1998 Recommendations

[Chess Knight]

Just watched Ishikawa v Ikeda 5/27 and thought it might be MOTYC. Loved it.

 

Noticed on Loss' lucha list there's no Santo v Felino 10/18. That's probably the 98 MOTY and should in no possible way in hell be left off of the set.

[Chess Knight]

More BattlARTS

 

Ishikawa v Otuska 1/20- It's THESE two. Probably the best match between them, but it's been a while since I saw their all time great ten minute match from 2/97.

Ishikawa/Otuska v Ikeda/Greco 4/19- Greco and Ish shake hands after the match and Ikeda just pummels Ish. IDK the full story but things started to seems to get ridiculously heated. The match is really great as well so it's not a purely story-driven recommendation.

Ishikawa v Greco 4/24- after it's over Ikeda comes to wipe out Yuki again. I wish I had actually watched this before the 5/27 Ish/Ikeda because I can only imagine all of it making it better. Also, shockingly, a great match.

 

There's other BatBat that's really good, but I think this is the stuff to REALLY put on there (plus what's been mentioned by FLIK and Ditch obv). Thought I'm probably missing a bunch. Fuck me, Ishikawa might have been the best wrestler in the world in 1998. And again in 1999.

[FLIK]

1998 GAEA TV Season Thoughts

 

This was the last year of unwatched footage I had left for the promotion having started out following GAEA with their incredible 1999 and being hooked ever since. Knowing what was to come later on I def got the sense that 98 was being used as a set up year for some of the major stuff that was going to go in 99 and beyond.

 

Also i'd have to say that the biggest theme through out the year was probably them making an effort to really grow their younger generation of stars as more then just talented rookies. In previous years they'd take on vets, ocasionally even getting an odd win here & thear but deep down you always knew there was still that strict heirarchy and it was exspected that most of the time the young girls were gonna fail in their efforts. This year it felt like they wanted all of that to finally start changing and the youngsters to be taken more seriously as threats. They removed the age limit on the titles allowing younger stars to challenge for the singles title although that didn't happen until the following year and allowing the vetrans to challenge for the tag titles which led to Aja & Ozaki winning them over the Summer.

 

Other notable things in 98

 

- The really great angle that started in 97 with Ozaki manipulating partners Kaoru & Yamada into hating each other got wraped up in a really unique way. Traditionaly your disfunctional tag team always ends up with someone turning on someone else leading to a big fight to blow it off. Instead of that we get a great moment whear after Yamada & Kaoru end up fighting with each other again in a match vs Sakura Hirota & Devil Masami, Devil gets on the mic and basicly publicly ridicules them for acting like idiots which in turn leads to Chigusa smacking them around for embrasing her in front of Devil and they're basicly shamed into reconciling.

 

- This all leads into a match a month later whear a once again buddy buddy Kaoru & Yamada take on OZ Academy members Nagashima & Sato only to have Akira Hokuto make a surprise run in, turn heel & allign herself with Ozaki's crew.

 

- They'd kinda sorta teased this last year but weren't able to pull the trigger in 97 due to Oz being MIA for several months. Of course, like a week after Hokuto's heel turn here she found out she was pregnant with her first son and thus was gone from GAEA for about a year & 1/2. Really gives you the sense that when SSU finally kicked off that that was the angle Chiggy had been dying to run for years but couldn't cause shit just kept getting in the way

 

- Lotta roster changes this year.

Ozaki became pretty much full time though technically she was a freelancer.

Aja Kong got brought in in April to fill Hokuto's spot as Oz's tag partner and became semi full time after that working about 60-70% of GAEA's remaining shows in 98. Aja & Oz had great chemistry too, really underrated heel tag team in joshi history.

RIE "Bad Nurse" Nakamura also joined the company around the same time which I thought was a good pick up for them. She sorta ended up filling the void that Bomber Hikaru had left when she disapeared, a young vetran, about 5 or 6 years older then the GAEA youngsters, not a great worker but a solid capable one who'd always give you atleast a decent to good undercard match and help teach the younger girls in the ring while also putting a lot of them over too to elevate them.

Hiromi "the other" Kato left which sucked as she showed pretty good potential in the short amount of time she was around, about a year & 1/2 total.

