[1996-07-24-AJPW-Summer Action Series] Toshiaki Kawada vs Gary Albright

[fxnj]

That great feel when you discover a new classic from one of your favorite wrestlers. Kawada is the god of detail work and I challenge anyone who disagrees to watch this match. It's simply laid out perfectly to play to each of their strengths and weaknesses. Kawada might have won their match a year prior, but he's still done his studying for this one as he shows with the shoot-style stand-up opening of this match. I love how he sells his leg when Albright checks his leg kick attempts. Probably unintentional, but it kind of has the feel of a 1920's match with how they keep returning to the Greco-Roman lock-up. The opening is a textbook study of how to build up tension in a match. It's beautiful when Albright finally explodes like a volcano on Kawada with some high speed suplexes in quick succession. Kawada finds a brief respite with a hard kick to Albright's head, but he seems to realize that it's pretty risky to try to stand with Albright with how quick he can roll off those suplexes. The match takes a turn towards the mat, and it's here that match's brilliance really starts to show. I really enjoy watching Kawada on the mat, but I'll admit he didn't have the same sort of technical prowess or explosiveness to hang with a truly accomplished grappler, but they play that off here with Albright mostly gobbling up Kawada's attempts to hang on the mat. Albright gets sweet revenge for last year's match when he hangs onto an armbar even after Kawada scores a rope-break and fucks up Kawada's arm. Kawada has to be crafty and persistent to get advantage on the mat. He gets his own sloppy armbar on and Albright goes for a lazy rope-break, which turns out to be a big mistake as Kawada just keeps it on to get revenge for Albright's revenge spot from earlier. From here, Kawada seems to have Albright reeling and capitalizes by laying on the kicks. He seems to get a bit arrogant, though, and Albright finds an opening to score a sick German, which he then follows up with a dragon suplex. Kawada tries to go for a desperation take-down to stifle Albright, but it's for nought as Albright maintains the upper-hand and makes a statement by submitting Kawada with a sleeper. ****1/4 Match is only 12 minutes, but what a great story these guys tell in the time and I'm sure there's a few things I forgot here. A worthy sequel to their match a year prior.

[fxnj]

Rewatched this to make sure I wasn't imagining when I found myself watching other matches and comparing them negatively. Turns out I wasn't overrating this at all and it's still a masterpiece of storytelling and character work on rewatch. I actually don't think I did it justice with my first review. I hit on the basic points, but there's so many great little details you have to watch to appreciate. I think a lot of it even went over the heads of the crowd as they're dead until the big suplexes near the end, but fuck them this is an amazing match. Besides the surface storytelling, these guys are just incredible with how they work struggle into the spots and use it to enhance the story. It's not often that I watch a match and think someone did a great acting job, but that's exactly how I felt about Kawada's performance here. The guy showed a full spectrum of emotions. There's the initial hubris of trying to do shoot-style stand-up, the doubt after the first suplex, the primal scream of pain during the armbar, the arrogance when he has Albright reeling with his kicks, and the final acts of desperation. Those last few minutes where Albright destroys Kawada are amazing. It's like watching King Kong play with the T-Rex's broken jaw. Especially love how Kawada rolling out of the way of a knee drop just made Albright angier and led to him killing him with a hard Dragon Suplex. THIS is how you make a guy look a beast. One of the best 12 minute matches I've ever seen and really deserves to be mentioned alongside their 1995 match. ****1/2

[Microstatistics]

Great find. Kawada turned into a wrestling genius whenever this guys faced off, unreal chemistry. Very different dynamic from the 10/95 match. fxnj has covered all the key points especially the part about Kawada's smug asshole character work. Really great match, possible Top 10 contender for AJPW during the 90s. ****1/4

[ohtani's jacket]

I love stripped back Kawada matches with their focus on gritty matwork and hard strikes. This was a simple and relatively straightforward struggle, but thanks to Kawada's selling, it was damn near Herculean at times.  Of all the All Japan guys, only Kawada had the arsenal to pull off a match like this. I kind of wish we'd seen more of this. Can you imagine Kawada vs. Sakuraba? Tamura? Sano? Anjoh? Yamazaki? Hell, even Takada. I never really had any faith in the other All Japan guys to make those match-ups work but their fights with Kawada would have been something to behold. 

[Superstar Sleeze]

I will always go to bat for Kobashi. I think he would have made it work as the pro wrestler with a heart three times its actual size trying to fell the shooter. Misawa is not built for this as he will go back to his formula. Kobashi could work. I see how Kawada is better suited, but I think Kobashi would have succeeded given the chance. 

Toshiaki Kawada vs Gary Albright - AJPW 7/26/96

The forgotten rematch! Kawada won the last match, which was a classic and since then Albright & Hansen traded the tag belts with Kawda & Taue and Albright got his one & only shot at the Triple Crown in a loss to Misawa. At this point, Albright was still being booked strong while Kawada was in the middle of a losing streak. He lost the tag belts to Misawa/Akiyama and lost to Taue. He would go on to lose a six-man where the team he captained lost to the team captained by his partner, Taue and he drew Kobashi at the October Budokan. Not the best year for Kawada in the W-L column, until the very end of the year where he turns it around. 

I do not think this is as good as their initial match. The heat and electricity are just not there. I think it comes from a lack of urgency and those key big fight feel moments. This is a great grappling/wrestling match, but it is not a big fight feel match. I liked how Albright was using his suplexes to keep Kawada off balance and then go to the ground with submissions. Albright was obviously suplex machine but like Severn in UFC lacked that killer finish because he was neither proficient at strikes or submissions. There was often a feel ok I have him down on the ground what's next? Kawada for his part was going with the head-hunting strategy using kicks. This worked more to piss Albright off, but like how Albright used suplexes to break Kawada's rhythm so Kawada used his kicks. When Albright got mad enough to charge in, he really let it rip. That showed the genius of Kawada's strategy. 

They trade armbar attempts but nothing doing. The match picks up when Kawada applies a rear naked choke which is illegal in wrestling. Great selling by Albright and the referee. Kawada SNAPS~! Cowboy Kicks Galore! Wicked Yakuza Kick in the corner! Albright gets pissed, chops exchange and then DEMOLISHES Kawada with a German. That was a death knell. Kawada got two more hope spots, but they just serves to piss off the Suplex Machine. Another wicked German then a Dragon Suplex and then a second DEVASTATING DRAGON SUPLEX! Albright was trying to choke Kawada out as a receipt in between these suplexes and his final hold I guess was declared a sleeper instead of a choke and thats how he won the match. The first match is decidedly better, but this is a great way to spend 12 minutes. Logical, strategic approach at the beginning and then a high intensity finish run. I feel that it could have used a better Kawada "nearfall" to really push this over the edge, but as is this is still a very good shoot-style meets pro wrestling match. ***3/4