Akira Taue

[elliott]

Check out the 96 Carnival final against Dr Death if you havent. 

[Boss Rock]

Thanks, will do!

[Quentin]

As I was thinking about the pillars the other day, I might’ve convinced myself on a Taue as the best pillar case between how long he was great (15-16 years), being the best tag worker of the 4 in my mind, and the variety of roles and performances from him over that course of time. I had him as top half guy before pretty safely but now it’s becoming “wait, am I sure he’s not a top 15 contender?”. I didn’t really plan on going back to All Japan or 2000s NOAH any time soon but that epiphany probably threw a wrench in those plans.

[elliott]

I ranked Akira Taue 36th in 2016 and I'm fine with that. I like Taue a lot. 

[Tetsujin]

Taue as the best of the Pillars is something I like to hear a lot. Not that I agree (he's my second favourite though), but I'm glad he's closing the gap with the others in these forums.

[KetamineEnjoyer]

Taue is my second favourite of the pillars. His brawls with Kawada are my favourite inter-pillar matchup and he was producing great matches on a somewhat consistent basis up until his retirement. Just a wrestler with personality brimming from their in ring style, had great range, and a large resume of stellar matches to back all of that up.

[KB8]

I had Taue at number 31 in 2016 and I guess that feels about right. I don't think there's much more that can be said about Taue in the year 2021 and if there is then I'm probably not the one to say it, but he had an awesome peak and old man Taue has a bunch of super fun performances. I wish there were more All Japan matches throughout the 90s that were like those Taue/Kawada brawls from the early part of the decade. 

 

AKIRA TAUE YOU SHOULD WATCH:

w/Jumbo Tsuruta v Mitsuharu Misawa & Akira Taue (All Japan, 9/30/90)

v Toshiaki Kawada (All Japan, 1/15/91)

v Mitsuharu Misawa (All Japan, 4/15/95)

w/Toshiaki Kawada v Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama (All Japan, 12/6/96)

v Yuji Nagata (NOAH, 6/6/03)

[elliott]

Not as much discussion as I'd expect about Taue considering he's a lot of people's favorite pillar and he seems like a top 50 lock for most people. I'd love to see someone do an in-depth breakdown at some point in the next 5 years.

[Boss Rock]

I'll put it on my to-do list. Knee jerk reaction is top 10 but his career is the one I've visited the least of the pillars.

[elliott]

Thank you. ESPECIALLY if folks are ranking him top 10 I think he deserves more talk than he's gotten 

[Ma Stump Puller]

Taue is incredibly underrated, and it bugs me to death. Sure, he doesn't have as many high points as the other Pillars: he has no definitive singles title run outside of a kinda middling Triple Crown reign that's more known for how it ends than how it actually was as a whole: but what he does have is incredible ring presence and psychology. Everything Taue does in the ring makes sense to his character: he's a big dude who throws around the smaller guys without abandon, he's a bully who makes sure to get in the way of anyone else mounting offence, even if he's not the legal man. When you look at the many six-man tags and general work, Taue stands out as a supreme ringleader, keeping everything in line, even with those who usually aren't particularly fantastic. He can be a masterful babyface, either a young hotshot aiming against the big bruisers, or a war-weary vet battling against a new generation of scrappy guys. He's so good at making narratives in his matches and sticking to them regardless of the outcome. Here are some Taue matches you might've not considered before showcasing this:

 Akira Taue vs. Takeshi Rikio (NOAH 2005)

Rikio's title run isn't getting over, despite Misawa and Kobashi giving the poor lad wins in big main event slogs. Most people know about this already: Rikio was a failure in terms of main event stuff, namely because of a true lack of charisma. Taue comes in at the last second to be his rival, and he takes advantage of this, teasing the crowd that he (might) just lose this despite his best efforts. Despite Taue by this point being banged up, he delivers a hellacious performance and hits all of his usual big notes while selling his vulnerability. 

Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (AJPW, 2000)

Taue goes into this incredibly injured (namely his shoulder and some smaller issues) and has to play the plucky underdog against two guys who don't give him a inch to work with. This is essentially giving a extended look into Taue selling his injuries, struggling to fight back as Omori rips away at his bad shoulder with malice and whatnot. Takayama steals his bully routine, consistently gets in shit when he's just about to get a comeback or tag out. He paces himself greatly here so that when he gets that hot tag and starts throwing out everything he possibly can do, the crowd completely eat it up like he's just won the lottery. 

Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Bart Gunn & Johnny Ace (AJPW 1998) 

Gunn and Ace are vultures here, picking away at Kawada. They can't collectively beat him, but with Ace on the outside wearing him down, Gunn in the ring keeping their momentum up, Kawada is soon barely able to run to the ropes, let alone fight. Why mention this? Because Taue does some great work on the apron, consistently saving Kawada's ass from near falls, getting amped up when he's able to recover, and even putting himself in danger (namely having to quickly risk damage by crawling to save Kawada after a big double suplex) when he does get in, it's great: big offence, huge cheers, only stopped when he gets a bit too ahead of himself and gets a Ace DDT off a chokeslam. Again, Taue barely shows up here and he's still able to deliver some great work, despite not even being in the ring for the most part.

Akira Taue vs. Maunakea Mossman (AJPW 1998)

Mossman/Kea gets some pretty harsh criticism at points, unfairly at times. One thing that I can agree on is that he wasn't very interesting outside of workrate: he didn't really have anything for crafting stories in the ring and his charisma was....ehh. Not exactly anything to talk about. This match is short, but Taue gives the guy something to work with here, namely the fact that Mossman at this point is moving to a Heavyweight, and this is essentially his Trial Series, to get him over as one in the eyes of the crowd. Most guys wrestle normal bouts here, giving and taking offence, taking it easy. Taue tries this for a bit, takes some big offence until he basically gets fed up and starts beating the crap outta him: DDT's on the mat, boots to the face, big brain chops, you name it. Taue has no respect for this little Jr who thinks he's a giant killer and he really wants him to know it as well, even daring Mossman to throw out his usual kicks to no effect. This gets Mossman over as well: the small pockets of room where he throws out as much as humanly possible are met with strong reactions. The result is obvious, but Taue almost convinces those watching that he might just....lose here, and that's not easy to do by any means.

I could go on all day, but needless to say, Taue kicks big ass. The top 20 more than does him fine on my list.

 

 

 

[Clayton Jones]

I agree completely. That Rikio match is the best singles I've seen from him and I love Taue in the No Fear match. I haven't started in on my GWE Taue viewing yet but he's popped up when I've been focusing on other candidates (Akiyama, Vader, Kobashi). While he might not always be the most outstanding wrestler in a match, he's almost always one of the smartest and giving one of the best efforts. I simply love watching the man wrestle no matter what role he's in. I'll have to watch the Kea and Gunn/Ace matches, I appreciate the recommendations!

[Ma Stump Puller]

1 hour ago, Clayton Jones said:

I agree completely. That Rikio match is the best singles I've seen from him and I love Taue in the No Fear match. I haven't started in on my GWE Taue viewing yet but he's popped up when I've been focusing on other candidates (Akiyama, Vader, Kobashi). While he might not always be the most outstanding wrestler in a match, he's almost always one of the smartest and giving one of the best efforts. I simply love watching the man wrestle no matter what role he's in. I'll have to watch the Kea and Gunn/Ace matches, I appreciate the recommendations!

Thanks! One bit of extra context for the last match that might be of interest is that while most of Kea's Heavyweight Trial Series wasn't televised, we do get a full match with him and Misawa as well. To note, while that match is still fairly good especially with Misawa bumping like a madman for all of Mossman's offence and that getting him over because of sheer name value, it isn't nearly as dynamic as the Taue bout was in terms of storytelling and whatnot. I think there's a fascinating contrast in that to make between the pair in terms of wrestling philosophies.

 

 

 

 

[GOTNW]

On 12/30/2021 at 3:16 AM, Ma Stump Puller said:

Taue is incredibly underrated, and it bugs me to death.

This has got to be the most repeated almost factually incorrect statement on this board. Unfortunately there are no facts with pro wrestling opinions. But this one is just nonsense. On the last list Taue finished 26. You claim he is top 20. This is not an egrogious case of being underrated. Taue finished above El Hijo Del Santo, Jun Akiyama, El Satanico, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Riki Choshu, Akira Hokuto, Jim Breaks and Volk Han, just to name a few. That is as far as being underrated as one can get.

