[2003-06-06-NOAH-Navigation With Breeze] Jun Akiyama & Akitoshi Saito vs Kenta Kobashi & Tamon Honda

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[tim]

What I wrote while watching it for Ditch's project:

Color me surprised, Kobashi/Honda is no longer my Japanese MOTD. I remember loving this match when I watched it some years ago but god damn, it being THIS good was almost a revelation. I think I remember reading some criticisms of this match that although it had a dynamite home stretch the first half or so was lacking and I couldn't disagree more. This match was great all the way through. The Akiyama/Kobashi opening was great with Akiyama being a punk and an overly-long chop/elbow exchange actually serving a place in the story with Kobashi teaching Akiyama a lesson. The first Honda/Saito exchange is also absolutely fantastic, super hot and Honda gets the better of it consistently. This match does a great job both making Honda look very skilled in his own right but also the clear weak link, often falling prey to Akiyama and Saito and winding up in serious trouble. This match might be the height of Kobashi as Japanese wrestling God as this match makes him look like a larger than life superstar who is more than a match for even both Akiyama and Saito at once. Honda's FIP section is great and Kobashi's hot tag rules, he comes in and decimates both guys. Eventually though they get the better and it's Honda's turn for the hot tag which is just out of this world and leads to the real home stretch. For having such an ugly mug Honda is really has expressive and fantastic facial expressions. The home stretch is just up there with all the great home stretches of wrestling. Hot, brilliant, incredibly exciting but not over the top and a perfect ending. There's also too many cool little things in this match to name. This match absolutely blew me away.

 

 

I feel like this would make its way into my top 25 favorite matches ever.

[Superstar Sleeze]

I think you make some good points defending the first half of the match. It is more logical than I initially gave it credit for. However, it reminded me a lot of the Demolition or Hart Foundation matches of the 80s. Those matches when you write down what is happening on paper it sounds fantastic. In practice, it feels like they are just going through the motions. I totally agree that the finish run is too sweet. Honda is a total boss in that last 5 minutes or so. The pop for his victory just really tells you how well they built that ending. The back end really makes the match for me. It is like I always say that when you are picking the absolute best matches of the decade, the nitpicking is necessary because you are trying to choose between the elite of the elite.

 

 

GHC Tag Team Champions Sterness (Jun Akiyama & Akitoshi Saito) vs Burning (Kenta Kobashi & Tamon Honda) - Budokan 6/6/03

 

During the home stretch of this match is when I got Honda, which is why I need to rewatch that GHC title defense again towards the end of the project. The GHC Title defense established Honda as a solid junior partner (not in the weight sense) for Kobashi to go up against Kobashi's arch-nemesis and his junior partner. The finish run of this match stands as one of the best finishes I have ever seen, but I thought the first half of the match was really just there. If you JIP to Kobashi's hot tag and then extrapolate out I could imagine someone dropping the full monty on this match, but the outset and Honda's FIP were really lukewarm. It is not as bad as a disjointed match to grade. It is just they sort of go from the ground floor to the top floor in two blinks of an eye instead of a gradual build.

 

The match follows the usual Japanese formula the heels isolate the junior partner, but cant handle big gun. I love this formula; I just did not think it was executed with as much panache as usual. At the beginning, Akiyama pokes Kobashi in the eye, which fires up Kobashi to chop the fuck outta him. When Saito and Honda tango, Saito gets an upper hand so Kobashi comes in and puts him in his place. When Honda is back in, Saito wins a suplex struggle and Akiyama hits a high knee. Thus the basic strategy is established isolate Honda because Kobashi is too much man to handle. What I love about Japan is not everything so black and white even though Honda is the junior in the pecking order, he is still a world class athlete so he can defend himself and throw Akiyama down. However, everything has been fine to this point, but not super badass then you had some meaningless bomb throwing: Akiyama hits Kobashi with a DDT on the ramp and the next move is a Kobashi superplex. Sterness gets the match back on track with a sweet spike piledriver on the floor to Honda. The face in peril sequence after that just kinda meandered as they were just going through the motions.

