whp Posted March 5, 2011 Report Share Posted March 5, 2011 Tag team wrestling is a bit of a different animal over in Japan as opposed to North America. Very few long-term tag teams going to different promotions and having matches with various other teams but still puro has produced some incredible tag teams and matches. My top 5 goes something like this - 1) Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue 2) Steve Williams & Terry Gordy (yeah I count them as a Japanese tag team since most of their work was done in All Japan) 3) Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa 4) Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama 5) Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted March 9, 2011 Report Share Posted March 9, 2011 Kawada and Taue are a clear #1 in my view. However, I absolutely loved the Fujinami-Kimura team after watching the 80s New Japan set. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 LCO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 Is there a reason some people hate them so much? I remember hearing Jose Fernandez say they completely turned him off to ARSION. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 I won't get dragged into an LCO debate in 2011, but back then, LCO were mostly *loved* and pimped as a great team. Then there was a backlash (although some people on the DVDVR side always hated them), and these days I think pimping LCO is a "dated opinion". I guess. LCO in ARSION weren't used to their best ability (plus they had already peaked), but they still had that awesome bloody match with AyaKINO in late 1999. I loved LCO more than most wrestlers, and I take some credit for popularizing the acronym (although I didn't used it first). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smkelly Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 Kawada and Taue all the way, man. But, Kobashi and Misawa are a close second. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 One of the thing I am interested in is how Kobashi-Misawa compares with Akiyama-Misawa as a tag team since i know some people have differing opinions on which team is better. Hopefully, the yearbook project will give peep a chance to look at the teams again with fresh eyes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 Back then, I thought it was pretty clearly Misawa & Kobashi. Their roles were just right as well. Always thought the lateral move of Jun from being Misawa's sidekick to being Kobashi's sidekick was a blockhead move, and Jun sort of hit the wall. Kenta was always going to be Kenta. Misawa worked well in having Kenta go off because Misawa was still The Man. Junior Partners often get to shine in the tags because The Man is over there with the Big Belt(s). For Jun, he moved up to be a regular challenger for the TC... and slid right into being Kenta's little buddy. And happy to see Kenta eat up a ton of the spotlight in the tags. The comps probably would more reasonably be: Misawa & Kawada --> Misawa & Kobashi --> Misawa & Jun --> Kobashi & Jun Misawa & Jun didn't get a ton of spotlight in their second year, but most of that seemed to be in saving Misawa & Jun vs Kawada & Taue for the Tag League because it had been riden a lot in their prior year (5 times). John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smkelly Posted March 11, 2011 Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 I don't about entire duration of the teams, as I look more at a match-to-match basis and not longevity. Misawa & Kobashi have the epics against Kawada & Taue and Doc & Ace. Misawa & Akiyama have the epics (Tag Finals 96 & 97 specifically) and a few assorted good/great matches. The line in the sand to me is the difference between Kobashi and Akiyama. Kobashi was the perfect complimant to Misawa's style in my opinion, whereas Akiyama wasn't that "seasoned" yet, so he naturally looked terribly inferior (kind of like Ogawa when he and Misawa faced a team with one of the other big three). At any rate, I'd put 12-6-96 right behind 6-9-95, and then it's chaos trying to remember placing. Point being, on 12-6, the team of Misawa & Akiyama were damn good, better than some incarnations of Misawa & Kobashi, but I simply cannot ignore who their opponents were either on that cold December night. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smkelly Posted March 11, 2011 Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 EDIT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted March 11, 2011 Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 I don't about entire duration of the teams, as I look more at a match-to-match basis and not longevity. Misawa & Kobashi have the epics against Kawada & Taue and Doc & Ace. Misawa & Akiyama have the epics (Tag Finals 96 & 97 specifically) and a few assorted good/great matches. The line in the sand to me is the difference between Kobashi and Akiyama. Kobashi was the perfect complimant to Misawa's style in my opinion, whereas Akiyama wasn't that "seasoned" yet, so he naturally looked terribly inferior (kind of like Ogawa when he and Misawa faced a team with one of the other big three). At any rate, I'd put 12-6-96 right behind 6-9-95, and then it's chaos trying to remember placing. Point being, on 12-6, the team of Misawa & Akiyama were damn good, better than some incarnations of Misawa & Kobashi, but I simply cannot acknowledge who their opponents were either on that cold December night. What's kind of interesting is that Misawa & Jun *did* have epics against other teams. Loss has hit the Top 30 on his list and still have three Misawa & Akiyama vs Doc & Ace matches to go. From his "As Of Novermber" list: #21 - Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs Steve Williams & Johnny Ace (AJPW 09/05/96) #23 - Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs Steve Williams & Johnny Ace (AJPW 06/07/96) #25 - Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs Steve Williams & Johnny Ace (AJPW 11/16/96) Those are above the two Tenryu-Takada matches, which he loved. Above the Doc-Taue Carny Final, which he loved and frankly is something of an "epic" considering it was a Carny Final that didn't have Misawa, Kawada or Kobashi in it. That 06/07/96 match finished rather high up on the WON MOTY Award list for that year. They kind of get trumped because he has three Misawa & Jun vs Kawada & Taue matches above *all* of them. But think of that: 20% of Loss' Top 30 is made up of Misawa & Jun tags, with a seventh at in his Top 30. That's while being a "team" just from May to December 1996. They were on the back burner in 1997 as it seemed pretty clear that after the overkill of Misawa & Jun vs Kawada & Taue that it was being saved for the Tag League Final. So there isn't a ton of stuff such at tag title matches to judge the team on. But... 08/06/97 World Tag: Williams & Albright vs Misawa & Akiyama ****1/4 11/23/97 Tag League: Misawa & Akiyama vs Kobashi & Ace ****1/2 11/27/97 Tag League: Misawa & Akiyama vs. Hayabusa & Shinzaki ****3/4 11/28/97 Tag League: Misawa & Akiyama vs Kawada & Taue 12/05/97 Tag League: Misawa & Akiyama vs Kawada & Taue (Final) ***** Those would be Dave's ratings off the NTV version of the matches. Full versions of all of those should be either on Sammy and/or commercial... he never saw the 11/28/97 match. No vouching for his ratings, but just tossing them out. Off Sammy there are other "regular" series tags and six men, though I don't recall any of them being pimped back in the day: going through the motions was the word of the say on those. Though some of them were opposite Kobashi & Co., and Kenta didn't exactly know how to go through the motions so there might be some decent ones out there. Anyway, the 1997 Yearbook probably should include all of those (along with most of the rest of the big tags). Suspect Misawa & Jun will come off looking okay. My point earlier, and I think someone else echoed it, was that from a roles standpoint Misawa & Jun seemed to fit better together than Kenta & Jun. Jun's role with Kobashi wasn't terribly interesting, and while Jun got to be the junior-partner workhorse with Misawa, Kenta tended to be so overwhelming back then that no one really was the workhorse when he was involved. It's hard to top Misawa & Kobashi "just because", but Misawa & Jun were quite a good team. They got a little lost perhaps because of (i) the decrease in TV time on NTV, (ii) the death of the classic AJPW six-man tag tv taping main event, and (iii) their second year together got eaten up by a focus on Misawa's reafirming himself as The Man. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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