dawho5

I don't know. Misawa showed signs of mortality from mid 98 on after he got pinned by Kawada. I'm not taking anything away from what he did in the match. I just felt that the match was very much about how far Akiyama had come in the time since he last faced Misawa in singles competition. Kobashi vs. Vader © 2/27/00 Triple Crown I thought the Champions Carnival final from 99 was a better match, but this was still a good watch. Kobashi comes in with taped up ribs. To wrestle Vader. Is it just me or does Kobashi really enjoy putting targets on himself and playing them up? Anyway, Vader eventually goes to the ribs to cut off Kobashi offense, surprise of surprises. Then, inexplicably, Kobashi hits a moonsault late match with very little selling or slowdown from that particular impact. This next part has not a whole lot to do with this match. I'm starting to think Loss' description of Kobashi in relation to Kurt Angle is not too far from the mark. To be sure, he's incredible at making low level submissions into huge sequences in matches. He throws great strikes and he's incredible at selling when he feels like it. He's great at drawing fans in with his facial expressions and emotion. And you have to respect his effort and how he always had something in the tank. But the guy struggles with some basic aspects of finishing sequences when he doesn't have somebody leading him through them. And he takes his "fighting spirit" nonsense to ridiculous levels at times. Also, he made the genius decision that it was necessary to drop Akiyama on his head with not one, but 3 half nelson suplexes to wear him down in 1998. He really struggled (at least during his All Japan days) a lot of the time with being the senior guy in a match. Probably came from being the underdog to Misawa/Kawada/Taue for so long that it became natural for him to wrestle that way, and may have had an effect on his sense of when and how much. Okay, back to my non-rambling stuff about the matches I watched tonight. Akiyama vs. Shiga 3/11/00 Shiga tries to attack Akiyama's injured arm. Akiyama chokes Shiga out, ref revives him, Shiga gets a few more hope spots and then Akiyama cranks a headlock hard enough the ref stops it. Shiga weighing half what Akiyama does is what makes this match. Little guy never has a chance but he attacks with everything he's got and the crowd loves him for it. Kawada/Taue/Fuchi vs. Misawa/Kobashi/Shiga 3/11/00 Should probably re-check the date on this one, this probably belongs in the early 90s. Nope, Fuchi wants a piece of Misawa and Kobashi in 2000. Kawada has good exchanges with both of the guys on the other team you would expect him to. Taue beats up Kikuchi pretty good and sells his elbows nice. Misawa and Kobashi kick the crap out of Fuchi (and Taue to an extent). Fuchi gets the crowd behind him (it is Korakuen efter all) by giving everything he's got even when he's at a huge disadvantage. Oh and he cockily beats up on Kikuchi just because he can. That's fun stuff right there.

Vader vs. Kawada 2/17/00 So much to put in here...firstly, Kawada has lost a lot of heat in the last year. Could be the injuries and the time it took for the singles win over Misawa, could be a combination. Kobashi is a definite #2 guy to Misawa now. Which is something that irks me more than a little. Moving on from that, this match is completely different from any of the other big 5 against Vader. One of the reasons I LOVE watching Kawada wrestle is that he tailors his matches to the opponent. He doesn't come out and wrestle Toshiaki Kawada's match against every opponent. He wrestles in response to the opponent's style and bearing. case in point, when Kawada faces aggressive wrestlers he will very often stall early to goad them into mistakes. He doesn't do that kinda stuff against Misawa. He definitely does against Vader though. Then he straight-up brawls with him on Vader's level. What is really cool is Vader gives Kawada's strikes a ton of respect. Stuff like this match is why I never get tired of watching Kawada wrestle. It's nowhere near as epic as Kobashi vs. Vader and Misawa vs. Vader. But I still love every minute of it. Misawa vs. Akiyama 2/27/00 So Akiyama puts on the match of his life here. Misawa is still Misawa all the way through, but what makes this match is Jun Akiyama. If you haven't watched this match, it's a definite must-see. By the end, the crowd is so very, very into this match. It's such a shame Akiyama never really had a classmate or two just below his level even. What he could have become in terms of overness and using that to promote smart wrestling would have been fun to see.

*lariats jpchicago out of his boots* Yes.

Yeah, that. I'm pretty much 100% in agreement with goc.