Obscure (so much much so even I didn't know about her) flash in the pan Miyuki "the other" Ishii came and went. She debued mid year against Chigusa in an ok match, wrestled for about 1 more month and then was never heard from or seen again. Don't think she ever even had a match that lasted more then 5 mins.

This was also the last year Maiko Matsumoto & Rina Ishii were with the company. Would kill to know what the reason for their departure was too. For most of their careers they'd largely been treated as lower to mid card after thoughts in the company but during the last few months of 98 they both started to improve greatly in the ring, especially Rina and they both started to finally get a few more higher profile matches and tv time. Really weird that they were done soon after.

Although Makie Numao actually lasted until mid 99 with the company she gets injured in the later part of the year and only makes tv like 1 time in 99 when she returns so for all intents this is her last year as a major roster member as well.

With things exploding in popularity in 99 and more & more outsiders joining up after then, 98 is really the last year whear GAEA feels like this home grown family promotion and seeing so many of their in house trained talent fade away for various reasons is little depressing.

 

- Like I said earier, big focus on continuing to raise the profile of the younger girls this year both against each other and vs the older stars. Nagashima/Sato vs Sonoko Kato/Meiko feud that saw Sato & Nagashima win the tag titles. They lost them soon after to Aja & OZ but Nagashima & Sato were pretty much established as the tag aces of the promotion from this point forward. Meiko got a lot of attention this year and if it wasn't allready obvious it was hammered home that she was going to be the chosen one to become the future ace among her generation. She got big singles matches vs Toyota & Aja, they ran a Kato/Meiko feud post them losing the belts that led to an amazing 30 min draw between them, one of my fave GAEA matches ever. Meiko also had a mini feud with Kaoru that saw her get atleast one clean pin over her. Kaoru & Toshie also had a mini feud late in the year as well in another highlight.

 

- Mid year Ozaki holds the first OZ Academy stand alone show as part of a double header with GAEA, another really important milestone as OZ would hold 1 to 2 shows under the OZ Academy banner every year from then on out and when GAEA shut down she started running OZ Academy as a full time promotion that most of the roster would then join and which continues to be arguably the #1 joshi promotion still around today.

 

- Late in the year GAEA went through a weird Muga style phase that they dubed "Roman", complete with Tatsumi Fujinami paying a special visit to the GAEA dojo. Didn't produce quite as many cool matches as their shoot style phase in 97 did but there were a few nice ones, especially dug the Chigusa vs Sonoko Kato match. Also led to weird amusing stuff too like Chiggy going over Manami Toyota with an Octopus hold in a 3AW title defense in the main event of AJW's 30th anniversary show.

 

- Lastly and most importantly, can't talk about 1998 GAEA with out brining up Lioness Asuka showing up in a classic angle at the end of the final GAEA show of the year. On 12/26 at a special interpromotional show (notable for having Jaguar Yokota's 2nd retirement match, she's since un-retired but still..) Lioness & Ozaki had a singles match in the semi main that saw Lioness get the win. On 12/27 Aja Kong & Mayumi Ozaki go over Yamada & Meiko Satomura in the main event, with Aja leaving Meiko bloody and knocked out. Aja & Oz go about clebrating their win, taunting Chigusa and the rest of the GAEA faces when Lioness suddenly shows up and the crowd loses their fucking shit like you wouldn't believe. At this point Chigusa had been out of retirement for around 6 years and Lioness had been out of retirement for about 4 and the 2 of them had never had ANY interaction in that time span. They hadn't faced each other, they hadn't teamed, nothing. They'd rarely even appeared on the same shows, like maybe 3 or 4 and that's it so fans had been dying to see a reunion.

 

Chigusa, somewhat surprised to see Lioness thear at all but assuming her old Crush Girl team mate & best friend must be thear to help offers Lioness a handshake and in such a brilliant bit of booking Lioness doesn't attack Chigusa or say anything to her or say anything at all, she just calmly walks past her, leaving her hanging and embraces Aja & Ozaki instead raising their hands. Ozaki as always has a great evil genius "ha ha bitch look what I did" smirk on her face and Chigusa's reaction is priceless as you can see her slowly realising what just happened and processing it all in her mind like "WTF?....oh...hell....NO". Chigusa calmy helps the still knocked out Meiko out of the ring then procedes to lose HER shit and go complete 110% psycho trying to murder Lioness and a giant pull apart ensues. Chiggy gets draged away kicking & screaming, breaks free leading to a 2nd massive pull apart brawl with everyone fighting in the lobby of the arena. Backstage Chiggy gives a great "shits on, it's time to go to war" speach to the roster and Lioness/Aja/Oz finally explain themselves thus giving birth to SSU. Hands down the most iconic moment in the companies history leading to thier biggest angle ever and a huge boost in popularity.

