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fxnj

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Everything posted by fxnj

  1. This has such a unique concept and there so much brilliance in those first 10 minutes that I really want to call this the best of Kobashi's reign, but I just can't when the 2nd half is so lacking in execution. The beginning feels like Kobashi already has counters for most of Ogawa's possible tricks scouted, but Ogawa has already thought 2 steps ahead and comes prepared with counters to Kobashi's own counters. Ogawa grabbing a cravat, letting go when he sees Kobashi start to strike his way out, but then put it back on just to annoy him was all kinds of awesome. Ditto the way he used Kobashi's instinct to try to hulk himself up and fight through the pain against him by taking the opportunity to attack the leg even more. The way that Kobashi countered the half-crab by pushing himself up and down to loosen Ogawa's grip instead of just powering out was also cool as hell and speaks to the level of thought put into the work here. As others have said, the match falls off the rails somewhere around Kobashi's comeback. Despite hyping the match by saying he either wanted to win or injure Kobashi to the point of being unable to defend the title, Ogawa didn't really get much of a chance to show that level of determination here. We kind of got the beginnings of it with the ring bell attack and some of his cut-offs, but even that didn't look all that great at points. See how some of Ogawa's kicks seem aimed more at his upper thigh or how the ring bell shot when he has Kobashi's leg on the post mostly hits the post. Typing that out it seems like a nitpick, but watching this in the context of other Kobashi GHC defences I was pretty surprised at how cautious Ogawa seemed to be with the knee given how Kobashi is a guy with no issues taking head drops on the ramp. If Kobashi's knees were that bad off, more cheating and creativity with the leg attack, a longer heat section, and more leg selling from Kobashi on his comeback was probably the answer to hide the limitations and improve the match. I also feel like Kobashi's comeback went a bit long and his offense verged on getting repetitive. The crowd reaction was huge when he did his first punch, but it went down as he kept doing it until the low blow. Still a great match overall and I dug Ogawa's hope spots at the end, but they could have had something special here with some tweaks.
  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWKqEUY7lOE This is my first time watching an all-star AJPW tag from the post-split pre-Kawada leaving era, and now I want to see out everything I can. When watching NOAH from this same period, I often find myself annoyed by the uninspired layouts and matches going too long. This match is the opposite of that, delivering a sprint with some cool ideas that doesn't last any longer than it has to. The Kawada/Jamal interactions are awesome and there were parts where Kawada seemed to be hiding a grin at Jamal's crazed foreign monster schtick. The other guys deliver solid go-go-go type action and I enjoyed Taka's goofy attempt to do Kawada style groggy selling during his heat segment. Super memorable finish as well that makes me want to see Kawada/Jamal.
  3. List needs Dandy/King/Lizmark vs Casas/Satanico/Felino 6/28/96. Epic 6-man that came out of nowhere.
  4. Some interesting ideas here, but I fall in the "really good but not great" camp due to the match feeling one-sided and generally lacking drama. I'm in agreement on the opening matwork being the best part of the match. If you pay attention, you can see that most of Honda's stuff is based on Greco-Roman wrestling while Ikeda's is more traditional shoot-style groundwork. The story as the match unfolded seemed to be about Ikeda pretty much getting shut down at whatever he tried against Honda. Tries to dig into his Fujiwara training and take the fight to the ground -> Gets dominated by an Olympic level wrestler. Tries to go for flash submissions like won him against Rikio -> Gets reversed into a kneebar. Tries to go for Honda's bad knees with leg kicks and pin him with backdrops -> Honda comes right back and reverses the backdrop. I wouldn't say that the match lacked struggle overall as Ikeda had to work every time he got something in, but Honda's comebacks were all super easy and created the impression of this being a higher ranked guy vs. an overperforming jobber, which is disappointing know how good Ikeda could be.
  5. I think people are underselling the work here a bit. Watching this after being somewhat familiar with their matches from earlier in the month (have seen 3/6 several times and watched 3/11 when it released in full on Hulu a few weeks ago), I was wondering at the end of the 2nd fall why this wasn't talked up among the epics of Robinson's AJPW run. I loved all the fight for control stuff at the start for all the details Robinson worked in, and I was very disappointed that they clipped what looked to be a great leg lock sequence. Robinson's work on Jumbo's neck was fantastic with how he wrenched in on those cravats and mixed it up with some neckbreakers to stop it from feeling like a mat exhibition. I also liked the way he bumped hard for Jumbo's strikes. Jumbo's persistence with the headlock in the 2nd fall was cool as a receipt for the brutal neck work Robinson put him through earlier in the match. So many cool sequences of Robinson escaping and Jumbo managing some quick counter to put him back in. The backbreaker transition was brilliant as well, both in Robinson's slick execution and in how it seemed like his knee pad happened to be a bit low when he did the move and sold the damage according. 3rd fall starts promising with more great throws, but I'd agree it goes off the rails with the Butcher interference and it deflates things a bit. Still an awesome match though.
