Comparing 7/93 Misawa-Kawada to Tana-Naito from Friday

[Sean Liska]

All right, keeping my mind off Flair for a bit - I've been going off of a lot of memories when talking about classic AJPW and how I think it's a level better than modern NJPW and Dave is committing wrestling sacrilege by putting NJPW ahead of it. Let's dig in and watch this stuff back to back and see if I really disagree with Dave and if so by how much.

I'm picking a random Misawa-Kawada match and comparing it with Tanahashi-Naito from Friday, which to me was one of the better NJPW matches I've seen. I try to keep the PBP here interesting with commentary injected. Final thoughts at the end. This is a long post but it has to be.

Misawa-Kawada (7/29/93): 26 minute match so right at the same time frame as the two semis this weekend. Misawa goes for an elbow and Kawada blocks, the crowd “ohhs” because they respect the elbow so much, I love that simple stuff. Kawada kicks Misawa in the throat and he goes down and goes to the ropes, selling the power of Kawada’s kicks. God the strikes are so stiff and solid looking. Kawada starts working Misawa’s elbowing arm, really working it, and this is definitely slower than the G1 matches, he’s really wrenching it in. Fiery Misawa hope spot but Kawada regains control with brutal lariat. Another Misawa comeback and elbow and Kawada does that thing of his where he slowly falls down, I love that. Back and forth, the selling of exhaustion and pain is great. They’re using finishers that the crowd buys, I like that about this period of AJPW. Now we’re really starting to hit the near finishers and getting the big pops. Misawa keeps trying to finish Kawada off and Kawada uses his last energy to tackle Misawa and momentarily hold him off. But Misawa finally buries him with a barrage of suplexes and pins him, as fitting with their spots in the hierarchy at the time. An epic war.

Tanhashi-Naito (8/11/17): Tanhashi slaps Naito in the face twice, nice tone-setting. Naito slips out of the ring a few times and does the Tranquilo pose, more character work than you’d get in 80s/90s puro. A lot of the crowd doesn’t like Tanahashi kicking him while he’s in the pose. Some legit stiff chops! One of my critiques of NJPW has been the weak looking strikes but they’re laying these in. Naito goes after the bicep. Working it pretty hard, respect. They really work a neckbreaker with Tanahashi winning the struggle. Naito goes for his corner flip into the ring kick thing and Tanahashi turns it into a dragon screw, nice spot. Tanahshi tope. Tanahashi trying to continue working Naito’s leg with a dragon screw on the second rope but Naito reverses and drops Tanahashi’s bicep on the top rope. That’s great stuff. First Destino attempt gets turned into a german. Frankensteiner from the top turned into a sunset flip and then another dragon screw, man that’s clever wrestling. Elbow exchange has the crowd rocking and then Naito spits in Tanahashi’s face, again great character work, they exchange slaps and then Naito hits a german. Now we’re hitting the finishing stretch. Dragon screw from the second rope into a cloverleaf, I love it. Crowd is buying it even though I feel like these matches never end in submissions, in AJPW the fans eventually stopped buying it and they stopped doing the teases. The NJPW finishing stretch feels more spotty than Misawa and Kawada just drilling each other. Naito hits two Destinos for the win.

Man that Naito-Tanahashi match really was a hell of a great match. More Americanized with the Naito character work which some like and some don't, I'm fine with it here. I'm not taking back my criticism of some other praised NJPW matches, mostly Okada ones, where I feel like they just kill a lot of time before the finishing stretch. But this one - no wasted time, character work, limb work, escalation, rabid crowd, finish came at the right time, I really dig it.

Don't know if I'm ready to put it ahead of Misawa-Kawada though but it may just be a personal preference thing. Misawa-Kawada felt like more of a war to me, I buy into their characters more, everything looks so violent, I like the finishing stretch better..

So I dunno. I don't think this is even one of the more praised AJPW matches of the decade, but I can certainly say that it's not like it was leagues ahead of Tanahashi-Naito. This is progress for me. Hell of a great puro battle with those guys Friday night. I recommend it to people who have been turned off by the NJPW style because I've certainly been bored stiff by a lot of NJPW main events but this was really clever skilled pro wrestling.

[WingedEagle]

Interesting comparison and it sure sounds like a fun exercise. A pair of minor points that may or may not have impacted your thoughts on Naito/Tanahasi. First, Naito does the spitting spot in basically every match. Second, Tanahashi won the IC Title in June at Dominion with the Cloverleaf so this spot was directly building off of that finish.

[Sean Liska]

Interesting comparison and it sure sounds like a fun exercise. A pair of minor points that may or may not have impacted your thoughts on Naito/Tanahasi. First, Naito does the spitting spot in basically every match. Second, Tanahashi won the IC Title in June at Dominion with the Cloverleaf so this spot was directly building off of that finish.

Yeah I've been informed of that so my bad on that one. I got bored during that show tbh.

[William Bologna]

Interesting observation about Naito's more theatrical character work. I guess that'd be true up and down the roster (although I'm not sure what Okada's supposed to be). It's not like Kikiuchi was bringing a stuffed cat to the ring.

 

And this was a good one to watch, particularly if you find yourself let down by the body of Okada matches. I'll take Natio/Tanahashi over Okada/Omega every time.