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[1992-06-05-AJPW-Super Power Series] Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue vs Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi


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  • 1 month later...

Lots and lots to love.

 

-Continuing the Taue's Leg story from 5/22

-The last great Jumbo match

-Kobashi's first main event

-MISAWA heeling it up

-The usual great Budokan crowd, which at this point was like a 2000s Korakuen crowd only ~8 times bigger.

 

I have this 3rd for AJ in the year and 28th for the decade.

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This stands out for many reasons. One is that this is the best Taue performance of the year to date. Aside from Misawa heeling it up at times, as Ditch mentioned, both he and Jumbo largely surrender the spotlight to Taue and Kobashi. Taue makes the most of it, but I'm amazed that his blatant footstomps on punches weren't something that ever got him criticism during training or within the company. I've always noticed it, but when you see him exchanging blows with Misawa and Kobashi, and see Jumbo exchanging blows with Misawa and Kobashi, it stands out more. Besides that, Taue was strong. Here's another match with him selling his knee, and I think he actually does a better job of it here than he did on 5/22, even if as an overall match, I think I prefer that one to this one.

 

I mentioned Kobashi as the other standout. Really, Taue looks better from a layout point of view. Misawa has to save Kobashi far more often than Jumbo has to save Taue, including one spot where Misawa has to actually come in, attack Taue, drag both him and Kobashi to their corner, then tag himself in.

 

Final stretches in AJ tend to be dramatic as a rule, but some of the Kobashi kickouts are so unexpected that they stand out in a positive way, even within the context of All Japan. Misawa taking the nasty bump off the apron from a Jumbo blow, bashing his head against the bottom of the guardrail, I was sure was the end of Misawa's involvement in this match, but he came back. Great match!

 

I don't want to single out just this match to make this point, but I will say that I have some problems with the lack of risk-taking or events in All Japan booking at times. It's a good thing the matches are as strong as they are, because the booking felt on cruise control for much of the year. You know in every tag or six-man that the stars of the team aren't going to be involved in the finish most of the time, so as soon as you see who's in a match, you can usually narrow down the possible finishes pretty easily. They sometimes surprise us, but not nearly enough. Sometimes, the booking seems more geared to maintaining the picture instead of enhancing it. Maybe that's a good thing. I think there's a balancing act somewhere between this and Vince Russo obviously. But I know that even if the matches aren't as good, New Japan booking seemed to do more to keep the top acts fresh and keep things exciting and unpredictable. They also weren't afraid to have key guys do jobs to set up something for the future. I don't want anyone to over-read my point. I don't think top guys should be doing jobs every week, and the advantage that had was that when a Jumbo or Misawa type did lay down for someone, it was incredibly memorable and worked well almost every time. But I'm always surprised that guys like Kawada and Kobashi -- Kobashi especially -- could eat as many losses as they did and not lose any momentum.

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Don't be silly.

 

http://www.purolove.com/noah/kobashi/kobashi92.php

#0602 | 07.04.1992 @ Okayama Budokan:

- Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi besiegen Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue (19:07) nach einem Facelock Hold von Misawa gegen Taue.

 

 

Baba did the same booking two years later, having Doc & Ace beat Misawa & Kobashi in a non-title house show match.

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You know in every tag or six-man that the stars of the team aren't going to be involved in the finish most of the time, so as soon as you see who's in a match, you can usually narrow down the possible finishes pretty easily. They sometimes surprise us, but not nearly enough. Sometimes, the booking seems more geared to maintaining the picture instead of enhancing it. Maybe that's a good thing. I think there's a balancing act somewhere between this and Vince Russo obviously. But I know that even if the matches aren't as good, New Japan booking seemed to do more to keep the top acts fresh and keep things exciting and unpredictable. They also weren't afraid to have key guys do jobs to set up something for the future.

AJW was really great about this too. Never a guarantee of who would eat the pin even if it was a star/midcarder vs star/star match. The standard lowest dude on the totem pole always does the job booking gets boring after a while.

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Regular jobs by Jumbo render 6/89, 6/90 and 9/91 a hell of a lot less meaningful.

 

Dittos Kobashi's first win over Hansen. Watched that yesterday, and it just isn't the same if Kobashi already had 6+ tag wins over Hansen in 1992-94. Listen to that crowd down the stretch and put yourself in their place: Kobashi was 0-for-Life against Stan. Six years at that point.

 

"It's a big fucking deal."

-Joe Biden

 

AJPW was AJPW. It was different from NJPW, and from AJW. It's flaws were less in predictablity (which frankly NJPW had as well if you paid attention to the booking back then) than when it either:

 

* dragged things out too long; or

 

* failed to deliver things in a properly big way.