Misawa/Akiyama vs. Vader/Taue 1/17/00 This match is to set up Vader vs. Akiyama a week later. Taue and Misawa play their parts well as always, Akiyama gets his hope spots in and it's a fun match. Kawada vs. Kobashi 1/17/00 This is Kawada's return match after an injury. The match plays out in an odd way, where Kawada looks like the underdog at first, going after Kobashi strong early and running into big offense after a bit. Then it switches back and forth at least once before the finishing run. Then during the finishing run Kawada puts on the jujigatame, then hits a backdrop and a gamengiri, both nosold by Kobashi, who blocks a second gamengiri and doesn't sell the arm at all, which is the whole point of the late match jujigatame. Double lariat, Kobashi gets the advantage and ends up hitting a burning lariat for the 3. Kawada's selling was good. Despite the confusion on who was supposed to be the underdog, early and mid-match was pretty good. Kobashi's bad tendencies killed the finish for me. Akiyama vs. Vader© 1/23/00 Triple Crown Akiyama is hot out of the gate and the fans are digging it. Me too. Vader turns things around in a particularly brutal way. Kyohei Wada refuses to count Akiyama out AND stops Vader from using a chair on him, earning him a chant. Referees putting themselves in harm's way to enforce the rules in that visible a fashion is pretty rare (and it is even more rare that it turns out to be good). Akiyama takes a big beating in the ring but won't stay down. Big comeback with a few exploder nearfalls. Finish is good, but if Vader's gonna do repeat moves I wish he'd stick to big splashes and not what he did.

Didn't see the Hansen/Vader one the first time thru. Must be blind.

I saw Kawada/Hansen 2/28/93 added and I agree, it's one of the most violent matches with no weapons I've ever seen. Tully vs. Magnum Cage I Quit match ought to be on there if it isn't. And since we're showing the Hansen love, the NJPW match where he knocked Vader's eye out of it's socket probably qualifies.

Hansen/Taue vs. Burning 12/3/99, Misawa vs. Vader at the Dome and Vader vs. Kobashi CC Final seem like they would be the big AJPW matches of that year. Hansen as an underdog babyface is absolutely incredible. Who would have known that after years of being the asshole bully? I think the underappreciated match from AJPW in 99 would be Burning vs. the Untouchables 10/23/99. It's two guys who have been in Ogawa's spot in this kind of match doing everything they can to stop Misawa and the plucky underdog tag partner from getting the fall on them. I won't say it's on the level of 6/9/95 or 12/6/96, but it's close enough for 1999.

Hansen/Taue vs. Burning 12/3/99 RWTL Finals HOLY SHIT is the crowd insanely amped for this. Intros haven't started and they are at Kawada vs. Misawa 6/3/94 levels. Hansen/Taue are the massive favorites here. So much so that when Akiyama uses a very Stan Hansen tactic against Hansen he gets booed. And every time Akiyama or Kobashi breaks up a pin the boos just get louder. There is this sublime part of the finishing stretch where Akiyama just took a nodowa on the floor and Taue has him hooked for one in the ring. Crowd is going nuts as it is, but Akiyama is desperately grabbing for the ropes. Taue kicks his hand off, but Akiyama is adamant about not being chokeslammed and scrambles over again. Crowd is losing it as Hansen elbows Akiyama's arms off the ropes, nodowa happens and Akiyama KICKS OUT AT 2.999999 for the most ridiculously nuclear nearfall I've ever seen. Honestly, the crowd makes this match more than any of the wrestlers. And that's saying something with these four in the ring. Post match is pretty sweet too. Kobashi vs. Omori 1/9/2000 So Omori brings his A++++++ game here. He's so very great as the underdog in this match. I mean, he's still dickish and everything, but he's clearly the underdog. He and Kobashi work a nice suplex fight that goes nowhere leading to Omori actually suplexing Kobashi (!!!) after an exchange. Omori gets some good nearfalls. Kobashi hits a powerbomb into a half nelson that Omori kicks out of to massive crowd reaction. Crowd goes into full on support of Omori as he pluckily works to an axe bomber that Kobashi (rare for him) delivers on the kickout, waiting til the last moment. Kobashi and Omori miss their running lariats until Kobashi doesn't miss. Kobashi hits the burning lariat for the 3. Way, way better than I would have expected going in. Omori's selling was pretty spot on too.

Was gonna say, Colon vs. Hansen had some real good fits for this. The bullrope match is freaking awesome.

So that Sullivan piledriver looks all kinds of sloppy and dangerous. The very, very wrong kind of sloppiness.