 

Top 20 matches of the year

(Like with 1997, for yearbook purposes i'd only say 1-15 are MUST haves with the rest falling under the catagory of stuff that's also good to check out if there's room)

 

 

1 - 12/27/1998 Aja Kong & Mayumi Ozaki vs Toshiyo Yamada & Meiko Satomura

2 - 1/15/1998 Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita vs Sonoko Kato & Meiko Satomura

3 - 8/23/1998 Meiko Satomura vs Sonoko Kato

4 - 6/21/1998 Reiko Amano & Chikayo Nagashima vs Toshie Uematsu & Sonoko Kato *OZ Academy Show*

5 - 11/23/1998 Aja Kong vs Toshiyo Yamada

6 - 2/22/1998 Toshiyo Yamada & Kaoru vs Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima

7 - 6/13/1998 (3AW Tag Titles #1 Contender Tournament R1) Sonoko Kato & Meiko Satomura vs Kaoru & Toshiyo Yamada

8 - 6/21/1998 Toshiyo Yamada & Sonoko Kato vs Kaoru & Meiko Satomura

9 - 6/21/1998 Mayumi Ozaki & Sugar Sato vs Kyoko Inoue & Yoshiko Tamura *OZ Academy Show*

10 - 8/10/1998 (3AW Tag Titles #1 Contender Tournament FINAL) Aja Kong & Mayumi Ozaki vs Sonoko Kato & Meiko Satomura

11 - 4/29/1998 Aja Kong & Mayumi Ozaki vs Chigusa Nagayo & Meiko Satomura

12 - 6/14/1998 Kaoru vs Toshiyo Yamada

13 - 4/14/1998 Chikayo Nagashima vs Meiko Satomura

14 - 8/23/1998 (3AW Tag Titles) Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima © vs Aja Kong & Mayumi Ozaki

15 - 12/27/1998 Kaoru vs Toshie Uematsu

16 - 5/31/1998 Aja Kong & Mayumi Ozaki vs Kaoru & Toshiyo Yamada

17 - 1/19/1998 Mayumi Ozaki & Sugar Sato vs Sonoko Kato & Meiko Satomura

18 - 7/19/1998 (3AW Title #1 Contender) Chigusa Nagayo vs Kaoru

19 - 3/20/1998 (3AW Tag Titles) Sonoko Kato & Meiko Satomura © vs Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima

20 - 10/3/1998 (Roman Style Match) Chigusa Nagayo vs Sonoko Kato

 

Honorable mention to (in Chron order)

 

1/15/1998 Yasha Kurenai & Carol Midori vs Toshiyo Yamada & Kaoru

 

2/21/1998 Chigusa Nagayo vs Sonoko Kato (Short but good match, Chiggy wins in like 5 mins. Worth watching just to see the post match whear Chigusa brow beats Kato & Meiko for being weaklings and disapointing her (they were still tag champs at this point but had been on a losing streak). Meiko tries to stand up for herself, bum rushes Chigusa or herself and is left crying with bloody nose for her troubles.

 

4/29/1998 Eagle Sawai & Michiko Nagashima vs Kaoru & Toshiyo Yamada

 

6/21/1998 Sugar Sato vs Dynamite Kansai *OZ Academy Show*

 

10/29/1998 Toshiyo Yamada vs Mayumi Ozaki (only reason this isn't high in the top 20 is because not much aired, from the 6 or 7 mins we got it looked awesome)

 

11/12/1998 (Premium League) Sugar Sato vs Sonoko Kato

 

11/23/1998 Meiko Satomura & Toshie Uematsu vs Kaoru & Rina Ishii (the best performance of Ishii's career...she was gone a month later)

 

12/27/1998 Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima vs Chigusa Nagayo & Sakura Hirota (Didn't bring it up before but it's also worth mentioning that 98 is the year Hirota went full on comedy as opposed to the goofy but largely straight wrestler she'd been before. It took me a while to warm up to her act the very first time I saw her and I remember hating this match at first. Years later she's one of my favorite wrestlers and I ended up loving this match)

 

Wrestler of the year i'd have to give to Kaoru again for much the same reasons I did in 97. She's not the biggest star, she's not the most talented but night in night out she gives good to great matches, does well in a large variety of situations and is really the back bone of the promotion in a lot of ways.

