[1993-08-03-NJPW-G1 Climax] Hiroshi Hase vs Shinya Hashimoto

[jdw]

I'm surprised that anyone wouldn't think Baba was hands on. I always thought that was common knowledge.

This depends on how you define hands on.

 

Baba: "Kenta... I want you to use the rolling cradle, the jacknife power bomb, the legdrop, the chop spot in the corner, three lariats, two backdrops, that vertical suplex where you hold it up for a while, a german suplex, the half nelson suplex, let him kick out of the first moonsault and cry like a baby before your second moonsault puts him down."

 

Kobashi: "Okay boss."

 

Anyone buy Baba did that *at all*?

 

I don't. Not at all.

 

Lay out a match?

 

Baba: "Okay boys, here's what I want you to do down the stretch. Kawada's knee is shit, so while he starts the last segment looking strong, it wears down as it goes along. Akira... you save his bacon a few times, but it's no good: he just can't tag out. Tosh, you sell the living shit out of that leg. Now Kenta, you're going over... but here's the deal: it's not really you who is truly beating Tosh. He's actually knocked you for a loop. It's Misawa who knocks the crap out of him, then knocks the shit out of Akira, then gets you to wake up and finish Kawada."

 

Four Corners: "Okay Boss!"

 

Really?

 

I'm not buying it.

 

We can debate "spot-a-thon" and what not, but if you watch the arc of All Japan in the 90s, the style was moving in the direction of spot-a-thon long before Baba died. How radically different is the 7/95 Misawa-Kawada from the 1998 Misawa-Kobashi or the Noah Misawa-Kobashi? They're all on the same path of where Misawa and Kobashi were headed. The notion that we wouldn't have gotten to the Misawa-Kobashi and Kobahsi-Jun of Noah if Baba hadn't dropped dead is wishful and/or delusional thinking. All Japan was already on it's way there before Baba died.

 

So we're left with one of two things:

 

(a) Baba specifically instructed Misawa and Kobashi to go down the path that led to those Noah MOTY, and they fully realize his vision of where the future lay

 

( Baba gave Misawa and Kobashi a ton of freedom on what they could do in the ring, where they could push the boundries, how they could work as long as it was (i) within a general overall structure of things Baba *didn't* want to see, and (ii) they delivered certain things he wanted such as who won.

 

The first one is a bit of a problem given the thing that lauched this tangent was that pre-split All Japan wouldn't have gone in the work crapper if Baba didn't die. Those seeds were already sown before he died, and he *allowed* it.

 

The second is far closer to reality.

 

Baba didn't want Kobashi putting Misawa through three tables. He didn't give a flying fuck if Kobashi used a jacknife powerbomb at the 15 minute mark rather than a backdrop. Baba didn't want juice after a certain point in the 90s. He didn't care of Misawa used the tiger splash 7 minutes in or 20 minutes in: that was Misawa's call. Baba didn't want Taue running in from the back to save Kawada from getting pinned by Misawa in a Triple Crown match. He really didn't care if Misawa when Rolling Elbow + Rolling Elbow + Released German Suplex + Tiger Driver + Kick Out + Tiger Driver + Kick Out + Tiger Driver '91 + Three Count to finish the match. He wasn't Pat Patterson in laying out matches.

 

It's kind of funny that we've come full circle on Baba. In the early 90s so little was known and/or talked about inside All Japan that Baba by default got credited with everything. Over time, the Funks started taking credit for booking All Japan and training everyone and what not that you got the impression that they were taking credit for *everything* for long stretches of AJPW history... and that they were happy to leave that impression. At around the same time, we started to get more about Mrs. Baba and her involvement, which grew from barely touched upon initially into dragon lady with her hands in everything to the point that she was the real brains leading the aging Baba around. Then we had the rise of the Selfish Booker Misawa cult, which was the funniest one yet given reality:

 

*late 1998*

 

Misawa (to press as he returning from injury): "I won't be challenging for the Triple Crown until next year. It's time to see what Kobashi has."

 

Baba (to Misawa a week or so later): "You're challenging for the Triple Crown on the next Budokan, and Kenta is dropping the belt to you."

 

Misawa: "Oh fuck..."

 

Now we're back to Baba to the point that we think he was detailed to such a degree that he was laying out matches and spots for Misawa, Kobashi, Kawada and Taue.

 

John

[Loss]

Who said anything about laying out spots? Like you said, it's all in how you define "hands on".

 

I think some of the longer arcs that continued from match to match probably had Baba's footprints on them. For example, I think pretty much everyone agrees that Misawa attacking Kawada's knee for the first time on 6/3/94 was a significant point in the match, and their feud. Do you really think Misawa never attacking Kawada's knee prior to that point was something he and Kawada came up with on their own, and that prior to the match, they decided having Misawa finally go after Kawada's knee would be a pivotal moment? I suppose it's possible I guess, but it would surprise me.

 

I agree that Baba wasn't laying out spots. I also agree that Baba wasn't providing minute detail. But I do think some of the storylines that played themselves out in the ring over time had Baba's involvement.

 

All Japan was so incredibly wrestling-centric that I'm not sure what a booker would even do in a promotion like that if he wasn't involved in the match layout to a degree. Matchmaking and finishes is something he could probably lay out for a year in an afternoon if that's all he was doing.

[ohtani's jacket]

Just take this bit:

 

But there's little doubt that they did sit down and talk structure:

 

* the knee would be a storyline in the match

* Kawada would work the long final stretch

* the knee eventually would prevent him from tagging out to Taue

* Kawada would eventually get worn down and pinned

and add Baba to it.

 

Do you really think that the workers worked out all that out by themselves with no input from Baba?

 

If Baba's only job was deciding who went over, he can't have had a difficult time of it considering how conservative his booking was.

[jdw]

Who said anything about laying out spots? Like you said, it's all in how you define "hands on".

 

I think some of the longer arcs that continued from match to match probably had Baba's footprints on them. For example, I think pretty much everyone agrees that Misawa attacking Kawada's knee for the first time on 6/3/94 was a significant point in the match, and their feud. Do you really think Misawa never attacking Kawada's knee prior to that point was something he and Kawada came up with on their own, and that prior to the match, they decided having Misawa finally go after Kawada's knee would be a pivotal moment? I suppose it's possible I guess, but it would surprise me.

Kawada's knee was something that was regularly shown as a "weak point" starting in the 1993 Tag League when he blew it out. It was a logical thing to do since it was a real injury and explained why he wasn't working up to his normal method/way. It was commonly gone after in any number of matches in the first half of 1994: you see it often in his matches prior to 6/3/94.

 

No one needs to tell AJPW workers to do that in specific matches: it's part of the All Japan way. Even we as fans talked about it back then. If someone has a "real" injury, it ends up being a target. The fans knew it, so it never really was a surprise.

