AEW Five Fingers of Death 2/19 - 2/25

AEW Collision 2/24/24

Bryan Danielson vs Jun Akiyama

MD: One of the last couple of times I discussed Eddie Kingston, I waxed poetic on how I can write about him as if it was all real, that I barely even need to go into mechanics or subtext, because the text itself is so rich and immersive. I mentioned at the time the one other thing that popped off the top of my head as something I could do that with, Jumbo Tsuruta vs Genichiro Tenryu, especially towards the end of their rivalry in that vaunted year of 1989. By that point, the virus of violence that had infected All Japan Pro Wrestling with the arrival of Riki Choshu ("The Carrier"), and that had first infected Tenryu, was now lodged in the heart of Tsuruta. Tenryu admitted it, embraced it, used it to fuel a Revolution. Tsuruta, however, denied it, decried it, claimed himself to be an Olympian, a hero, a gentleman, an athlete, a paragon. Yet again and again, when his back was pushed against the wall, and no one could push him back or push his buttons quite as well as Tenryu, his true colors shone through.

That leads us to Bryan Danielson, Eddie Kingston, and the year 2024. We are in the midst of Danielson's golden year, a year where he gets to wrestle Blue Panther at Arena Mexico, where he gets to wrestle Okada and Sabre, Jr. in Japan, where a round robin tournament was created just for him, and where every match feels special. He is pro wrestling's warrior monk, a man who reads three books at a time, who has absorbed all the wisdom to be found in pro wrestling and seeks for truth and meaning outside of it in a way so few of his peers can manage. He holds to the tenets of family, of hard work, of knowing one's self, of fighting through broken limbs and finding joy and humor in both the sacrosanct and the profane.

Is it his year though? Is it really? Within the same walls, the same promotion, the same world, even, is a man who has been living out his dreams, who has been meeting his heroes and finding himself their equal, who finally, after decades of toil, has found the value in his own worth and has turned it into strength and resolve. This is a man who bet on himself, who overcame his greatest rival, Danielson's teammate, and then ultimately his greatest monster, himself. The tournament was made for Danielson. Eddie Kingston won it. In winning it, he claimed a prize of his own making, a triple crown for a new era. He beat Claudio. He beat Moxley. He beat Danielson. And why did he beat Danielson? Because while Kingston bet on himself, Danielson bet not on Danielson, but against Kingston. He bet that Kingston would break under the pressure as he almost always had before. He lost that bet. Subsequently, he lost to Okada, was stretched by Hechicero, lost to Sabre. One's left to wonder, during this capstone year of Danielson's glory, if momentum, if fate itself, has shifted to his polar opposite, has shifted to Eddie Kingston.

And so, much as they had 35 years before with Tsuruta and Tenryu, underneath the pressure that Eddie Kingston represents, the cracks have begun to show in Bryan Danielson. They were there in the pre-match interview with Lexy, calling her out for not saying Akiyama was legendary (for Danielson is the authority on this; of course he is), declaring his respect for Akiyama but stating clearly and firmly that he was about to beat him in front of Kingston, and more than anything else, seething over Kingston's lack of professionalism, for Danielson holds himself and those around him to a impeccable standard.

Then came the match itself. Danielson cupped his ear to call to the crowd, playing to them more so than usual, as if he needed to ensure that Akiyama, despite being a legend, wouldn't be cheered over him. He broke clean with the first contact, but put his hands out and then up, making a big deal of it, showing everyone that he was the professional gentleman athlete. Twice in the match, including right before the finish, he started the Yes chants, something he almost never does now. He did it in the first Okada match but it was to help paste over the injury. This was entirely different. He threw Germans in a way that he wouldn't normally, and I half wonder if it wasn't to set up a fighting spirit moment of suplex trading with Akiyama, just to show he could. In years' past, almost none of this would be necessary, because Danielson had nothing to prove to anyone; he was wrestling this match like he needed to prove something to the crowd, to Kingston, to himself. And he did prove something, surviving the clash of knees, putting Akiyama down, even shaking his hand gracious like a professional. But then cracks became fissures. He looked to Eddie, rubbed it in with his middle finger, and when Akiyama took offense, Danielson backpedaled before turning a second shake into a unconscionable low blow.

This was a dream match of sorts, but one caught within certain limitations: time, scale, age. Moreover, it had to serve the moment, to serve a greater purpose, nominally as part of Danielson's golden year, but in truth, a key stop on the road to Revolution and two world views, two differing mentalities, two philosophies of pro wrestling and life clashing against one another. So while it may not have been a perfect match (and I could write another paragraph on Nigel valiantly cashing in his built up credibility for a very good cause during the commercial break, but it would be too much a digression), it perfectly served its purpose to be the straw that broke the camel's back and pushed Danielson over the edge.

Read more!

2022 Ongoing MOTY List: Kingston/Akiyama Before Kingston/Akiyama

23. Eddie Kingston/Ortiz vs. Jun Akiyama/Konosuke Takeshita AEW Rampage 11/18/22  

ER: Ever since Dream Match Wrestling started in 2001 with King of the Indies, the most common way it's been naturally presented is as Matches Paying Customers and Internet Fans Want to See That Maybe Haven't Happened. It's much less commonly presented as Match Participant's Dream Opponent. Eddie Kingston's dream opponent is Jun Akiyama, and fighting a 53 year old Jun plays into every part of Eddie Kingston's 3 year + retirement tour. We never got any of Kings Road Eddie against the All Japan or NOAH rosters we all loved. We missed out on dozens of Eddie Kingston singles matches against Baba acolytes because Kingston only went to Japan for a week with Osaka Pro. Kingston's only singles match in Japan at the time of this match was against Kanjyouro Matsuyama, one of those Japanese wrestlers who has wrestled a couple thousand matches but is still obscure and only spoken about by real freaks. You have never brought up a wrestler as plain sightedly obscure as Kanjyouro Matsuyama, and we should instead all be talking about Eddie Kingston's fun but disappointing singles matches against Takeshi Rikio and Keith Walker. 

Well, now Eddie actually gets to fight Jun Akiyama in a singles match, and this match is the great teaser tag the night before that match. And what's great about it, is how they perfectly understand that it's a teaser to the singles match, and they work every little tease of Eddie and Jun going at it. What's even better is that Eddie and Jun don't even go at it until the end of the match, and I also think it's the weakest part of the match. More focus and dedication was placed on making the teases special than the actual brief squaring off: Kingston throwing a running elbow at Jun on the apron after tagging out, Akiyama kicking at Kingston on the apron after tagging in, Akiyama bailing on a pinfall attempt after a piledriver on Ortiz to not give Kingston the satisfaction of breaking up said pin, Kingston taunting Jun while giving Takeshita a nasty face lock and then not giving Jun that satisfaction by stopping his own pin. It was all hugely entertaining, and again, more so than their actual exploder trading at the match's conclusion. 

I thought Ortiz looked incredible. He looked great in peril, he looked perfectly in sync with Kingston during their runs - hitting a cool neckbreaker drop and throwing Takeshita into a neck-breaking Kingston DDT is the kind of spot that never looks natural but was smooth as silk here - and he fed for Akiyama brilliantly. I don't think Akiyama is washed. No, he seems to be working as smart as ever and seems to know the limitations that come with being a wrestler in his early 50s. But on Akiyama's hot tag Ortiz did an incredible job feeding for him, bringing all the speed and completely hiding the fact that he was moving all around Akiyama. Akiyama wasn't exactly Steven Seagal standing in place forcing everyone to run at him, but he wasn't not doing that, and I think Ortiz completely masked it. The match ending breakdown was a lot of fun, and for a guy I don't typically connect with I thought Takeshita's had an Actually Great Kawada sell off Kingston's wicked backdrop suplex, and I appreciated that his best elbow of the match was used to shut down Ortiz'a fire. It's a risk to run a Dream Match Teaser right before actually running the Dream Match, but this was an excellent tease.  

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

AEW Five Fingers of Death 11/14 - 11/20 Part 2

AEW Full Gear 11/19

Eddie Kingston vs Jun Akiyama

MD: It's not every day you get to watch a guy live out his dream. We hear about dreams a lot in pro wrestling. Stuff like the Hardy brothers or Edge and Christian growing up to be tag team champions, Shawn Michaels with the boyhood dream fulfilled, Sasha Banks learning about Eddy passing in the arena, that sort of thing. And then there's Eddie Kingston, with a different life and a different dream. He'd been pushing for this match through social media and interviews and just wishing on a star, and we live in a pro wrestling world in 2022 where sometime wishes and dreams can sometimes can sometimes come true. That's the joy of AEW more than anything else, the dream of TWA and ROH fulfilled. And on this night, we got to come along for the ride.