In fact, if I have to chose, I'm much closer to the opinion Taue is overrated. There are plenty of "nothing" Taue performances and matches, but he doesn't come close to Akiyama's creativity and consistency, peak, longevity. Really, anything. The only thing Taue has above Akiyama is that he was part of more 90s high-end AJPW tags? Hell even that could probably be challenged. Could Taue have done something like essentially carried a rookie to a MOTYC in a match that had Kobashi and Kensuke Sasaki? Taue has a cool hierarchical match against Mossman? I've lost count of how many Akiyama has had. And he finished above Akiyama. We're calling this guy underrated? The guy that finished above consensus style GOATs like Fujiwara/Han/Tamura, Hokuto/Aja Kong, Santo/Satanico, Breaks etc.?

 

The fact* is, Taue fanboys are just reactionaries that cling onto the idea he is "underrated" because they either lack a) perspective or b) actual underrated wrestlers to champion for. Taue is cool and is rated relatively fairly. Sorry folks, facts* don't care about your feelings. Maybe it's the incredibly high ratings of Misawa, Kobashi, Kawada etc. that you should question instead.

[Ma Stump Puller]

12 minutes ago, GOTNW said:

This has got to be the most repeated almost factually incorrect statement on this board. Unfortunately there are no facts with pro wrestling opinions. But this one is just nonsense. On the last list Taue finished 26. You claim he is top 20. This is not an egrogious case of being underrated. Taue finished above El Hijo Del Santo, Jun Akiyama, El Satanico, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Riki Choshu, Akira Hokuto, Jim Breaks and Volk Han, just to name a few. That is as far as being underrated as one can get.

In fact, if I have to chose, I'm much closer to the opinion Taue is overrated. There are plenty of "nothing" Taue performances and matches, but he doesn't come close to Akiyama's creativity and consistency, peak, longevity. Really, anything. The only thing Taue has above Akiyama is that he was part of more 90s high-end AJPW tags? Hell even that could probably be challenged. Could Taue have done something like essentially carried a rookie to a MOTYC in a match that had Kobashi and Kensuke Sasaki? Taue has a cool hierarchical match against Mossman? I've lost count of how many Akiyama has had. And he finished above Akiyama. We're calling this guy underrated? The guy that finished above consensus style GOATs like Fujiwara/Han/Tamura, Hokuto/Aja Kong, Santo/Satanico, Breaks etc.?

 

The fact* is, Taue fanboys are just reactionaries that cling onto the idea he is "underrated" because they either lack a) perspective or b) actual underrated wrestlers to champion for. Taue is cool and is rated relatively fairly. Sorry folks, facts* don't care about your feelings. Maybe it's the incredibly high ratings of Misawa, Kobashi, Kawada etc. that you should question instead.

Thanks for the interesting thoughts on the matter. I'm obviously not incredibly privy to the exact consensus people have exactly on this site: but generally I see Taue being either omitted a lot outside of the usual big hits people cite or just outright ignored at points, especially on more popular forums. This is a baseline opinion that's obviously not centred to any one niche area naturally.

The rest of your post does bring up good points in all fairness, I'll need to think those through. That being said, Akiyama is one of those guys who I stylistically don't really like, especially with his later NOAH work and beyond. He's still obviously brilliant for the reasons stated but I don't really get any connection from his work. I get your point, I just don't agree with it personally.

 

 

 

 

 

[Clayton Jones]

Akiyama very well might end up my #1, so saying Taue isn't better than him isn't saying much for me.

[Tetsujin]

The only way I could see Taue as underrated is when directly compared to the other Pillars. At his very best he's as good as them and I think an argument can be made about him being the best one, but he's the only one of the four with no overall #1 contendership defenders.

Speaking about Taue and Akiyama, the have my favourite sub-10 minute match ever in early 1997 (forgot the exact date, maybe It was the same show as the Kobashi/Misawa GOAT match). They both work in a really intelligent way to tell their story as well as they could and managed to produce a under the radar MOTYC (to me, at least).

[Boss Rock]

On 1/2/2022 at 2:28 AM, Tetsujin said:

Speaking about Taue and Akiyama, the have my favourite sub-10 minute match ever in early 1997 (forgot the exact date, maybe It was the same show as the Kobashi/Misawa GOAT match). They both work in a really intelligent way to tell their story as well as they could and managed to produce a under the radar MOTYC (to me, at least).

It is and yeah, it rocks.

[Ma Stump Puller]

On 1/2/2022 at 8:28 AM, Tetsujin said:

The only way I could see Taue as underrated is when directly compared to the other Pillars. At his very best he's as good as them and I think an argument can be made about him being the best one, but he's the only one of the four with no overall #1 contendership defenders.