 

No one needed to tell Kawada to go after the back/neck in that match: everyone knew to play off Misawa's injury from Carny.

 

You can believe that Baba rounded everyone up in the locker room and said, "for the next six months I want everyone to go after Misawa's neck"... but that isn't needed. It's simply the AJPW way.

 

Kroffat comes back from the knee injury... of course Fuchi is going to go after it in a match. Hell, they do it *within* matches when injuries happen. Kobashi breaks the nose? Of course the heels are going to go after it. Misawa in that very same match where Kawada's knee is worked over and Misawa's neck/back are worked over has his ear injured in such a way that it juices. Kawada notices, and works it over as well. It's the AJPW way. It wouldn't be "realistic" not to attack it.

 

It's extremely rare that they don't. One exception that comes to mind of a mid-match injury where they don't is when Kawada breaks Misawa's orbital bones and knocked him completely for a loop. Kawada really doesn't go nutty on the eye in *that* match, probably because it was a bit to dangerous in not knowing just how bad it was. But you pretty quickly see it become a "target" for people: two days after the injury (if I'm recalling the dates correctly) it pops up as a used injury in the match with Jun, and of course Taue plays on it in the Final. It became something of a "weak point" for Misawa for a while... because it was *obvious*. It's not really something anyone needs to discuss. In turn, Misawa doesn't need to be told to sell it: he's working in All Japan since the early 80s. By 1994, he knows how to sell the All Japan way.

 

Does anyone think that Baba needed to tell Kobashi to "work over Stan's lariat arm" in the 9/96 TC match? People had been working over Stan's lariat arm for ages to the point that it was a freaking cliche, and by the mid-90s it was boring at times. Why did it work so well in the 9/96 match? I don't really know... it just clicked that night. But if you pop in Will's Hansen set, you're going to see so many examples of "Work Stan's Lariat Arm" that it's not funny. Kobashi grew up watching that. He broke into wrestling watching others do that. As a young wrestler when Hansen started giving him parts of matches, Kobashi himself did that. He didn't need Baba to tell him to work the arm: it's part of working matches with Hansen in All Japan.

 

Was there a six month long storyline that Hansen's left arm was getting weaker, and that now was the right time to attack it? No... it's Stan's lariat arm. You attack it to keep him from chopping your head off.

 

 

I agree that Baba wasn't laying out spots. I also agree that Baba wasn't providing minute detail. But I do think some of the storylines that played themselves out in the ring over time had Baba's involvement.

Baba's storylines were typically Who Beat Who, especially the big ones. That was the funny part about the Selfish Booker Misawa stuff. Misawa booked he routine stuff. Baba booked who held the two big titles, who faced them, and who won. He booked who he wanted to win the Carny and who he wanted to win the Tag League, and who worked the Final / Final Night of each. Other people handled most of the details.

 

All Japan was so incredibly wrestling-centric that I'm not sure what a booker would even do in a promotion like that if he wasn't involved in the match layout to a degree. Matchmaking and finishes is something he could probably lay out for a year in an afternoon if that's all he was doing.

He wasn't even making most of the matches in his last several years. Others did. He was big picture.

 

He did have influence on the style worked in All Japan, what it liked and what he didn't like, and what he moved away from. It's pretty clear that younger Baba didn't have a problem with juice. There was plenty of juice in All Japan from the start, including Baba juicing. His key gaijin ofter were juice junkies. But at some point, Baba decided it should go. He allowed Abby a little bit of slack longer than most, but even there it seemed like there came a time when he asked Abby to knock it off. That's an overall, big picture decision he made.

 

Perhaps people are seeing things at two extremes:

 

* Flair Style a/k/a Wing It In There

 

* Patterson/DDP Style a/k/a We Block The Whole Damn Thing Out

 

And try to fit AJPW into one or the other of the extremes.

 

I don't think Kawada and Misawa sat down with Pat Babason and blocked 6/3/94 out. Neither in DDP level detail, or really even in general. Kawada's knee had been worked over for six months... they knew they could fill space with that if they wanted to. Misawa's neck injury was fresher, and an obvious thing to work out. They typically knew they wanted to open "intense" before settling down, and may even have talked about some things they wanted to do. Then again... they'd worked together for more than a decade, and spent the last year again opposite of each other in at least 50+ matches. They knew the spots they could do, and even reversals of spots, and reversals of the reversals. It's a bit like Flair laying in the headlock with Steamer: he knows he can grab the trunks, roll over, and have Steamboat in a pinning position which Steamer rolls back out of to control the headlock. They've done it a hundred times, they know what to do.

 

That doesn't mean that they were totally winging it in there. They probably knew the general time. They knew who was going over. Baba may have said, "Do something different" at the finish, or that may have just been them: it was pretty common for wrestlers to pass through the old things that finished someone off, and have to come up with a new away to do it. It wasn't just the TD '91: I don't recall Misawa putting Kawada previously with the finisher of the 7/95 match. The finishing sequence of the 7/93 match was relatively fresh, and kind of got over the released German Suplex as one of Kawada's achilles heels for a while... but does anyone really think Baba came up with that? And then, when laying out 12/93 like Patterson that he paused while going over the finishing run, looked at Misawa and said:

 

"And right here, you hit Kawada with the released German and he sells it like to killed him dead. It will be great because everyone in the building will remember back in July where you killed him dead with them."

 

Again, I don't buy that. I don't even buy that he instructed them in July to use it, with the added note that he would like to see Kawada sell the released german like a king for the next year to get it over. Despite the general sense that Misawa eventually lost his working mind, these were two reasonably smart workers in 1993 and 1994. They knew what they were doing... they faced each other all the time, in settings where they could pick and chose their spots with each other, develop and refine them, and by the time of their big matches have a lot of their shit down pat.

 

John

[Loss]

So does a booker in a promotion like All Japan even serve a purpose if that's the case? I'm willing to concede the point, but why even have a booker?

[jdw]

Just take this bit:

 

But there's little doubt that they did sit down and talk structure:

 

* the knee would be a storyline in the match

* Kawada would work the long final stretch

* the knee eventually would prevent him from tagging out to Taue

* Kawada would eventually get worn down and pinned

and add Baba to it.

 

Do you really think that the workers worked out all that out by themselves with no input from Baba?

 

If Baba's only job was deciding who went over, he can't have had a difficult time of it considering how conservative his booking was.

 

Look at the items:

 

* the knee would be a storyline in the match

 

Kawada legit blew out his knee early in the series. It slowed him down, limited him, and due to it became one of the various storylines of the tag league. No one has to tell these four workers to incorporate the knee into the match: it's the All Japan way, and these guys know it.

 

* Kawada would work the long final stretch

 

This is a common All Japan match trope / cliche / deep & rich element.