Look, I'll be totally transparent here. If you read me talking about Eddie and Ishii and Eddie and Takeshita, you know that Eddie vs a Japanese guy isn't always my favorite Eddie Kingston. It can bring out the worst and the most excessive and all of the things that I, personally, don't love about the style. And yet, I loved just about every second of this. Some of that was Eddie, who put his heart out there, who wanted the perfect match, who threw his face into every forearm, who let out a scream, one of the many screams on this night actually, that was primal and true. It was, in part, Eddie going for a killshot on the apron so early or outright biting his hero to get an edge, completely unafraid to leave his mark on his idol's flesh. So much of it, however, was Akiyama, genuine, the real deal, no degrees of separation, with just enough grit and age to make the real even realer. So much of it was how much he threw himself into this, the way his knees buckled as Eddie lit up his chest, the bump he took the outside, the steel in his eyes as Kingston met his gaze, the amazing way his feet flew up on the DDT's impact. When he rolled through on the half and half and ducked under to hit the first exploder, the sort of thing you doubt again and again or at least that I do, that takes me out of a match each and every time, I bought it, or at least I let myself buy it, just this once. Call it a Thanksgiving week miracle. Call it yet another thing Eddie Kingston willed into the world on this night. 

As good and visceral and true as the match was, the post-match was all the more so. If you're here and reading this now, you probably got choked up a bit. There's nothing I can write that's more meaningful than that. When wrestling makes you feel, there's nothing better. He shared his dream with us, through pain and sweat and effort and persistence and hope, all from a guy who self-admittedly doesn't find that last bit so easy. The stuff pro wrestling dreams are made of.

Chris Jericho vs Sammy Guevara vs Claudio Castagnoli vs Bryan Danielson

MD: Maybe I'm feeling particularly forgiving due to the magic of Eddie Kingston's wish, but I'm going to go out and forgive most of the inherent failings of a 4-way here. Yes, at one point Claudio was out on the floor for a bit too long. Yes, Jericho really shouldn't have kicked out of the G2H/Shooting Star Press; someone should have broken it up instead, as is the point of having other guys in there. In general, though, this was really good and it was because all four wrestlers brought the best of what they could do and it was all pretty structurally smart, more focused on story than spots, or at least having the story drive the spots. I've said recently that Sammy is, in a lot of ways, the perfect opponent for 2022 Claudio and 2022 Danielson, but they're his perfect opponents as well. Danielson's able to make use of Sammy's agility and speed and intensity and creativeness. No one in the world can catch Sammy better than Claudio; the basing on the shooting star to the floor was like very little I've ever seen. Against these two, things that Sammy does that shouldn't work, whether it's his Snuka tribute leapfrog/backflip/standing Spanish Fly or the bonkers cutter followed by a Spanish Fly in rapid succession, simply work. The reason why we value execution in pro wrestling, whether it's great punches or incredible agility is that it allows for suspension of disbelief and when put against Danielson and Claudio, a new level of such suspension is unlocked for Guevara. 

Anyway, they quickly went into the story here, with the BCC pinballing the JAS and then facing off against one another. Later on, when they faced off against each other again, it was like two masters of a fighting style knowing exactly how to counter one another as they switched through the hammer and anvil elbows. Jericho and Sammy rained small slights upon one another before outright going at it to the crowd's delight. Jericho was astoundingly opportunistic here, channeling the most craven villains imaginable (full Bobby Heenan, really) and not paying for it and paying for it again and again until he made a daring leap during the giant swing, what felt like such a dangerous spot, whether it was or not, and then capitalizing for the victory. All four ways have the decked stacked against them and therefore, just by the sheer level of difficulty involved, this was better than it had any right to be.

Sting/Darby Allin vs Jeff Jarrett/Jay Lethal:

MD: I had some misgivings about this one because Jarrett being there made Sting seem a little older and you didn't want that given how many other main acts he's gone over in the last couple of years, but between Jarrett's condition and the fact that the first half of the match quite smartly saw young paired with old as they brawled around the arena, it worked out pretty well overall. I had wanted Singh in there or maybe a Sonjay/Singh/Lethal handicap, but at his stage of his development, it was probably better to just have Satnam in there for a few big moments, and what big moments they were, the two almost impossible catches, Sting's dive, the chokeslam, and the missed splash into the combo Death Drop/Coffin Drop which had been set up previously, but never hit as no one was quite big enough until now. Jarrett added a lot too, with reactions for the last row as he encountered Sting for the first time at the start, bouncing appropriately between Sting and Darby on punches, and then beating down Darby with fairly credible stuff when it was time for it.

I, and Taz along with me, thought that they steered off course when they took about three minutes to shift to more conventional tag rules. Immediately thereafter, Sonjay and Satnam just walked into the ring casually, so building to a hot tag for the sake of it was dubious at best. Sting couldn't quite land the finishing spot, but I was okay with this, as it was set up by Darby basically hulking(Stinging?) up after the just nuts guitar shot and there was a sense that maybe the student is becoming the master finally. Despite some grumblings about either Lethal or Jarrett from various quarters, this felt like it belonged on the card, no question.

Read more!

AEW Five Fingers of Death 11/14 - 11/20 Part 1

AEW Dynamite 11/16

Blackpool Combat Club (Bryan Danielson/Claudio Castagnoli) vs. Jericho Appreciation Society (Chris Jericho/Sammy Guevara)

MD: Just a high quality, functional tag to start the show and set up the PPV 4-way. The ultimate goals were to make Claudio look strong coming in, make Jericho look vulnerable, and lean in hard on the preexisting vulnerability from the previous week with Danielson's eye. All three factors will likely come into play in the title match. They've mentioned the idea that Sammy might go into business for himself, but that wasn't really touched on in the text itself here. I mentioned last week that in some ways he's the perfect 2022 Bryan Danielson opponent, even if he's not the wrestler I'd like to see him up against the most. It's not far off to say that about Claudio too. The hangtime he was able to off of Claudio's power on a few spots (like the pop up uppercut) was just amazing. Outside of that one specific pairing, the other three have been married to one another off and on over a good chunk of this year. Again, it's maybe not what I'd want for Danielson, and even, at this point, not what I want for Jericho anymore (I was all for the idea of a JAS vs Neo-Pinnacle w/Joe feud back around the Canada shows), but familiarity, at the very least, can breed creativity. Three matches in, Danielson's able to twist and contort certain spots and a certain comfort level on things like dives. Sammy hit a spectacular one on Danielson to get the two of them out of the way for the Claudio/Jericho Giant Swing/Walls bit. Danielson hit a visceral tope on Sammy to get them out of the way for the finish. Likewise, that giant swing spot with Jericho holding the bat and Aubrey recoiling back into the corner so she didn't get clocked by it on the rotations was brilliant. So there's value in the continued pairings. So when I truly, deeply hope that with the ROH PPV up coming, if not this PPV ahead of us, we're at the end of this feud, it's not necessarily because the content is stale or no longer worth watching. I'm just ready to see these four wrestle other people.

AEW Rampage 11/18

Eddie Kingston/Ortiz vs. Jun Akiyama/Konosuke Takeshita

 

MD: Different people will give you different answers about this, but if you forced me to come up with a single, unified theory of pro wrestling, it would be this: Pro wrestling is about anticipation and payoff. Here the anticipation was for seeing Jun Akiyama and Eddie Kingston fight each other. And the payoff? Well, we only got a taste of it as it was, in the best and carniest pro wrestling fashion, building towards another show and another match and another moment. I have to admit that the anticipation was pretty glorious in and of itself. They did everything they could to keep Eddie and Akiyama out of the ring together, starting with Kingston vs. Takeshita, with heat on both Ortiz and then Takeshita so that partners could cycle in and out without the two facing. Ortiz knew the match wasn't about him but also that he'd have to carry a lot of it in order to prevent the teased pairing and he rose to the occasion, hitting hard, but taking all of Akiyama's stuff. Akiyama was sudden and decisive in his violence. For all of the anticipation in the match, when he struck, it was without flourish or hesitation. He'd reach for Ortiz and spike him with a pile driver with no pomp, just impact. Kingston let himself get distracted but then shut down every opening. His eyes wandered. His fists did not. All of my issues with Takeshita tend to be structural and almost all of them were alleviated by this being a tag match. 

