Superstar Sleeze Posted July 20, 2023 Report Share Posted July 20, 2023 Keiji Mutoh vs Taiyo Kea - AJPW 8/30/02 Budokan Kea’s second straight Budokan main event, defeating Tenryu on 7/20. He goes up against All Japan’s other Ace and his former co-Tag Team Champion (they lost the belts to Kronik on 7/17). Kea impressed in both those aforementioned matches but reverted to his normal self here. He brought none of the energy or charisma he showed in those matches here. The Tenryu match in particular I thought he played the part of the hungry young lion well. Here he was stuck in first gear. Mutoh was pretty content to wrestle a standard championship style match, in the midcard this would be fine but on the main event of a Budokan show you expect a little more. Pretty standard New Japan start trading holds. Mutoh starts bleeding from the mouth and overall looks to be more of the aggressor than Kea. This changes on the outside where a Kea Kick to the back of the head leads to a TKO onto the railing! Gnarly spot on the already injured mouth. Kea piledriver. Butterfly lock. Standard stuff. No oomph. No urgency. Mutoh hits a barrage of DROPKICKs and then a top rope Frankensteiner. Mutoh is targeting the arm. Kea tries to mount a comeback but Mutoh pops off a Frankensteiner into a Cross-Armbreaker which I love. Kea blocks a Shining Wizard. Kea gets a Crossface and top rope splash. The high spots are well-done and make sense but it feels like they are going through the motions. Shining Wizard! TKO! Levels the playing field! Feels very modern. Everything before this doesn’t matter now here’s the finish. Kea’s finish is the Crossface and some back drop drivers. Mutoh wriggles free from TKO and BLASTS HIM WITH A SHINING WIZARD!!! Three great Shining Wizards to win! Perfectly acceptable, solid match. Must have been a tough pull for Kea to swallow, he was Mutoh’s championship partner, got big spots on Budokan cards and a win over Tenryu but he loses to Mutoh here and gets squashed by Goldberg the next day. It looked like him & Kojima winning the tag Belts was supposed to be a big deal but he got injured and missed all of 2003 and was never seen again. Mutoh seems perfectly content to wrestle this style, solid championship style wrestling with a barrage of Shining Wizards to close. *** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ma Stump Puller Posted July 20, 2023 Report Share Posted July 20, 2023 Kea was supposed to be one of *the* big AJPW guys but it was obvious that was never happening lol. There's a interview out there where he credits Tenryu as his greatest ever opponent (alongside saying him and Muto taught him the most about wrestling) and I can't really disagree, he got more out of the guy than Muto and everyone else combined pretty much. He got a traumatic leg injury around about the end of 2002 and as you said he vanished for all of 2003 bar showing up as a RO&D goon with baggy long trousers to hide the injury. Dude always seemed to be plagued with injury trouble whenever they wanted him to run at the top, which is always a shame. He got great near the end of the 2000's though in a pretty stellar run of matches if that helps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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