 

* the knee eventually would prevent him from tagging out to Taue

 

This is a common All Japan element: being worn down, unable to make the tag especially when your opponent gets taken out (as happens to Taue at Misawa's hands at the end).

 

* Kawada would eventually get worn down and pinned

 

Of course that's Baba making the call: Kobashi gets to pin Kawada for the first time in this match.

 

The rest is obvious. Again, these are collectively smart workers who'd spent their entire careers in All Japan training, watching, listening to how you're suppose to work.

 

Your point at the start of this tangent is that Baba's decline led to the decline in AJPW's style.

 

My point is that what we see as the decline in AJPW's style was already well sown before Baba got sick and died. It's almost all there in the 7/95 TC match. I'm a bit loathed to watch more from that era because I suspect I'll see it all over the place. Misawa-Kobashi at Carny in 1996 had plenty of the future in it... as did their draw in the Carny Final in 1997. The 10/97 and 10/98 Misawa-Kobashi matches were dripping with it.

 

AJPW's style didn't decline because Baba declined and died. It declined because he *allowed* Misawa and Kobashi to push the style further and further down a certain road. I'm pretty sure he liked it, or he would have reeled them back in.

 

John

[jdw]

So does a booker in a promotion like All Japan even serve a purpose if that's the case? I'm willing to concede the point, but why even have a booker?

The booker makes matches, decides who wins, and if he's looking down the road, sets up the next set of matches.

 

In a sense, that's exactly what traditional old US bookers did. All Japan wasn't Memphis or Dusty or 90s WWF with wild angles and challenges setting up matches.

 

All Japan had few "angles". Did Baba specifically tell Hansen to wack Kawada in the skull with a chair in the 1993 Battle Royal? Unlikely. Did he (or Mrs. Baba or someone else in management) tell Hansen and Kawada to work something hot? Sure. Do you really need at that point to tell Hansen specifically how to work something hot with Kawada? No.

 

When Kawada threw the "punch" at Misawa, did Baba specifically say:

 

"I want to introduce a new element to your feud, so Tosh... punch Misawa right in the head and he'll sell it like you knocked him out. Then keep coming back to that in future matches for a while."

 

I don't think so.

 

Did he say anything and those two came up with it on their own in a vaccum? Possible... but probably not in a vaccum.

 

It's clear in the tag that their partners knew what was up, and the ref knew what was up. They reacted as they should.

 

Beats me if the PBP man knew ahead of time. Baba? May have known in general, and he'd seen enough of them that whenever the two tossed out whatever they were going to do, he knew how to respond to it at the table.

 

So Baba may have told them to "do something" with whatever is his way of saying the "something" is what everyone calls "something shooty" to add some intensity to the rivalry. Could he have been specific? Maybe. Let them figure it out? Maybe. It's not like these two hadn't worked "shooty angles" before. Hell, I just mentioned one above: Kawada taking the chair off the skull from Hansen. Everyone knows Misawa's most famous one. They've all done them, or been in the ring when one happens, or stood outside when one happens. I don't think Baba has the mentality of Vince Russo where he needed to spell everything out, and then remind people later that series:

 

"No don't forget to use a punch spot. We got that over on the TV taping earlier in the series, so everyone will get it if you do it tonight."

 

All Japan wasn't doing any of that "Make It Good" stuff like Dusty. The wasn't the James Gang where were we suppose to play along with the fun that it was really Dusty & Maggie. Overall, it was pretty simply "booking". Christ... we often complained about how stale the booking got.

 

John

[MJH]

Well All Japan's main events were clearly planned out in advance. That much is obvious just from how they work. Even in Flair/Steamboat, guys who've worked together "on the fly" as much as anyone, you just don't get sequences that complicated without planning it. It's physically impossible to call an elaborate transition like they did on the fly, and even if those spots were coming out of lengthy headlocks where the guys can talk almost freely, Kawada'd be asking Misawa to remember 12-points on the spur of the moment. It's just not feasible in any way.

 

Were they entirely planned out spot for spot? No. Besides the obvious fact that you can see them calling spots, it's a waste of your memory to memorise, say, a standard control segment on a spot-for-spot basis when it's easilly called or cued.

 

There's exceptions of course. Misawa/Kobashi 10/97 is clearly orchestrated so as to "mirror" each other. I forget who actually goes second of the two but it's crazy to suppose he'd call his own spots whilst having to recall on the fly the spots that the other had given him (not to mention moreorless following the same order).

 

Taking 6/3/94... the opening sequences are planned out beforehand, there's no doubt in my mind. Everything through Kawada countering a waistlock into an armbar (I think that's it, definitely an armbar). By the deliberation he takes in manoeuvring into the wristlock, it's also clear he's calling the next spot. That spot being the head-flip into an elbow and then I think a dropkick where he powders. It's a simple 2-point sequence that he could call really quickly and easilly without giving Misawa anything much to remember; "flip, elbow, whip (more likely cued), dropkick". Kawada being Kawada, he does his trademark collapse on the elbow (clearly an ad-lib by Misawa's reaction, although he reacts quickly enough and it's hardly awkward, he knew what he was doing). The spot on the floor would be planned, too, as Kawada "winning" these sequences is clearly a focal point of the match/its story/etc. Maybe the deliberation on the armbar is a rouse (sp), as it seems odd to have what appears an ad-lib in the middle of two planned sequences. I'm fairly sure it's called, though, maybe Misawa forgot the spot, maybe Kawada's just re-calling the planned spots and pacing them an extra 10 seconds... and you might as well have one of the guys go over the next spot or two anytime you grab a chance to talk.

 

But then when you get to Kawada working the neck and Misawa working the knee (for the first time IIRC... that might be were Baba came?), they're both fairly generic control segments that hardly set the world on fire where nothing complicated is going on. Between the sleeper, the facelock/chinlock etc from Kawada - where you can see him calling spots and then covering it - it's ad-libbed.

 

However, the majority of the match is clearly planned-out. It's pretty much (amongst other things) the height of All Japan transitions, and like I said, those are not being ad-libbed. The overall "arc" of the match, of Kawada pushing Misawa a lot further than before, of getting the better of much of the match, surviving what put him away before, leading to the big staredown and losing his cool before Misawa pulls out the trump card. All of that is clearly composed.

 

As for how much of it is Baba and how much is them... short of specific instances (the most controversial being the backdrop driver with Kobashi/Doc), I don't believe Baba is telling them on a move-by-move basis. I would say, though, that the ideology, for lack of a better word, is probably Baba. The "big picture", as John said, is Baba. For 6/3/94 something like "Kawada pushes Misawa much closer than before, but loses his cool/falls short in the end". Leaving them to go about doing it. He might have a short conversation with them on the day of the show, amending/discussing what they have planned, et cetera, but Baba had far too much on his plate running the company and the shows as a whole to spend the whole day with them going over every detail.

