[2001-03-03-AJPW] Genichiro Tenryu vs Taiyo Kea

[ohtani's jacket]

This was really good. Clearly, it was all hands on deck after the split. That meant reverting Fuchi into a main event player instead of a comedy worker and turning Kea into a Triple Crown challenger. Kea had a few things going for him, namely his athleticism and his striking, and he could also sell. Tenryu put on a master class in terms of taking a mid-level guy and treating him as a credible challenger. Again, this was noticeably stiff which seems to be a trend with post-split All Japan. Some people might argue that Kea should have rocked Tenryu a bit and threatened to almost take the titles, but I don't know if he had really earned that yet. This match was about showing that Kea belonged at the table not propelling him into the hottest thing in the company. And it was a damn good fight to boot.