1996 Match of the Year

Mitsuhara Misawa/Jun Akyima vs. Akira Taue/Toshiaki Kawada AJPW 12/6/96

ER: This was a legendary tag match among tape traders, often billed as "the greatest tag match of all time" by people who may have been prone to hyperbole. It's a big part of the Misawa/Kawada feud, as this was the finals of the Real World Tag League, which had been won by Misawa and Kobashi for the prior three years. In two of those years they beat Kawada and Taue, but in 1995 Kawada finally got a pinfall win over Misawa and now was his chance to do it again, and finally win a Tag League with Taue. You knew going in that the strategy was going to be to separate the less experienced Akiyama from Misawa, and get revenge on the younger wrestler for pinning Kawada for the tag belts. But for me, Taue is the star of this match. Taue is the guy paving the way for Kawada to get his big win, he's the guy separating Akiyama and Misawa, he's the guy blocking off Misawa from saving Akiyama from Kawada's abuse. Akiyama has his own great performance down the stretch, sacrificing his body multiple times in an attempt to buy Misawa more recovery time. 

It's tough to write about a match that is one of the most written about Japanese matches of the 90s, so I'll just cover some of what I love about it. And a big thing I love, is Taue. Taue just stands out as a beast the entire match, I love how his "clumsiness" adds to his offense, the way he doesn't have athletic grace but doesn't let that get in the way of inflicting pain. He adds such a big extra SHOVE to all of his impact, the way he keeps sending Misawa and Akiyama flying with dropkicks to the chest, those big running boots where his foot follows the head all the way to the mat. He breaks out that rare Taue tope where all style points just go out the window and he's just a body balled up and flying through the ropes, and I'm not sure I've ever seen better chokeslams in a match. Taue doesn't get the height that Giants get on their slams, but he throws them down like he's spiking a football. He hits several nodowa otoshi in this match, and each one looks like he's sending Akiyama or Misawa onto a bed of concrete. It's the late release point that makes it look so painful, and when he finally chokeslams Akiyama off the apron to the floor, we buy that it's something that will keep Akiyama out of action long enough for the Army to suitably weaken Misawa. 

Akiyama was a great crash test dummy, younger than anyone in the match and looking for his own big RWTL moment. His prior teams with Takao Omori didn't make the top half of Tag League standings, and now he's in the finals teaming with the guy who had been on the winning side of this tournament the past 4 years. This story was not going to be about him, the crowd was really here to pull for Kawada vs. Misawa, but I love the way Akiyama did anything in his power to give Misawa a 5th straight Tag League title. After he gets strangled off the apron by Taue, he mostly becomes a guy intentionally stumbling his way into the match knowing that he won't be able to do much but distract the Army long enough for Misawa to get his wind. It's one of those great babyface performances like you'd see a few years prior from Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, and the Army continues dispatching of him in uglier and uglier ways. Akiyama probably did at least a few years of damage to his neck in this one match, eating suplexes on the top of his head and one disgusting German that couldn't have landed him more on his neck if it were the only aim, and finally a back suplex/nodowa otoshi that turns him into a non-factor in the match (and he's probably lucky it didn't turn him into a vegetable). 

Misawa vs. Kawada was the big story the fans wanted to see, and their exchanges were certainly Misawa vs. Kawada exchanges. Kawada's kicks looked fine as ever this match, and he punished both with hard kicks to the chest and back, short kicks right to the forehead and face, hard stomps to the back of the head, running kicks where his boot plants under the chin and stays there. He splats to his back after Misawa elbows and comes up gunning, and I thought it was so cool how calm and in control Kawada seemed right from his ring entrance. Kawada and Taue came out for this match looking like it was in the bag, and they showed they had the perfect strategy to win. Kawada was a real master at close nearfall selling his move selling throughout was excellent. There's a great moment where he takes two straight German suplexes and stands to his feet, only to do a dead man's walk directly through the ropes to the floor. For a good 2 minutes of the match Kawada is selling being dead on his feet, his body only firing on muscle memory, and it lead to one of the great nearfalls of 90s All Japan. Misawa works his own magical nearfalls down the home stretch, barely getting out of Kawada's series of folding powerbombs, rolling his body just enough to shift the leverage and escape, until he finally cannot.  

Is this the greatest tag match of all time, as it was billed to us tape traders who were new to Japanese wrestling? No, it's not. Is it the best tag of 1996? For now, we're going to say that it is. But there will be challengers. 

PAS: The mid 90s All Japan main event crew had the highest floor of any group of wrestlers ever, even random six-man matches and tags were of really high quality. This match was right at the ceiling and their absolute peak doesn't capture me the way absolute peaks of other all timers do. Still this was excellent, excellent stuff and had a really layered nifty story. Kawada at this point was an all time legendary athlete who had never been able to reach the pinnacle of his sport. Misawa had been standing in his way, especially in the RWTL and he was determined to finally capture that brass ring. 

However his triumph had a shadow over it: Kawada still wasn't able to truly best Misawa, he would often lose exchanges and ends up getting dumped on his head and knocked silly by a German suplex. This was John Elway going 12 for 22, 153 with a pick and no TDs in Superbowl 32, he finally got his ring, but he needed Terrell Davis to get 157 and 3 TDs to do it.  Luckily Kawada had his Davis.

Taue needed to come in and dominate and he really did, just a career performance wrecking Akyama with the chokeslam to the floor, hurling his body like a club at his opponents and weakening the gazelle so the head of the pride could get the kill. Misawa is the greatest wounded animal in wrestling history, no one has ever died on his shield better, and I loved Akiyama as the phenom who just isn't fully ready for the hottest spotlight. I did think that the match really should have ended on the first powerbomb, the second just felt like repeating the spot again, and didn't have the same dramatic finality as that first one, small nitpick on an otherwise near perfect match.

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