  6. fxnj

    Command Bolshoi

    What's everyone's favorite stuff on her Youtube channel? I've seen all her matches involving Kana and they delivered what I wanted with the two of them working kickass shoot-style mat sequences in all of them, but not sure what else to seek out. The nearly 400 matches she's uploaded is a bit daunting.
  7. Not sure if he had a better year than Misawa, but I've always been impressed by Taue's 1995 for the Carnival run and the Kobashi singles from July.
  8. Gave this another go 5 years later, this time watching it back-to-back with the Flair/Steamboat Landover handheld and I think that helped me get in tune with the psychology here. Some noticeable similarities in the move choices and progression but just a bit more emphasis on athleticism. Still doesn't hit MOTY level, but I enjoyed it and didn't come out feeling confused like before. The figure four spot still suffers from "how is that supposed to hurt" syndrome since I have no idea how Dandy could have been hurt from that whilst Warrior came out unscathed, but whatever. I was very impressed by the maneuvers Warrior pulled off here, especially the springboard head scissors. He really seems like one of the most spectacular high flyers who weirdly hasn't gotten much play between this, the 4/97 cibernetico, and the 4/24/98 6-man. He delivers big in all those, to the point of having an argument for being the best guy in all of them.
  9. First prime Toyota singles match (I'd seen some of the pimped tags like 10 years ago but remember nothing), and I shockingly really enjoyed it. My biggest takeaway on her as a performer besides the blazing fast working pace, the spotiness that comes with that, and the sloppiness is that she has the most beautiful bridge I've seen a wrestler do. The bridge she got on that first double underhook suplex had such a gorgeous arch that I actually rewound a few times just to see it again. Later in the match, the way she arches up to break out of a pin and then slowly deflates downwards is chef's kiss. Somehow I got ballerina vibes from her, and I couldn't quite put my finger on what the connection was besides the bendiness until I remembered Natalie Portman's character in Black Swan. Seems like a pretty good fit between the black outfit and the self-destructive tendencies. If Andre/Hansen is King Kong meets Godzilla then this is hot but crazy ballerina having a falling out with her badass karate fighter friend. The kicks in that Yamada control segment around the mid-point were nasty with some of them looking they hit flush on the face. The cross-body Toyota ate on the outside floor with Yamada aiming towards her head also looked like concussion city. Then they got back in and she ate a bunch of backdrop drivers. Crazy shit. If this is representative of how Toyota works her big matches, she could well become one of my go-to workers when I'm in the mood for turning my brain off and enjoying some good clean violence. Toyota winning in like 2 moves at the end after Yamada made her go through hell was a bit disappointing, though. Fast forwarded through much of the post-match as I wasn't in the mood for melodrama, but I do respect how these workers worked themselves into shoot crying and that was some great delivery on Toyota's post-match promo.
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  11. Lines up pretty well with my experience digging for hidden gems from him. At his best, he looks like one of the best, but to find that stuff you're gonna be sifting through so many disappointing matches. Maybe the ultimate peak vs. consistency candidate.
  12. I expected to either love or hate this match, but ended up with a middling reaction. There's some creative offense here and some nice callbacks to their 10/06 match, but it suffers from filler and parts where they're moving in slow-motion to fill time. It felt like they took the layout for a great 30 minute match and tried to find ways to stretch it out to 60. It also suffers from bad production with several key spots not being shown very clearly due to bad camera angles, and I had to rewind just to figure out what happened. I think my enjoyment peaked around the middle section, where we got some brutal looking neck work from Marufuji that included a brain buster on the guardrail and KENTA even selling the neck during their strike exchanges. Earlier in the match Marufuji seemed to have trouble keeping up with KENTA in an elbow exchange, so Marufuji being able to win the exchange after the neck work was a nice bit of cleverness. There was a funny moment where Marufuji seems to get his shoulder up late on a Tiger Suplex near fall, though they try to mask it by using a camera angle where you can't see the ref's hand hit the mat. Match predictably collapses during the last few minutes when they alternate between doing epic war exhaustion selling and blowing it off so they can do their big spots. Both guys also do a really good job of killing each others' finishers at the end.