Honda spear and hot tag to Kobashi ignites the crowd and takes a good match and turns it into a classic. It is spinning back chops for everyone and Akiyama is out on his feet. Sleeper suplex, but finally Saito does something worthwhile and hits a HUGE German suplex. Saito had not ruined this match for me, but he was definitely not making it better. C'mon Saito you are still going to do a lot more than just that to take Kobashi down. Spinning back chop and a half-nelson suplex on ramp and Kobashi was back on top. At this point, Honda takes over the match for 5 or so minutes is the best wrestler in the world. No written word recap will do this finish justice. It is one of the more dramatic finishes to a Japanese tag or any match ever. It is filled with saves, Honda Germans, Olympic Hell out of Exploders and high drama. The pop for Honda's victory over Akiyama is one of the loudest I have heard from a Budokan Hall. This match is why you can never project where a match is going to go. What started as a ho-hum match turned into a classic finish with a great underdog babyface victory. It is hard to rate, but I will need to re-watch. I am going conservatively and saying ****.

[Ditch]

I've watched this enough that I feel comfortable saying... some people are overrating this. But I understand why. It follows up on the October '02 tag title match and Kobashi vs Honda, both of which are high-end. The finish is very memorable. The work is often great. Yet there are enough lulls and downtime to mean this doesn't quite stack up with the best of the decade. I feel much more engaged with the somewhat comparable 9/10/04 tag title match, though I won't blame anyone who prefers 6/6/03 based on execution and the finish.

 

So... on the ballot, yes, handily. Top 50, probably not.

[dawho5]

Last 5 minutes were blow-me-away spectacular. I dozed off for the majority of the rest. Especially anytime Akiyama tagged in Saito or Honda tagged in Kobashi. Kobashi as asskicker supreme in a tag match is not something I ever care to see, so I may be in the minority there. I'd be surprised if this makes my ballot.

[Graham Crackers]

The finish of this is awesome but yeah, some of the stuff before that is a bit dull. I'll probably have this in my top 50 but if I just saw the finish I'd have assumed it would rank even higher.

[Alan4L]

I'm with the consensus here. Awesome finishing stretch, but not the most engaging for the first 15-20 mins.

[El-P]

Lazy me.

 

I think I remember reading some criticisms of this match that although it had a dynamite home stretch the first half or so was lacking and I couldn't disagree more. This match was great all the way through. The Akiyama/Kobashi opening was great with Akiyama being a punk and an overly-long chop/elbow exchange actually serving a place in the story with Kobashi teaching Akiyama a lesson. The first Honda/Saito exchange is also absolutely fantastic, super hot and Honda gets the better of it consistently. This match does a great job both making Honda look very skilled in his own right but also the clear weak link, often falling prey to Akiyama and Saito and winding up in serious trouble. This match might be the height of Kobashi as Japanese wrestling God as this match makes him look like a larger than life superstar who is more than a match for even both Akiyama and Saito at once. Honda's FIP section is great and Kobashi's hot tag rules, he comes in and decimates both guys. Eventually though they get the better and it's Honda's turn for the hot tag which is just out of this world and leads to the real home stretch. For having such an ugly mug Honda is really has expressive and fantastic facial expressions. The home stretch is just up there with all the great home stretches of wrestling. Hot, brilliant, incredibly exciting but not over the top and a perfect ending. There's also too many cool little things in this match to name. This match absolutely blew me away.

 

This. The only criticism I would have is that Saito's kicks were sometimes not exactly reaching their target swiftly. But apart from that, what a great, great match. Honda as the underdog with shitloads of ability and will, Kobashi challenged to the task by frustrated grumpy Akiyama, Saito as the perfect second hand veteran who can actually go. Tons of layers, tons of cool shit, tons to Kobashi as the destroyer of wolrds. This was about as good as it could possibly be. MOTYC.