 

And, really, what does it matter? It's like the whole George Martin debate, how much did he bring to the Beatles music etc... who really cares so long as we get the great music as the end result?

[ohtani's jacket]

Nobody said Baba was laying the matches out.

 

The point is that whether it was Baba who came up Kawada punching Misawa et al., he almost certainly knew about it beforehand. If Baba trusted his workers to come up with "something shooty" and kicked back on commentary waiting to see what would happen, it was only because HE'D overseen them become "collectively smart workers who'd spent their entire careers in All Japan training, watching, listening to how you're suppose to work."

 

I don't buy that the workers were left to their own devices for the simple reason that in no facet of Japanese culture are subordinates empowered to make decisions of their own, but I agree that it doesn't matter whether Baba came up with the ideas or someone else. My point was that it could've just as easily been Baba who thought it was a good idea to have the 1993 RWTL match resemble the one from '88. You don't even have to give that much instruction for that to happen.

 

Or perhaps he poked his head into the locker, with top hat and cape, and told them to make it "shooty boys." Hell, maybe he didn't go into the locker at all. Perhaps he was daydreaming about his next trip to Hawaii and only noticed the match when he was distracted by the crowd.

 

If Baba didn't have a big hand in the final product, I'd love to know why the booking and the matches declined as his health did. The fact that he "allowed" it to happen is generally what you'd expect as his heatlh deteriorated.

[Ditch]

FWIW, Steve Corino said that Kawada didn't call his spots, he just expected you to know what to do.

[MJH]

Maybe he did in Hustle, but you can see him calling spots in All Japan. Don't forget Kawada's not exactly known for his ease with gaijins, either.

[jdw]

FWIW, Steve Corino said that Kawada didn't call his spots, he just expected you to know what to do.

One of my favorite live experiances was watching Johnny Ace be slow in coming off the turnbuckles on a transition where he was to go on offense. Kawada knew it was obvious to everyone that he was "waiting" for Johnny to do what he was suppose to do, so he side stepped it once Johnny came, gave him a stiff counter kick, and went back on the offense for a couple of moves before feeding Johnny another transition spot. Which Johnny executed very well. And Kawada sold the fuck out of for him.

 

I think we all see them call spots. You can see them learn into the ear, little different from the US. On the other hand, they've also worked with each other a ton, and you kind of know that after certain things, it's time to transition and you're kind of waiting for one of the usual transition spots. And you take it. Or if you don't or are shitty in taking it, they try o cover for it and move forward until giving you the next one.

 

Anyway, the match with Ace was a Carny singles match infront of not exactly a huge crowd, on a spot show, not TV and no commercial filming. They still expect you to hit your marks and not fuck things up too obviously.

 

John

[jdw]

Well All Japan's main events were clearly planned out in advance. That much is obvious just from how they work. Even in Flair/Steamboat, guys who've worked together "on the fly" as much as anyone, you just don't get sequences that complicated without planning it. It's physically impossible to call an elaborate transition like they did on the fly, and even if those spots were coming out of lengthy headlocks where the guys can talk almost freely, Kawada'd be asking Misawa to remember 12-points on the spur of the moment. It's just not feasible in any way.

I see vastly more artificial, planned out shit at indy shows. And even there, I'd be surprised if Hero is going over literally *every* spot with Tozawa in advance.

 

How elaborate are the transitions in 6/94 relative to what they had been doing for the past year against each other? Not that much. Perhaps they add in one thing we hadn't seen. For example, instead of:

 

Kawada Tries + Misawa Blocks + Misawa Hits

 

They went to:

 

Kawada Tries + Misawa Blocks + Misawa Tries + Kawada Blocks + Kawada Hits

 

This is common for them, and the style and not terribly elaborate. What's elaborate and sucky is how workers sense have turned every segement along those lines into a "You Can Never Hit The First Attempt, And Usually Not The Second" as the dance around. It's gotten to the point in PWG (and ROH when I've seen it) that almost no one ever hits what ever they try off the top ropes the first time. They have to have a struggle, and either B reverses A, or B reverses on to have A recounter and hit something off the ropes. If you're paying attention to the predictablity of it, i gets to suck.

 

Anyway, given how much more elaborate we've seen people get with a dozen such segements in matches since then, and guys that I doubt many of us would think are as smart of workers as say Kawada and Misawa and Kobashi were in 1993-94 (I mean Chris Daniels for fucks sake), can we at least admit that what Kawada and Misawa were doing wasn't that complicated.

 

I think that's one of the interesting things of watching 6/94 now: it's not that complicated of a match. They're not throwing everything and the kitchen sink into the match. It's kind of simple, just very well done, and very well built.

 

 

Taking 6/3/94... the opening sequences are planned out beforehand, there's no doubt in my mind.

Here's the thing: these two had worked 50-100 "opening segements" against each other in the prior year. They kind of know their stuff.

 

It's a bit like watching a bunch of Savage-Steamboat matches. They have certain gambits that they ran against each other. The had certain spots that they did. Some of it was basic Savage stuff, things you'd have seen him do against Tito or even Hogan. Some of it was Steamer stuff, though he's a bit more reactive to his opponent that forcing his will on a match. Some of it is Savage-Steamer stuff: things they within a couple of matches with each other knew worked well.

 

6/3/94 *isn't* say the first Kawada vs Sasaki match where the two need to figure out what works with each other, and perhaps have to talk a fair amount of it out in the dressing room before had. Kawada and Misawa may not be literally the Flair-Steamboat of Japan at that moment (I'd argue Mutoh-Chono were the two even more use to each other's shit)... but they're pretty close. They know each other's shit.

 

I don't think the opening is anymore complicated than the opening of Jumbo vs Animal from 3/86. And that one probably only need the following from one smart worker to the other:

 

Jumbo: "I'm going to let you go out on top early."

 

Animal: "Okay."

 

Jumbo: "I'm going to turn my back for a little stretching pre-match, drop kick me, and kick the shit out of me."

 

Animal: "Okay."

 

It's not like Jumbo had to add any of the following:

 

Jumbo: "You see... you're a litte fucker, and no one would buy you going toe-to-toe with me and getting the advantage... so this gives you the opening. Also, I'm being a dickish heel right now to Choshu, so there's going to be a chunk of the fans who eat this shit up and will love you getting the jump on me. Hot opening, pull them right in, then we can take them down a bit, and work them up-and-down after that."

 

He doesn't need to tell Animal that shit. He's a smart worker too, and gets the concept of starting the match hot, giving Animal a reason/way to get the jump on Jumbo, and pulling the crowd into it.

 

Now I'm not going to say Kawada and Misawa are as smart as Jumbo (or even Animal who was a fun little bastard)... but in the contect of 1994, they were roughly as smart as Jumbo had been in 1986 because there were even more dumb idiots running around in 1994. So coming up with an opening gambit isn't exactly Bobby Fischer stuff.