 

6/89, 6/90 and 9/91 were big deliveries. 12/93 was a perfect setting and execution for Kobashi's first pin on Kawada. 6/95 was probably 90% of the perfect setting for Kawada's first pin on Misawa.

 

Kobashi's first singles win over Misawa was wasted. Kawada's first singles win over Misawa was both dragged out too long and also wasted. Kawada's first singles win over Hansen was wasted.

 

Kobashi's win over Hansen would arguably been better if it came in the semi-final at Budokan in 6/94, or maybe in Sapporo in 5/94. But it was filmed and one of the major selling points of the commercial tape. Generally speaking, they delivered.

 

Anyway, on this specific match...

 

Either Misawa has to get pinned, or Kobashi. You can't really have Misawa & Kobashi win the tag titles: they're not regular partners. Misawa would be main eventing the next Budokan, which Baba likely already knew at that point. And you have this with Misawa on Big Shows since getting the big win over Jumbo on 9/91:

 

10/91: out with broken nose

12/91: Gordy & Williams over Misawa & Kawada to win RWTL (Kawada eats pin)

01/92: nothing matches on both of the bigger shows

03/92: Hansen over Misawa in TC

04/92: Hansen over Misawa in Carny Final

06/92: Jumbo & Taue over Misawa & Kobashi in World Tag (Kobashi eats pin)

 

He was booked into a nothing match on the big show on the next series.

 

Does anyone really want to see Misawa go into his TC match with Hansen in August coming off this in his big matches:

 

03/92: Hansen over Misawa in TC

04/92: Hansen over Misawa in Carny Final

06/92: Jumbo & Taue over Misawa & Kobashi in World Tag (Misawa eats pin)

 

That would suck. :)

 

Kobashi ate a lot of pins. But the "shock" on gaijin hardcores part is probably 95% due to gaijin's not really understanding where he fit in the structure in 1992:

 

1. Jumbo

2. Hansen

3. Misawa

4. Gordy

5. Williams

6. Kawada

7. Taue

8. Kobashi

 

And the gap from Taue to Kobashi was large: Kobashi didn't get his first singles win over Taue until that big match in 1996. Tags pins prior to that, and a big ones starting in 5/94. But he really hard to earn being even on the same level as Taue.

 

In a small, generally closed promotion like AJPW, that means Kobashi is going to do jobs in matches like 6/92.

 

In the US, there would be a screw job. A US booker would have booked the match thinking it's Cool~! to toss onto Budokan along with the Hansen-Kawada. Then he would realize:

 

* can't have Misawa & Kobashi win the titles

* can't have Misawa eat the pin given plans

 

Then he would go:

 

* "Dustin Rhodesbashi is a young star and I don't want to job him."

 

And so he'd have Fuchi & Ogawa run in at the end to "save" the Tag Titles for Jumbo & Taue right when it looked like Misawa was going to win.

 

Baba says "fuck that, someone is doing the job." And it has to be Kobashi.

 

Did the fans "know" that Misawa & Kobashi were losing, and that Kobashi was eating the pin? Listen to the crowd heat... it doesn't quite sound like it, right? That's one of the positives of the slottings:

 

* Misawa beats Taue all the time

* Misawa had pinned Jumbo in a singles

* Misawa made Jumbo submit in his last title match with the old goat

 

They don't think it's *likely* that Misawa beats Jumbo, but it's possible. They think it's entirely possible that Taue could get beat.

 

Then in their heart of hearts, they're hoping Kobashi finally gets a big pin over one of the guys above him. They're popping for his chances against Taue due to that hopes.

 

Jumbo & Taue are the "favorites". But to regular fans not thinking too much about it, Misawa & Kobashi have a chance.

 

They were considerably less interesting in the six-mans and non-big tags. Your mind would hurt if you watched every tv show from 1990 through 3/94 (the period when it was still 60 minutes) and counted up the % of "bottom two guys in this match" that ate the pins in those types of matches.

 

On the other hand, I pointed to a six man with Jun and Omori on opposite sides, and said one of the cool things about it is that the predictable guys didn't eat the pin. If that happened 50% of the time, and given how many matches of those type aired week after week, it just stops being cool. It's "normal".

 

Watch every 1996 junior tag from New Japan that's available on original TV, Classics, and commercial. Does specifically "who pins who" matter in any of them, or is memorable? I watched all the TV at the time, and not a single one sticks out in my mind. I haven't watched all the other stuff that's available, but I suspect it will be more of the same. There might be a finish that's cool, but it isn't in the sense of "Hey... Ohtani pinned Liger!" because he'd done that over the years".

 

It worked for NJPW. AJPW's worked in a different way. Neither fully nailed it, though.

 

John

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

God damn the storytelling in this is extraordinary. Simple stories told with outstanding execution.

