[2002-07-20-AJPW-Royal Road] The Great Muta vs The Great Koji

[Superstar Sleeze]

The Great Muta vs The Great Koji (Satoshi Kojima) - AJPW 07/20/02 Budokan

I wish I knew the backstory to this one. Mutoh has been doing a lot of losing recently. He dropped the Triple Crown to Kawada in February only to turn around and lose to Tenryu in April for the vacant Triple Crown after Kawada was forced to vacate. Kea & Mutoh successfully defended their tag team titles in January against Barton/Steele but dropped them three days prior to this match to fucking Kronik. I am morbidly curious about Kronik in All Japan. Kojima had been featured on pretty much every major All Japan show of 2002 to this point, two good losses to Tenryu with the July match probably being the All Japan match of the year and a strong win over contemporary rival, Kea. I get why you would want to do Mutoh vs Kojima, but why do the dueling Great Muta gimmicks, I do not. 

Great Muta has these match every so often whether it is with Liger or Onita. They never seem to be all that great. This is no different. Kojima goes for a Halloween theme for his take on Muta since orange is his color. They pay off the big spot right at the beginning. DUELING MIST~! Orange for Kojima and Green for Muta. They seem to get over their chests and they dont really sell it. Under the ring they go. Muta find an old witch's broom. Kojima gets control of it, sweeps up some streamers because he is a neat freak and hit Muta with it. Customary Muta ramp spot but it is Kojima doing it. Muta takes over raking the paint off Kojima's face in a cool spot. He tears a shirt off a young boy and chokes Kojima with it. He takes two young boys and drives them into Kojima. He busts Kojima open. They are going for all the bells and whistles. I am someone who loves a lot of bells & whistles it is how they are doing it. There is not a lot of heat. A lot of it is how Muta and Kojima sell the moment and both are muted. Wrestling the Great Muta is strange because the selling is really bizarre. Sometimes it can work because it gives you that Creature from the Black Lagoon rises again vibe or it can give you heatless, this dude is lazy, phoning it in vibe and you never know what you are going get. When Kojima hits the Ace Crusher or a German Suplex, it doesnt feel big or heated. I liked Kojima's no sell of the Dragon Leg Screws. That felt like a valiant hero bowing up to the Horror Movie Monster, but most of the match was missing that. I think in part it was because of the first half of the match Kojima was trying to wrestle as a Muta clone, but he was better cast to be the valiant hero trying to slay the beast. The finish was pretty good. Kojima goes for the lariat, Muta blocks and Kojima falls to one knee BANG! NO! KOJIMA BLOCKS THE SHINING WIZARD! LARIAT! 1-2-NO! That was pretty good. Then Muta finishes with an epic combo of the Green Mist-Shining Wizard-Cross Armbreaker (Kojima was selling the arm from the blocked Lariat). 

The finish was good enough to put this firmly in good territory and I liked some of the bells & whistles (the young boy spot, the dueling mist). I think they were better off just having Kojima be Kojima and try to valiantly fight from underneath against the otherworldly monster. ***