The match built and built to the possibility of Kingston and Akiyama facing off. When they did it was to prevent the exploder, with Ortiz still the legal man and Eddie doing his best Taue impression to rush in and break up an opportunity and break down the match, the way so many All Japan tags broke down. The encounter disappointed only so much as it was a tease for something more. As a tease, it was everything you might want though: thrown blows, traded exploders, with Akiyama's snap quick, tight and snug. He didn't take shots as you so often see, but registered them and sold as he fired back, and if anyone watching this in the back learned anything from him here, I'd hope it was that. But in the end, the payoff was all just a tease after all, bringing us back to anticipation for what yet remained ahead. That's pro wrestling too.  It never ends and it always leaves us wanting more.

Read more!

New Footage Friday: All Japan 12/2/96 Handheld

 AJPW 12/2/96

PAS: This was the tail end of the 1996 RWTL, and only a couple of days before the apex of All Japan Tag Wrestling. We saw two pretty great warm up matches for our finalists.

Masao Inoue vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru 

MD: Spirited opener that played up the size difference and highlighted Kanemaru's athleticism. Inoue based well early, as Kanemaru stayed on his arm, did some tricked out chain wrestling, and flew at him from every direction. You were really just waiting for Inoue to catch him and he did, selling the arm still for a bit before really putting the oomph into his mauling. Kanemaru was so spry that he could land on his feet at any moment and he had some hope towards the end, including a well-worked for slam before missing a leap off the top and getting crushed. They made the most of this.

ER: AJ openers were always so much more interesting than NJ openers, as you really got a sense of these guys growing, and the fans were always ready to get excited at the slightest hint of an upset. Kanemaru was someone who really got to show a lot in openers (for a few years) and I really dig the AJ slow burn hierarchy. Kanemaru surprised Inoue with a lot of flash, including really sending him flying into a guardrail on a dropkick. He doesn't skimp on his missed offense, always missing as if he thought there was water in that pool, and I like the little victories that fans react loudly to. Like here, Inoue hits his falling clothesline and then rudely palms Kanemaru's face on the cover, then gets launched off when Kanemaru throws all of his remaining strength into a kickout. It was like Yokozuna kicking out of a Macho Man pin and the crowd was into it, sensing a Kanemaru surprise. Inoue acts incredulous to the ref, but then folds Kanemaru with a hard back suplex and pins each of Kanemaru's arms to the mat, not taking cocky chances this time. 

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi/Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Satoru Asako/Maunakea Mossman 

MD: This was a fun quasi-juniors tag. Mossman definitey shined here with a lot of dynamic stuff, but it was almost too much or too varied. He had the kickpads and the kicks, a bunch of holds, a couple of throws, and a splash off the top. You wanted to see him focus in more on one thing, maybe. Kikuchi continued his run in this footage as a class A cruiserweight bully. When he finally got fed up and intervened to save Ogawa, he just laid in a beating and refused to leave the ring as if he was Hansen or something. Asako and Ogawa were fine though Ogawa, despite working from underneath and having a good connection with the crowd, didn't show signs of being fully developed as of yet.

ER: This felt like two different matches, and I liked both matches, but I wish we could have seen either the last half of the first match, or the first half of the second match. The first half is really neat, with Asako and Mossman working over Ogawa's knee. Asako especially goes off on that knee, really wailing on it with stomps, elbow drops, knee drops, just landing on Ogawa's knee with his body. Asako and Mossman were making quick tags and I was really getting into this AJ juniors southern tag. But once Ogawa rolled to the floor, Kikuchi came in and just beat the shit out of Asako, and then never really left (even though I don't think he ever tagged in at any point). From there, there was nothing more acknowledged about Ogawa's leg, and this became Kikuchi as Hansen, always kicking someone's ass. Ogawa was the afterthought of the match, getting his knee worked on and then stepping aside for Kikuchi, but I thought Ogawa was really great at taking offense. He was whipping himself into the mat on little things like drop toeholds, and his ability to take offense made Asako/Mossman look like a real team. Mossman had a lot of cool stuff, loved how his long kicks always found their mark under chins, and his top rope splash was awesome. His splash focused less on hang time, and was more like a low line drive, getting to the landing point quick and painfully. I also really loved his moonsault feint, as he head fakes a moonsault to get Ogawa to roll out of the way, then nails a Vader bomb instead. Ever since seeing that Zero-1 match where Kikuchi spends 10 minutes literally pretending Hoshikawa's hard strikes weren't bothering him in the least, I've been scared of Kikuchi, looked at him in a whole new light. He comes off like a real bully and feels like he would have no problem taking several Mossman kicks if it lets him land one brutal elbow smash. Also, I really like the Kikuchi/Ogawa finish of a Kikuchi elbow smash into an Ogawa inside cradle, very aesthetically pleasing and Ogawa was right there to catch Mossman as he was falling from the elbow. 

Tamon Honda/Johnny Smith vs. Giant Kimala/Jun Izumida 

MD: Another good, but slightly weird showing from the Kimala/Izumida team. They had great offense, including that same side tandem double elbow drop, a torture rack drop, and an assisted tree fall headbutt, but I swear they worked towards a quasi-hot tag again. Honda knew exactly what he was and how to make the most of it. He was formidable but also hugely entertaining in his exchanges with Izumina. The crowd was into Smith but he was too quick to rush to the next thing. It was a big deal that he suplexed Kimala and he diminished it by not milking the moment at all. That was just the way he was working this one.

ER: A little aimless, but aimless in that fun way where I can just zone out and enjoy these dudes for 15 minutes. I love the Kimala/Izumida team, always love the big hot Kimala tags they build to. The start of the match is really great, with Honda throwing a side headbutt to Izumida's stomach as he was coming off the ropes, then going right into the two of them using their oversized melons to clonk each other. Honda throws a great spinning heel kick (on one leg, Booker T style) that I don't recall him using that often, and I liked how he and Izumida kept going back to different headbutt attacks throughout the match. I liked Honda's never-give-up falling headbutts, where he'll just keep faceplanting until one finally lands, juxtaposed with the super violent Kimala/Izu team headbutts, Kimala throwing Izumida down into some hard landings. I agree with Matt that Smith is from that Dynamite Kid school of hit your awesome looking offense and move right along to your next big of awesome offense. It doesn't make the offense look less cool, but it sure makes the offense mean less. The snap suplex on Kimala should have been the big spot of the entire match, but he was already moving on to a nice elbow smash and cool top rope elbowdrop less than 10 seconds after. The All Japan roster had so many different guys at this point who knew how to properly lead up to their biggest offense that you'd think someone would take him aside and tell him to let things breathe a little. Kimala's hot tag was as awesome as ever, and I think his avalanche is one of the greatest in wrestling history. He doesn't leap into it, it's just this super impactful sudden stop. I love the same side tandem elbow, love his rolling senton and heavy splash. I'm so happy we've gotten so much more Kimala/Izumida footage, since they were frequently edited off TV. 

Giant Baba/Rusher Kimura/Mitsuo Momota vs. Masanobu Fuchi/Mighty Inoue/Haruka Eigen 

MD: First, you'll be glad to know they didn't work this one exactly the same as the last. They did repeat a dive tease but who cares as it was funny both times. That's not to say Momota didn't carry things for his side, because he absolutely did, and whenever he was in there it felt like a real match. You watched this and there was no reason to to think a singles match between him and any of his opponents wouldn't have been very good. Kimura, at this point, has to hold the record for getting the most out of the least, right? He occasionally sold his shin and ambled around the ring no-selling mostly everything else and the fans ate it up. I wish I knew what Kimura said post match for any of these.

