[1999-01-15-AJPW-New Year's Giant Series] Jinsei Shinzaki & Mitsuharu Misawa vs Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada

[Jetlag]

It's been said before, but parts of AJPW felt pretty old hat by 1999. Case in point: matches like this. Misawa no sells a few moves, parts of the Kawada/Misawa sections came dangerously close to current NJPW elbowfests, and the build and sense of escalation seemed to be lacking overall. It picks up here or there, but it speak volumes to me that 2 minutes before the finish in this match Misawa and Kawada were still working fairly standard exchanges that didn't feel like they were preceded by a 20 minute match at all. It was a pretty stiff match, so even if it wasn't exciting, it was atleast painful. Shinzaki didn't really add much besides a few different moves. He threw a few uppercuts, so I guess that makes him the stand-in for Great Kabuki.

[fxnj]

I've watched a number of underwhelming small show matches involving the top workers from this period of AJPW recently. It even got to the point that I was wondering if I just wasn't in the mood for wrestling, but turns out these guys still could bring the greatness even if they couldn't work like this on every show. I loved this and it seemed like a textbook example of how to do a quality build-up tag. The pairing here feels like a play on the HDA vs. Misawa/less experienced partner concept from years of yore. Shinzaki isn't exactly able to fill the shoes of Kobashi or Akiyama, and the early stuff with him working opposite Taue didn't do much for me, but whenever Misawa was in this was pretty awesome. His facial selling is incredible as always, and he makes sure to work in all kinds of realistic details in how he takes moves that nobody bothers with, like turning his head to partially soften a knee drop. There's also some great strike exchanges with Kawada which felt a clear step above what you'd see in modern puro, not only for the high level of stiffness and selling, but also how they actually use them to tell a story. A great example is one segment where Kawada finds himself suckered into an elbow battle with Misawa, and instead of just going along with it and inevitably losing like usual, he pretty quickly says "fuck this" and unloads on Misawa with slaps and knees. Misawa isn't afraid to take some hard bumps on his neck, but he also gives as good as he gets with making Taue bleed hardway off an elbow suicida. Shinzaki steps it up in the latter half, his performance highlighted by him nailing a nasty flipping knee square on the back of Kawada's head. Kawada might sometimes overuse knockdown spots, but his crumple selling felt completely appropriate there. In between all the brutality were some pretty fun Taue bumps, like him attempting his chokeslam/powerbomb co-op move with Kawada and doing a 360 bump along with Kawada when Misawa does his hurricanrana reversal. There's some great mind games from Misawa here on Kawada, like how he just calmly and slowly walks in the ring at one point when he gets tagged in with Kawada laid out, or how he towards the end eats this nutty looking German suplex which he completely no-sells and tags back in Shinzaki after an elbow. I think that latter spot was even referenced in their title match a week later. Interesting seeing that contrasted with the look of absolute disappointment on his face when Shinzaki gets pinned. Pride before the fall.