[2000-04-15-AJPW-Championship Carnival] Kenta Kobashi vs Takao Omori

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Kenta Kobashi vs Takao Omori - 2000 Champions Carnival Final

I understand why this match has a big rep as you get well-executed leg work from Omori and then a gangbusters finish stretch from Kobashi with Kobashi finally winning the Champions Carnival, but I did feel everything connected and that this was a true classic match. I liked where they went with Omori hitting basement dropkick on the knee as a last ditch effort to avoid the match becoming a rout. He gave a great performance in destroying the leg, but rather than the constant callbacks and battling through the pain in the Takayama match we get the Kobashi fireworks show at the end. Dont get me wrong, I dig some high end offense, but it felt arbitrary and capricious. It was like Kobashi said ok no more leg work time to give the folks the grand finale. Judging by the reaction of the two good-looking ladies in the front row thats what they wanted. It just killed the drama of the match. The hook went from being Kobashi overcoming a knee injury to Kobashi's badass offense.

Omori starts off with the weakest slap in history when he backed Kobashi into the ropes. I just shake my head. Kobashi overwhelms Omori with chops and kicks his ass on the outside. Omori takes a pretty wicked Bret-style bump into the railing. For all my criticism, Omori left it all in the ring for this match. I liked Kobashi's short knee lifts into an ab stretch thats really sound psychology and I like that he uses that as a routine spot. Omori tries a fishhook to get out and I loved that. There is an epic suplex struggle (common All Japan spot at this point, this one was the best so far) and Omori bails on it to hit a dropkick to knee. Immediately, the entire complexion of the match changes from Kobashi's domination to Omori consolidating an advantage. On the outside he basically throws Kobashi onto the announce table in a sweet spot. Omori does a great job working over the knee with an assortment of submissions (half-crab, figure-4, and Scorp Deathlock). Kobashi just chops him in the head to build his comeback. Omori cuts him off and hits a missile dropkick for 2. Kobashi misses a spinning back hand chop and Omori hits rolling dragon suplexes for 2. It is about here when I know we are just going for a bomb throwing finish. Kobashi starts throwing suplexes, but Omori actually cuts off the moonsault attempt by attacking the knee. He hits a monster knee drop. If you are an offense mark, you will love this shit. After Omori only get a 2 after a lariat, Kobashi just takes this muthafucker to the woodshed. At first Omori struggles, but Kobashi hits a sleeper suplex. Omori is struggling as Kobashi goes for a powerbomb, so Kobashi smites him with a Burning Lariat. Kobashi hoists Omori up and you can tell he is going for the turnbuckle powerbomb but misses. So he powerbombs him again onto the turnbuckle, but Omori's legs were under the rope. Omori's eyes tell the story: the lights are on, but no one is home. Kobashi hits a half-nelson suplex, crowd erupts for the Burning Lariat and then Kobashi hits THE MOTHER OF ALL BURNING LARIATS to win!

Look, I don't think it is a transcendent match because of disjointed it is and that it felt like an exhibition of Kobashi's Godly Offense rather than a real struggle. However, as far as fireworks spectacles go this pretty fuckin awesome. Omori is totally game and plays his part well. Omori hit a monster top rope knee drop and did some great leg work. Kobashi is an offense god and if you love offense this is your match. ****

[Ditch]

Really, really fun match, though it helps to have seen the rest of the tournament and the push behind Omori's axe bomber as a finisher. Omori delivers a career-making performance, Kobashi does his thing, and the finish is really satisfying. A step behind the very best of 2000, but it would be a Japan MOTYC in most other years of the decade.

 

LOCK for my ballot.

[Graham Crackers]

Omori bores me to tears. Always. Kobashi beating him up is cool but I prefer the short and sweet beating he received from Hashimoto in NOAH.

[Steenalized]

Kobashi chopping Omori in the forehead and crown of the head then Omori selling it like a big deal bothered me to no end. Such a dumb little spot, just hit him in the neck, chest, or other soft tissue, not where you're going to break your hand. Otherwise, a really strong match. Omori showing tons of heart in his effort to dethrone Kobashi. Omori's offense lacks the stiffness that Kobashi's has a lot of the time. Other than my previous gripe, the stuff he's unloading on Omori looks excellent. Three and three quarters. Kobashi was awesome, Omori didn't quite hold up his end.

[Wahoos Leg]

Great atmosphere. Omori is the Cinderella and the crowd chanting his name while in the ab stretch. Really good stuff here. Loved Omori's sequence of shittiness as he attacked Kobashi's knee. Dumping him on the table on ringside was also most enjoyable. Omori hitting the two Axe Bombers, which is how he got this far, and Kobashi kicking out was a great near fall. It seems like a foregone conclusion Kobashi is going to end the underdog run, but Omori gets a ton in and it makes for really compelling viewing. It's 25 minutes long bell to bell and it flew by.

[Jetlag]

This seems like your typical japan big match with filler leg work and a bunch of dump-you-on-your-neck for nearfalls in the last couple minutes. Ohmori was a fresh face but not particularily good in this. Thought there was nothing to see here.