 

Prob won't get around to it for a while but now that i've finally seen every GAEA show ever which has taken me 10-11 years i'll post a top 100 or so match list sometime soon as well.

 

*EDIT*

Added Kato/Meiko vs Sato/Nagashima tag title match from 3/20 as my new #19, originally meant to include it on the list but forgot. Kato vs Sato from 11/12 drops down to the honorable mention catagory. It was a really good match but I mostly included it because of a great last few mins

[soup23]

Great stuff again FLIK, any way we could get some recommendations for the 1999-2004 sets. As stated in 1994, my joshi interest is really up right now and these writeups do a great job of getting me hyped for the stuff to come.

[FLIK]

Thanks

 

Not in any rush since i'm assuming it'll be a while before they're out but yeah i'll get around to the other years eventually.

 

I'd say 97 through 02 are the yearbooks i'm most looking forward to seeing released actually since between FMW, GAEA, ARSION & others there's a whole ton of hidden gems that don't get talked up much now that hopefully ppl will get to discover.

[Smack2k]

Sabu / RVD vs. Hayabusa / Jinsei Shinzaki - ECW Tag Titles - Heatwave 1998

 

My favorite ECW match EVER....

 

Not sure if this was a given or not...but a MUST IMO.

[MikeCampbell]

I'd suggest a couple of promos from Tommy Rich and the FBI. one from January at the House Party show, and the other from May at A Matter of Respect.

 

The January one has the FBI bring out a bowling trophy and declare themselves the World Six Man Tag Team Champions after they beat the Von Erichs in Dallas last week, and then stopped in Atlanta and beat the Freebirds. They namedrop Bob Geigel and a few other NWA legends, and after the lose to Dreamer, Balls, and Axl, declare that Geigel said the match was non-title.

 

The May one is them coming out ot New York, New York, and attacking Blue Meanie and Nova, and Meanie juices huge. Rich dedicates the beatinug to the recently deceased Frank Sinatra and says he's the new Chairman of the Board.

 

Sabu / RVD vs. Hayabusa / Jinsei Shinzaki - ECW Tag Titles - Heatwave 1998

Not sure if this was a given or not...but a MUST IMO.

I'd say this is a MUST NOT. This is Sabu and Van Dam at their spot-fu worst, and even Hayabusa falls into the trap. Tanaka/Awesome and Candido/Storm from the same PPV are both much better.

[Loss]

There are A LOT of juniors matches in '98 New Japan that are pretty highly-rated. How come no one ever really talks about this stuff? Has it been overlooked? Was it overrated? Just curious.

[Loss]

As we get later in the decade, I'm going to need more help figuring out what's worth keeping and what isn't. Here is what I have for 1998 New Japan. Anything I should add or remove?

 

01/04/98 - Ultimo Dragon vs Shinjiro Otani

01/04/98 - Naoya Ogawa vs Don Frye

01/04/98 - Riki Choshu Retirement

02/04/98 - Jushin Liger, Kendo Ka Shin & El Samurai vs Shinjiro Otani, Koji Kanemoto & Tatsuhito Takaiwa

02/07/98 - Jushin Liger vs Shinjiro Otani

02/08/98 - Jushin Liger vs Koji Kanemoto

02/15/98 - Naoya Ogawa vs Don Frye

03/06/98 - Jushin Liger & Dr Wagner Jr vs Shinjiro Otani & Koji Kanemoto

04/04/98 - Naoya Ogawa vs Don Frye

04/04/98 - Kensuke Sasaki vs Tatsumi Fujinami (Finish only)

04/14/98 - Jushin Liger & Kendo Ka Shin vs Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa

04/14/98 - Genichiro Tenryu & Shiro Koshinaka vs Tatsumi Fujinami & Satoshi Kojima

04/21/98 - Jushin Liger, El Samurai & Kendo Ka Shin vs Shinjiro Otani, Koji Kanemoto & Tatsuhito Takaiwa

05/17/98 - Koji Kanemoto vs Yuji Yasuraoka

05/18/98 - Jushin Liger vs Masakazu Fukuda

05/23/98 - Koji Kanemoto vs Kendo Ka Shin

05/28/98 - Jushin Liger vs Shinjiro Otani

05/31/98 - Shinjiro Otani vs Tatsuhito Takaiwa

06/03/98 - Koji Kanemoto vs Dr. Wagner Jr.