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  14. Surprised to see people so down on the matwork here. It wasn't anything fancy, but I thought it was solid minimalist tension building and it always built to some kind of big moment in the match. I loved how they played up the size/strength difference and Takada having to struggle so much to get in an armbar against a much larger opponent is something I can relate to. Takada going to leg kicks to take down the giant was a cool strategy and I liked the detail with Albright actually checking the leg kicks. Not seeing where the "UWFi is fake shootstyle, RINGS is real shootstyle" talking point came from. Albright delivered on the big suplexes I love him for in AJPW, and there was a pretty awesome near fall on a german. Crowd also gets huge into by the end with some dudes at ringside going crazy, and I found it hard not to get into it myself from that. This was my first time watching Takada in the 90's outside the Vader matches and I have to say I'm impressed. He also seems to have improved greatly on his ability to work leg locks compared to the 80's. That's much appreciated given killing cool exchanges by sitting in boring leg locks is my biggest memory of 80's Takada.
  15. I remember this blowing me away when I first saw it in 2017, but have since struggled to make it through the extremely slow opening portions of this on my rewatch attempts. Today I had an idea for a new way of approaching these Okada matches. The biggest criticism of him is how meaningless and boring the first 15-20 minutes of his matches are, so why not just skip to where the action starts and judge it off that? Liger is highly regarded whilst having the dull opening portions of his matches usually lopped off for TV airings, so why not take a similar approach to a newer NJPW legend? I tried that approach here by JIPing to around the 15 minute mark with Omega hitting a big dive onto the outside, followed by an actual kind of painful looking slam onto the ring apron. I found myself enjoying the match a lot more just taking it in as a crazy 20 minute spotfest in front of a massive dome crowd. There remain serious issues here with both guys' selling, both with overall bad/hammy acting and in how they tend to do knocked out glassy eyed selling but then immediately follow with complex reversal sequences. Still, there were enough brutal spots (top rope dragon suplex, Omega table bump, Omega's piledriver reversal thing), athletically breathtaking spots (Omega table mushroom stomp, Okada pinpoint accuracy dropkicks) and Dome crowd heat that I could enjoy it as a fun spectacle without having been put in a bad mood by the match's dull beginning. I don't think it holds up as best finish run ever without the sleight of hand of exciting stuff feeling even more exciting when it follows boring stuff, but it's well put together in terms of moveset escalation and spacing between near falls.
  16. I think I lean more towards Jetlag here. The first third or so with mat exchanges and some nice pin attempts from Hoffman was pretty nice, but things screech to a halt in the middle third with Dory's never ending Boston crab and then Terry's never ending bear hug. Though the match picks up a bit in the final third, it still lacked the urgency you'd want from the finishing run of a match of this length and it sort of just limped to the end. I think this match exposes Dory and Terry a bit on the mat because most of the entertainment comes from Robinson and Hoffman with their offense and reversals. The Europeans' stuff looks snug and features some nice details, but the Americans don't really show anything special. I have to give credit to Dory for eating what looked like a ridiculous tombstone piledriver towards the end, though. I didn't think Terry going cartoon mode helped things and kind of undermined the atmosphere they'd built of it as a serious sporting contest. The initial faceoff between Billy and Terry on the outside was great tension building, but the payoff when they fought in the ring of Terry quickly going to his cartoon selling wasn't very satisfying.
