[1992-08-20-AJPW-Summer Action Series II] Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

I suspect Jumbo was already sick here. He looks a little different, and not just his haircut. Anyway, I thought this was a terrific match, second only to the 5/22 six-man in terms of AJ six-mans in '92. They get 30 minutes, so every pairing gets plenty of time and focus. Kikuchi in particular spends a lot of time in the ring and his selling and offense are both top notch. This also may be the best I've seen Ogawa look in one of these matches. Jumbo secures the win for his team by landing a backdrop driver on Kikuchi.

[Ditch]

Jumbo had taken off the July tour because of his health, then he did this tour and the following one, and that was it for him in terms of touring.

[Tim Evans]

Jumbo kicking Kikuchi in the Jaw never gets old. Entertaining match but yeah Jumbo doesn't look that well here. Had a hell of a year though.

[shoe]

This was another really strong 6 man from All-Japan.

[Kevin Ridge]

Jumbo did look quite different. Thought match was great. There seemed to be a lot of agression from both teams. When guys interrupted pinfall attempts they wouldn't just kick their opponent once but repeated times after. Both teams where taking turns just pounding away like this. At one point Kawada was lifting Taue up to drop him chest first on guardrail but the fans in the front row bolted from their seats. Kawada then calls an audible and slams Taue on the empty seats instead.

[WingedEagle]

I suspect Jumbo was already sick here. He looks a little different, and not just his haircut. Anyway, I thought this was a terrific match, second only to the 5/22 six-man in terms of AJ six-mans in '92. They get 30 minutes, so every pairing gets plenty of time and focus. Kikuchi in particular spends a lot of time in the ring and his selling and offense are both top notch. This also may be the best I've seen Ogawa look in one of these matches. Jumbo secures the win for his team by landing a backdrop driver on Kikuchi.

Yes and yes. Jumbo looks to have aged noticeably, and this was clearly the second best 6-man behind 5/22, which means it was really, really good. Taue is such a great heel. Even though he looked like hell, Jumbo really got into destroying Kikuchi. Kikuchi also delivers a textbook Kikuchi performance here, taking quite the beating from Jumbo & Taue.

 

****1/4

 

Hell of a match to end the best disc of pro wrestling I've come across.

[PeteF3]

Jumbo has a new haircut, but he also looks skinner and about five years older than the last time we saw him.

 

I'm going to be more down on this than anyone else, because I thought this was towards the bottom of AJPW '90s 6-mans seen so far. It was a fine match, and got a lot better as it went along, but Jumbo's condition can't be un-seen and it's clear he's being somewhat hidden and protected here, as hard as he works. So we get a ton of Ogawa and Kikuchi in the early going and their work here simply isn't that interesting. It gets better once we lose Ogawa and Kikuchi is back to being a punching back for the heavies, before he does the inevitable job. We're really getting to the point where AJPW needs to move on from iterations of this feud, and unfortunately just as in 4/90 it's going to take a forcing of Baba's hand to do that.

[garretta]

This was kind of in the middle for me. The actual in-ring action was excellent as usual, and the two sides worked as units better than they ever have before. They had that sense of when their partners were in trouble and needed to be saved, and the tags were quick and fluid. I really got the sense that I was watching two cohesive teams and not just six individual wrestlers.

 

Maybe I don't know what to look for, but Jumbo didn't look that different to me. If I hadn't known going in that he had hepatitis, I never would have guessed it. He still looked as good in the ring as he has since the start of the Yearbooks.

 

All of that being said, Pete's right; they need to move on from this somehow. Doing jobs consistently isn't helping Kikuchi's career any; in matches outside of this feud, he can hold his own with just about anyone, but here he was Ricky Morton without the hope of winning. Maybe Jumbo, knowing that he was slowing down and would soon be unable to compete at an elite level, should have volunteered to do the job for Kikuchi specifically just to shake things up a bit. It would have made Kikuchi, if not a budding superstar, at least a true main-event player instead of just someone Misawa turned to in order to fill out his team when Kobashi had other things to do. I'm not sure how Kawada would have felt about being passed over, though, and maybe that's why Baba didn't do it. The point is, we needed something other than Jumbo pinning Kikuchi, which we've gotten most of the time when these two have been involved together during this feud.

 

Though I may not have liked the result, I have to give Baba credit for how the finish was set up, specifically Ogawa distracting Misawa and pulling him into a brawl on the outside so Jumbo could finish off Kikuchi with no interference, since Kawada and Taue were in a brawl of their own. It almost seems like Baba valued Ogawa more than Kikuchi if we go by what we saw here. Puro experts, is this true or am I barking up the wrong tree?

[dawho5]

No expert but Ogawa was always Misawa's buddy.  So that may have played into it.  And a great opponent.  Love when Misawa busts out all of the offense he learned in his excursion to Mexico on Ogawa, offense you never see him use on anyone else.  He once got a win over Ogawa (the flip side of this match) with one of those double chickenwing submissions that involved a figure four at the same time.

Also, you have to know that Baba was a very slow, slow slow-and-steady booker.  The big wins for guys coming from underneath came rarely and meant a lot.  It also meant you could predict who was going to take the fall on either team pretty easily and see momentum shifts coming based on who was tagged in against who.

As far as the match goes, it's another really good AJPW 6-man from the Jumbo vs. Misawa era.  Probably my favorite era of AJPW is 91-mid 94, so this is my bread-and-butter.  Love how it is always Taue interrupting Kawada pins and Jumbo is always willing to take those cheap shots at Misawa.  And how Taue may be bigger than Kikiuchi, but he takes Kikuchi for granted a little bit and gives him too many chances when he has him down.  The way each matchup is wrestled differently in these matches was always a big thing for me.  I'll probably still be enjoying them when I'm about ready to retire.  

Also, Kikuchi getting absolutely murdered by Jumbo is amazing to watch.