 

I find myself dreading when the next match/segment that comes up on a disc is puro. I love puro, but I'm finding that on these sets I'm most interested in:

 

a) Seeing a lot of the great angles from USWA & SMW for the 1st or 2nd time.

B ) fondly remembering what was going on in WCW at the time.

c) less fondly remembering what I saw as a kid in WWF

 

So, when an AJPW match pops up I'm assuming I'm about to see a 30 min. match that will require great attention because it's probably of the highest quality and I may have not seen it before or saw it once.

 

That said, when I actually just sit and watch it I can't get over just how much it exceeds my expectations. I know this stuff is great. I've seen a ton of it. However, watching a match like this (as well as the Hansen-Kawada match that preceded it) I'm just amazed at the level of storytelling here. Perhaps when I 1st saw all of this stuff years ago I was caught up by the action. It was so much more high impact and stiff than what most of us were used to, so perhaps I didn't grasp the storytelling.

 

Anyhow, yeah, this was amazing.

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  • 10 months later...

Effectively the end of the Jumbo era. I couldn't watch his later matches on the yearbook. He looked really sick and I didn't feel comfortable viewing.

 

Taue and Kobashi had a keen rivalry going. The man in red proved here that he was no weak link anymore and was coming into his own as a worker. I would say all 4 men delivered strong performances here. Jumbo just did the subtle little things so well, and he still would've had several good years in him had he been able to wind down his career normally. The build was consistantly good and then a long and winding stretch. You were never sure if they would kick out at 2.9 or be saved by their partners. Excellent.

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  • 7 months later...

Just an awesome match, easily one of the best of the year and so far my #2 AJ behind the May 6-man. Jdw above used a lot of words -- but a lot less than I'd need -- to explain why I never found too much fault with AJ booking. You had clean finishes for years on end and without rigidly adhering to a certain hierarchy those classic matches & moments are not classic.

 

Onto the match. Love Taue heeling it on Kobashi early and then Misawa turning the tables and doing his best Taue to the original's leg. This role reversal may not always work, but it sure does here. Just like Hansen would typically put Kawada over strong, Jumbo does a fantastic job selling for Kobashi while showing the kid isn't quite up to the task of putting away the ace. I figured Misawa bumping his head on the rail was a sign Kobashi was about to eat the pin, so they even had me surprised when he got back in time to break up the fall on a nodowa/backdrop combo. Kobashi didn't just lay down and die at that point, he kicked out of a power bomb and hit a German of his own before Taue goes over strong with three nodowas.

 

Not only great on its own, but as a precursor to the big tags in 12/93, 5/94 and 6/95.

 

****1/2

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  • 2 months later...

Not much to add about this. Kawada's big TC challenge ultimately did very little to get him over in any way--he was decisively beaten down and the message was clearly sent that he wasn't at a true singles main event level yet. That's not the story at all with this, as Kobashi even through doing the job comes off as the gutsiest bastard in the history of the company. Some of his kickouts had me almost literally hopping out of my chair. Jumbo and Taue debut the Holy Demon Army "backdrop+chokeslam" spot that I thought for sure was the finish, but Misawa stuns me by coming back from that sick guardrail bump, goes THROUGH Jumbo, and makes the save. Then Taue hits the power bomb and Kobashi kicks out of THAT. Two of the absolute greatest near-falls I have ever seen. Kobashi even gets a mini-comeback, and I'm getting emotionally involved at this point--"Kenta, tag out--TAG MISAWA, GODDAMMIT." But he doesn't, and his comeback derails. Nonetheless Misawa & Kobashi absolutely come across as the team of the future. The point about the conservative booking is well-taken--I'm fine with Kobashi doing the job here but I'm hoping probably in vain that he gets a big victory at some point before the year is out. A pinfall on Taue, Doc, or Gordy doesn't seem like too much to ask for but I don't know if I'm going to get it. Kobashi looked great but I am hoping for a follow-up to this.

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  • 5 weeks later...

In the US, there would be a screw job. A US booker would have booked the match thinking it's Cool~! to toss onto Budokan along with the Hansen-Kawada. Then he would realize:

 

* can't have Misawa & Kobashi win the titles

* can't have Misawa eat the pin given plans

 

Then he would go:

 

* "Dustin Rhodesbashi is a young star and I don't want to job him."

 

And so he'd have Fuchi & Ogawa run in at the end to "save" the Tag Titles for Jumbo & Taue right when it looked like Misawa was going to win.

I haven't watched this yet, but when I saw this, I had to jump in: Honestly, John, I gotta disagree with what you said here. I would find it more likely that Misawa drops the fall to Taue. It sets up Taue's challenge for the TC on 7/31. Meanwhile, Misawa unseats Stan in August, and Taue is right there as the logical first challenger. Instead of Taue in Feb '93, slot in Doc or Gordy based on the tag titles win over Misawa/Kawada.

