PeteF3 Posted April 21, 2018 Report Share Posted April 21, 2018 And none of the head-drops mean a damned thing except in the Randy Savage "reviving elbow" sense where it's a cue for (usually) Misawa to hulk up. Not only is it bad selling and bad psychology but it's a very eerie-in-retrospect signal of where the AJPW style was headed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boss Rock Posted April 21, 2018 Author Report Share Posted April 21, 2018 Its the pacing. Theres a lot of periods of inaction and I dont mean in a workrate way. I just remember this one point where Kawada was outside the ring and Misawa was in the ring and they just stood there, doing nothing, for what felt like an eternity. Im willing to give it another shot. I think I remember that part. Misawa hit the first Tiger Driver outside the ring and just waited for Kawada to get back up rather than try to put him away. Seemed like a weird strategy. I still think the match is good but it was definitely the moment where the style began to get excessive (as much as I still enjoy those later matches). And I would still rank this match higher than the 5/1/1998 match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Thread Killer Posted April 21, 2018 Report Share Posted April 21, 2018 And none of the head-drops mean a damned thing except in the Randy Savage "reviving elbow" sense where it's a cue for (usually) Misawa to hulk up. Not only is it bad selling and bad psychology but it's a very eerie-in-retrospect signal of where the AJPW style was headed. That was kind of my takeaway from this match, too. I never said this was a bad match - I don't think Misawa and Kawada had what you could call a bad match, honestly. It's a good match. I just wouldn't have rated it at 5 stars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fxnj Posted April 22, 2018 Report Share Posted April 22, 2018 Its the pacing. Theres a lot of periods of inaction and I dont mean in a workrate way. I just remember this one point where Kawada was outside the ring and Misawa was in the ring and they just stood there, doing nothing, for what felt like an eternity. Im willing to give it another shot. I think I remember that part. Misawa hit the first Tiger Driver outside the ring and just waited for Kawada to get back up rather than try to put him away. Seemed like a weird strategy. I still think the match is good but it was definitely the moment where the style began to get excessive (as much as I still enjoy those later matches). And I would still rank this match higher than the 5/1/1998 match. The set-up for the spot was Kawada trying to catch Misawa off guard with some hard strikes in the match's beginning just for Misawa to fire back with some hard elbows and the aforementioned Tiger Driver to the outside. With the exception of a big spot here and there on the outside, the style generally emphasized finishing matches in the ring, so I don't see an issue with Misawa waiting inside for Kawada to roll back in. That Kawada doesn't come back in immediately serves to both sell the prior beating and to show how he's regrouping after his initial strategy backfired on him. There's a similar spot a few minutes later I find a bit more problematic, though. Kawada viciously works over Misawa's arm on the outside and then he just rolls back in and waits for Misawa to recover on the outside so he can armbar him. Given how aggressive he is for the rest of the match, it probably would have fit in better if he had just forced Misawa back in the ring before the armbar. Still just seems like a minor issue to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteF3 Posted April 22, 2018 Report Share Posted April 22, 2018 Oh, and I forgot about that stupid triangle choke Kawada does that completely kills the crowd at a really hot point during the match--it may well be the dumbest thing I've ever seen Kawada do. No one in an AJPW crowd was going to buy a submission or even a pass-out-and-ref-stoppage at this point. Yeah, I wouldn't say it's a *bad* match either. But it's about ***. By the standards of 5-star WON matches it isn't good. I forget if Kanemoto-Wagner got 5* or not but that was another one that left me staggeringly underwhelmed. The worst excesses of 2.9-wrestling. Unlike Misawa-Kawada I would actually call it a below-average match, not because of execution or crowd reaction but because I simply didn't buy the story (such as it was) that they were telling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted April 23, 2018 Report Share Posted April 23, 2018 Kanemoto-Wagner was 1/4* shy of the full five. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted April 23, 2018 Report Share Posted April 23, 2018 This thread inspired me to revisit 6/6/97, and it's quite a bit better than I remembered it being. The last ten minutes or so were surely excessive, but I thought that was the point. In the Carnival final, Kawada beat MIsawa in a virtual squash (albeit with an asterisk). Here, Kawada throws everything but the kitchen sink at Misawa only for him to come back in fairly routine fashion, establishing beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was still The Guy. On that level, it worked for me. As for the section with Kawada outside the ring and Misawa inside, they weren't just standing around doing nothing. Kawada was recovering from eating a Tiger Driver on the floor. Misawa was inside the ring because the referee ordered him back in. He kept trying to go after Kawada, but Kyohei kept ordering him back. I will grant that the ending was inexcusable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boss Rock Posted April 23, 2018 Author Report Share Posted April 23, 2018 Will need to re-watch that re: after Kawada taking the Tiger Driver. I took it as Misawa just letting Kawada get back up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Microstatistics Posted April 25, 2018 Report Share Posted April 25, 2018 Am I the only one who liked the finish to 6/6/1997? After all of that overkill and violence, Kawada gets pinned by a simple German suplex that wasn't even executed properly because he has been decimated so badly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted April 25, 2018 Report Share Posted April 25, 2018 Like Tabe said, the problem with the finish was that Kyohei inexplicably didn't count to 3 after the running elbow even though Kawada clearly didn't move a muscle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shodate Posted April 25, 2018 Report Share Posted April 25, 2018 Like Tabe said, the problem with the finish was that Kyohei inexplicably didn't count to 3 after the running elbow even though Kawada clearly didn't move a muscle. joe was always the better ref than wada imo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted April 26, 2018 Report Share Posted April 26, 2018 Like Tabe said, the problem with the finish was that Kyohei inexplicably didn't count to 3 after the running elbow even though Kawada clearly didn't move a muscle. joe was always the better ref than wada imo Out of curiosity, what do you think of Akira Fukuzawa as a commentator? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shodate Posted April 27, 2018 Report Share Posted April 27, 2018 Like Tabe said, the problem with the finish was that Kyohei inexplicably didn't count to 3 after the running elbow even though Kawada clearly didn't move a muscle. joe was always the better ref than wada imo Out of curiosity, what do you think of Akira Fukuzawa as a commentator? I liked him more than Nogami or Yoshino Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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