 

I think that was always the thing with DDP that we talking about when he was in with Benoit: Chris had to slow his shit down for the slow "A-to-B-to-C-to-D... let me check my notes... D-to-E-to-F-to G" type of wrestling that Page did. Benoit, when in there with someone who could go and knew his shit, like say Eddy, knew generally where they were going.

 

Chris: "I'm going to work the headlock."

 

Eddy: "Okay."

 

Chris: "A lot."

 

Eddy: "Okay."

 

Chris: "And keep going back to it."

 

Eddy: "Alright, I get it."

 

Chris doesn't have to tell Eddy to be wobbly going up to the top that one time: Eddy *knows*. Either he does, or he doesn't... and in this case, he does.

 

 

But then when you get to Kawada working the neck and Misawa working the knee (for the first time IIRC... that might be were Baba came?), they're both fairly generic control segments that hardly set the world on fire where nothing complicated is going on. Between the sleeper, the facelock/chinlock etc from Kawada - where you can see him calling spots and then covering it - it's ad-libbed.

Misawa's neck had been an issue since Furnas knocked him out of the Carny. It was one series before. I suspect if we pop in the 30 minute draw between Kawada and Misawa in the Carny, we'll see the neck be an issue. Well, screw it... I don't know where my tape is buried, so here's someone on 411 reviewing it. I'll highlight a few things... all the bold is mine.

 

Toshiaki Kawada v Mitsuhara Misawa

 

This is from the Champions Carnival. Sort of. You see, Misawa was injured and so forfeited the tournament. But then decided he was going to compete anyway. So he’s already forfeited this match and Kawada already has the points. But he wants to beat Misawa one on one so bad we’re having the match anyway. Make sense? Crowd LOVES Misawa because he’s competing despite a neck injury. When Kawada clocks Misawa with an early clothesline the crowd is all “OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH”. Kawada makes a point of kicking the neck. Well if it wasn’t injured before it sure fucking is now. Misawa is all FUCK YOU, BITCH and elbows him out of the ring. I believe it is on. Misawa won’t give Kawada an inch of space because he’s so pissed off with him for attacking his injured neck. Misawa tries the eye for an eye approach and gets a chinlock but Kawada kicks him in the head repeatedly to break the hold. The thing with Kawada is he can kick you from pretty much anywhere. He grounds Misawa with a chinlock and grinds away at that injured neck. Misawa gets out using the ropes and hits a dropkick then fakes out Kawada and goes for the elbow off the apron but Kawada sees it coming and blocks. Double down on the floor. Kawada, if he was going FULL ON PIMP, should have kicked him square in the neck. As it stands I think he just got a forearm in there. Back inside Kawada gets his half crab but it’s not bothering Misawa any. He’s not cranking it or doing anything else so Misawa just gets the ropes to get rid of him. He regrets that as Kawada’s first move is to kick him in the head and slap him back in the half crab anyway. This time he steps on the neck. Now THAT is the Kawada I know and love. Misawa gets the ropes again but this time he’s worn down a little. Kawada kneedrops the neck for 2. Kawada with the Shades of Wilbur Snyder. Not as evil as Kobashi’s earlier on I might add but he does wrench at it. Misawa gets sick of being abused and elbows Kawada away. Kawada KICKS HIM IN THE FACE! Then he SPIN KICKS HIM IN THE FACE. Modified camel clutch, which is one arm and more chinlock than clutch and therefore actually qualifies as “modified”. Misawa gets the ropes again. Misawa gets all fired up – FLYING CLOTHESLINE! He used to get so much speed on that thing. Revenge spin kick sets up a German attempt but Kawada slips out and kicks him. Kawada also sees elbows coming and backs off allowing him to wind up a lariat for 2. That’s recognition selling. Beautiful. SHORT KICKS! Misawa drops on the powerbomb to stop Kawada getting him up. Kawada takes offence and CHOPS HIM IN THE NECK. WHEN DO I GET TO WIN? Chop in the neck! Kawada with a suplex and a dropkick sends Misawa outside. Kawada rails him, slams him on the floor and kneedrops him off the apron. DANG! No halves measures with Toshiaki. Back inside – POWERBOMB WITH SLIIIIIDE…FOR 2! Kawada elbows Misawa in the neck again, geez what a jerk, so Misawa fires up and elbows him back.

 

Kawada boots him under the chin, slams him and punts him in the back. I love these guys. Kawada gets a standing version of the Stretch Plum but Misawa gets out easily only to run into a GAMENGIRIIIIII! That gets 2. Crowd thought he’d got Misawa there. The impact on the neck was intense. Kawada tries to put him to sleep with the Coquina Clutch. Misawa turns it over and gets the ropes. He looks groggy. Kawada chops him in the throat FOUR TIMES. Then TWO MORE. SHORT KICKS! MISAWA NO SELLS!!!! MORE CHOPS TO THE THROAT. NO SOLD. ELLLLLBOOOOOOOOWWWW! Kawada knocked on his ass with one more. He comes back with his own. ELLLLLLBOOOOOOOW DUEL! Misawa gets a running one. Kawada falls outside. ELBOW SUICIDAAAAAAAAAAAA! He hit him right in the eye with that one too. Kawada looks fucked. Back inside Misawa adds in a DIVING ELLLLBOOOOOOOW….for 2. Misawa hooks up a facelock and makes sure to hook the arm too so Kawada can’t get the rope. He looks at Kawada who appears to be unconscious and pins…for 2. Back to the facelock. Kawada can see the rope and edges his foot onto it. Advantage Misawa though. Kawada is looking very weary. So much so when he goes for one his patented kicks Misawa sweeps the leg with ease. He wants the Tiger Driver. Kawada blocks it. ELBOW! Misawa switches to the Tiger Suplex but Kawada backs into the buckles to escape that. Misawa tries for a springboard, which also seems ambitious, and Kawada kicks him in the back of the neck on the way down…for 2. Back to the half crab and this time he sits down on it properly. Then stands back up again. Hmmm, methinks Misawa’s knee wasn’t 100%. Otherwise he’d have been cranking on it like the sick fuck he is. Misawa escapes a powerbomb attempt. Kawada goes for the Gamengiri but Misawa sees it coming and ELBOW STRIKES THE LEG! THAT IS FUCKING AWESOME! He sets for the Tiger Driver but Kawada gets out and hits a spin kick for 2. Misawa retorts with his own, Kawada bails and Misawa adds in an entirely needless corkscrew plancha. Lovely. Kawada whips him into the rail. NO SOLD. ROLLING ELBOOOOOWWWW! To the ropes where Kawada gets a superplex for 2. Both guys are equally tired by this point having absorbed a great deal of abuse. With the time limit closing in the crowd knows someone has to go all out for the win here. They anticipate Kawada but Misawa counters a backdrop driver for a near fall. Misawa with an elbow countered by a GAMENGIRI! Incidentally apologies for the sheer number of times I’ve called that an Enzuigiri in the past. Kawada wants the powerbomb but they switch twice and Kawada connects with a release German suplex that PLANTS Misawa. Crowd has completely lost it here. Both guys are down. STRETCH PLUM! Misawa is out. Kawada wants the pin instead but Misawa has time to wake up and kick out. Should have gone for the submission mate! STRETCH PLUM! He’s not got it on as good this time and Misawa escapes clocking him with an elbow on the way down. DOUBLE DOWN! Kawada is again up first and we’re rapidly running out of time. Misawa meets him with a ROLLING ELBOW! That gets 2. Misawa looks for the Tiger Driver. And TIGER DRIVAAAAAAAAA…FOR 2! Crowd pops everything HARD but the time limit expires at 30.00. Five more minutes? No? Awww. ****1/4. They’d actually have a match light years better than this just 2 months later that’s widely regarded as the greatest match of all time. It’s my personal favourite btw. This one lacks the insane bumps and has less in terms of stiff striking. Which may suit some fans better. It also shows they didn’t have to work one particular style. They could mix it up a bit.