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Wow, this was 50 different types of awesome. I really loved how Misawa and Jumbo, who were magnificent as always, left

things to Taue and Kobashi. It reminded me a lot of the 12/93 classic, with Misawa stepping aside to allow Kobashi to get the glory. The near falls toward the end were awesome, especially after Misawa had to save Kobashi four or five times, but when Jumbo had him tied up, Kobashi still managed to kick out of the powerbomb.
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  • 4 months later...

While previous posters have commented on Misawa heeling it up, I though Tsuruta and Taue (particularly Tsuruta) seemed like they were heeling it up more. Whenever Taue was in trouble, Tsuruta would slyly begin to enter the ring--slowly at first so as to not attract the referee's attention, then moving to full speed once he had manoeuvered his body through the ropes--measure up whoever had Taue in a compromising position and then drill him with a hard closed fist. Jumbo seemed to really relish in the crowd's booing of his interference.

 

Tsuruta and Taue's attempts at interference when not the legal man in the ring also led to two nice comeuppance spots: first, Kobashi's lariat on Tsuruta knocking him right back out of the ring when Tsuruta tried to break up Kobashi's Texas cloverleaf on Taue; later, Misawa drilling Taue with an elbow when Taue tries to break up Misawa's facelock on Tsuruta.

 

The match kept up a nice pace throughout, really picking up when Jumbo (illegally interfering again) drills Misawa hard to stop him from nailing the tiger driver on Taue. Taue immediately follows up with a great looking lariat. The closing sequence is great. I watched this match not long after watching the Misawa/Kawada v. Gordy/Williams match from 2/26/91, so when Misawa got knocked off the apron into the railing, I though for sure that Kobashi would be going it alone for a couple of minutes before eating the fall. Misawa's return to save Kobashi was a nifty surprise, leading to a nice little back and forth between Taue and Kobashi before Taue puts him away.

 

Again, as commented on earlier by other posters, this match was about letting Kobashi and Taue take the spotlight. I think Jumbo was a little better in the supporting role than Misawa. Misawa seemed content to just spend less time in the ring, letting Kobashi do more. Jumbo, in contrast, seemed to do more to help out Taue early on, but let Taue take over after the thwarted tigerdriver --> lariat spot. From here on, Taue seemed to take ownership of winning the match for his team and being something more than just Tsuruta's junior, along for the ride.

 

This match is a bit of a forgotten classic, although having received a commercial release a few years back on the second Misawa Box Set, it will likely reach more people in the years to come. That's a good thing.

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  • 1 year later...

In response to the conservative booking talk, I have to agree with jdw. It's that kind of booking that makes those moments, when done right, HUGE. The first time Kikuchi pinned Fuchi I was marking out. Hell, the first time he knocked Taue down without help I was marking out. When Kobashi made a massive run on Jumbo in a tag and came up just short because Jumbo pulled the knees up on a moonsault, I was devastated. That's the kind of stuff that can only happen within that conservative booking. When you're used to one result from a certain situation different things stand out more.

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  • 11 months later...

I have a slightly different perspective here. The nearfalls at the end would have been more dramatic if I hadn't been distracted by Misawa and Jumbo in the corner. By the time I figured out what they were doing, Kobashi or Taue had already kicked out, so it was just another spot rather than a jump-out-of-my-chair moment. Of course, Misawa and Jumbo weren't planning on giving up the spotlight anytime soon (although fate would take a hand in Jumbo's case), so the audience focusing on them instead of their number three and number two respectively was hardly a bad thing.

 

This really wasn't a classic for me; they've done most of this match before in other bouts, and better too. The work on the knees is always nice to see, but the spots have become predictable: shinbreaker, knee bounced off the railing, half-crab. The figure four is actually fresh in this context, since you don't see it in every match.

 

In general, they didn't work this match like it was supposed to be a game-changer, and AJPW has a way of setting things up so certain bouts are tabbed as ones that change the course of the promotion. If Jumbo hadn't gotten sick soon after this, which meant the end of the whole Misawa-Jumbo dynamic, would people still call this a classic like so many have in this thread? I don't believe so. That doesn't mean that this match wasn't tremendous, but tremendous is kind of par for the course for AJPW these days.

 

I can't believe we get to see only two more bouts from this legendary feud: a six-man in August and a tag in October. I can't think of another feud that has defined a promotion for a period of time quite like Misawa-Jumbo, to the point where almost every native wrestler in the company has to pick a side. The closest equivalent that I can think of is Flair-Dusty in JCP, but the roles within the feud weren't quite as defined, and each man who was involved also had other major feuds going on at the same time, which isn't really the case here.

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  • 10 months later...
  • paul sosnowski changed the title to [1992-06-05-AJPW-Super Power Series] Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue vs Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi
  • 1 year later...

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