[1997-09-15-AJPW-Fan Appreciation Day] Akira Taue & Jun Akiyama & Kenta Kobashi vs Hiroshi Hase, Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada

[Ma Stump Puller]

For obvious reasons, I can't go over a 60 minute match bit by bit so I'm just going to have to mention the highlights and elements of this match. Obviously most of the people involved can't really do the big epics to the quality of their early 90's six man shows anymore (especially Misawa, whom while still obviously very good, was noticeably starting to pace himself far slower)  but this was VERY good, as you'd imagine. Hase being here really shakes things up in terms of interactions: he's a solid hand as well so it helps to have someone who's not as fatigued throw down with everyone else; seeing him swing Taue like he's nothing is pretty nuts, and having the guy be so dazed afterwards that he goes to the wrong tag corner and gets socked by Kawada is a awesome little spot: him and Kobashi have some really solid exchanges as well, with him selling top notch for his offence. Hase isn't the MOTY performer or anything, but he is a solid hand that seems to be relieved that he's actually working a big match as opposed to jobbing out Johnny Smith or Shiga.

Akiyama is also quite good, being nearly there in terms of hanging with the main guys but not quite hitting the mark: he can go toe to toe with them but he can't properly reel his opponents enough that he can get any proper advantage, namely only getting big shots when his opponent is softened up by someone else, or he's stealing their offence. Taue positions himself as the big bully as per usual but he gets his ass kicked a lot here when he tries to push his luck, especially against Kawada and Misawa whom are able to get past his offence and really beat him down despite throwing virtually everything at them. There's a bit maybe 20 minutes in where I think Kawada was legitimately KO'd after a very stiff brainbuster: the guy goes completely limp and everyone else has to cover hard for him, delaying everything. Even when Kobashi tries to throw him in the railing outside to stall for time the guy can't even move any, he just falls over. Maybe that's just him selling amazingly well but it was pretty scary to see regardless, even if they do make it into a great angle by having him try to survive everyone's attempts to finish him off and him doing anything he can to stop such a thing happening despite having little life in his body.

Oh yeah, Kobashi is really great here, either being the big leader and heading up the heavyweights in big strike exchanges, or saving guys like Akiyama from Kawada and the rest of his team by himself. You really get the impression that he's the really big deal here with how much he's able to pull out: him and Taue doing a Doomsday Device-lite assisted top rope chokeslam? Throwing Misawa around for a huge Orange Crush? Fantastic shit in general. When the second half gets into gear with everyone hitting double team moves was also pretty awesome to see, albeit it does turn into a bit of a finish-spamming sequence with everyone hitting big moves over and over until the time limit. In short, don't go into this expecting a perfect match: while this is still extremely solid, it lulls in places and definitely suffers from the length being disproportionate to the heat as the crowd never truly bites and goes nuclear: you'd expect a classic Kings Road amping of escalation, that next level just never comes for them where anything could finish the match off. Perhaps that says more about how fan expectations for bigger and more dangerous matches were starting to show than it does about the match itself as a fault, nevertheless it does start to hurt the quality. Even then it's 60 minutes with some of the best workers of the 90's, it was never going to be terrible.