  17. fxnj

    Daniel Bryan

    I was watching the early part of the MJF iron man, the part where they run through a series of cooperative looking go-behind wrist locks and do a crappy Indieriffic Standoff headlock exchange that has the commentators marking out, and I think it finally clicked with me why I don't see him as a top 10 guy and am even kind of reluctant on him as a top 100 guy despite his volume of good-to-really-good stuff being undeniable. I'd long attributed it that, unlike his more innovative contemporaries like Low Ki, AJ Styles, and Necro Butcher, his matches didn't really have much of what I'd call his personal stamp. He was the ultimate cosplay wrestler, his moveset a massive hodgepodge of stuff from WoS/shoot-style/lucha/AJPW heavies/NJPW juniors, but when watching his stuff my mind tended to wander more towards how much better his stuff was done by the guys he was imitating rather than staying focused on his personal contribution. That is, unless we count his contribution in popularizing cosplay wrestling itself or annoying post-modern shit like the "I have till 5" thing. Still, that's only part of the issue. The actual root of it all goes down to his presentation as some sort of genius mat wrestler when he just doesn't have the chops to make me buy into it. More than that, he's billed as being the Best in the World, when most of his skillset caps out as "competent" or "good." This is where his case falls apart when you compare him to Misawa or Fujiwara, setting aside the sheer volume argument of how those guys blow him away for all-time great level stuff. When I'm watching prime Misawa, pretty much everything he does is something he's either one of the best at or pretty damn great at. Insanely stiff elbows, breathtaking execution on dives and hurricanrana counters, selling that made me believe, even snug lock-ups and headlocks. Ditto Fujiwara with matches built around insane matwork, next-level charisma, and sickening headbutts. The only aspect of Bryan's game I really get that feel with is his cardio, which actually ends up being more of a net negative for me since he has a tendency of filling his matches with Stuff, where I'd often feel it better if things had a little bit more focus. The AJ Styles match from ROH 2002 is a good example of that I watched recently. As an aside, having sampled a bit of his AEW stuff, I'm starting to think his prime might actually still be WWE. The over-produced style was actually the perfect environment for accentuating the "good" aspects of his game just enough to where I could actually buy into his gimmick for matches like vs. Kofi and Reigns, whilst also filtering out things like the ill-advised MJF exchange mentioned before.
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  19. I'm with Winged Eagle in struggling to see the hype for this. I will say that the matwork at least held my attention and didn't degenerate into feeling like an exhibition, but I really didn't see the matwork as some amazing hybrid style or a great example of struggle in lucha. In fact, a lot of the holds seemed a bit loose for my taste and sections of it felt aimless. The match as a whole also seemed to lack heat until the stretch run. The praised spin kick to Casas's head also looked pretty bad for me and seemed to be a grazing blow to the shoulder, if it even hit at all. Also, I'm usually the last guy to complain about no-selling a bodypart but Ultimo completely no-selling Casas's work on the leg during his comeback in the 3rd fall was one of the most anti-climactic babyface comebacks I've ever seen. The way they worked the 2nd fall finish with Ultimo hanging out in the submissions rather than submitting right away felt like it was going to build to something in 3rd fall, but instead he just runs the ropes and hits his dives like nothing ever happened. The stretch run was good and it was nice how the match picked up some heat, but I'm not huge into the CMLL thing of dudes moving in slow motion between moves during the 3rd fall to force some sense of epicness. I wouldn't say I hated this, as they did keep up a good pace with some solid narrative progression with Casas struggling to keep up with Ultimo, but this was definitive disappointment. As an addendum, I watched the 8/29/92 match between these guys right after this and it completely blows this out of the water, to the point I'm wondering if there's been some massive date mix-up or if lucha fans just have really shitty tastes. Besides the 1993 match blatantly reusing several spots from that one, it's also basically a beat-for-beat remake narratively speaking. There's the same structure as this in Ultimo dominates matwork and befuddles Casas with kicks before winning with a German suplex -> Casas works over the leg a bit before winning the second fall with a submission -> Casas's desperation increases going into the third fall while Ultimo pulls out the big dives. Difference that the execution in that match is far, far better. The matwork in that actually did have some awesome NJPW leanings to it with clear struggle and plenty of tricked out counters. Ultimo also actually hits the face spin kick this time and his kicks in general have a nice snap to them. The leg work also takes up a much smaller part of the match with Ultimo much quicker in submitting. Hence, it makes a lot more sense when they move on from it. The character work from Casas was damn good as well, with him doing an awesome job in the 3rd fall of balancing desperation, insecurity, and anxiety. I also thought the set-up for Ultimo's high flying stuff was far better than this and they avoided the aforementioned slow-motion trope, leading to a much more organic feeling stretch run. I'm usually not the type to shit on people's fun and I've long accepted that I'm just lower on lucha title matches as a style than people in these threads, but this is seriously baffling to me how much more this is praised than the 1992 match.