Burning vs. Untouchables 11/20/99 RWTL So you get the Akiyama heat segment followed by the Ogawa heat segment, then the big finishing run. All well-executed and Ogawa sells his beating like a champ. Still not as good as either of their tag title bouts earlier in the year. But a fun tag match with a hot finish is still a good watch. Kobashi/Akiyama/Shiga vs. Vader/Smith/Kea 11/27/99 JIP to the part where Vader is destroying skinny little Shiga. Because that's just ridiculously awesome. Shiga gets a great, gutsy kickout of a Vader splash (the visual is just horrifying). Crazy 6-man finishing sequence ensues, with Kobashi getting some good offense in on Vader. Kea gets a bit cocky with the ever-spunky Shiga and gets rolled up on a Hawaiian Ace crusher or whatever the Hell he calls it for 3. Kea's offense still does not look overly credible, but he may have injured his knee trying. So at least it's not a question of effort on his part, which in this case is both a good and a painful thing. Seems like Vader wrestling Japanese junior heavyweights is incredibly entertaining. He squashes them like bugs and gives them just enough offense for them to look good for being able to put a dent in the big man. Also, I think it's good to see more than just the big four plus Akiyama, Hansen and Ace. Regardless of how good they are, there is only so much they are going to really do, and after 7 or 8 years of intense rivalries most of it has been done. Probably why the Vader matches seem so freakin awesome, besides the fact that Vader is an incredible worker.

Misawa © vs. Vader 10/30/99 Triple Crown Vader is a lot more apprehensive at first. Then he hits 3 big Germans to make sure Misawa isn't as much of a threat and settles into his offense. Misawa evens the score with 2 Germans and the bombs just keep coming. It's almost as good as the Tokyo Dome match, but not quite there. Misawa/Ogawa vs. Vader/Smith 99 RWTL So Ogawa vs. Vader is all kinds of fun. Ogawa scores a knockdown on the big man. Vader German suplexes Ogawa all the way across the ring. Then he squashes him like the puny little rat-boy he is. But Ogawa is a fighter and won't stay down. Vader is PISSED and beats the everloving shit out of him in the corner. Misawa manages to drag Ogawa back to the corner for a tag, but Vader can handle him, too. Ending run declines a little in quality as the corwd really isn't behind Smith vs. Ogawa and Ogawa repeats himself a couple of times. But the Vader vs. Ogawa stuff was amazing.

Good luck on the early ones. Way too much play by play and not enough attention to detail. Kobashi/Akiyama/Shiga vs. Ace/Barton/Mossman(Kea) 8/29/99 Shiga plays a great sympathetic babyface. Barton is above average at his worst and pretty damn good at best. Mossman is...well, uninspiring unless he's taking a beating. One day I'm sure he'll learn how to involve the audience in his offense. Kobashi vs. Ace is a fun dynamic after they finished teaming. Shiga gets a rare win with a swinging DDT variation. Misawa vs. Takayama 9/4/99 Takayama again starts to bring the stiffness that makes his offense work. Misawa makes him look good. They hit each other a lot and the match is fun. Guess who wins. Kobashi/Akiyama/Shiga vs. Takayama/Omori/Fuchi 10/9/99 So Fuchi fucking rocks. Don't know if I've mentioned that. Omori steps things up and looks good against Akiyama. Shiga is again a great sympathetic babyface, especially against Takayama. Fun 6 man with Takayama pinning Shiga, then a brawl erupting after he cocks off to Kobashi. Burning vs. the Untouchables © 10/23/99 Tag Titles So this here match....this really surprised me. It's like a version of 6/9/95 or 12/6/96, but with Kobashi and Akiyama in the Holy Demon Army role and Ogawa as Akiyama/Kobashi. And it's not quite up to the level of the above matches, but it's really, really, really fucking good if not just above great. Heat is off the charts for the finishing run. Also, Akiyama times his kickout of an Ogawa tigerdriver absolutely dead-on to 2.999999 and the crowd goes freaking nuts. Burning © vs. No Fear 10/30/99 Tag Titles Kobashi doesn't stop glaring at No Fear from the time he sees them. Even during intros, he just leans on the rope glaring at No Fear. No Fear lives up to their name and uses dirty tactics to get the upper hand on Kobashi, then just beta the snot out of him. Then Kobashi snaps. Akiyama has to help the ref pull him off of Takayama in the corner after about the 8th spinning neck chop, and the first few were laid in there good. No Fear doesn't learn and uses this to get the upper hand on Akiyama. Kobashi eventually gets the tag, appears to have some momentum, then No Fear once again go to work. Kobashi has finally had enough and hits a few lariats on Takayama for the win. You know, No Fear is starting to get good. Omori seems like he's finally getting the right balance of hitting hard and cheap heat for his 1980s American heel style. Takayama is great as the big, immovable (and a little immobile) ass-kicker. And it helps that Burning put them over pretty damn good.

