[1990-06-30-AJPW-One Night Special] Toshiaki Kawada vs Kenta Kobashi

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Childs]

This was an interesting contrast to the Misawa-Kobashi match from March. It was more spirited and exciting than that but kind of a mess tonally. They started out wrestling a flashy cruiserweight match. Then they went to a testy brawling sequence, which was cool but quickly forgotten. Then Kobashi moved into a long sequence of working over Kawada's leg, which was well-executed but dragged. Finally, they went back to the cruiserweight stuff, with both guys attempting springboard moves to the outside (I say attempting because Kobashi blew his pretty badly) and Kawada selling the leg intermittently. I guess it's not surprising that two talented young wrestlers, given 25 minutes to work a singles match, would deliver a mess with a lot of interesting ideas swirling around in it. It certainly wasn't boring.

[Loss]

They were given a ton of time and I agree with what Childs said -- they had a lot of great ideas, but they didn't quite come together. They had a very good match, but it's not at the level of the best matches of either guy (not that I was expecting that). Neither guy was probably ready for a singles match this long just yet. I think that's the cool thing about Misawa's ascension. He didn't just go on his own; he took others with him. Misawa and Kawada changed their style to work on top, while I think Kobashi was less a case of changing his style and more a case of just improving dramatically in a short period of time. You see flashes of what they can do on display, and it's clear that they are eager to make the most of the opportunity. This is a matchup that improved consistently throughout the decade. It's much better than the Misawa/Kobashi match earlier in the year for sure. Odd to see them working like juniors, though.

[PeteF3]

An improvement over Kobashi/Misawa but probably ten minutes too long. These guys' ambitions were still ahead of their ability, and it showed at times. Still, the match was well laid-out and surprisingly hate-filled at times, the run of false finishes was well-done, and I appreciated an All-Japan epic that actually ended with a cradle move for once.

[jdw]

They were probably forced into going longer than say if they had this match elsewhere in 1990. It was a special no-Gaijin card (setting aside Slinger who may have been going through the dojo at the time) between series, one of those fan appreciation cards:

 

Motoshi Okuma vs Mitsuo Momota

Rusher Kimura vs Haruka Eigen

Giant Baba & Richard Slinger vs Isamu Teranishi & Mighty Inoue

Toshiaki Kawada vs Kenta Kobashi

Jumbo Tsuruta & Masanobu Fuchi & The Great Kabuki vs Mitsuharu Misawa & Akira Taue & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi

 

Comedyish undercard, just two competative matches. Suspect that pretty much everything on the card was longer than the same folks would do at a normal house show.

 

Of course by 1994, asking Kawada and Kobashi to fill 24 minutes against each other would have been fairly easy. In 1995, it would have been a "sprint" for the two. So this is probably a very good contrast to what they did in the future, and also the match they has in 1989. It's a bit too bad that none of their 1988 matches have washed up.

[soup23]

Fascinating match to watch in retrospect. In as many ways as I was shocked by how bad the Misawa/Kobashi match earlier was even at that stage in their career, I was equally amazed by how good this was in certain sequences. I especially loved the beginning and the kick sequence on the outside and the beautiful dive by Kobashi. I also thought the ending run was really nice. The middle 18 minutes were filled with some uninspired work but also some neat stuff and at least you could really tell that both workers were trying really hard. Tough match to rank but enjoyed it quite a bit.

[shoe]

I enjoyed the match. I agree with Childs that they had a lot of different ideas. Still both guys work hard, and it built to a really exciting match.

[Kevin Ridge]

Kawada misses a dive to the outside but is able to catch himself on the way down. We have a spin kick battle going on. Gets a bit testy with Kawada throwing forearms while on top of Kobashi. To their feet and Kawada gets in his kicks too. We get the Scorpion Death Lock, Texas Cloverleaf and Figure Four in the match. Doing the rolling cradle and then not actually rolling the guy into a pinning situation looked bad. Kawada rattles Kobashi’s jaw with a rising kick. Kobashi with the moonsault but it’s blocked with the knees. Good action towards the end with Kawada getting the right position. Not great but like with other match ups in AJPW there will be better matches ahead.