ER: I really loved the old man trios we reviewed a couple weeks ago (same teams, from the 8/20/96 show), and while this was fun I don't think it was nearly as good as that match. The comedy hit better in that match, and there was an actual cool story thread throughout of the rudos working over Rusher's leg. This didn't have any real threads, and was much more of a time killer, but I like watching these guys fill time. Rusher looked like he was getting legitimate laughs out of his teammates by shaking his head in silly ways to show Fuchi how impervious to pain he was. Baba looked like he was laughing into the turnbuckle and Momota had to lean over the ropes to hide his face. I don't know if I've ever seen any of the old man competitors actually break, but this looked like they were actually having a hard time holding it together for Rusher's antics. I liked Fuchi's fearful selling and him getting backed up in the corner by the crazy Kimura, only to find that Inoue and Eigen had walked to the other side of the ring to avoid tagging in. 

I'd really love to see a serious Momota/Eigen singles from this era. We have evidence that Momota could still go as late as 2009, but Eigen is a guy who seemed like he was a super spry 50 year old still (loved his rolling before the initial lock up with Momota) but purposely played things down. He's a guy who has a lot of genuinely great shtick so I get why he took things easy, but looked at the nice knife edge chops he was throwing to Baba and a few other sequences, I with we got an actual serious old man Eigen run. Fuchi is a bastard as always, throwing a few kicks at Rusher's face and later breaking up a pin by scraping his boot on Rusher's ear. We got the Eigen spit take spots, including my favorite where he and Momota exchange hard overhand chops and Eigen hits Rusher on the apron with his spit. Also, for a 47 year old just a few months away from retirement, Mighty Inoue's rolling senton literally looks better than any modern wrestler's rolling senton. His form and aim on that move are pure elegance. 

Stan Hansen/Takao Omori vs. Dr. Death/Johnny Ace 

MD: Perfectly ok match hurt by my expectations. A lot of this was Hansen or Williams coming in and breaking up holds and it felt like it kept building to a real encounter between the two of them but never quite got there. Williams had his usual mid-90s manic energy and Hansen could still turn it up, including hitting a double dropkick with Omori at the end, and he certainly cut off and leaned on Ace well. But when you see this match on paper and come out of it realizing that most of the heavy hitting (and it was good heavy hitting) came from Omori vs Ace exchanges, something probably went wrong. Both Williams and Hansen had great presence though, of course, especially in the little moments like Ace, on the top rope, having to punch Hansen, on the floor, in order to clear enough space for the double team finish.

ER: I'm with Matt in that the match feels like it's building to that big Hansen/Doc showdown, and that doesn't happen in the match, and the match is lesser for it. The confrontation comes to a head AFTER the match, which is probably their best interaction of the match (though I do love Doc breaking up a pin by yanking Hansen by the hair out to the apron to elbow his throat). After the match Hansen is leaving, then turns around to swing his bull rope at Doc, which leads to both egging the other on, before Hansen decides to leave again. Doc gets up on the turnbuckles closest to Hansen's exit aisle to raise his arms, and Hansen cannot abide. He runs back and knocks Doc off the ropes, Doc gets tangled, Hansen swings at photographers and ring boys, and the crowd reacts louder to this than anything in the match proper. I don't think we are alone in thinking the match didn't live up to expectations, as the crowd is much quieter during this match than during any of the prior matches on the card. They only really woke up during the finishing stretch. But that's not to say the whole thing wasn't enjoyable. Omori and Ace did hit hard, and Hansen made his pinfall breaks count (nobody breaks up a pin better than Stan Hansen). I loved Omori's heavy as hell elbowdrop off the top, and was wowed at the speed Hansen and Omori shot Ace into the ropes for a tandem shoulderblock. Ace had that speed where you could tell he wasn't fully in control of his body, Hansen using that Andre pulling strength on him. Plus, the Doomsday Device finish looked like it came a couple inches away from killing Omori on a house show. So while we didn't get a big batch of dynamite like I wanted, if this match established the floor, it's a nice high floor. 

Mitsuharu Misawa/Jun Akiyama vs. Gary Albright/Sabu  

MD: Peak Sabu doing peak Sabu stuff in AJPW against Misawa and Akiyama. The match turns on a dime a few times, going from a mostly grounded affair into Sabu flying all over the place or Albright tossing people around. The stuff you're going to remember here is Sabu leaping off of Albright's back, poetry in motion style. Sometimes it works, like a huge kick to the face in the corner. Sometimes it doesn't, like the missed moonsault that set up the finish. Sometimes it really, really doesn't, like when Sabu flies out of the ring and lands hard on the guardrail. The fans knew what they were getting and they were happy to get it. It never really comes together as a match, but is that actually what you're looking for when you watch this one?

PAS: Sabu and Albright are such a legendary oddball team, what a way for Misawa and Akyama to warm up for the RWTL finals, face these two weirdos. No chairs for Sabu to use in AJPW so he just keeps using Albright's back as a launching pad, including one springboard dive where he landed ribs first on the guard rail with a crunch. Misawa and Akyama kind of took a backseat to the wackiness, although I loved the Freestyle takedown and ride exchanges between Jun and Albright. We get a couple of sick Albright suplexes including one which dropped Misawa right on his head (always a bit tough to watch with hindsight). More of a spectacle than a match, I almost would rather see Albright and Sabu against a team with a bit more color. Misawa and Akiyama are great, but I bet I would have dug their Hansen and Omori match more. 

ER: Sabu is as incongruous to Kings Road style as anyone, and throwing a wrench into their style is always fun (for the hits and misses). My only gripe is that I wish Sabu had thought of some more interesting ways to insert his offense into things, but I also liked how Akiyama wasn't someone who was going to wait around during overly long spot set-ups. Kings Road worked so well because of the impeccable timing of its best wrestlers, and some of these Sabu spots require a lot of stand still time. Stand still time is not something we typically see in this era of All Japan, and it's weird! Akiyama treating them realistically made these spots work within the framework, and lead to some of the best moments of the match. I loved Gary Albright getting into tabletop position several times during the match, using his refrigerator shaped torso to boost Sabu. I'm honestly shocked they didn't incorporate Albright's unreal throwing strength and have him launching Sabu like a projectile. Sabu takes some rough spills, no more rough than landing stomach first on the guardrail after Akiyama casually walks out of the way of his triple jump plancha. The missed triple jump moonsault (again off Albright) to set up the finish was just as nuts, and it easily could have lead to an even worse landing. Albright is so cool, nobody else in wrestling like him. I loved him and Akiyama working the mat, ending with Akiyama throwing 8 or so nasty elbows right to the face. They build throughout the match to Albright throwing Misawa, Misawa wisely scrambling for the ropes every time Albright tries to get the underhooks in, and it's an awesome moment when Sabu hits poetry in motion on Misawa and Misawa stumbles out of the corner into that Albright belly to belly. They tease that Misawa is going to get dumped with a dragon suplex (on a house show!) but compromise by merely getting dropped vertically with a German suplex. I agree with Phil that Misawa/Akiyama were a bit too stoic for the oddball gaijin team, and I'm positive I would have loved their match against Kimala/Izumida even more. That's the true handheld gem. 

Kenta Kobashi/The Patriot vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Akira Taue

MD: I really enjoyed this. It caught me off guard as Kobashi caught Kawada almost instantly with a Tiger Suplex and followed up with a power bomb on the floor. That set the stage for a control-driven match as opposed to a back and forth one, with three clear segments before they went into an extended finishing stretch (though one where the Holy Demon Army controlled for the most part, building off of Taue's presence and what went before including the fact he was the one guy not to take an extended beating) about 2/3rds the way through. Kawada did fight back for the hot tag and they immediately crushed Kobashi basically the same way Kawada was crushed (huge suplex + move on the floor). It also meant just a minute or two apart were Kobashi's chops in the corner on Kawada and Kawada's rapid kicks on Kobashi which just felt paralleled and correct. I would have liked to see Patriot more involved in the early beatdown on Kawada, but when he did get a hot tag from Kobashi he came in fiery until Taue targeted his injured arm. Solid selling for the rest of the match from him, especially down the stretch where he was fighting valiantly with one arm. The stretch itself was pretty measured with a couple of big break-ups and one big kickout but nothing that took me out of the match. Taue targeting the arm once again to open Patriot up for the killing blows was good stuff. One Taue and Kawada got full advantage, they were just amazing spoilers. Nothing could kill a wrestler's forward momentum than Taue imposing himself upon him. Just a good focused, lost main event.