  20. Even though this match is pretty much an unapologetic spotfest, I prefer this to their 2016 match that featured a much deeper narrative. I didn't think Omega's selling was anywhere near up to par for the ambitious match they went for in 2016, so I preferred watching this one where he just leaned into the sort of crazy athleticism that he's actually good at. Though it isn't exactly your standard definition of "thinking man's wrestling" I do have to give credit to stuff like the table piledriver and ring post DDT as innovative spots that likely did require a lot more thought to come up with and figure out how to do safely than your usual limb work narrative. Once they get past the character work at the start and the token bit of neck work, it goes full on into spamming big moves, counters, and kickouts with an occasional reminder than Kenny has a neck to sell. I'd list some of my favorite sequences, but honestly, they run through so much stuff with so little attention paid towards making any of it particularly stand out that I'd already forgotten most of it by the time the match was over. After a point, the constant pin attempts started to feel perfunctory, and I found myself watching just to see what they'd do next with little investment in who won. Still, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't entertained by the onslaught of creativity and brutality on display. The match also did have some really nice crowd heat to go with it. The finish with Naito hitting 3 big moves in quick succession with cover attempts after each one seemed a call-back to the 2016 match finish with Omega doing something similar, so I guess there's that for some narrative depth. I'm in the camp of preferring matches with a bit more connective tissue, but I still have to give credit to these guys for what they did.
  21. Anyone else have major issues with Omega's selling in this? I found Omega's hammy charisma charming in his DDT stuff because of how it fits in with the overall absurd tone of the promotion, but working a poor man's Kings Road match like this I find it completely undercuts the seriousness of the match. GOTNW brought up the strikes as something an AJ fanatic (like myself) might point to as a serious weak point of 2010's NJ, but the acting bothered me a lot more. Whereas Kawada is a guy I'd call a legitimately great actor, to the point I often couldn't tell if he was legitimately in pain, Omega's method of selling just screams to me that I'm watching a guy trying to sell, if that makes sense. It's really too bad as there really is a lot to like here between a nice build centered around character work, neat bodypart cut-offs, and the big head drop counters they bring to the finishing run. A bit long and near fall heavy for my tastes, but that kind of goes without saying for most of these 2010's NJPW main events.
  22. fxnj

    Fu-Ten

    Jingus, who seems to have some experience working, mentioned in another thread the key to throwing stiff strikes without KOing your opponent is to aim for either the back of the jaw or the forehead. In shoots, you'd generally want to aim towards the chin if you want to hurt somebody. Also the opponent knowing that they're coming means they can roll with the strikes a lot easier compared to a shoot. Sort of feels like explaining a magic trick, but that's how it's done if you were wondering.
  23. Not sure why more people aren't seeking out the full version of this given how acclaimed their match from a few months later is. I'd say it's a really good match in its own way that gives some nice context to the rematch. Like others, I watched their May match bewildered by why Vader and Bigelow were selling so much for Hase and Muto rather than gobbling them up in the early going like you'd expect with super-heavyweights. Here, you actually see a match where Vader and Bigelow do manage to gobble up their lighter opponents, and the results aren't pretty for Hase and Muto. Like 95% of the match consists of Hase and Muto taking turns getting beat up on, and any attempt to gain momentum quickly gets shutdown. Not to say it isn't entertaining, though, given that Vader and Bigelow are still great to watch offensively and the hope spots worked in are quite good. I loved all the drama around Hase trying to take Vader off his feet. When Hase and Muto eventually do finally gain control of the match after around 20 minutes, by then it's too little too late and the superheavyweights are clearly the far fresher team, leading to them regaining control and taking it home shortly thereafter. The big takeaway seems to be that if Hase and Muto want to win they can't afford to spend so much of the match on the defense.
  24. Full match actually did air on 12/19/99 TV, which is available on a certain xtreme site. Not a MOTYC, but I liked this a lot. It's an interesting comparison to the 5/1/92 tag they did. In that one they had a great match mainly built around some crazy athleticism from the Vader/Bigelow team. Here, Vader is older and they have less time to work with, so instead they rely more on spectacle and storytelling to build the match. It's less about if Hase can beat Vader (he can't) and more about seeing what he can survive and how much he can hurt him. Any time he actually does manage something, it feels like a huge deal. The throws from both guys look really impressive, between the snap behind Hase's uranage and the height on Vader's chokeslams. It's also helped a lot by a crowd who's into all of it. It becomes quite the spectacle in the last few minutes. I loved Hase trying to do a pop-up sell but he's just too out of it to stay on his feet, and then later Vader begging him to get up off a chokeslam because he already knows that's not enough to put him away.