Speaking about Taue and Akiyama, the have my favourite sub-10 minute match ever in early 1997 (forgot the exact date, maybe It was the same show as the Kobashi/Misawa GOAT match). They both work in a really intelligent way to tell their story as well as they could and managed to produce a under the radar MOTYC (to me, at least).

The January 20 one? Yeah, that's great. Love the fact that Taue's obsession with hitting his big bombs to punish Akiyama for his stubbornness keeps costing him his advantage, and how that urge to be Mr. Big Bully Taue fucks him over in the end 

 

 

[CheapPop1999]

Taue rules. He's a nasty heel early in his career and as he becomes the new Baba as NOAH gets off the ground, I love him even more. Consistently the best tag worker of all Four Pillars, the '95 Carnival final is the best Misawa match ever, and by the mid-2000s, he is always a hoot, either against Kobashi for the title or Nagata or my personal favorite, the match with Marufuji in 2006, where he gets a legitimately great match out of recently converted heavyweight Marufuji. He's a personal favorite for me, but I think he lacks the standouts on the resume to be anything more than the 20-30 range, which is where I will have him.

[CheapPop1999]

The more Taue I watch, the more I fall in love.

Taue is a great character psychologically. He's always had a sort of inferiority complex, and I think that contributes to why I love him so damn much. He's never fully confident in his own abilities as a wrestler and he's always afraid to take the steps to get out of the shadow of someone else. When you think about him starting off in Super Generation Army, he's always third fiddle behind Misawa and Kawada, which prompts the move over to Jumbo's side. Once on Jumbo's side, he desperately wants to impress Jumbo and it makes for some really awesome "rookie" tags with him and Jumbo against all kinds of opponents where Taue essentially tries to take on both the competitors on his own to prove his salt to his new boss. Jumbo has always looked at him in a slightly disdainful but appreciative way, as a result, kind of like a screw-up kid brother who can't get his act together. Him and Kawada share this mentality a lot in their respective relationships, which makes their matches so intense and their rivalry so great. A lot of praise gets heaped on the '91 bloody sprint, which completely rules, but their '95 Carny match might be an even better representation of the personal struggles these two have gone through as tag partners. It's these two, deeply insecure and often overlooked warriors trying so hard to show everyone in the building that they are NOT the second fiddle in this relationship, like they have been forever in the rest of their lives. The '95 Misawa match, with the greatest orbital bone work to ever grace video, is predicated on this self-doubt from Taue, even after proving to the whole world that he's a force in his own right. The whole crowd LOVES him on that night until he starts to take liberties with the injured eye, even though he absolutely could've beaten Misawa clean in a scientific match. He just doesn't believe that he can.

Beyond the actual in-ring psychology all of this produces, it subconsciously informs Taue's own match structure in a way that's so perfectly suited to what I want to watch. In the land of 90s AJPW, where the finishing stretches labor on and the mat work is often meandering and meaningless and every single person feels like they need to go 30+ minutes, Taue doesn't think anyone would want to see him for that long and so his matches turn into these beautifully crafted sub-20 minute fights, grounded in an amazing sense of real struggle and strategy. He's one of the only workers I've ever seen that recognizes "Hey, if my finisher is my best weapon and it ends matches, I should probably try to hit it as soon as possible, right?" He's constantly looking for the Nodawa Otoshi, and its seemingly endless variations he has for it, because that's his kill shot! He's also got one of the craziest looking topes of all time, just hurling his gangly body through the ropes at full speed towards his opponents. Check him out in any of his matches against Akiyama (the other most grounded AJPW worker) to see them put on a jam-packed, entertaining and DRAMATIC bombfest-style match in like ten to twelve minutes. He has a Triple Crown match against Vader in March of 1999 that maybe goes 14 minutes, and it's PERFECT.

All of this informs his all-time great veteran babyface run, too, which helps his case for surpassing the other Pillars. He ages into someone who finally grows sure enough of himself to hate getting pushed around and snaps in awesome blow-ups, against the likes of Shibata and KENTA, or Marufuji, or even other peers of his. And the crowd loves to see it! When he fires up on Shibata, for example, it's one of the loudest reactions in Japan I've ever heard, as the place comes unglued for Taue, paintbrushing chops across the body of the much younger and cockier men. For everyone that says he's overlooked, or underappreciated, or underrated, or even (dare I utter) the WORST of the Four Pillars, I urge you to recognize the intentionality of that position. He's overlooked, by design. And he rocks that position better than any of the others rock their position.

Taue will be in my top 15, at least. He's a miracle.