs Genichiro Tenryu & Nobukazu Hirai (10/06) Very good 16 minute match. Hirai was serviceable. Tenryu vs Kojima was excellent. Kaz of course was whipping boy but this wasn't overdone and he was able to go off with his explosive offense. And that's where Hirai was weakest...he just didn't sell. It was fast paced enough down the stretch to ignore this but I feel like he was no selling as a disservice to Kaz Hayashi.

Arashi vs. Satoshi Kojima (10/14): Very, very good 10 minute match. This pairing works because they can just hit each other. Nothing fancy is required. There's only one gaff but it sorta worked in the match. Arashi and Kojima did a really interesting sleeper hold section that gave this more depth than just being a slobber knocker.

Genichiro Tenryu vs Great Muta (10/27): When Muto gives a crap, he can still put on a great match. Heaven knows Tenryu can too. They do that here. Tenryu goes after Muta/o with his own medicine plus pulls out some older offense and different tricks. Great knee selling by the Great One which really makes the second half special. There was a lot different and enough surprises to keep me entertained and interested. GAORA has this for our viewing pleasure:

 

Dr Death & Mike Rotunda vs. Kojima & Taiyo Kea (AJPW TV 11/23) : Good match with alot to like but I felt there was too much stomp & punch filler in here. Longer matches are not AJPW's strong suit with the older guys...this was 20 but would have been much tighter at 15 minutes.

Mike Awesome & PJ Friedman vs Shinjiro Otani & Masato Tanaka (11/25): Super fun 11 minute match! This could have relied upon Awesome vs Tanaka nostalgia but every one wrestled balls to the wall. Friedman was the weakest but was an excellent heel sidekick to Awesome so it worked well. 

Arashi & Nobutaka Araya vs. Mike Awesome & PJ Friedman (11/26): You're watching this for Mike Awesome... I'm not going to mince words. He is the reason why this is a fun house show RWTL match.


Otani, Tanaka and Mike Awesome give the 2002 Real World Tag League some excitement. I'm looking forward to watching more of their matches next time. Next post will probably be my final post for AJPW 2002. 

Thanks for reading! 

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G. Badger

OK so I just found a little chunk of AJPW TV for 2002. I stumbled across this team match so I wanted to include it. I did review Satoshi Kojima vs. Arashi which I thought was just a stand alone single match. So I copy pasted that review. 

Muto Gumi vs. WAR 5 vs. 5 Single Match (10/14):

Kaz Hayashi vs. Nobukazu Hirai - Short and sweet! They did a bunch of cool stuff and let Kaz do his thing. Fun stuff!

Hiroshi Hase vs. Nobutaka Araya - Another fun condensed match. Per usual the posted match time doesn't jibe with the run time. Who cares! If this is 4 minutes then it's a blast... both guys bring it! They wrestle it like a 4 minute sprint. (Upon review, the posted time is the same as the previous match so I'm starting to think the AJPW post production / the TV channel post production in '02 is sloppy and they have been counting introductions into the total match time too).

George Hines vs. Steve Williams - Squash match but I wasn't wanting anything here. Hines could've had some offense but they tore through this one. I don't remember Hines being in later '02 AJPW so maybe this was his exit?

Satoshi Kojima vs. Arashi - Very, very good 10 minute match. This pairing works because they can just hit each other. Nothing fancy is required. There's only one gaff but it sorta worked in the match. Arashi and Kojima did a really interesting sleeper hold section that gave this more depth than just being a slobber knocker.

Keiji Muto vs. Genichiro Tenryu - Very good main event! It's Tenryu vs Muto by the book but that's not a bad thing. You get what you expect but that's just what was needed for this team match...this was a fun series of matches to watch. I'm glad I went back to find it! Additionally, this match totally sets up Muta vs Tenryu (Gaora video above).
 

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