[2000-04-08-AJPW] Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa vs Jun Akiyama & Maunakea Mossman

[soup23]

Mossman will be very interesting to track throughout the decade. I really enjoyed this match. Ogawa/Misawa got overwhelmed in the early going and had to play catchup for most of the match. The arm work done to Ogawa was especially inspiring with frequent tags between Akiyama and Mossman. Eventurally the finishing run occurs and it is also exciting with nearfalls and Ogawa having to result to some of his nefarious tactics out of necessity instead of just for the hell of it. ***1/2

[Loss]

This was okay. No heat really, but admirable that once again, Misawa is in a tag where most of it gets ceded to the younger guys in the ring, in this case Ogawa and Mossman, who has come a long way since the last time I saw him. The match probably would have been better with no Misawa-Akiyama, but doing this type of dollarwise thing is rare in wrestling, so I give them credit for that.

[Moonsault Marvin]

Akiyama came out really aggressive and continues to be impressive. The spike piledriver to the floor being meaningless bothers me, but that's just the way Japanese wrestling is when it comes to piledrivers. Ogawa did the eyepoke and his other cheap tactics, but the crowd didn't show much response. Mossman was clunky in some of the exchanges with Ogawa, but overall, it was a good match.