  25. It took me some time to finally get it, but I can finally see what MJH was on about when he talked about their control segments mirroring each. I'll lay it out here for the benefit of future readers, based on this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9Z22pyWRDU 6:41 Misawa flying lariat, body slam, and top rope elbow into abdominal stretch -> 14:12 Kobashi delayed brainbuster, irish whip to knee strike, and leg sweep into grounded shoulder lock 8:25 Misawa top rope neck breaker followed by ace crusher-> 15:55 Kobashi running neck-breaker counter 9:17 Misawa top rope back elbow -> 16:25 Kobashi top rope drop kick 9:27 Misawa elbow suicida -> 13:20 Kobashi top rope cross-body to outside 10:38 Misawa face lock -> 16:40 Kobashi face lock followed by reverse north-south choke 11:30 Misawa elbow flurry -> 15:50 Kobashi neck chop flurry 12:17 Misawa floor backdrop attempt, thwarted by Kobashi cross-body -> 18:55 Kobashi successfully hits a half nelson suplex on the outside After the half nelson, the mirror structure breaks down. Since Kobashi succeeded in hitting his big outside move where Misawa failed his, the rest of the Kobashi control segment that follows has no parallel. Fitting, since it's built around Kobashi attacking Misawa's neck, whereas attacking an injured body part just wasn't something ace Misawa did. That said, after Misawa regains control, there's an inner-match call-back with Misawa going for his own top rope elbow to the outside at 23:18. The wide shot of Misawa on the inside and Kobashi recovering on the outside at 23:53 is also a call-back to a similar shot with the reverse happening at 12:56, itself probably a call-back to the famous staredown at the end of 6/3/94. And that's about it as far as the mirror stuff goes, since following this is the stretch run. Just to be comprehensive, though, there's also Kobashi going for a rotating leg drop towards the end, paralleling how Misawa does the same at 30:50. And, of course, there's the amazing running elbow vs running lariat spot as well. Moving on from moveset parallels, the injuries they both come in with also seem something of a parallel as well that highlights their different match philosophies. Kobashi comes in with a taped up thigh that Misawa refuses to target, while Misawa comes in with an injured neck that Kobashi works over the entire match. Even though Kobashi tries to ignore the injury as much as possible, he talked in his book about how it actually was pretty hellish for him to finish this tour with that injury. He discusses it as the point where he felt an obligation as the top guy to not take time off like he might have done if he was lower on the card, and he felt he had to be there supporting the roster. Looking back on this now with what happened to both these guys when they continued that philosophy in NOAH, it's actually a pretty sad situation, but it adds yet another parallel. Kobashi's selling of the knee actually is very interesting. I said he tries to ignore it, but "tries" is the key word there. If you pay attention, there's several instances where he can't hide the pain he's in. Most obvious is him limping up after hitting the top rope cross-body at 13:20. I'm doubtful of if it was intentional, but the end spot with Kobashi slow to get up due to his thigh issues, this giving Misawa a split second extra to recover, is an awesome pay-off to it all. Overall, the role of the injured thigh is such an awesome thing blurring the line between work and shoot. By the way, if anyone was wondering if Kobashi's Carnival win over Misawa earlier in the year was ever brought up on TV, the answer is yes. During the match, the commentary team, which includes Baba, brings up the record for the rivalry as 1 Kobashi win, 7 Misawa wins, and 1 draw. They also repeatedly stress how they're equals and how this is the biggest match possible for AJPW to match. One more interesting thing I picked up on is it's mentioned how Misawa is aware of the massive expectations people have for their singles matches, and he wants to put on a match that lives up to those expectations. So for the people complaining about newer wrestlers openly saying they want to steal the show (a complaint that exposes said complainers' lack of combat sports knowledge, BTW, since real MMA fighters and boxers say that sort of thing all the time), just know that that's just another thing AJPW did earlier and better. All of this narrative-focused stuff barely even touches the quality of the work itself. Things like Misawa's GOAT-tier neck selling, the sickening head drops, the incredible elbow vs. neck chop exchanges, Kobashi's beautiful moonsault, or the many biting near falls down the stretch. Still, I've wrote enough about this match for now. It really is an immaculately structed match with multiple layers of storytelling and top-tier work all around. Somehow, despite probably being better than any match from the last 15 years or so, this remains only their 6th best singles match together.
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