PAS: Interesting variation on a classic main event tag. Mitsuhara Misawa to the Patriot is about the biggest talent downgrade I can imagine, but Patriot was fine here, especially for a guy who was a focus of the finish run. Really liked the Kawada vs. Kobashi sections, it is a different vibe then Kawada versus Misawa, but Kobashi's flourishes work well as a foil for Kawada's grimacing ass kicking. I loved the exchange they had when Kobashi came into to try to break the Kawada arm bar, with Kawada waving off the two initial chops, only to cut Kobashi off with a big kick when he tried for more momentum. I also enjoyed Taue taking Patriot apart at the end. He is like a slow moving avalanche, it isn't going to hit you fast, but you will end up buried underneath it all.

ER: I really really liked this match, and it really felt like the best Patriot performance I've seen. Now, while it's true that there were 27 or so guys I was more excited to see on this show than The Patriot, a good performance is a good performance. We don't get many limb work matches in All Japan, and I thought Patriot got his arm tore up nicely and sold it the entire way through. The match started very surprisingly, with Kawada nearly convincingly 2 minutes in after a tiger suplex and powerbomb on the floor, and for almost the first 10 minutes of the match the only offense Kawada gets is throwing some kicks at Kobashi from his back (classic Kawada, selling being only on muscle memory fumes, still annoying the fuck out of Kobashi by kicking him in the eye and back of the knee). Kawada gets to pay Kobashi back with a ruthless as hell backdrop driverWhen Taue makes it in they eventually single out Patriot, and begin coldly and methodically wrecking his protected arm. Taue is wrapping the arm around the ropes and kicking at it, and Kawada is really mean to it. 

My favorite part of the match is Kawada so fixed on taking apart Patriot's arm, that while Taue and Kobashi are fighting on the floor, and somebody gets thrown HARD into the guardrail off camera, Kawada doesn't even bother glancing over to see who hit the rail, he's too busy kicking Patriot's arm as hard as he can, ripping off the protective brace, and stomping on it (Taue casually walking back into frame confirming it was Kobashi hitting the rail was a fantastic moment caught by our cameraman). I was really impressed with Patriot's arm selling, especially when he was making his comebacks, never once slipping and doing a move that required both arms. He was also a super strong presence throughout the match on the apron, and I love a great apron performance. He's great at getting tied up by the ref as Kobashi is getting double teamed, and he has a few fired up moments where he is dying to get in that ring and you can hear the fans buying into it. Taue looked as great as ever, playing into Kobashi's quirks (I hate those Kobashi equalizer spots where he takes a snake eyes to the buckle, powers up, takes a chokeslam into the buckle, powers out, gets dumped with a German suplex, powers up, but then Taue has to sell a lariat for longer than Kobashi sold anything), and Taue's destruction of Patriot for the finish was violent as hell. There are a couple really great nearfalls, like Patriot getting saved after a backdrop/nodowa otoshi combo, and barely kickout out of a hard Taue nodowa otoshi while Kobashi was nowhere close to save him. Loved Patriot trying to punch Taue afterwards and Taue just pump kicking right through it, before slamming the door shut with a final nodowa otoshi. 

Read more!

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.

ALL TIME MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

All Time MOTY List Head to Head 2001: Akiyama vs. Honda VS. Santo vs. La Parka

Jun Akiyama vs. Tamon Honda NOAH 9/5/01

PAS: The Hondasance happened in 2003, but I guess we were all too distracted by 9/11 to realize how awesome he was in 2001. There was a really cool mini-tourney which built up to this match, and this was a great GHC title match. One thing that NOAH really added to the All Japan formula match was cool matwork and submissions, and that was the focus of this match. Honda was an olympic wrestler, and really well versed at escape predicaments from the ground. Akiyama attempts some stuff early and gets flummoxed. He ended up DDTing Honda on the ramp and spending the next couple of minutes yanking on his giant water head. Honda is able to take over by taking Jun's back, and when Akiyama blocked a choke, Honda yanked him up and over with his gorgeous german suplex. We go into a cool finish run with Akiyama attempting to lock in a front choke, while Honda tries for STF variations. Loved that it took three tries for Akiyama to finally drop him with the choke. I didn't love the DDT on the apron stuff, and could have used some Olympic Hells, but this was a great example of what Honda could deliver.

ER: Honda really was one of those good wrestlers who everybody ignored until that was impossible to do. Mid 90s Honda isn't great and doesn't share a lot of similarities with early 2000s Honda. He worked as an almost fast junior in '94-'96, with very little grappling, hardly any suplexes, weird lockjaw comeback faces, and way too many headbutts that ranged from so-so to kind of cool. I think people wrote him off somewhere during this run and it took us a few years to realize he'd blossomed into a deadlift suplex god. Phil is right about NOAH matches getting to stretch out a bit more with matwork, and it's probably not a coincidence that Honda really came into his own at NOAH's inception. The grappling in this was really cool, and I love how Honda knows how to utilize his freaky body, bridging into rolling clutches and using his legs to add leverage to chokes. I love all the STFs and rolling Olympic Hell variations we got in the match, with the side triangle choke being especially sick. Every sub of Honda's looked like a finish. But I also like Akiyama playing dirty and spiking Honda on his head, then working that giant dome over with a can opener and a headscissors. Akiyama can be a real dick, but this really ramps up when Akiyama starts with the exploders. "Oh, suplexes? Sure, we can do that," Honda agrees, and starts dropping Akiyama with increasingly unstoppable throws. The home stretch is filled with some great nearfalls, as Akiyama starts lands a strong jumping knee to Honda's chin that drops him hard, and the exploders start landing Honda more and more vertically, and after an extremely close kickout, Honda is put away with a sub in the middle.

Hijo del Santo vs. La Parka Review


Verdict:

PAS: This is close. The Santo match was awesome but marred with a stinko ending. I loved this but maybe wanted another moment or two at the end.

ER: I think this had selling issues that weren't an issue in the lucha bloodbath, and the finish to that lucha match doesn't bother me. Akiyama seemed like he was getting up too easily after some of Honda's nastiest stuff, and that's what drops this below that legendary bloodbath for me. Champ retains.

Read more!

All Time MOTY List Head to Head 1999: Misawa/Ogawa vs. Kobashi/Akiyama VS. Santo/Casas vs. Bestia/Scorpio

Kenta Kobashi/Jun Akiyama vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Yoshinari Ogawa AJPW 3/6/99

ER: I had never seen this match before. It popped up as an autoplay after some other wrestling I was watching on YouTube, and I liked the sound of it. Kings Road is just about my favorite style, and I was just really in the mood for a big 30 minute Kings Road tag title match that I'd never seen. I liked the pairing on paper even more once I saw the timestamp. The length of the match told me this had the chance to be a real Ogawa show, and I was not disappointed. I love Kings Road matches where a less heralded guy gets put on the main stage, and the way the crowds respond to them getting one of their biggest moments. Kobashi and Akiyama were a great subtle heel team (and All Japan crowds are always great about booing everything they view as "heel behavior"), Misawa stood by his boy, and Ogawa did his best to fight back against Burning. This was Big Stage Ogawa and he ruled, but this was a match with four separate and very well done performances.

It even starts with French Catch Ogawa! Seriously the way Ogawa and Akiyama went to the mat felt unique for this era All Japan, and it was arguably the best I'd seen Ogawa look in All Japan. He was breaking out the quickest tricks, absolutely working circles around Akiyama, doing his slickest Regal-as-Boogaloo Shrimp wristlock reversals, and spectacularly tying up Akiyama's arm and sending him directly into Kobashi, with Kobashi flying to the floor. Everything's coming up Ogawa! Everybody is clearly up for a great performance, as they're all trying out unique stuff. Misawa comes in and decides to channel his lucha days, hitting a weird floating armdrag like he was a tripper Tim Horner, then working a headscissors spot in the corner. But his elbows to the jaw still stagger steps, and are returned in kind my sharp neck chops from Kobashi. I love the moment where Ogawa's luck runs out, the moment his whipping punches and jawbreakers stop working, and Kobashi starts cranking his neck in a nasty abdominal stretch. And every little turn the match takes just works, with a simple easy to follow story, and the fans along with every step.

