DVD #1: Misawa, Kobashi & Akiyama vs Kawada, Taue & Ogawa

[Loss]

Talk about it here when you get it.

[JHawk]

There are times where it is very hard for me to get into puroresu. Generally, if I look at the watch and think the match is shorter than it actually is, I enjoy it. Bad puroresu has me looking at the stopwatch wondering if time stopped during the match.

 

This falls in the former category.

 

Everything just seems to click on all cylinders here, and what you have is an almost perfect combination of brawling, technique, and flying to balance out into a hell of a match.

[smkelly]

Great, great match.

 

Can't go wrong with those six.

[World's Worst Man]

Everyone save for Ogawa (who was just kind of there) looked really good here. Taue was bringing the dickery early on, with him running interference on a Misawa tope attempt, a Kobashi plancha attempt, and later using Akiyama's jumping knee against him. The FIP portions versus Kobashi were strong, as they made a couple good comeback teases, which got the crowd excited. This lead to the crowd going nuts when the comeback was bridged into a Misawa-Kawada showdown.

 

One of the things I noticed was that during the faster sequences, they do a good job of selling between spots and generally pacing it well. It stood out in contrast to some spotty ROH tag matches I've seen lately (Briscoes vs. Gen Next & Richards/Sydal), where the fast sequences are long and drawn out and end up being overkill. There wasn't a huge lead up to the finish, but they did a bit of a tease with Kobashi's moonsault before he finally hit it. AJPW's main events are often praised, but I'll be damned if they didn't put on the best TV "build" matches too. This was a fairly simple match designed to create interest in the Misawa-Kawada match at the end of the tour, but they still end up with a near MOTYC type match.