[1994-01-29-AJPW-New Year's Giant Series] Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Giant Baba vs Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Masa Fuchi

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Kobashi wins again! Dave's ***** rating is a head scratcher, but I always enjoy watching the ***** WON matches no one ever talks about. There are a few of them on this set. There's nothing here that will change the world, but it's what you like from these guys. Fuchi standing on Kobashi's chin was my personal highlight.

[Ditch]

Yes: fun, good, but 5* is baffling.

[Kevin Ridge]

First time seeing this and wasn't aware of the history of Dave's rating until reading this post after. Definitely a fun match as I enjoy these six man matches. Fuchi decides he needs a bit more exercise and uses Kobashi's face as a step board. Good match but agreed that not five star.

[shoe]

The 5* is a what are you smoking, but still a fun bout.

[Exposer]

5 *??????? All I saw was a typical AJPW 6-man but with the addition of Kobashi getting the win. It was good but that rating is absurd.

[soup23]

5 stars for this is a bigger head scratcher to me than Davey/Elgin since that involves two things we know Dave enjoys (moves/nearfalls and trying to make a star within a match). This seemed like business as usual. Kawada has a great tombstone and I love when he mixes it in. Nice to see Kobashi on a roll.

[jdw]

Was wondering which version made the set:

 

TV (i.e. JIP for last 21 minutes Dave 5* version):

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X25xDXonmWc

 

Full 39 minute version:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9uBZ-F_aog

 

Confess that I don't recall thinking the TV version was 5*, and I haven't watched the full version yet.

[soup23]

I will double check but I think it was the JIP tv version.

[Loss]

It was the TV version. What would be the source for the 39 minute version? Which commercial release?

[Ditch]

Old bump but I just noticed this.

 

The full version was posted on the NTV website but I'm 99.9% sure it didn't air on AJ Classics. Same thing with the 7/26/91 6-man.

[jdw]

Do the NTV website versions have a logo / watermark? The one n youtube doesn't. Also the quality isn't high. Makes me still wonder what the source is for that.

[Ditch]

It doesn't have a watermark. The quality isn't high because when they were posting these like 7-9 years ago that was a standard bitrate. I was downloading from their site for a brief time so I know first-hand.

[PeteF3]

5* is insane but this is a perfectly acceptable match by AJPW 6-man standards, with the novelty of Baba's participation. Taue doing the Coconut Crusher on Kobashi and then giving Baba the hairy eyeball was a really fun touch, as was the requisite payback spot once the old man tagged in. There's more of the Taue/Kobashi feud, too. Fuchi does the job, natch.

[zep81]

The full match was also released on a 6-Disc Best Of Kenta Kobashi (2012) release:

 

DVD 1
9/5/96 Kenta Kobashi vs. Stan Hansen 26:07 complete
10/23/99 Kenta Kobashi/Jun Akiyama vs. Misawa/Ogawa 27:25 complete
6/5/92 Kobashi/Misawa vs. Jumbo/Tsuruta/Akira Taue
9/3/94 Kobashi vs. Steve Williams

DVD 2
1/24/95 Kobashi/Misawa vs. Kawada/Taue
7/24/96 Kobashi vs. Taue
1/20/97 Kobashi vs. Misawa
7/25/97 Kobashi/Johnny Ace vs. Steve Williams/Gary Albright
10/21/97 Kobashi vs. Misawa
10/31/98 Kobashi vs. Misawa

DVD 3
3/1/03 Kobashi vs. Misawa 33:28 complete
7/16/03 Kobashi/Tamon Honda vs. Takayama/Shinya Makabe 27:13 complete
10/19/02 Kobashi/Shiga vs. Akiyama/Saito

DVD 4
4/13/03 Kobashi vs. Tamon Honda
8/26/03 Kobashi vs. Bison Smith
3/6/04 Kobashi vs. Takeshi Rikio
7/10/04 Kobashi vs. Jun Akiyama
12/4/04 Kobashi vs. The Gladiator
6/4/06 Kobashi/Honda vs. Morishima/Mohammed Yone

DVD 5
1/27/91 Kobashi/Johnny Ace vs. Joe Deaton/Billy Black 16:46 complete
5/25/92 Kobashi/Kikuchi vs. Kroffat/Furnas 22:11 complete
******This match is considered to be a holy grail! They claim it is uncut on the box, but it seems to be 28 seconds short of complete. Based on my observations, I don't see any edits, and they have gotten times wrong before******
1/29/94 Kobashi/Misawa/Baba vs. Kawada/Taue/Fuchi 39:02 complete

DVD 6
5/1/98 Kobashi/Ace vs. Hansen/Vader 22:12 complete
5/2/99 Kobashi/Akiyama/Hakushi vs. Ace/Road Warriors 17:37 complete
7/4/99 Kobashi/Kentaro Shiga vs. Takayama/Omori 8:45 complete
12/7/02 Kobashi vs. Bison Smith 8:47 complete
1/26/03 Kobashi/KENTA vs. Misawa/Marufuji 16:18 complete

[garretta]

I enjoyed this a lot, but there was nothing remotely five-star about it compared to some of the other matches in this feud going back to 1990. I wouldn't even say it did much for Kobashi overall, since anyone who knew the Kawada team's lineup in advance could guess who was doing the job. If he'd beaten Kawada, or even Taue, that cleanly, we're talking at least a game modifier, if not a game changer.

 

Nice to see Baba get actively involved in his number one feud. He wasn't in there much, but he looked to be having a blast when he was. Kawada and friends didn't go out of their way to take it easy on him just because he's the boss, either, which I'm sure he appreciated.

 

Fuchi stole the show as usual. Using Kenta's chin for a stair climber was a great spot, but I also liked him letting Kenta get within an arm's length of Baba (especially considering Baba's height and reach), then casually reaching out and hooking the tights without making a move to pull Kenta away from his corner. It's like he was saying, "Go on, tag if you want to so badly. What's the matter, little man? Are your little arms too short to reach?"

 

The Kawada side showed a lot more teamwork, and I'm wondering if part of that was because the Misawa side had to work around Baba a bit, which they'd never had to do before in a setting like this.

 

I'd like to see Misawa play FIP once in a while, if only so they could stress the idea that a pinfall win over him in one of these multi-man matches makes the man who gets it a top contender for the Triple Crown. Or did they even emphasize stuff like that in AJPW? If they didn't, they missed a golden opportunity to push possible threats to Misawa (or whoever the Triple Crown champ was at a given time).