[1993-05-20-AJPW-Super Power Series] Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Steve Williams & Terry Gordy

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Kawada and Taue win the tag titles in what was actually a pretty interesting, yet disappointing match. Interesting because Taue was put in the position to be the savior of the team a few times and because Kawada and Taue gelled really quickly. Disappointing because the match dragged at times and had lots of down time.

[Kevin Ridge]

Revisiting Williams and Gordy throughout these yearbooks hasn't been too much fun. I do like that AJPW put the Tag Titles almost immediately on the hot new tag team of Kawada and Taue.

[PeteF3]

Holy crap, this was abysmal. It's easily the worst in a running series of bad MVC efforts and it's not really one for a Best Kawada Performances comp either. No heat, loose and meandering strike exchanges, those wonderful MVC holds, and it goes ON AND ON AND ON...I rationalized their first match, but now I sense some major growing pains for the Holy Demon Army in terms of work. This is the worst AJPW effort in a significant match since the Misawa unmasking. If not for Taue doing some good work upon getting the hot tag, this would have vaulted into surprise Worst Match of the Year contendership. Then he gets cut off, tags out again, and it's ANOTHER fucking interminable Kawada-in-peril run. All four of these guys should have been embarrassed.

 

The result is significant, at least--both the tag title win and Taue pinning Doc. With the benefit of almost 3 years' hindsight this should have been one of them there "finish only" matches.

[WingedEagle]

This isn't any great shakes, but I wonder if that's through the prism of 1990s AJPW goggles or normal standards. It doesn't begin to hold a candle to the tag greatness that preceded it or would follow, but it wasn't bad. Kawada & Taue feel like an established team right from the start, and perhaps it was the freshness of that pairing, but they made Doc & Gordy more interesting than usual. Bottom line -- Kawada & Taue win the Double Tag Titles and we're off to awesome tag team wrestling.

 

***1/4

[soup23]

I didn't have issues with this at all. I thought after Kawada was the ass kicker in the first series as a team it was important to show here that Taue was still valuable and teaming with Jumbo taking Misawa to the brink in Triple Crown matches. The MVC stuff here was the best tag stuff in the world, but it also wasn't the worse with some chokes and other varied attack instead of generic headlocks and nerve holds. This was long and certainly not great, but also not a turd of the match that makes you shy away from saying Kawada is a WOTY contender. Glad to see the HOly Demon Army win the belts. ***1/4

[dawho5]

I thought that Gordy in particular looked really lost at points. And Doc cutting off Taue's first hot tag after two very big pops from the crowd was just stupid. I did think that overall Kawada was presented as the dominant member of his team though. Taue took the heat early, Kawada had to be dropped across the guard rail (after powerbombing Gordy no less) to put any kind of heat on him. I also thought the end was a complete departure from the body of the match. Equality opening, Taue heat, Williams heat, equality, dropping Kawada across the rail to start his heat, then we go to a finish where the MVCs take the majority and give Kawada jack shit for nearfalls. I get the idea of the faces working for their victory, but it doesn't fit with the earlier work..

[DR Ackermann]

This really of felt like it was going to be a time limit draw, something that the MVC are really bad about telegraphing. So I was surprised when it ended how it did. Pretty boring match, but I will say that the best parts were whenever Williams was in. I thought his offense and selling were particularly good and he looked to be working hard and taking pride in his craft in contrast to Gordy who seemed pretty bored and uninvested. It seems like Gordy has been on a decline in the 90s while Williams has been slowly rising. At this point I think its safe to say that they have passed each other by and Williams is the superior worker. I'm looking forward to seeing more of his work, especially without Gordy holding him back.

[garretta]

This had its dead spots, but hearing the crowd go nuts when the natives won the title made up for it at least somewhat. It's a bit surprising that a relatively new team would go over for the belts so quickly, but considering what was about to happen to Bamm Bamm, it looks like a genius move on Baba's part in hindsight

 

We seldom get one hot tag in an AJPW match, let alone two, so it was nice to hear the crowd go crazy both times that Kawada was tagged in.

 

Gordy was a clothesline-throwing machine. It seemed at times as though that was the only move he had confidence in all night. It's kind of sad, because at one time Gordy may have been the best overall gaijin worker in Japan.

 

Now that Kawada and Taue have the belts, I can't wait to see their June title defense against Misawa and Kobashi. Considering the feelings between all four men, it ought to be a classic confrontation.

 

I can see where people might be bored with parts of this, or thought that Kawada in particular took too much of a beating, but the only thing I would have changed was to cut this down from two Kawada hot tags to one. Otherwise, this match did its job effectively, if unspectacularly.