[1998-02-28-AJPW-Excite Series] Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Steve Williams & Gary Albright

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[soup23]

One of the weirder Budakon shows of the 90's All Japan run with this match and the Ace vs. Misawa TC match. Action here doesn't look very inspiring as Doc looks pretty past the point of relevance. Albright was feisty at least throwing around Kawada. Big time kick by Kawada to Albright gets him the win pretty much out of nowhere. There was some good in the month of February like every month watching footage will have, but overall I'm hopeful this will be the low point of the year as the match quality was down across the board and nothing seemed to click of a super level like the Hart vs Flair feud and the matches in January.

[Zenjo]

I should point out that Johnny Ace sold out Da Budokan for his main event. I'm not going to bother rewatching it though.

 

There's certainly been early evidence of 'the drop'. Ironically that was an appealing factor to me going in. It's the great matches that slow me down. I stalled on disc 2 of the 97 Yearbook. Stalled in early 1994 as well. Am nowhere near ready to start on 1995 with all the Broadways. On the other hand I'm racing through 98 thus far as it's so easily digestible.

[Loss]

Last few minutes. Doc had nothing left by 1998. Pretty uninspiring action. Kawada and Taue win the tag titles.

[PeteF3]

I think Kawada & Taue were already the champions. I'm not one to get hung up on match times but 11:10 seems awfully short for a tag title match and it's not like this was worked as a sprint, either. I wouldn't blame Budokan fans for feeling ripped off. Pretty uninspiring, paint-by-numbers action that we see. I'd like to challenge the workers of Japan across all promotions to work an entire tag match without a single Irish whip into the guardrail. Just to see if it can be done.

[TravJ1979]

Fun little snapshot of where AJPW as at the time. What was shown was entertaining.