06/05/98 - Jushin Liger, El Samurai, Kendo Ka Shin, Dr. Wagner Jr. & Hayato Nanjyo vs Shinjiro Otani, Koji Kanemoto, Tatsuhito Takaiwa, Kaz Hayashi & Masakazu Fukuda

06/05/98 - Genichiro Tenryu & Shiro Koshinaka vs Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan

07/02/98 - El Samurai & Kendo Ka Shin vs Koji Kanemoto & Shinjiro Otani

07/15/98 - Jushin Liger vs Koji Kanemoto

07/31/98 - Genichiro Tenryu vs Keiji Muto

08/01/98 - Satoshi Kojima vs Tadao Yasuda

08/01/98 - Shiro Koshinaka vs Masa Chono

08/01/98 - Genichiro Tenryu vs Shinya Hashimoto

08/02/98 - Shinya Hashimoto vs Satoshi Kojima

08/02/98 - Shinya Hashimoto vs Kazuo Yamazaki

08/08/98 - Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa vs Koji Kanemoto & Dr. Wagner

09/10/98 - Jushin Liger vs Great Sasuke

10/18/98 - El Samurai vs Dr. Wagner Jr.

10/18/98 - Genichiro Tenryu & Shiro Koshinaka vs Keiji Muto & Hiroyoshi Tenzan

10/24/98 - Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa vs Koji Kanemoto & Kendo Ka Shin

10/24/98 - Jushin Liger vs El Samurai

10/26/98 - Jushin Liger, El Samurai & Dr Wagner Jr vs Shinjiro Otani, Koji Kanemoto & Tatsuhito Takaiwa

10/30/98 - Jushin Liger vs Shinjiro Otani

12/04/98 - Jushin Liger vs Tatsuhito Takaiwa

[FLIK]

05/17/98 - Koji Kanemoto vs Yuji Yasuraoka - I have this listed as 5/16 but i'm guessing same match. I thought it was pretty decent but easily cuttable

 

05/18/98 - Jushin Liger vs Masakazu Fukuda - Damn good match, wouldn't quite say it's a MUST have for the set but if there's room toss it on for sure

 

05/28/98 - Jushin Liger vs Shinjiro Otani - Great match, def include this

 

05/31/98 - Shinjiro Otani vs Tatsuhito Takaiwa - Do you guys have access to more complete version? The one I have only shows about 6 mins of a 17+ match so i'd say no to including it if it's the clipped down one

 

06/03/98 - Koji Kanemoto vs Dr. Wagner Jr. - Awesome stuff, one of my fave NJPW jr matches ever, def a needs to be on

 

10/26/98 - Jushin Liger, El Samurai & Dr Wagner Jr vs Shinjiro Otani, Koji Kanemoto & Tatsuhito Takaiwa - I have this listed as 11/14 (airdate?). Thought this was great as well if 10/26 is the same match.

 

Not mentioned on the list

 

6/03/1998 Kojima & Nakanishi vs Tenryu & Koshinaka - Really loved this match, i'd put it in the must have catagory as well

 

QUOTE(Smack2k @ Aug 22 2012, 08:53 PM)

Sabu / RVD vs. Hayabusa / Jinsei Shinzaki - ECW Tag Titles - Heatwave 1998

Not sure if this was a given or not...but a MUST IMO.

 

I'd say this is a MUST NOT. This is Sabu and Van Dam at their spot-fu worst, and even Hayabusa falls into the trap.

I agree on thinking this match was garbage BUT I have run into enough ppl that do actually really like it for who knows what reason so i'd also vote yes on including it just because of that.

[kjh]

Antonio Inoki's retirement match probably should be included.

[DocSarpolis]

Great American Bash 98 - Baltimore, MD - Arena - June 14, 1998

WCW TV Champion Fit Finlay vs Booker T

 

again, this was the phase when Booker really started to emerge from Harlem Heat & prove he could go 1 on 1

 

 

 

Summer Slam 98 - New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - August 30, 1998

 

X-Pac vs Jeff Jarrett

good gimmick match ended with a head shaving.