[Superstar Sleeze]

This is a tremendous offensive spectacle. Omori's leg work is very good, but he can't really keep up with Kobashi in terms of high end offense, but few can. Kobashi throws some amazing bombs. The last Burning Lariat maybe the best of all time. Hot damn! Fun heavyweight spotfest ****

[WingedEagle]

Really nice, aggressive work on the knee by Omori early which Kobashi sells through chopping him to death, and then Omori gets to break out the big guns on offense with a pair of dragon suplexes and then stopping a Kobashi moonsault by going after the knee and coming down with a flying knee. Omori's Axe Bomber gets a big near fall, which is pretty impressive given no one in the building including Mr. & Mrs. Omori thought Takao was taking this done. He gets to kick out of a lariat after eating a sleeper suplex and power bombs, before eventually taking the fall. I really dug Omori's fire here. He played the upset candidate as well as he could given the circumstances and left you wanting to see him break through on another occasion.

 

****

[soup23]

Pretty much this and the Kobashi vs Takayama match are the last All Japan matches before the split that we will witness. This has a neat dynamic of Omori as the underdog being elevated throughout the Carnival and landing in the final here against the longtime favorite, Kobashi who has never won the Carnival. Opening is really dominated by Kobashi. He is rocking and rolling. Omori is not my favorite and even less so on defense but Kobashi’s offense is so dynamic that it works well enough. Omori finally is able to seize an opening of the legs around ten minutes in and he pounces. Leg work was good here and engaging in building out the match. This does have the hulkiest of the Kobashi hulk ups but I didn’t think anything was that annoying egregious and he didn’t go for the moonsault which was nice. Finishing stretch is brutal and intense and that final Burning Lariat was absolutely brutal. That is three **** matches for Kobashi in a week and all three were really different. ****

[Loss]

This was quite the showcase for Kobashi for sure -- the end of an April trilogy that has showcased his versatility as well as any three matches in his career, even if he peaked way higher many, many times. Misawa-Ogawa still my MOTN, oddly enough, which seems odd considering their relative scope, but that match had surgical precision, where this match sort of drifted in and out since Omori had trouble holding his own at times. Kobashi really did look great though, even if I've seen just about enough of Kobashi having his leg worked over in matches. (And I know we have barely scratched the surface there.) If the goal was to make him look like the best wrestler in the world coming out of this tournament, then the goal was accomplished. ****

[ohtani's jacket]

What a boring ass fight. I enjoy Kobashi but only to a point. I don't need to see him take on the world and certainly not uninteresting opponents like Omori. All Japan was obviously an excellent wrestling promotion but it had its systems and could feel formulaic at times. This felt more formulaic than inspired but Omori was a fairly big albatross. Match came alive at the end but you expect that in a Japanee match. I can see people having a completely different perspective on this based on what Kobashi was able to drag Omori too but I'm far less tolerant of wrestling that doesn't interest me than most fair-minded folks around here.

[Laney]

I thought this was a very good match. They a good job of making Omori look like he is going to be a breakout star as he just comes up a bit short here. Unfortunately, Omori just really isn't that good and never really amounts to anything notable. However, he seems to look competent in this match here as there is some good work on Kobashi's legs and selling of frustration when Kobashi kicks out. This gets a little bomb heavy in spots, but is still a very fine match.

 

****

[Moonsault Marvin]

Omori puts in some decent leg work in the first half on Kobashi, who does his crying style selling, but the leg damage gets dropped in the second half of the match. Kobashi abuses the poor guy with a sleeper suplex, half nelson suplex, powerbomb, and turnbuckle powerbomb. He takes Omori's head off with the lariat. He had me rooting for Omori instead of him, as I felt sorry for Omori with the beating to the neck and head that he was taking. This verged on overkill, but was still interesting. Good match.

[AstroBoy]

I didn't quite know what to make of a few things in this match. I'm going to start with Omori, who I thought had a really strong performance in this, in some ways stronger than Kobashi. From the dropkick to the knee to his first big nearfall, Omori was all over the leg with varied offense, intensity, focus. It was just great. It's not like the legwork meant a ton ultimately and it wasn't the most overly exciting but it was interesting enough and the build is the important part here too. Kobashi begins to mount his comeback with the chops and in comes the moment where Omori ducks the lariat and uses two consecutive dragon suplexes for a really hot nearfall. This was just perfectly timed and a great splash of cold water after the leg work that had preceded it.

 

So then Kobashi kind of takes over for most of the stretch and starts throwing Omori all over the place. This is not a criticism -- but it occurred to me here just how much more Omori got out of that dragon suplex than Kobashi did with a german suplex, a diving lariat, and a half nelson in quick succession. Even after this point Omori does a great job pulling down the knee pad and making his diving knee drop as big a deal as possible. I get the difference between the two status-wise. Kobashi has more ammunition, he can kill Omori with any number of things. I am just not sure I appreciated all that after the gradual build to the Kobashi comeback. Still, the finishing stretch is really good and I loved Omori lunging for a weak lariat and being just destroyed by the lariat that ends it.

 

****