[2000-01-10-AJPW-New Year's Giant Series] Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama vs Vader & Johnny Smith

[Loss]

I could see this being ****+ unclipped, but even the 9 minutes we get are pretty great. Kobashi tends to work with Vader like he's a typical big man while Akiyama better understands what makes him unique and takes advantage of his ability to play pinball and cut a harder pace. I liked how they did more to get Johnny Smith over here. Fans weren't really buying a lot of what he did as credible, but they were giving him offensive flurries that would at least get fans in the micro, and I thought his kickout from Akiyama's first exploder at the end was well done in that regard. Everyone looked really good here, and I'd love to see this in full sometime. ***3/4

[soup23]

Can’t catch a break as we added this to the end of our viewing off the strength of the Jun vs. Vader feud so I watched this right after the ARSION clipped stuff on 1/30. I forgive this more as a tack on match for an AJPW commercial tape. I will miss those when the split occurs as the commercial tapes from AJPW were my gateway into puro. This has the extra caveat that in addition to the Jun vs. Vader feud, we get a glimpse of what Vader vs. Kobashi will bring in February. I have always liked Johnny Smith well enough in latter day AJPW as a good loss post for a gaijin tag team and he did an effective job here getting in the flurries when he needed, having a big moment himself in kicking out the Exploder to many ahhhs from the crowd and finally taking the loss helping Akiyama gain momentum heading into the TC match. Really good primer for the stuff that followed. ***1/4

[Willninho]

This was a fun enough match for the half? we get. Two things stood out: Vader hit a brutal looking choke slam on Jun. And they messed up the legal man near the end which is something I rarely notice but it's a detail AJ usually hits.

[Moonsault Marvin]

Solid match. I would have like to seen what was clipped. Past his prime Vader just doesn't have the same intimidation factor. I liked the stretch of the match between Smith and Akiyama. Even though I knew he would eat the pinfall, Johnny Smith looked good in the match.

[Tim Evans]

Vader looked over the hill in this match. Clumsy and having problems keeping up with kobashi and Akiyama. While I still don't see anything in Johnny smith, he looked good here. The end result was never in doubt but they kept it interesting even though we only see 9 minutes. OK match.

[Matt Franklin]

This was good, though would have liked to see it in full. I agree that Vader didn't look his best here, but I thought Jun looked fantastic and Smith looked decent. Loved Akiyama's northern lights suplex counter for the British Fall (is that the name of Smith's finisher?) and was cool that there was a kickout of the first exploder before the second one sealed the deal. Once again, would probably like this better in full, but decent for what we did see.

***1/4