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[2002-01-20-NOAH] Mitsuharu Misawa, Yoshinari Ogawa, Takumi Sano & Naomichi Marufuji vs Jun Akiyama, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Makoto Hashi & Akitoshi Saito


Calvin

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Misawa single-handedly crushes all of Sterness with elbows and flowsions and whatever. Akiyama gets a veneer of "protection" as he comes into this with an injured arm. I actually enjoyed watching him slaughter an entire faction, but the macro implications of Misawa's booking are starting to become more apparent, and it's no wonder this promotion struggled so badly to create stars.

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  • paul sosnowski changed the title to [2002-01-20-NOAH] Mitsuharu Misawa, Yoshinari Ogawa, Takumi Sano & Naomichi Marufuji vs Jun Akiyama, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Makoto Hashi & Akitoshi Saito
  • 11 months later...

I've been watching a good deal of 2002 NOAH and I have to disagree with this sentiment/popular opinion. If we watch early NOAH using the same methods we'd watch 90's AJPW (watch the big 3-4 guys) then it is really easy to misinterpret what was going on there... At least in this time period. Misawa seemed to be very interested in making new stars but you have to look at the matches differently then Misawa vs Akiyama like we all do with 90's AJ. Like the story here has nothing to do with Misawa vs Akiyama but rather Misawa & Ogawa perhaps falling out & Ogawa being able to pin Akiyama again (01/16/02).

Misawa booking himself beating everyone was a little much but in the big picture of early 2002, he wasn't really doing anything big. Having a win like this still makes him look like a star/relevant without actually getting a big time win...

And to be honest booking an 8 man elimination was/is pretty smart booking meant to showcase the younger & lesser known guys by tying them to Misawa vs Akiyama which most fans at the time want to see...even if that's not what's really going on. Kanemaru is killing it in these matches for instance. And kills it in his matches vs NJPW in '02. Marufuji shines in these too. Yeah early 2000's NOAH booking is actually pretty refreshing although this match isn't the best example.

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