[1994-05-31-AJPW] Akira Taue, Giant Baba & Toshiaki Kawada vs Kenta Kobashi, Mitsuharu Misawa & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi

[Ma Stump Puller]

All the boys are here! The Super Generation Army is in full force! The Holy Demon Army has emerged! Baba.....idk why Baba is here but he's here anyway. The starting sequences establish the scene: Taue is a very mean bully, Baba is here to hit limp strikes, and Misawa and co have to struggle to succeed. To be fair this is one of the stronger Baba performances of the 90's: he actually takes big bumps and doesn't look completely done in-ring like he did in 1998/1999. Limited? For sure, I would say he can still "go" in the way you'd expect. Misawa/Kawada are of course great together and so on point with their sequences that it never looks contrived or anything like that, everything comes naturally with them. It was also cool that Kawada was the guy in danger in places here than the usual "Kobashi in danger" formula that was abused so much even by this time. Of course we still get them, but they aren't the main theme of the entire match, which was seriously refreshing. 

I will say that while the usual Pillar interactions are solid, this did lack any underlining story to it bar some small stuff like Kikuchi just being useless at maintaining any momentum and Baba being really quite petty here with his antics. There wasn't really any big heat segment until way into the middle half as Kikuchi spends a good few minutes doing what he does best: selling and bumping big. This was fun with Kawada as he threw nasty kicks and chops, it was great with Taue just endlessly scoop slamming Kikuchi and dropping him endlessly.....the match definitely downgrades when Baba is doing his slow chop routine. Kikuchi actually making him take a bump was a epic spot, but to lead up to it we had to go though some fairly slow stuff. Taue holds on to Kikuchi in the corner to do some dirty strikes, Baba just lets him go anyway to tag in Misawa as he doesn't want to get involved in their heelish antics, which does get a nice lead-up near the end when he relents and works off a Kawada distraction to land a big back suplex off the top rope. The last 10 is namely focused around Baba, so erm, it wasn't great, it's about as good as 90's Baba can go at this point; him and Kobashi have a undeniable chemistry that gets this way more solid than it should have been as they went back and forth with surprisingly fluidity: it's a bit sad that we never could've got a proper match between the two bar this and the Baba 1998 birthday bash.

Road to the finish is typical AJPW bomb-spamming and it's still great, just kind of flavourless for the most part as there wasn't really any main story for the crowd to work with. Finish comes with Kikuchi trying (and failing) to handle Taue and Baba one final time, who wreck him with some great spots until he finally falls to a chokeslam. Listen, I'm a big fan of these, this felt more like a "here's stuff you've already seen" match without much original to follow up on, so it was lots of solid work you've probably already seen with bigger crowds and better intensity. Baba being here and game to work is great, but he still slows things way down and Taue by this point was a way better giant who does his job a considerable amount more competently. Pillars and co are on good form, however bar some cool moments this didn't have much of a spark to it to really set it off proper. That said, it's still a pretty good showing, just with obvious flaws that come with this being a B-show. 

 

[fxnj]

Baba's presence continues to be a strong indicator of quality in post-Jumbo 6-mans. I liked how Baba in this match didn't shy away from getting down and dirty with strikes anytime the opportunity arose. The chops he threw against Kobashi were these harsh thudding blows aimed near his neck that had me wincing at points and which Kobashi sold greatly. The greatest hits type spots between them also surface later in the Kobashi doing his rolling cradle, which they successfully milk for a hot nearfall, as well as executing a bodyslam and suplex, which are always cool to see. There was also one neck chop that Baba landed on Misawa while Misawa was running at him that I was shocked Misawa was able to Misawa was able to no-sell, though it looked to be affecting him after he tagged out and was waiting on the apron. The Kawada/Misawa exchanges were really interesting to see Kawada's growth after watching the 6/3/93 and 1/29/94 6-mans recently. In the former match, Misawa effortlessly dominated Kawada but in the latter match, Kawada was able to take advantage of a recent injury to turn Misawa into a FIP. Here, Kawada is working like Misawa's equal without any injury to use as a crutch, and their exchanges look every bit as impressive as you'd expect from seeing these guys at their peak. There was one spot I don't remember see anybody doing before where Misawa hits Kawada with a drop kick, but he ends up being kept up with the ropes and manages to land his own strike to down Misawa on the rebound.

Kikuchi is predictably awesome as the plucky underdog and his staggered selling is tremendous even if he doesn't take quite as brutal a beating as you'd see in the Jumbo 6-mans. Still, there were some wonderfully violent moments in Kawada repeatedly throwing him into the guardrails and doing a single leg boston crab from a vertical angle where Kikuchi's foot almost reaches his head. Ouch. Taue works well with Kobashi and Misawa as you'd expect, but I really got a kick out of him working as a poor man's Jumbo opposite Kikuchi. I swear the types of exchanges they did where Kikuchi would fire himself up pounding away with elbows only to get downed by some piece of big man offense were near 1:1 recreates of the exchanges Jumbo did with Kikuchi. Also fun to see Taue trying the sweet brutal bodyslam on Kikuchi that Jumbo used only to get repeatedly motioned by Baba to do it harder. I don't think he did it quite as good as Jumbo but it was an admirable effort.