The match had a real strong, effective use of repetition, from Ogawa repeatedly going back to his eyepokes and punches and cradles, to things like Misawa going for a senton on Kobashi, missing, bunny hopping another one to trick him so he could hit one; Ogawa just hitting double stomps on Kobashi's stomach over and over to kill time while Misawa got ready for his big splash, to Kobashi always using a big suplex (a sleeper suplex that the camera mostly misses, a half nelson tossing Misawa on his head) as a way to get Misawa out of the ring and focus the attack on Ogawa. There were so many cool individual moments, like Misawa elbowing Kobashi out of the sky, Ogawa's big hot tag where he went absolutely wild. It's awesome as it was set up by Misawa being a great FIP (taking a nasty double arm DDT and powerbomb from Akiyama, among other things), even breaking out a combo headscissors/headlock takeover on Burning to make it to Ogawa, as if Misawa was the Tommy Rogers in this relationship! Ogawa wasn't really treated like a young punk, and I loved the way he kept fighting back. His hot tag was huge, even breaking out his own tiger driver, and I loved the moment where he held Akiyama in a sharpshooter and refused to break it as Kobashi kept throwing harder and harder kicks and chops. I don't think I've ever seen Ogawa get this much offense against two big dogs, and it lead to a dynamite home stretch.

These four were absolute masters at timing throughout this match, never more evident than the hot final 10 minutes. We get expert level nearfalls (an Ogawa inside cradle after Akiyama misses a knee into the buckles made me leap forward in my seat), last minute saves, big double teams, and somehow manage to make it seem - every second of the match - that any person in the match could realistically get the pinfall win. The Kings Road formula was built on hierarchy, of knowing who in every match were equals, of knowing who was most likely to take the fall, and in those simple hierarchies it became clear when someone was acting out of rank. This match on paper screamed "Ogawa is taking the fall!" and lo and behold, Ogawa did take the fall. BUT, it wasn't apparent that he was going to take the fall until the actual moment the ref counted 3. Kobashi and Misawa beat the hell of each other on the floor (with Kobashi hitting an unhinged lariat to get them both there), and Ogawa and Akiyama rush just as quickly in the final minute as they did in the first minute, and I kept thinking Ogawa just might pull this one off. But when he didn't, it didn't matter, because nobody came out of this one looking like a loser.

PAS: Among hardcore tape trading wrestling fans I am a low voter on Kings Road All Japan. The absolute Mount Rushmore stuff holds up really well, and I dig a bunch of the stuff on the margins, but your step below elite stuff has never really connected for me. Akiyama got really good in NOAH, but All Japan Akiyama always felt a little bloodless, he had a ton of technical skill, but just ran through that technical stuff without much color or flavor. Having Kobashi in the roll he played in this tag negated most of the things which make him interesting to me as well, he is great as a hot tag, or a guy fighting through a beating, but here he was more of dominant overdog, and he doesn't do that well (it is why I thought all of the real great Kobashi GHC title defense in NOAH were great because of his opponents). Ogawa is fun in this match, and I like that he brings something different to the table then the other three, the match needed variety and he provided that. Misawa is another one of my favorites, although I thought he was a bit on autopilot. I thought the end run was pretty exciting, the Ogawa eyepoke into a chin breaker, into a Misawa elbow, Gibson leglock pin, was a hell of a near fall, and Kobashi and Akyama really know how to dump folks on their heads. I imagine I would have liked this match more if I had gotten it on clipped All Japan TV from the video store in Hayward, as it really built to something.


El Hijo Del Santo/Negro Casas vs. Bestia Salvaje/Scorpio Jr. Review


Verdict: 

ER: I loved this tag, loved the big shifts in momentum, loved the big nearfalls, loved the last minute saves, loved the team work, loved the crowd's loud reaction to Ogawa, and love the simply laid out story. It's hard to beat a big implications title match in front of a sold out Budokan, with that crowd getting louder and louder every direction you take things, and there were a ton of great directions. This match takes it for me.

PAS: Not a bad match, but I doubt it would even make a top 50 All Japan matches of the 90s, and that isn't even a style I love. I didn't even think this was close. Lucha tag in a blow out.

Read more!

All Japan Battle Royal 1/2/98

1/2/98

ER: Spectacular. Few matches bring me as much joy as All Japan's annual year opening battle royal, and this is a nice weird crew. There is no loyalty in sight, just a lot of guys keeping butts to ropes and seeing who is gonna be dumb enough to step foot in the circle and get pinned by 15 guys. This battle royal is most well known among wrestling nerds for being THEE match where Skull von Crush gets a pin on Misawa. I think 90% of the people reading this site all had some kind of moment where they read or heard that Vito once pinned Misawa, and it immediately sounded like bullshit. I first read it in the 1998 or 1999 PWI 500 issue, and it sounded fishy. It was a trivia tidbit that got repeated a lot online, mainly because many were unfamiliar with the dogpile pinfall style of All Japan battle royals.  And I'm willing to bet upon learning that, most think that Crush was one of 15 guys pinning Misawa. In reality, the moment was much more exciting. It came around the halfway point, several had already been eliminated (big names like Hiroshi Hase and Akira Taue were out first, so the ring had cleared a bit), and Crush got in the middle of the ring and went right after Misawa. Crush hit Misawa with a stunner, Misawa being the only person I've ever seen take a stunner and then do a forward roll bump after, and Crush pinned him with really only a couple helping hands. So the moment was much more than the "one of 15 guys" narrative that became the immediate answer whenever the trivia piece would get mentioned, as it was Misawa getting pinned expressly because of the move he took from Skull von Crush.

Skull von Crush's somewhat validation wasn't the only fun bit we got. Haruka Eigen continues to be the master of big mouth shit talking in these matches; he always lands a cheap shot and then hides behind a bigger ally, this time literally jumping and running behind Baba. It's so great. Giant Kimala is a fun target in this one, people kept running up on him and he would fight back with big head chops and headbutts. He and Dr. Death had a weird thing and kept going after each other. Jun Izumida was the eventual winner! A guy who hung back at the right moments and had hilarious little things like trying to sneak up to cheapshot Akiyama but getting caught. Major guys, most notably Kawada, went after Baba in moments that really lit up the crowd, Baba running down every single one of them, blasting Baba chops and eventually getting pinned after getting dogpiled after delivering a nice Russian legsweep. Baba had this fantastic arms out What the Fuck face after getting ganged up on. "You came at the 60 year old KING? Seriously?" We got the lovely and unexpected final 4 of Akiyama, Izumida, Johnny Smith, and Johnny Ace. The Alliance of Johnnies is extremely short-lived, as Smith hits Ace with his great reverse DDT, the Akiyama palmed the back of Izu's head and threw him melon first into a falling headbutt on Ace. Izu gets a really fun and exciting win, letting Akiyama and Smith have a nice battle before letting one pin the other and then flipping the pin. God I love these battle royals.

Read more!

Pro Wrestling Revolution Road Report 3/9/19

ER: Jun Akiyama has been wrestling for 27 years, and he decided to work his first ever match in the United States on a Saturday night in San Francisco high school for a lucha fed that doesn't have any actual lucha on it. Why not? We hit up Papito on the way down, me, Tim Livingston, and our friends Sean and Jason. A good crew for a wrestling show. Papito is this great Mexican place owned by a French guy who makes fantastic food. I foolishly had a late lunch, so just sat there sipping sangria and munching chips while Tim got shrimp tacos, Sean got a pork/duck meat combo, and Jason got a great big burrito. I was jealous, but it was my choice and being gluttonous at 38 isn't as fun as it was at 21. That chorizo hamburguesa with queso fresco, avocado, and caramelized onions was staring me in the face on the menu, tempting me with greasy memories. But eating that close together would have had me feeling like total trash through a 3 hour show, so I sad eyed my way through it. We got to the show a little late, and then there was a very long line for being 20 minutes past listed door time. Our saint from above, our friend Brian was inside having come from a different direction, SAVING four other seats. This show was genuinely PACKED and that move probably got him a couple aggressive stares. It was loud as hell throughout a large portion of the night, real cacophonous gym with a full crowd, lots of air horns.

We got there late from dinner and the long line in, so we missed a 6 man scramble match. Our friend Brian - who had saved FOUR seats through a 20 minute late start time AND a full match - when asked about his opinion of the scramble match, wrinkled his nose and narrowed his eyes, and tilted his head a little. A wordless, unimpressed dismissal of six men's nights' work.