 

WWF World Champion Steve Austin vs the Undertaker

the highway to hell theme songed match...

Austin shows great toughness in this match as he gets a legit concussion in the first spot of the match just seconds into it & still gets it together & goes 22 minutes w/ Taker.

_________________________________________________

 

I've been watching a shit-ton of Great American Bashes and am curious what other people's opinions on the 98 show are. In particular, what are people's thoughts on the Finlay-Booker match that Jeff listed here? I tend to think that the best matches from that show are Booker-Benoit and Eddie-Chavo.

 

And that X-Pac-Jarrett match is fantastic. Has to be among the more underrated matches from WWF since it was on a loaded card with more trendy stars. Best match on the show and I'd be happy with a video package set to 'Highway to Hell' that I imagine aired on TV rather than the main event itself.

[Bix]

I can't remember the last time I watched that Austin-Taker match but it was a really fun main event live. A bit underwhelming after the ladder match but still really good.

[Smack2k]

Sabu / RVD vs. Hayabusa / Jinsei Shinzaki - ECW Tag Titles - Heatwave 1998

Not sure if this was a given or not...but a MUST IMO.

I'd say this is a MUST NOT. This is Sabu and Van Dam at their spot-fu worst, and even Hayabusa falls into the trap. Tanaka/Awesome and Candido/Storm from the same PPV are both much better.

 

I really loved this for what it was, a spot for sure, but a ton of fun to watch for while it lasted..

 

Best ever? not even close...a Ton of fun? Shit yeah!

 

 

It's GOLD Jerry, GOLD!!

 

But to be fair, I am going to watch it again as its been a LONG time since I saw it last...perhaps my opinion will change...

[Childs]

I'd add the 8/8/98 Hash vs. Tenryu even though it's a lesser match than 8/1/98 G1 match.

[jdw]

Agree with others: Austin-Taker from SummerSlam needs to be on it. In fact... pretty much *all* Austin PPV matches need to be on it. This is the year where he became the Man on top of the WWE.

 

John

[FLIK]

Another joshi must have

 

JD 7/5/1998 (TWF Tag Titles) Jaguar Yokota & Yoko Kosugi © vs Lioness Asuka & The Bloody - 60 Min Draw, about half airs on tv, really great match, not worked at all like ppl would probably exspect if they went in blind.

[Smack2k]

Sabu / RVD vs. Hayabusa / Jinsei Shinzaki - ECW Tag Titles - Heatwave 1998

Not sure if this was a given or not...but a MUST IMO.

I'd say this is a MUST NOT. This is Sabu and Van Dam at their spot-fu worst, and even Hayabusa falls into the trap. Tanaka/Awesome and Candido/Storm from the same PPV are both much better.

 

I really loved this for what it was, a spot for sure, but a ton of fun to watch for while it lasted..

 

Best ever? not even close...a Ton of fun? Shit yeah!

 

 

It's GOLD Jerry, GOLD!!

 

But to be fair, I am going to watch it again as its been a LONG time since I saw it last...perhaps my opinion will change...

 

Upon new viewing...

 

This is a MUST NOT...wow...what a difference time makes...I ended up really not liking this and couldn't wait for the final leg drop spots...

[FLIK]

3/31/1998 (BJW Jr Title) Yoshihiro Tajiri © vs Ikuto Hidaka - Awesome match i'd add to the list as well

[Loss]

How does this list look for All Japan? If push comes to shove, what should be the first to get cut? Can anything get clipped to the finish?

 

Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace vs Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (AJPW 01/26/98)

Mitsuharu Misawa vs Jun Akiyama (AJPW 01/26/98)

Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace vs Johnny Smith & Wolf Hawkfield (AJPW 01/26/98)

Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Steve Williams & Gary Albright (AJPW 02/28/98)

Mitsuharu Misawa vs Johnny Ace (AJPW 02/28/98)

Kenta Kobashi vs Johnny Ace (AJPW 03/21/98)

Mitsuharu Misawa vs Akira Taue (AJPW 03/22/98)

Toshiaki Kawada vs Jun Akiyama (AJPW 03/26/98)