[Loss]

Previously at PWO:

 

6/30/90 Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi
A great match, an upgrade from their bout I watched from July '89, which if I recall was their first recorded bout.

This match plays off their previous one, and Kawada's selling of the leg is miles better. Kawada does some lucha style bumps to the floor, like a springboard senton which he mostly hit the floor instead of Kobashi. Kobashi even does a plancha, this time from the top rope, and he landed awkwardly as well, his head made a lot of contact on the floor. Kawada used KENTA like kicks, in terms of elevation and quickness. Kobashi went all Bret Hart in this match with the leg work, utilizing submissions I've never seen him use before, like the figure four and stretch muffler. The crowd is hot throughout the contest, and especially towards the end. Kawada secures the victory, as expected, by rolling through a rolling pin by Kobashi.
I especially liked how they focused around simple strikes and submissions with a mixture of high spots. It was refreshing to see, as their later bouts revolve around the huge bombs they like to throw and it sometimes gets overwhelming. This is a match to watch.

****1/4

[DR Ackermann]

This reminded me of some generic early 2000s RoH match between two guys that were really into Japanese wrestling and wanted to get a whole bunch of their favorite influences in but didn't understand what restraint meant. And neither did the booker. This was wrestled a little bit better though. Lots of ideas, too long, little meaning but it still wasn't a bad match.

[garretta]

I liked this one a lot. The brawling sequences, especially the kicks, looked really stiff, and I really enjoyed the leg work from Kobashi, as he seemed determined to either get the submission from Kawada or take Kawada's leg home with him. Kawada's a tremendous underdog after about the first ten minutes, not only gutting out submission attempts but coming through with brutal kicks and forearms at just the right time to stop Kobashi's offense. Then, we started getting the nearfalls, and Kawada almost won the match on at least two separate occasions before finally pulling the final cradle seemingly out of nowhere. He sold the leg tremendously throughout, and was still selling it as he was helped back to the locker room.

 

That's the only real complaint I have about the match: toward the end, as the time limit started approaching, Kobashi abandoned the leg in favor of the cruiser-style pinning sequences. They may have looked flashier and popped the crowd more, but they ran counter to the story he'd told so beautifully throughout the rest of the bout. From what everyone has said in this thread, though, these two guys are still learning, and better matches lie ahead. I'm looking forward to them.

 

This one just misses my top three for the year in Japan so far, as Hogan-Hansen (my working number three behind Hansen-Doc and Liger-Sano) is just too good and too rare to leave out.

[drew wardlaw]

I really liked the start of the match. It felt like two young guys who are going to have a 10 minute match and want to really prove something. Then they settled in and ended up going 25 minutes and it caught me off guard. Interesting match in the sense that you can see the guys are talented but really lack the maturity to put together a cohesive 20+ minute match. Feels almost like a study guideposts or something.

[dawho5]

I thought Kobashi was looking really gassed out towards the end. The opening sequence was so well-executed. I liked the mini brawl a lot, shades of things to come. The legwork in a Kawada vs. Kobashi match is necessary, I tell you. It HAS to happen. I wonder if the booking wasn't intentionally trying to slow walk Kawada away from being a junior at this point. A little more heavyweight style stuff added in to all the juniors spots, start phasing some of those spots out gradually.

[superkix]

This had moments of future greatness for sure but also its fair share of slog and slop, with really long control segments from Kobashi and not enough on Kawada's part to convey the extent of all that legwork. The opening was pretty great though, like Kawada whiffing on the plancha, Kobashi kicking him over the guardrail, some rando kid patting Kawada's ass as he stands up before he gets taken out with a big swandive from Kobashi. I really liked their pissy exchange in the corner that ends with Kawada forearming a grounded Kobashi in the face. Kawada's a real grunt on top but once Kobashi takes over, it's snoozeville and Kawada doesn't do much else in the match. The finish sucked.