[1995-04-06-AJPW-Championship Carnival] Mitsuharu Misawa vs Toshiaki Kawada

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Ditch]

Other than Misawa wrestling with a broken orbital bone for ~28 minutes, this is one of the least matches of the series. Perhaps *the* least. Not flawed in big ways, but more in that they somewhat take it easy. Though Kawada does keep throwing those face kicks....

[Loss]

Kawada catches Misawa in the face with a nasty kick that breaks his orbital bone in their first exchange of the match. Give Misawa credit for toughing it out for the rest of the match. I don't know that I agree that it's not as good as the other Carny matches -- it's above Kawada/Akiyama for me for sure, and not far behind some of the others. The exchange that led to the Tiger Driver on the floor was hot, and they really focused on selling everything well. Like Ditch said, Misawa still eats quite a few kicks to the face, which was pretty unnecessary. But had the match been JIP at 2 minutes, I would not have known Misawa was injured. I'm curious other opinions on this. I may be on my own.

[smkelly]

It's one of the better matches they had together. This was gut-check city for Misawa. The weird thing is that the kick didn't look any worse than a normal hate-filled Kawada kick. Weirder yet, Misawa is so epically stoic about it.

 

6/4/94 is def. their best. 5/98, 10/92, and 7/95 are all excellent as well. Matches they had in the Carny, like 3/93 and 3/98 and 3/00, I'm drawing a blank. IIRC their first Carny match in '97 was a great performance. Pretty much, they're all awesome matches, and it would be splitting hairs to rank them.

[jdw]

There feels like a progression from 10/21/92 to 03/27/93 to 07/29/93 to 04/11/94 to 06/03/94 that climaxes in the last one. It's a little too bad that the two 1995 matches get watched in the sets before the 1994 ones... and the 1994 ones will be a distance from watching the 1992-93 ones. Would almost recommend that you go back and watch the 1992-93 singles matches between the two along with 12/03/93 before dipping 1994 to re-focus the mind.

 

Whatever they had planned in this one other than going to a draw sort of got pitched out the window to a degree. The match ground to a halt relative to how they usually worked, my recollection is that Kawada looked for ways to cover for the fact that Misawa was fucked up pretty bad (and kind of out of it / thrown off his game for a while after it). Of course the picked it up, and did a lot of shit... not really as coherent as they'd been in the past, but it's also hard to think of how many folks at that time would have had a match at this left if one guy's eye got crushed to shit.

 

My guess is that barring the injury, they probably would have had a match along the lines of the 1994 Carny match, just a year more advanced. Perhaps not as much "stuff" as Kawada-Kobashi in Carny went through, but plenty of it, and arguably Misawa and Kawada at their very peak... my guess is it would have been on par with the best singles AJPW kicked out in the year. It would have lacked the "wow" factor of the Misawa-Taue matches because by 1995 everyone expected Misawa-Kawada to knock our socks off, while Misawa-Taue was a shocker.

 

In that first run of five matches, of course I think El Classico is the best for the reasons I touched on over in the 1994 Yearbook pimping thread. That said, the earlier our have some real positives. I think the first three age well relative to a lot of the post-06/03/94 stuff in the promotion. The matches take more time to develop, they're less about trying to cram all sorts of shit in, they're before the head-drop-o-rama mentality so there are other nice ways for them to pop the crowd that seem to be cast aside / forgotten as the decade goes on.

 

07/24/95 is a very good match, and if it was *anyone* other than Misawa-Kawada having that match, it would probably be up there as a career match. I'm not sure that the two Misawa-Taue matches are on it's level for what gets done... it's just that Misawa-Taue had low expectations while Misawa-Kawada was hoped to top 06/03/94... and that's an insane level of expectations.

 

El Classico is a dividing line. Watching the first four all now they don't get compared to El Classico, but instead to where they fit into the moment of AJPW and what else was going on in wrestling at the time. They feel great in the context of their time, the building of the rivalry, and the sense that these two have more in the tank. That gets hit on 06/03/94.

 

The matches after... they can't help but get compared to 06/03/94, and having hanging over their head the promise of delivering the ultimate moment in the feud: Kawada's for singles pin on Misawa, which we all assumed would be in a TC match similar to Tenryu getting it from Jumbo in a TC match. The comp to El Classico is never really favorable, and the ultimate moment never gets delivered.

 

So you watch stuff like this one and 07/24/95 and are usually going to get stuck with either (i) that's good but it doesn't top the classic, or (ii) it still doesn't pay off... or worse, (iii) both.

 

John

[Childs]

You could definitely notice something "off" about Misawa's performance even if you didn't see the kick to the eye. He blew a couple of moves from his basic repertoire, which just wasn't something you saw from him at this point. I would put this in the bottom 1/3 of their matches; there wasn't a tremendous amount of focus to either guy's attack. But they were so fucking great that they still managed to settle in for an excellent match with a hot finishing stretch. When you take the injury into account, it's certainly a memorable effort if not a memorable match by their standards.

[Tim Evans]

Man Misawa was nuts for working with that injury. Kawada's powerbombs were just sick here. Especially the one where Misawa almost lands on his neck. Good match with a great crowd.