Masahito Kakihara & Yoshihiro Takayama vs Jun Akiyama & Masao Inoue (AJPW 03/29/98)

Mitsuharu Misawa vs Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW Championship Carnival 03/29/98)

Kenta Kobashi vs Takao Omori (AJPW Championship Carnival 03/29/98)

Stan Hansen vs Steve Williams (AJPW Championship Carnival 03/29/98)

Mitsuharu Misawa vs Jun Akiyama (AJPW Championship Carnival 04/08/98)

Kenta Kobashi vs Jun Akiyama (AJPW Championship Carnival 04/11/98)

Kenta Kobashi vs Takao Omori (AJPW Championship Carnival 04/12/98)

Mitsuharu Misawa vs Jun Akiyama (AJPW Championship Carnival 04/18/98)

Jun Akiyama vs Hiroshi Hase (AJPW Tokyo Dome 05/01/98)

Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace vs Vader & Stan Hansen (AJPW Tokyo Dome 05/01/98)

Mitsuharu Misawa vs Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW Tokyo Dome 05/01/98)

Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace (AJPW 06/05/98)

Maunakea Mossman vs Satoru Asako (AJPW 06/12/98)

Toshiaki Kawada vs Kenta Kobashi (AJPW 06/12/98)

Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Yoshihiro Takayama & Masahito Kakihara (AJPW 07/19/98)

Jun Akiyama & Hiroshi Hase vs Kenta Kobashi & Taiyo Kea (AJPW 07/19/98)

Gary Albright & Yoshihiro Takayama vs Akira Taue & Jun Izumida (AJPW 07/24/98)

Kenta Kobashi vs Jun Akiyama (AJPW 07/24/98)

Mitsuharu Misawa, Jun Akiyama & Satoru Asako vs Kenta Kobashi, Johnny Ace & Johnny Smith (AJPW 08/22/98)

Mitsuharu Misawa, Jun Akiyama & Satoru Asako vs Toshiaki Kawada, Yoshinari Ogawa & Takao Omori (AJPW 08/23/98)

Jun Akiyama vs Yoshinari Ogawa (AJPW 09/11/98)

Toshiaki Kawada vs Masahito Kakihara (AJPW 09/11/98)

Kenta Kobashi vs Akira Taue (AJPW 09/11/98)

Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama (AJPW 10/11/98)

Mitsuharu Misawa & Takao Omori vs Kenta Kobashi & Jinsei Shinzaki (AJPW 10/24/98)

Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Yoshihiro Takayama & Masahito Kakihara (AJPW Real World Tag League 10/31/98)

Mitsuharu Misawa vs Kenta Kobashi (AJPW 10/31/98)

Vader & Stan Hansen vs Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama (AJPW Real World Tag League 11/21/98)

Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa vs Johnny Ace & Bart Gunn (AJPW Real World Tag League 11/21/98)

Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa vs Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama (AJPW Real World Tag League 11/30/98)

Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama vs Stan Hansen & Vader (AJPW Real World Tag League 12/05/98)

[Loss]

Same for BattlARTS:

 

Minoru Tanaka vs Yoshihiro Taijiri (BattlARTS 01/20/98)

Yuki Ishikawa vs Alexander Otsuka (BattlARTS 01/20/98)

Yuki Ishikawa & Naohiro Ishikawa vs Minoru Tanaka & Daisuke Ikeda (BattlARTS 02/07/98)

Takeshi Ono & Daisuke Ikeda vs Tiger Mask & Naohiro Hoshikawa (BattlARTS 02/11/98)

Yuki Ishikawa vs Katsumi Usuda (BattlARTS 03/06/98)

Tiger Mask (Satoru Sayama) vs Minoru Tanaka (BattlARTS 04/19/98)

Yuki Ishikawa & Alexander Otsuka vs Daisuke Ikeda & Carl Greco (BattlARTS 04/19/98)

Yuki Ishikawa vs Carl Greco (BattlARTS 04/24/98)

Daisuke Ikeda & Mohammed Yone & Gran Naniwa vs Yuki Ishikawa & Ikuto Hidaka & Carl Greco (BattlARTS 05/10/98)

Minoru Tanaka vs Maasaki Mochizuki (BattlARTS 05/27/98)

Yuki Ishikawa vs Daisuke Ikeda (BattlARTS 05/27/98)

Ikuto Hidaka vs Willow the Whisp (Jeff Hardy) (BattlARTS 06/14/98)

