[2003-03-25-AJPW-Champion Carnival 2003] Gigantes vs Satoshi Kojima

[Ma Stump Puller]

It's the Wall, brother! 

I'm not sure what's more shocking; that All-Japan in 2003 was actually pushing WCW's The Wall to be a actual threat to main event calibre talent, or that this match actually rules. Kojima comes into this with his lariat arm damaged (check out the prior 22.03.2003 tag he had for the lore behind that) so Wall goes to work on it with surprisingly solid holds, however he mostly uses outside brawling and chairs to damage it further. There's at least a explaination as to why this should be a worthwhile match so that's cool, I guess. Kojima has to fight through the pain and scrap with the guy bit for bit, even landing a decent dive to the outside. The brawling isn't anything you haven't seen but works to get the crowd invested as they are all in on Kojima and loud as anything: perhaps louder for him than anyone else on the card thus far, even getting a sustained chant during a regular sleeper rest hold spot.

They pop loud when he kicks out of a rough powerbomb and manages to wake up to land a big superplex when Wall tries for the top rope. It's pretty by the numbers but Wall gets his role and manages to play the big brawling spoiler, working to interrupt Kojima's offence and land his own big bombs, of which many looked convincingly snug: selling wasn't too bad as well as he bumps strongly for all of Kojima's stuff when required. I thought the last few minutes were particularly fun as the two go back and forth with pretty impactful offence, with Kojima struggling to get the win off his weakened lariat of which can't even knock down the guy most of the time.

Finish comes when Wall tries to cheat with a chair in-ring, Koji in a awesome bit just rams it into his face with a final lariat, winning the match but further damaging his arm, continuing that into his later matches as he enters the semi-final and beyond. I thought this was a really energetic matchup that, despite some inconsistent selling from Kojima when it comes to how bad his arm actually is (one minute he's holding on to it for dear life, the next he's just throwing chops like normal) turns into a fun brawl with a surprisingly strong performance from Wall as he goes bomb for bomb and mostly looks good out of it. Kojima works the best in that kind of format and as such, this quickly grinds up to a solid scrap with some surprisingly fast moments throughout. Definitely worth a watch if you want just big roughneck-style caveman brawling and action.