[2000-07-11-AJPW] Jinsei Shinzaki & Yuki Ishikawa vs Maunakea Mossman & Toshiaki Kawada

[Ma Stump Puller]

While this matchup is pretty random it's actually super important as this is during Mossman's impending main event push. He's been loyal to the company post-NOAH (a crazy outlier given nearly everyone else left, apparently Kea's loyalty to Baba taking him in when he wasn't even trained to wrestle was enough) so he's going to get rewarded with a pretty strong shove forward all things considered. We get six minutes on tape, if you dig around a bit you can find a fancam version that keeps in about 90% of the actual match. Thanks, random guy.

The match is fairly slow to start, but noticeably focuses around Mossman showing off a bit more. He shows up Shinzaki in the starting sequences and gets into a vicious exchange with Ishikawa. Ishikawa is so good in this match, shocker. To shoot-style/Bati-Bati fans he's this great icon of the scene and a trailblazer for all of the misfit indie crowd to follow but here in the conservative All-Japan world he's just some little shit who keeps fucking headbutting and hitting stiff forearms to anyone in striking distance. No one likes him here; he's a outsider who won't fall in line with the usual hierarchy-based tags; they definitely also don't like his style, so Kawada and co lay it in real solid here to try to get him back into line. Middle half is mostly solid leg work on Mossman by the duo as they ground him down as the weak link of the two. Mossman also gets in a unbelievably cool Russian Leg Sweep into kneebar, which, like, that's way too awesome a spot for him lol Ishikawa had to have thrown that in for the guy. While Kawada and Ishikawa get some great tension, this just never reaches that epic peak that I think this could've reached with some more chaos. Everything feels heated in places, but there's never that eventual explosion that you would come to expect, instead just settling for a more tame outing. Mossman also seems to be getting better, however I'd say there's a noticeable amount of standing around out of him (he doesn't really "get" how to communicate or emote well) and he doesn't seem fully freshed out yet, like he's still pulling a good bit from his old playbook rather than reinventing the wheel. Ishikawa snaps on some decent arm work until Kawada walks in to knee drop the shit out of him and balance is finally restored.

Mossman throws in some knees and a botched Frankensteiner before doing his usual slick kick combo, following up with a Hawaiian Smasher for a near fall that Shinzaki has to break up. Mossman gets to lay him out as well with a big dropkick, albeit Shinzaki just rolls out and no sells for no reason. We do also get lots of Ishikawa/Kawada interactions for the second half and they are REALLY good with Kawada having his legs attacked with stiff Inoki crab-kicks before the two trade flying kicks! Man a full match between these two would've ruled, even this late in the game. Last two minutes are almost all Kawada as he beats up the two and establishes himself on top. Shinzaki can't really do a whole lot bar his usual spots, though they do work in them in fairly clever ways, like having Kawada predict his usual Pele kick mid-run and stop in the ropes to hit him with a flush lariat instead. Shinzaki does the Terry Funk selling for the Gamengiri kicks as he kicks out, but it's more or less just him acting on instinct at that point; his body merely stumbles around in a weird state without much thought to it, he's already done. Kawada gives him a shitty powerbomb before he finishes things off with his knee drop (!!!) of all things. As stated this is still solid, however I feel like Shinzaki and Mossman were weak links in their own ways. Mossman as mentioned wasn't up to the mark to raise the heat with his mediocre selling and Shinzaki is as plain as white bread, not a solid fit here at all. Kinda a shame given we've got two of arguably the best tag guys just chilling and doing their thing and that's miles beyond anything else here. Obviously built to make Kea look strong and it's all the worst for it.