Alexander Otsuka vs Katsumi Usuda (BattlARTS 07/25/98)

Carl Greco vs Ryuji Yamakawa (BattlARTS 08/22/98)

Minoru Tanaka vs Victor Krueger (BattlARTS 08/22/98)

Katsumi Usuda vs Ryuji Yamakawa (BattlARTS 08/29/98)

Yuki Ishikawa vs Alexander Otsuka (BattlARTS 08/29/98)

Hisakatsu Oya vs Greg Valentine (BattlARTS B-Cup 10/05/98)

Bob Backlund vs Daisuke Ikeda (BattlARTS B-Cup 10/05/98)

Yuki Ishikawa vs Mitsuhiro Matsunaga (BattlARTS B-Cup 10/05/98)

Great Sasuke vs Victor Krueger (BattlARTS B-Cup 10/23/98)

Yuki Ishikawa & Bob Backlund vs Alexander Otsuka & Hisakatsu Oya (BattlARTS 10/23/98)

Yuki Ishikawa vs Hisakatsu Oya (BattlARTS B-Cup 11/23/98)

Bob Backlund vs Great Sasuke (BattlARTS B-Cup 11/23/98)

Road Warrior Animal & Road Warrior Hawk vs Alexander Otsuka & Mohammed Yone (BattlARTS B-Cup 11/23/98)

Yuki Ishikawa vs Bob Backlund (BattlARTS B-Cup Final 11/23/98)

Minoru Tanaka & Masaaki Mochizuki vs Minoru Fujita & Ikuto Hidaka (BattlARTS 12/16/98)

Yuki Ishikawa & Carl Greco vs Minoru Tanaka & Masaaki Mochizuki (BattlARTS 12/25/98)

[Tim Cooke]

Daisuke Ikeda & Mohammed Yone & Gran Naniwa vs Yuki Ishikawa & Ikuto Hidaka & Carl Greco (BattlARTS 05/10/98)

- This could drop off

[ohtani's jacket]

Reading through this thread piqued my curosity about the juniors in '98, but honestly their matches are so badly cut that I think it's going to be a great source of frustration when it comes to putting the yearbook together.

 

Anyway, here's what I could track down:

 

01/04/98 - Ultimo Dragon vs Shinjiro Otani

This was nothing special. The only reason I can think of for including it was that it happened on the Jan 4th show.

 

02/04/98 - Jushin Liger, Kendo Ka Shin & El Samurai vs Shinjiro Otani, Koji Kanemoto & Tatsuhito Takaiwa

Standard New Japan trios action. About 7 minutes aired. Match isn't notable in any way, but the action is good. Doesn't build to either of the Liger singles matches if that's what you're thinking.

 

02/07/98 - Jushin Liger vs Shinjiro Otani

Less than ten minutes aired, but what was shown was really great.

 

02/08/98 - Jushin Liger vs Koji Kanemoto

Really boring. Not an interesting match at all.

 

05/28/98 - Jushin Liger vs Shinjiro Otani

Excellent match between these two, as you'd expect. Not as exciting as their February match but more is shown.

 

10/24/98 - Jushin Liger vs El Samurai

Didn't care for this much, but I guess if you're interested in the '98 version of Liger vs. Sami it's worth sticking on. Around half the match aired.

 

10/26/98 - Jushin Liger, El Samurai & Dr Wagner Jr vs Shinjiro Otani, Koji Kanemoto & Tatsuhito Takaiwa

Nothing special whatsoever. The February six-man was much better.

 

10/30/98 - Jushin Liger vs Shinjiro Otani

Only five minutes of this aired and it was the same recycled Liger/Ohtani shtick. I'd say this is worthless.

[Loss]

When you refer to things "airing", which TV show are you referring to? Is it possible the matches were more complete on a commercial release, DirecTV or one of their other TV shows than BS-Asahi? I am still very confused by the New Japan TV format at this time.

[ohtani's jacket]

The matches I watched were from World Pro Wrestling on TV Asahi.

 

Ditch would know better than me, but I believe Ohtani/Dragon, Wagner/Kanemoto, Liger/Sasuke and Kanemoto/Wagner vs. Ohtani/Takaiwa are available in full on commercial tape. Most of the Super Juniors stuff was clipped even on the commercial release.