Burning vs. Vader/Albright 7/23/99 Vader and Albright giving each other short lariats before the match is great. The big gaijin dominate, Kobashi catches Albright with a surprise lariat while Vader is beating up Akiyama outside. Akiyama holds Vader up just long enough for the 3. Fun tag with lots of big Vader/Albright offense and some nice hope spots. Misawa vs. Kawada 7/23/99 Triple Crown Strike exchanges somehow got way more basic. Longer, but more basic. They bullshit around with some matwork that goes nowhere for a minute or two. Kawada has somehow packed more vicious kicks and knees into his style than before the injury. Some completely heatless pinfall attempts by both off of big stuff (tigerdriver, gamengiri). Ending picks up, but is lacking compared to every other Misawa v. Kawada match I've seen. I'm really starting to miss Baba's match layouts between the Four Pillars.

Burning vs. Ace/Bart Gunn 6/9/99 So Bart Gunn turns out to be pretty serviceable. Turns out Kobashi has the most off night ever in terms of hitting his spots. Also, he feels the need to half nelson Gunn just to welcome him to AJPW. Why he wanted to destroy his own head drop suplexes credibility so badly I'll never know. No Fear vs. Kobashi/Shiga 7/4/99 So No Fear targets Kobashi's busted up nose for 80% of the match. Omori is 95% cheap heat. God I hope he gets better. Shiga finally gets tagged, gets his hope spots in, and Omori pins him. The Kobashi fighting back against a dickish No Fear was good. The rest was...mostly passable. If Omori keeps this up somebody is going to have to explain how the Hell he got big to me. Kobashi vs. Kakihara 7/16/99 Okay, so Kakihara is starting to look like a pro wrestler with a shootstyle base instead of a shootstyle guy taking on a pro wrestler. And he's pretty damn good at it too. Kobashi gives Kakihara just enough to get the fans behind him, then crushes him like a bug. Kawada vs. Takayama 7/17/99 Fun little shootstyle brawl. Takayama looks the best he has so far. Kawada finishes him in a particularly nasty way. Fun.

As far as who was really good at this, I have an (maybe) unexpected response. The Four Pillars were not great at the uber late 2.99999 nearfalls consistently. If you really look at a lof of the big move kickouts, they are barely after 2 in many, many cases. This is one of those areas where I feel that Taue was miles ahead of the other three. Across the board, though, NJ juniors and American wrestling are more consistently late in their near-falls than these guys. And I'm not saying that's a terrible thing, just an odd thing that's been creeping up on me as I watch more. The fact that it very rarely takes a lot away from a match is something I'm working on reasons for. I think fxnj and Petef3 hit on quite a few of them. I'd also volunteer my theory that the punishment they put themselves through on a regular basis may have something to do with not wanting to chance a 3 at the wrong time.

Misawa vs. Kobashi 6/11/99 Triple Crown So the first 10-12 minutes were mostly filer matwork. That's weird right there. It's certainly not BAD wrestling, but it doesn't serve any real purpose. So they go into some strike exchange-y stuff pretty quickly off of that, then Kobashi starts targeting Misawa's elbow arm. Some good "nearfalls" come out of that. Then they go back to your regularly scheduled All japan style stuff for the finishing run, but with a pretty good transition. You'd think this would all not work together real well, but it does. Then they do a ridiculously long finishing sequence that involves throwing every big move in the arsenal at the other guy and them kicking out of it. It gets to be too much if you ask me. Sleeper suplex leading to a lariat, nope, can't get a 3. Tigerdriver 91? You guessed it, just a nearfall. Tiger suplex 85 you ask? Not so much a finishing move as a lead-in. Half nelson? Okay, I'm joking there. When has that ever been more of a midmatch move really? I think you get the idea. Matches like this are why AJPW got the bad rap it did. Too much trying for epic finishing runs, not enough common sense in what was used in them.

So I recently ran the gauntlet of early match matwork and how it comes across (to me) in my viewings. First off, I understand that the catch-as-catch-can stuff came from a different era where it didn't matter so much what you were working, but that you were wearing the opponent down in general so that you could apply the finishing move you wanted. And I actually enjoy that kind of wrestling. But I think that if you're wrestling within the timeframe where working a bodypart because it's injured or it figures into your plans is the norm, you should probably do that. With that in mind, I will get to my point. I really dug Hase vs. Kawada 5/2/99 for the way Hase always found a way, no matter what hold he came up with off of Kawada's actions, to go back to the injured right wrist. I think that's a really smart way to do early matwork and not have it be just filler. Yes, if the opponent goes in for a headlock, by all means reverse it into a hammerlock. Then, if the arm is not your current focus, find a way to transition into something that is. Too many wrestlers will settle for said hammerlock and ride it out until the opponent makes the ropes. Another method I like is one Akiyama used a lot. I get that his was specific to certain wrestling styles, as not all styles of wrestling use a lot of lead-in stuff just to land the big near-fall or pinning move. He would work the leg early, then instead of necessarily using the energy that went into, say, a double arm DDT or a jumping knee or whatnot, hit a low dropkick as part of his lead-in to an exploder or brainbuster, taking advantage of the damage to the injured bodypart to achieve his goal rather than having to use brute force. That kind of thing is actually a good way to work from underneath if you ask me, probably one of the smarter ways. And if the bodypart came into the match damaged, all the better. It's that "for the sake of doing something while we get to the meatier parts of the match" kind of matwork or bodypart work that bothers me. That sort of stuff seems really, really pointless and is one of the reasons I struggle to watch some New Japan stuff. Or some undercard All Japan stuff.