Papa Esco/El Dinamita vs. Viento/Rey Leon

ER: This was a perfectly fine tag. One of the tecnicos comes out to Sweet Child of Mine which is one of those cheesy things that means your brain is wired to become a professional independent pro wrestler. Papa Esco is a fun fat guy with a singlet that even says Fat Boy. He has a good fat guy build, nice and sturdy, bald head and big beard. He's not mega fat, but he looks like someone left Monsta Mack in the dryer a little too long. Viento appeared to be the better of the tecnicos as far as fluidity, but he was also in there more with Esco, who is the much better base. Dinamita was really clumsy during some sequences, especially poor at taking offense (which is not a good sign from a rudo), but Esco is really good at taking armdrags, has that great chubby base pendulum style bumping down. This was fine. Esco is one of the PWR homegrowns that I like, so was at minimum hoping for a decent showcase for him, and got it.

Puma Negro vs. Sonico vs. Arkedy Federov vs. Matt Fury

ER: Matt Fury was originally supposed to be Jungle Boy, but due to the week's circumstances Jungle Boy was obviously not here. I didn't catch the name of his replacement, but he was a black flier who my friend Sean kept referring to as "athletic" and wasn't sure why Jason and I kept giving him a hard time about it. He didn't repeatedly refer to Federov as "hard working" so the likely scenario is that Sean doesn't know sports code. Fury got good height on some things and hit a pretty spectacular springboard shooting star press into the entranceway onto everyone, but felt like he put more thought into ways to do high leapfrogs instead of transitions. My favorites in the match were Puma Negro and Sonico. Federov was okayish, but had some really clunky set up on indy offense. There was a moment where he did some awful 9 step set-up kind of move, grabbing an arm, dipping opponent back into a backbreaker, pulling them to feet before locking into a pumphandle, you know one of those moves that needs someone to be perfectly still while you do your 9 point pre-check before dropping them on their face. But Sonico was a real pleasant surprise, a guy I'd love to see again around here. He got real high height leaping off the ropes for ranas and had a really great fast dive. Puma Negro was an Arkangel type rudo, had a nice stiff arm southpaw lariat just like Arkangel's, good base for Sonico's ranas, had a cool sunset flip variation. Federov ends the match with an awful waffle that looked super dangerous. Overall this is what you'd like from a 10 minute 4 way.

Nicole Savoy vs. Heather Monroe

ER: A 13 minute match that probably would have been much better off settling in around 9. Monroe showed a ton of charisma and personality during her ring entrance, really looked like someone who owned the ring and would be a great heel. Once the match started that completely vanished. The way she was stalking the apron and dismissing the crowd during her entrance felt like the kind of confidence that would immediately translate to the match, but the bell rung and she was completely silent. The middle of the match was a long Monroe control segment that was easily the most quiet the crowd got all night, and her stuff didn't look great. Savoy's moments where much better, nice high kick, even better German, tough fisherman buster, big tope (that Monroe caught nicely) but Monroe took way too much of this. It's only a matter of time before Savoy is in NXT, and she's super easy to root for, but the structure of this was all off.

ER: We had an ongoing bet over how long the intermission would go. I had 33 minutes, I laughed at Tim's guess of 25 minutes. To my shock they ended up coming back right at the 25 minute mark. I HATE intermissions, while begrudgingly understanding their purpose, and PWR's intermissions are filled with incredibly loud music blared into a cramped gymnasium. If I sound old, I genuinely don't care. So I leave to stretch my legs and in the hallway I run into Roy Lucier. Roy has been the true MVP of the online wrestling community these past few years, as he's been uploading a wealth of rare and unique wrestling footage in easily searchable categories, at an incredibly fast pace. Old tape traders seem like they always get along when meeting, and he and I got to chat for a good 20 minutes. He told me about a few things he's recently received that are VERY exciting. We even talked about saving it for Christmas because some of it is a gift that has been seen by very few of us. Talking about wrestling with people is fun, real glad we bumped into each other, been a long time coming. You'll be seeing plenty of Roy's uploads written about by us over the next several (!) years.

Tajiri vs. Super Crazy

ER: This feud was pretty important to late teens me, really was some of my absolute favorite stuff at that time and really worked as one of my gateways to wanting to see more and more wrestling from Japan and Mexico. It was cool seeing them run it back now that both are in the back end of their 40s, and this felt like a fun take on the familiar Tajiri/Crazy matches only done by guys in the back end of their 40s. The speed wasn't going to be there, but the ability to work a crowd was there and they knew what they could get by with. Tajiri was getting good reactions just stalking the ring, and he amusing worked the match like a Repo Man match. Tajiri kept going for headlocks and it was pretty great, due to their expert veteran timing. It really could have killed a crowd, as the buzz would be building, fans would start loudly anticipating a Crazy comeback, and right when the comeback was about to happen Tajiri would trick him into a headlock again. Every time the crowd reaction would get louder before the headlock, before Tajiri would quiet them. Tajiri doesn't do fast roundhouse wheel kicks or high kicks anymore, but instead threw a few nice front kicks, just pushing off with a couple stiff kicks to Crazy's chest or chin. Crazy is definitely chubbier these days, but he still gets the exact same height and rotation on his spinkick, hit a moonsault off the middle that looked just like a moonsault of his from '99, and even missed a moonsault off the top that had some of the absolute best arc and grace of anyone to have ever done a moonsault. His form is still that impressive. The finish was really fantastic as the ref gets briefly bumped, and in that brief moment where the ref isn't looking, Tajiri swings off Super Crazy with a cool armdrag...and mists Crazy while midair in the middle of the armdrag. Great visual.

Jun Akiyama/Ultimo Dragon/Misterioso vs. Vinny Massaro/Colt Stevens/JR Kratos

ER: So before the match they ran around passing streamers to ringside fans, and then promoter Gabe got on the mic and explained to the crowd how to throw streamers, and I think it comes off pretty silly to do a quickie "okay Japanese wrestlers only know you respect them if you throw neon garbage at them". Akiyama does come off like a boss during his ring entrance, wearing a large robe, clearly a guy who felt like a big deal to people (actually many in the crowd) who had no idea who he was. But damn if those streamers didn't look cool during his ring introduction (poor Ultimo was a Japanese man who was apparently shown zero respect, streamers for Akiyama only. We felt bad for Ultimo). Bay Area indies have been kicking around "Border Patrol" teams since at least the mid 90s and I'm thankful as hell we don't get any bad "build the wall" shtick from Stevens and Kratos. Vinny is in for a lot of this and the fans are way into Akiyama, which felt great. This wasn't going to be some wild match, it was going to be worked like a NOAH house show match, which was just fine, all that was needed. The rudos worked over Misterioso nicely, especially loved a long full arm lariat from Vinny, and a big release snap suplex from Kratos (a snap vertical suplex, but he let go so Misterioso flew across the ring, looked great). Akiyama came in on two occasions, laid in some nice knees including a great leaping knee into Stevens, and you knew we were getting at least one exploder. They mix it up and don't just go straight for the finish when he tags in the second time, and we even got a cool surprise nearfall from Stevens. I would have loved to see the reaction if Akiyama got pinned. But of course that wasn't REALLY going to happen. This was a perfectly fine crowd pleasing main event, and nothing more, and it didn't need to be.

ER: I've still yet to see a GREAT match from PWR, and they've been around for at least a decade now. But this was a packed house, a genuinely sold out show, with a crowd that stayed loud and invested throughout the whole card. That's a special thing.

Read more!

Let My Son Go So He May Serve Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Kensuke Sasaki/Super Tiger 2 vs. Mitsuo Momota/Yoshihiro Takayama/Jun Akiyama Rikidozan Memorial 12/16/13 - FUN

PAS: Nifty match with Rikidozan's son Mitsuo Momota taking himself out of 20 years of comedy matches to come out and battle with the big boys. Momota was the focus of the match, as he takes a beating by Fujiwara teams and firing back. Momota was 65 in this match and looks credible exchanging chops with Sasaki and Fujiwara. Momota gets to fight his way to the ropes on a Fujiwara armbar and even kick out of a Sasaki pin. He eventually goes down to a Northern Lights bomb which is an insane bump for a guy old enough to collect social security to take. There was a couple of fun Takayama v. Fujiwara exchanges, although the match was the Momota show.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

Read more!