Okay... thats not *my* review, and maybe he sees more relating to the neck than I do... or perhaps he sees less than I do.

 

Now I don't recall the exactly the date in Carny when Furnas too him out... it was early in it, in March if I recall. And the Misawa-Kawada was more in the middle of it... early April. But Kawada already was going after the neck. Really, it's not like anyone needs to tell him that either: Misawa got knocked out of the Carny with a neck injury... of course you go after the neck.

 

 

However, the majority of the match is clearly planned-out. It's pretty much (amongst other things) the height of All Japan transitions, and like I said, those are not being ad-libbed. The overall "arc" of the match, of Kawada pushing Misawa a lot further than before, of getting the better of much of the match, surviving what put him away before, leading to the big staredown and losing his cool before Misawa pulls out the trump card. All of that is clearly composed.

He pushed him more in 7/93 than he had in 4/93 and 10/92. They progress. It's a standard thing. He also was losing, and unlike say Hansen (who like to control a lot against Kawada), Misawa tended to give large chunks of matches to *everyone* who challenged him as TC champ. It's just Misawa's style.

 

I don't really see it anymore compossed than 7/2/93, which was just a fall out of bed six man tag that was pretty good. These guys had shit that they did together. :/

 

 

 

As for how much of it is Baba and how much is them... short of specific instances (the most controversial being the backdrop driver with Kobashi/Doc), I don't believe Baba is telling them on a move-by-move basis. I would say, though, that the ideology, for lack of a better word, is probably Baba. The "big picture", as John said, is Baba. For 6/3/94 something like "Kawada pushes Misawa much closer than before, but loses his cool/falls short in the end". Leaving them to go about doing it. He might have a short conversation with them on the day of the show, amending/discussing what they have planned, et cetera, but Baba had far too much on his plate running the company and the shows as a whole to spend the whole day with them going over every detail.

I don't think Baba even needed to tell them that. They generally know that *they* want to top 7/93. Baba told them who wins, and probably even tells them to go past 30... perhaps even said go 35. Probably not since they don't go a whole lot past 35 and were well into the stretch run by that point getting extremely close to the finish. Beyond that... probably not much.

 

 

And, really, what does it matter? It's like the whole George Martin debate, how much did he bring to the Beatles music etc... who really cares so long as we get the great music as the end result?

I don't think there's a whole lot of George Martin debate to people who've studied the Beatles. He's pretty much the 3rd Beatle behind John & Paul, with Harrison and Ringo far behind. I love John & Paul, but they don't do what they did without him.

 

The difference is:

 

It's well documented what Martin did on song after song, and not just Martin blowing smoke up people's asses. Lots of people documenting it, including Paul and John supporting it (though not exactly saying Martin was the third Beatle).

 

With Baba... we're generally making stuff up because we want to believe there's a Higher Power involved.

 

John

[jdw]

Nobody said Baba was laying the matches out.

 

The point is that whether it was Baba who came up Kawada punching Misawa et al., he almost certainly knew about it beforehand. If Baba trusted his workers to come up with "something shooty" and kicked back on commentary waiting to see what would happen, it was only because HE'D overseen them become "collectively smart workers who'd spent their entire careers in All Japan training, watching, listening to how you're suppose to work."

That was my point.

 

And the reality is that *he* hadn't personally overseen that stuff. He was at the top of the company, but Misawa and Kawada were learning that stuff from Jumbo and Tenryu, the Funks, Hansen, etc. Hansen and Tenryu have their famous shooty spot. Kawada is right freaking there at ringside. He doesn't need to have Coach Babacheck break it down on the tape for him between series: Kawada saw it, and got it.

 

Misawa needing to have Baba tell him how to work something shooty like specifically The Punch with Kawada? He'd already done it years before with Jumbo. He knew how to work a shooty spot in a match. He'd dished one out, he'd seen the best in his promotion sell it, and he's seen the best respond with fire once he got his head back. The Punch wasn't any different.

 

It's a bit like me tossing you my keys and say, "Take it for a spin." Do I really need to tell you how to turn the ignition, how to put it into drive, and how to work the gas pedal?

 

 

I don't buy that the workers were left to their own devices for the simple reason that in no facet of Japanese culture are subordinates empowered to make decisions of their own,

I work for a Japanese company. We're empowered to make decisions on our own. We have some guidance. We have some clear objectives from the parent company (i.e. the products in the pipeline). We have some clear budget plans and forecasts, which are of course needed since they're making the shit in factories around the globe. But how we lay out the selling of the product... that's almost all us. And if we find that we're having issues selling the shit, we inturn go back to them and bang them to improve the next generation with features or price points needed to be competative.

 

They are our Baba and Mrs. Baba. There are clear things they lead on, and clear things which we have our head to run on.

 

It's little different from:

 

"Misawa goes over tonight."

 

And Jumbo knowing how to do it. You really think after nearly 20 fucking years that Baba needs to tell Jumbo how to layout a match to put over Misawa? Or how to do it in such a fashion that there's a storyline coming out of it? I mean, with the result, there really was only one storyline coming out of it and it was obvious to everyone:

 

"HOLY SHIT!!! MISAWA PINNED JUMBO!!! HOLY SHIT!!!"

 

 

My point was that it could've just as easily been Baba who thought it was a good idea to have the 1993 RWTL match resemble the one from '88. You don't even have to give that much instruction for that to happen.

I don't think much of any instruction needed to be given. The majority of it was standard stuff. And it could have as easily been Kawada telling the other three:

 

"Taue has been carrying me the whole tourney. In this one the leg catches up to me."