I have no true answer to this question, but I do have a guess. Just looking at the direction both went, it can't have been dumb luck that the stoic, always calm guy got the "Ace" spot that required....stoicism and calm. And the guy who was really good at portraying ruthless violence and raw determination got the role of having to chase Misawa down. I mean, given the above, the story practically writes itself, so it seems like really good casting on Baba's part. Can you imagine the Kawada personality being "The Man" and Misawa having to run him down from a character standpoint?

Kawada/Kobashi vs. Misawa/Taue 6/4/99 Really fun oddball matchup between the Four Pillars. Kobashi vs. Misawa is coming up, so there's that. Watching Kobashi and Kawada alternate leg drops and knee drops on Misawa is pretty friggin sweet. Taue and Kawada having a kick exchange is always fun. Taue setting Misawa up for a frog splash and Kawada setting Kobashi up for a lariat is just odd. Hot crowd for the finish, but why wouldn't they be? Kawada helps Taue up after the match and all four have a little show of unity. Also, if I read right it was All Japan's final farewell to a building they ran in a lot, so this was the special match for that purpose. Fans seemed happy with the send-off, so way to go Baba. Tried to watch the No Fear vs. Team FMW match from earlier on the card. Really, really hard actually. But 15 minutes of pointless back and forth matwork (the only purpose of it was to add time it looked like) killed my desire to watch. As well as my complete lack of motivation to watch Omori or Shinzaki. I can deal with hayabusa and Takayama, especially with a quality opponent. Shinzaki in 99 is well past the point where he should be way better than he is given his athleticism. Omori at least has the future to do something with himself.

Hase vs. Kawada 5/2/99 Tokyo Dome show! Kawada's arm is in a cast. Nasty early uranage. Hase attacks the injured arm from so many different angles, but some of it is really awkward, could be Kawada's ring rust. Looks like an unplanned (and ungodly evil-looking) bump from an uranage, Kawada needs a few to recover. Crowd was dead the whole match up until the brainbuster finish...even for the powerbombs. Did the finish get out or did the fans just figure that out on their own? Vader vs. Misawa 5/2/99 Triple Crown Oh man, this is all kidns of awesome. I'd put it right on the level of the last Kobashi vs. Vader match. Both have this tremendous narrative of the native wrestler continuously chipping away at Vader's defenses until they find a big opening, then exploiting the Hell out of it. Both are great "how they get there" type matches against a monster Vader who is so great in that role. Several of the nearfalls towards the end have an echo to the crowd reaction...holy fuck.

I'll second Ditch on the 2 9/11 All Japan matches. The Ogawa match is surprisingly great, and the Taue/Kobashi match is the best I've seen them have.

Misawa vs. Vader 3/28/99 CC Man does Vader ever beat the shit out of Misawa. Like Misawa gets maybe two minutes of offense in. Vader lays in a brutal beatdown of the Ace, but ends up taking a running elbow for a flash KO and a 3 out of nowhere. Crowd goes nuts, and if that had been Stan Hansen, Kyohei Wada would be a dead man. Kobashi vs. Akiyama 99 CC For being Kobashi's tag partner, Akiyama sure isn't shy about going after the injured knee. Kobashi overdoes the head drops a little, but I'm willing to look past that as the finish is all kinds of hot. Vader at ringside is pretty funny. He's wearing sunglasses, and I really hope that's not an attempt to blend in with the crowd. Kobashi vs. Vader 4/16/99 Okay, this is match of the last 2 years right here. It's only 19 minutes, but it is 19 minutes of fucking awesome. Kobashi plays his role perfect, so does Vader and the crowd eats it all up. This match is ridiculously great.

People ignore a lot of the bad stuff pre-1996 because most of it doesn't make the DVDs they buy. The bad stuff now is right there on the TV or WWE Network.