[1998-01-25-AJPW] Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace vs Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue

[Jetlag]

Johnny Ace – least talked about 90s AJ guy? He was a pretty good stand in for Misawa as Kobashi's tag partner here. His stuff is not as overexposed as the rest of the AJ crew and his games around hitting Ace Crushers and DDTs are neat. I really liked the parts where they beat the shit out of eachother. Lots of kicks and slaps to the face. The early going was around the Holy Demon Army trying to exploit weaknesses, and the Dynamic Dudes trying to, you know, prevent them from doing that. Eventually though Kawada almost decapitates Kobashi with a nasty headkick which allows Taue to set up some leg work. The leg work ended up being filler but was gritty enough and didn't go long. Quite the epic destruction of Kobashi towards the end with a great build to an apron spot. Some neat sequences around Kobashi & Ace trying to prevent the inevitable. The main thing I didn't like was the tendency to absorb a strike, and then hulk up and hit a strike of your own, which had crept into All Japan at this point. There's nothing dumber than making an angry face after you got kicked in the face. Other than that, good job crew.