 

And worked through the general nature of the match with the rest. Again, it's not a complicated match. I'm sure I can write it up to make it sound deeper than it really is, but that's just because they crafted a smart, simple match that when it all comes together is really quite good.

 

 

If Baba didn't have a big hand in the final product, I'd love to know why the booking and the matches declined as his health did. The fact that he "allowed" it to happen is generally what you'd expect as his heatlh deteriorated.

Booking started to go to shit in 1995. The year in general was quite boring. Kawada's reign was chopped off short, with an uninteresting bridge of Hansen back to Misawa. There were five Misawa & Kobashi vs Kawada & Taue matches, as if they had nothing of note to do once Doc went out. It was played out by the Tag League Final. They sort of got lucky that Taue stepped up and they got a surprising two good Budokan mains out of him opposite Misawa. The Misawa-Kobashi in October felt kind of thrown out there, kind of far removed from the 10/92 "dream match" vibe of Misawa vs Kawada as young gun partners against each other. Hansen had nothing interesting to do in 1995, despite winning the TC. Jun and Omori shrank. Nothing interesting happened to the once good All Asia tag division, and the Junior division wasn't good for much. Asako seemed wasted... Ace had nothing interesting to do after Doc went out. Kroffat & Furnass had been talked about as moving out of the All Asia division and into the World Tag group, but nothing came out of it. There was no depth to the Four Corners feud like there had been Misawa & Co. vs Jumbo & Co.: just the top four guys. Hansen & Albright was an especially weak "dream team" in the tag league.

 

All in all, it was a big backwards step from 1993-94, and even in 1994 the issues with the depth of booking was falling off.

 

Now perhaps you're going to say Baba got sick in 1995 and was declining from 1995 until January 1999. I'm not buying that.

 

1996 is a bit flucky in covering up the weakness of the booking:

 

* Jun became Misawa's partner

* Taue won the TC

* Kobashi gets the TC and went over with Patriot

* Doc came back

 

The first was overdue in a general sense: Jun had spun his wheels for two years. Really and truly, not much of a damn inteesting thing happened to him in 1995, and hardly anything in 1994 after that match in July with Kawada. Even before that, 1994 was largely spinning his wheels.

 

As far as Taue and Kobashi getting the TC, it was "their turn" similar to Doc and Kawada in 1994. It actually ended up being poor booking as Taue was at his peak of overness and work, and he got cut off after little over a series with the belts. They really could have booked him in a more interesting fashion. It's also not like Kobashi *needed* it at that point, and instead had a good storyline of going out on his own if they did anything with it.

 

Instead, you can see by Loss' comment in the 1996 Set: "Kobashi doesn't seem to be up to much."

 

No, he wasn't. Largely spinning his wheels. Getting Patriot as a partner was something an after thought in October: "Okay... we've had Jun with Misawa for a while, maybe it's time to get Kenta a group." Except that they really wouldn't get him a true group away from Misawa until 1997. Patriot was just kind of slapped together.

 

So it's not like Kobashi was very well booked in 1996.

 

Doc kind of cameback to where he was, except that the company didn't bother to get some strong closure or play on the obvious thing: He'd won his last singles match with Misawa and taken his title. You know... something you'd might want to do a little something with.

 

We look at the "booking" of All Japan in 1996 as being "good" because of two things:

 

* they had some great matches

* the Misawa & Jun team storyline

 

The first thing always happened anyway. The promotion had good matches even with mediocre / subpar / aimless booking. The second thing... I'm really loathed to credit Management with nailing that one when they didn't nail much of anything else, even easy ones. Instead, it looks more like one they lucked into. :/

 

AJPW match quality may have been high in 1996, but it was pretty much guys who'd been having great matches in their small circle for years. None of us were surprised by it, save for things like Taue-Williams that went above our expectations.

 

The booking continued to be pretty pedestrian, as it had been for a while. Folks really weren't rah-rah for great booking in All Japan. Even I, as big of an All Japan fan as there was, often was critical of All Japan's booking.

 

John

[MJH]

Well I certainly think there's far more "obvious" choreographing on the indies.

 

But how "obvious" it looks with Misawa/Kawada (or rather doesn't), nor their familiarity, that doesn't detract from the basic logistics that those sequences must have been planned out. There's a difference between their sequences and, say, knowing that when an AJW girl sends you off the ropes and hits a dropkick and immediately runs off them again that you know to get up and take another and keep doing it until she covers you. The familiarity just means it didn't take them all that long to put the sequences together and eliminates the necessity to go over them point by point at half speed a la plotting an action sequences in a film. They're running through the duck/dodge/etc at full speed, landing perfectly on point together at whatever the final spot is, there's just no logical reason to think they didn't know exactly what they were doing at each and every step.

 

That "Kawada works the neck" would be obvious doesn't mean they didn't talk about it before hand. They probably only said "here I'll spend five minutes on your neck... [transition a]... you spend five on my leg", but the general outline of the match will have been laid out; those are two important early controls, of course they're going to, even in such a passing manner, lay out what they'll entail.

 

The match is so exact in its lay-out it's crazy to think it wasn't planned out. Not spot-for-spot in the Savage/Steamboat 376 points sense, but it's clearly a 'crafted' match, for lack of a better word. All their big matches were. You just can't work matches like that "on the fly". I don't think along the lines of a Steamboat or other older guys, particularly in the US, that that's a negative. All that matters is the end product, and no one (to my knowledge) is arguing against it being one of the best matches of all time.

[ohtani's jacket]

Misawa needing to have Baba tell him how to work something shooty like specifically The Punch with Kawada? He'd already done it years before with Jumbo. He knew how to work a shooty spot in a match. He'd dished one out, he'd seen the best in his promotion sell it, and he's seen the best respond with fire once he got his head back. The Punch wasn't any different.

 

It's a bit like me tossing you my keys and say, "Take it for a spin." Do I really need to tell you how to turn the ignition, how to put it into drive, and how to work the gas pedal?

The point isn't whether it was Baba who came up with the specific idea for the spot. The point (and it's conjecture, really) is about whose idea it was to do the spot in the first place. Did the workers come up with it themselves and decide to throw it into the match or was it something Baba wanted them to do for whatever booking reason? It may have been something they thought up to add heat to their match. Heck, they may have even done it without discussing it too much since they weren't exactly on the greatest of terms, but if we're going to pressume that the workers came up with the ideas for the matches without Baba knowing what was happening then we might as well give the workers credit for all of All Japan's booking. In fact, if Motoko ran the show then the Baba you're describing basically did nothing. That fits the image of an "impotent" Baba that some people like to portray, but I think it's bollocks.