[PeteF3]

There's definitely a "something wrong" moment at the time of injury, and in the next few minutes afterward as Misawa's performance is off, with a number of blown spots, and Kawada taking it easy by working a chinlock for a bit. Not a great match, really, but two very good performances under the circumstances. This isn't a psychological masterpiece but these two are so comfortable with each other that just about everything they do looks good, and you can't really blame them for having any pre-match plans possibly go out the window.

[Zenjo]

During the opening exchange Misawa suffers the injury from an innocuous looking kick. He was initially stunned, but the tough as nails warrior put that to one side and fought on without complaint. He sure didn't ask Kawada to go easy on him or limit the physicality of what was to come. There were a couple of moments when his timing was a little off. But by the end I'd forgotten about the injury. Instead I was remembering last time out. Having watched all the post 95 Yearbooks it's great to go back to a time when this rivalry was hot.

 

Once they got motoring it turned into a hell of a battle. Both dishing out the punishment and going full steam ahead. It wasn't paced like a draw in the middle stages. Then during the final 10m the smart booking of the previous Carny matches bore fruit. They'd had decisive finishes so why not here? Add in a red hot crowd, this was excellent.

[Brian Elliott]

I love this match, though I admit my awe is in part due to knowing the real nature of the injury, as naturally everything then has a lot more meaning.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Mitsuharu Misawa vs Toshiaki Kawada - AJPW 4/6/95

 

The famous Kawada breaks Misawa's eye socket match and Misawa wrestles for another 29:30 minutes. This would lead to a great hook for the Carny Finals and the Misawa/Kawada 7/29/95 match. 

 

I would hate this to be the first Misawa/Kawada match anyone watches. It is such a classic rivalry and this match disappoints. It disappoints because about 30 seconds into the match Kawada breaks Misawa’s orbital bone legitimately. It is off a kick that does not even look all that bad. Misawa takes an extended break in the corner. The ref checks on him. Twice the young boys try to give him an ice pack for his eye. This obviously causes Misawa immense pain and it is a real tribute to his actual toughness that he continued on for the next 29:30 of the match. It did cause him to botch a couple moves of his routine and for the match to start a bit slower, but he did find his groove eventually.

The spot of the match is Kawada actually busting out a dive onto the outside of his own, which made me go nuts. (2020 Martin: I thought the same thing. It was not very graceful but it was crazy!) Misawa blocks a piledriver on the floor delivers a Tiger Driver for the first big move of the match approximately 12 minutes into the match. (2020 Martin: Up until that point, they did seem to be buying time, the AJPW Surfboard spot and some holds. I am surprised I didnt mention how good Kawada's selling at some points. Misawa threw some fierce kicks to the core and Kawada did a great job doing doubled over selling.)  Kawada still goes after the eye, which makes me cringe. (2020 Martin: Nothing has changed) As I mentioned earlier, Kawada had never pinned Misawa before. The injury forced their hand to structure a match where Kawada would be offense for a majority making it feel like Kawada would eventually get that victory. Kawada is really good at nuances like the struggle over a powerbomb. (2020 Martin: Three attempts, Misawa-rana and Misawa kicks to the head stymie the first two. I liked Misawa getting a brief run before Kawada turned to Double Stomps to earn that Powerbomb. He really launched him too. Not quite as much heat as 6/3/94 Powerbomb but this was top notch work). Kawada keeps going back to the stretch plum because of the pressure it puts on the eye.

 

Misawa lands a spin kick and goes through his offensive arsenal and the Tiger Suplex gets a good pop as a false finish. (2020 Martin: The key to this is that once Kawada gets the powerbomb they move to Misawa on offense which is smart. They work it as Misawa trying to avoid a suplex by clutching the top rope and when he lets go his elbow recoils and snaps back to hit Kawada. Then they work Misawa finish run. They work it so convincingly that I thought Misawa was going to stand tall when the bell rang for the draw) My second favorite spot of the match is when Kawada is clutching the ropes for dear life fending off a sleeper suplex attempt (Misawa's new favorite move as it put away Kobashi) and then fires off this nasty chop to Misawa’s throat. (2020 Martin: I dont know what your favorite spot was but that was the spot of the match, dude. Same recoil spot as Misawa's elbow earlier.). It was a perfect confluence of desperation, fatigue and dickishness. (2020 Martin: The Jumping High Kick was crucial here after the recoil spinning back chop) Kawada lands a brainbuster and a powerbomb but time expires with him desperately trying to hit a Back Drop Driver.

The general theme of Misawa/Kawada matches is Kawada getting closer and closer to pinning Misawa. In 1993, Kawada worked over Misawa’s arm to eliminate Misawa’s vaunted elbows. In 1994, Kawada worked over Misawa’s neck and was even more aggressive in his stance. In this match, he was in control of the match before time limit expiring looking that with just a minute more and a successful Back Drop Driver he would have secured his first victory over Misawa. This was a great effort from both men given the circumstances of Misawa’s unfortunate injury so early in the match. The first 15 minutes or so is pretty rough, but once Misawa finds his groove the back 15 minutes are really, really strong. It is an unfortunate injury but the silver lining is that the injury adds a ton of heat to Misawa's classic matches of '95. ****1/4

[Calvin]

There's something tragically poetic about Kawada not being able beat Misawa, even after breaking his face, but it's a testament to how good their chemistry was that they could recover from a potentially match-ending injury and still work a strong match. 

***1/4