 

I work for a Japanese company. We're empowered to make decisions on our own. We have some guidance. We have some clear objectives from the parent company (i.e. the products in the pipeline). We have some clear budget plans and forecasts, which are of course needed since they're making the shit in factories around the globe. But how we lay out the selling of the product... that's almost all us. And if we find that we're having issues selling the shit, we inturn go back to them and bang them to improve the next generation with features or price points needed to be competative.

 

They are our Baba and Mrs. Baba. There are clear things they lead on, and clear things which we have our head to run on.

If you think that's what it's like working for a Japanese company in Japan, I won't persuade you otherwise.

 

It's little different from:

 

"Misawa goes over tonight."

 

And Jumbo knowing how to do it. You really think after nearly 20 fucking years that Baba needs to tell Jumbo how to layout a match to put over Misawa? Or how to do it in such a fashion that there's a storyline coming out of it? I mean, with the result, there really was only one storyline coming out of it and it was obvious to everyone:

 

"HOLY SHIT!!! MISAWA PINNED JUMBO!!! HOLY SHIT!!!"

That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about things like the decision to unmask Misawa and how it was to be done. If we take your line of thinking to the extreme, Baba told them to do something shooty at the end of the match and they ran off like giddy little school children and came up with the whole unmasking thing on the basis of their collective wrestling experience. Baba in turn watched the match and was shocked but pleasantly surprised at his workers' initiative. Look, I don't mean to be childish about this, but it's not some terrible assumption to make that Baba was as involved in booking decisions as a film director on set and not some executive producer floating around in the background worrying about money issues. I'm not saying he was draconian about it since I don't rightly know, but I've read and heard enough to believe that he wasn't leaving it all up to the workers, that's for sure. You mention Jumbo and his 20 fucking years, but I've always read that Baba had very clear ideas about how Jumbo should wrestle and my argument (in a roundabout way perhaps) was that no influence from Baba would've resulted in a different type of Jumbo. I do not believe that Jumbo, or any of them for that matter, worked in EXACTLY the way they wanted to or would have if Baba wasn't boss.

 

I don't think much of any instruction needed to be given. The majority of it was standard stuff. And it could have as easily been Kawada telling the other three:

 

"Taue has been carrying me the whole tourney. In this one the leg catches up to me."

 

And worked through the general nature of the match with the rest. Again, it's not a complicated match. I'm sure I can write it up to make it sound deeper than it really is, but that's just because they crafted a smart, simple match that when it all comes together is really quite good.

Yes, it could've just as easily been Kawada or any of the others, but generally speaking someone has to book the finish to the match and I don't see why you're so reluctant to consider Baba as that person. I can only assume it doesn't gel with what you've known about All Japan over the years.

 

No perhaps you're going to say Baba got sick in 1995 and was declining from 1995 until January 1999. I'm not buying that.

I don't know how long Baba was sick for. It was a secret that Baba was sick at all. But I certainly think that the booking in 1998 was significantly worse than in 1995. My argument was that it would have happened sooner if Baba had gotten sick earlier and that you wouldn't have seen the same sort of matches from All Japan if someone else had been the booker in the mid-90s, but you don't seem to think that the matches have Baba's fingerprint over them so I can't be bothered arguing the point.

 

I'll finish this by saying it was Baba's company and Baba called the shots. He may have looked like some big smiling oddity, but he was clever and shrewd. He was also a wrestler-promoter who would actually get in the ring with his talent both in matches and in training. He was parent, teacher and boss to guys like Misawa and Kawada. If Baba told them to do something they would have, within reasonable limits, done it, and that extends to things as unfathomable to us as who to marry or who not to marry. That's a theoretical example, but possible. Given this type of relationship, the idea that Baba could have instructed them to do something different or special in a match is a very minor thing indeed.

[NintendoLogic]

Looking at this thread, I'm a bit confused as to what the argument is supposed to be over. Everyone seems to agree that Baba wasn't Pat Pattersoning the big matches on the one hand and didn't just stick his head in the locker room and say "Misawa goes over in 28" on the other. The question of exactly how often Baba specifically instructed his guys to do certain things as opposed to them being so immersed in Baba-ism that they knew what was expected of them strikes me as rather narrow and pedantic.

[Loss]

The last post was 15 months ago. Why did you respond now to say that?

[NintendoLogic]

Why not? It's not like this is the first time someone has bumped an old thread to offer thoughts on a long-ended conversation.

[Loss]

I know. And it's always strange.

[Zenjo]

The first 15m of this was leg work from both. The pacing was sedate. Decent enough although I didn't find it particularly captivating. Then Hash began to take control and set him up for the kill. I thought they were setting up for the closing stretch but Hase caught him with a surprise move to get the upset. I was hoping for a bit more from this.

 

I should definitely recommend Hase vs Kengo Kimura as my second favourite match from this tournament. It was a terrific veterans performance from Kimura, the best I've seen from him in the 90's. And Hase was at his peak around this time.

[Kevin Ridge]

Wow, 70 posts in a yearbook thread! Few had to do with this actual match though. Good match but I found the finish to be a bit too much of a fluke. Hash was in control and gets hit with a suplex out of nowhere. Not really a move that would put him down for a three count either. But I do appreciate NJPW trying more to put over guys in a tournament like G1.

[PeteF3]

One thing about Japan heavies--in both major promotions--is that matwork in the '90s has taken a back seat to big moves. As a result, a lot of the opening matwork consists of the same surfboard reversals and facelocks. That's not necessarily a complaint, just an observation. But it does contrast heavily with the matwork on display here, which feels really organic and strategic, especially on Hase's part as he tries to neutralize Hashimoto's size and his kicks. They throw in a lot of great little touches, like Hashimoto blocking the figure four and Hase improvising a modified version of the hold, pushing on his ankle with the bottom of his boot rather than wrapping his calf around it. Awesome shit. It's not really enough to hold off Hashimoto from unleashing his big guns, though. And LITERALLY right as I'm gathering my thoughts about how Hase looked great but the match never really came across as having Hashimoto in legit danger of losing, Hase levels him with a golden arm bomber and gets the three-count (?!?!). I mark out in my chair. Don't care how fluky it looked, that completely blindsided me, as much as any New Japan match ever has. I want to make room in my MOTY top 10 for this, for sure.

[NintendoLogic]

I recently finished Stan Hansen's book, and he says that with Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi, a lot of the spots were laid out in advance, especially as the decade went on. He doesn't say who was responsible for laying them out, but he implies that it was Fuchi, the booker at the time.

[soup23]

Excellent match. Super engaging mat work for me that was built around really intricate and expertly applied leg holds. Hashimoto fights through this and is able to gain a nice flurry only to be stunted with Hase gaining the upset in an awesome moment. Hase is a wonderful worker that seems perpetually underrated. I don't think people rank him low but I am unsure of how much play he will get in the Greatest Wrestler Ever voting and he is a strong candidate to make my list. ****1/4