ALL TIME MOTY LIST Head to Head 1998:Kandori v. Hotta V. Vader/Hansen v. Kobashi/Akiyama

Vader/Stan Hansen vs. Kenta Kobashi/Jun Akiyama (AJPW 12/5/98)

ER: It's kind of criminal that Hansen and Vader hardly ever teamed, with only 5 traditional tag matches making tape. These two were great enough that after just a few teamings they already seemed like two guys that had been teaming for years, clearly two hosses cut from the same cloth. They're a combined 30+ years older than their opponents, and these two being on the same side leads to the greatest versions of tag tropes, two big bulls cutting off the ring and stiffing the hell out of the good guys. It's pure joy right from go, watching Hansen charge out to the ring ahead of Vader, swinging his bullrope at a handsy fan while Vader slowly lurks behind. You haven't lived until you've seen Hansen holding Kobashi prone while Vader punches him in the nose and throat, then turns around and lariats the hell out of Akiyama on a save attempt. Akiyama foolishly tries a northern lights on Vader, and Vader just belly flops to block, sending Akiyama face first into the mat under him. Hansen taunts Kobashi while he punches Akiyama in the face and the two show how to have an actual interesting slap fight. Hansen rips Kobashi apart on the floor and then Vader smooshes him a bunch, unleashing stiff punches and clotheslines and a huge avalanche. Hansen wants more and kicks Kobashi right in the spine.

I really love old man Hansen. His movements (like rope running) are more rigid, but it doesn't make him any less active in matches; he still is constantly moving and throwing, his age just adds a touch of vulnerability, whereas his vulnerability in his "younger" years was him being reckless and getting caught. Vader works slow and sinister, slapping Akiyama harder than most people can handle being slapped, and we get this glorious run of Hansen and Vader spending minutes literally just falling on Akiyama/Kobashi. Big splashes and elbowdrops for days. Hansen has the best "Get up, you pussy" mocking kicks to the face. The finish is pretty excellent in its simplicity and suddenness. Hansen and Vader had dominated for so long that a comeback wouldn't seem genuine. They had dispatched Akiyama on the floor minutes earlier, I had forgotten about him, and clearly Hansen had as well. The camera work was perfect as we peer over Kobashi's shoulder at a menacing Hansen readying his arm for the lariat, looking like a killer closing in on helpless prey in a slasher flick, and we see Akiyama climbing the turnbuckles in the background, and we see Kobashi seeing it, and Hansen not seeing it. A leaping knee to the back of the head right into a Kobashi lariat to the side of the neck, a believable combo to get a quick 3. Afterwards, Hansen and Vader rightfully kick the shit out of them, the losers walking out on their own, while the winners need to be helped up to accept their trophy.

PAS: Man Vader and Hansen are a killer team of fat monsters, I can't think of a better Godzilla and King Kong team up. It is a shame they didn't have a longer run as a tag team. Can you imagine Vader/Hansen mauling the Rock and Roll Express or having a punch out with the Steiners? Not only were they throwing big bombs, but all of the smaller bombs looked great. Vicious slaps by Vader, these tiny nose breaking punches by Hansen. Both Kobashi and Akyama are big guys, but they looked pretty ineffectual getting smushed by Vader and Hansen, so much of wrestling these days are guys working 50/50 no matter what the size, so it is good to watch guys fighting from below like this. I liked the idea of the finish a lot, although it just didn't seem reasonable for any pair of moves to put down Hansen, he seems like such a force of nature. I did love Vader and Hansen killing them after the bell, no handshakes and appreciative hugs from them.

Kandori v. Hotta review

PAS: I really enjoyed the tag match, although it felt more like a look at an all-time great team, then an all-time great match. Hotta v. Kandori was such a horrifically violent revelation and it keeps the belt. 

ER: I really loved both of these matches, although this one is more my actual favorite style of pro wrestling. I thought the structure of this was great and thought the ending was masterfully executed and filmed. I think Kandori/Hotta might be the "better" match, but I've watched this match twice and will likely watch it again before I rewatch the joshi singles. Still, the champ retains.

Read more!

The Bad News Berzerker Goes to Japan: Part 7

72. Stan Hansen/John Nord/Rob Van Dam vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi/Jun Akiyama (AJPW 2/24/94) - VERY GOOD

ER: Hey, you know who wasn't very good in 1994? Rob Van Dam. And we get a lot of unpolished RVD, a lot of the bad RVD strikes that you remember (except worse than you remember due to being thrown with less confidence), you get to see him work through his future material and land moonsaults awkwardly and incorporate unnecessary somersaults. You remember how bad his "missile" dropkicks always looked, even when he was at his best? That awful flimsy one leg side kick? Well here it looks the worst it's ever looked, and he breaks it out twice! The crowd honestly has no idea what to do with him. On offense, he gets no reaction. But his strength was always bumps, and he had no problems leaning into offense here. It's striking how small he was here, as just two years later in ECW he had much bigger chest, arms, and legs. So here he's just a small flippy guy with loose offense and not even a yin/yang symbol or a dragon screenprinted on his singlet. He's just wearing a sad black singlet. It's cruel to sit through an RVD match and not even get to chuckle at what Spencer's Gifts black light poster he got singlet inspiration from while likely there buying fart spray or novelty boner cream. So RVD mostly stinks and there's a good amount of him, but there's plenty of Hansen/Nord maulings, plenty of Hansen charging in to save RVD's butt, plenty of knee lifts, plenty of awesome Nord elbow drops, Hansen blasts Kobashi with a chair and holds him so RVD can hit a somersault plancha. The match is really fun in a vacuum, but for a main event Misawa really doesn't get in the ring much, and you have to keep wondering why - from a kayfabe perspective - Hansen or Nord would keep tagging RVD in. He was a clear loser who was being constantly overpowered by Kobashi, and they were never in long enough to get tired or get in trouble...so why keep repeatedly forfeiting the advantage? Anyway, finish is expected and hot. You knew RVD was taking the pin, so the tension built around how brutal the natives would treat him. It wasn't as bad a beating as it could have been, but it wasn't painless. Kobashi crushes him with a lariat, and accordions him with a back suplex. Nord saves, but a powerbomb easily finishes. Hilariously, while RVD is being pinned, Hansen and Nord just walk to the back, never looking back once.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BERZERKER

Read more!

The Bad News Berzerker Goes to Japan: Part 2

65. Stan Hansen/John Nord/Johnny Gunn vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi/Jun Akiyama (AJPW 1/2/94)

I truly love Kings Road/NOAH 6 man tags. You can always expect a certain level of professionalism, they don't overstay their welcome, you get some nice match-ups and you can typically guess who is going to take the fall. There's a familiarity but also always some pleasant surprises. This is a wonderful babyface team against a kinda strange heel team. I don't think any of these three heel men had ever met before, and they had certainly never worked together before. They are joined here together in their mere whiteness. Johnny Gunn is a guy who nobody has an opinion on, and here looks okay. He is somehow both clumsy and smooth. He'll trip on the ring ropes entering the ring, he'll set up an arm drag way too early, but then he'll break out a cool snap fisherman suplex. Sometimes the clunkiness and smoothness can happen within one move, like when he locks Misawa in an awkward Russian legsweep but then ends it with a slick floatover into a pin. Nord looks a little rusty here, his bumps seem more tentative, he gets crossed up a couple times on rope running which is odd as nobody ran the ropes more than this guy the previous two years. But he still lands a couple gorgeous kneedrops, his huge falling slam on Kobashi, some nice big boots, a great lariat, and it's neat seeing him next to Hansen. Hansen of course looked better than anybody here, yanking his kneepad down for a great kneelift, working the apron like a total savage ("Pin him again, John! Now tag me in!!"), beating dudes into the crowd, taking nasty Kobashi chops and booting him in the face. The double teams are still a little clunky but we'll see if they improve over the tour. The finish is obvious to anybody who's ever watched even a little All Japan. Once Hansen and Nord spill to the floor, we know we're in the stretch. Hansen kicks and punches Kobashi through the crowd and abandons him, but in a great show Kobashi comes charging back and surprises Hansen before he gets back to the ring. Kobashi turned in a great babyface performance in this one. The stoic Misawa fights over the tiger driver and Nord bursts in with an awesome save, doing a classic Berzerker axe handle, landing on his knees. But Akiyama tackles him to the floor, and with Hansen tied up still with Kobashi, Misawa merely cracks Gunn with an elbow (and Gunn leans in great, getting spun around in a 180). Misawa spins him back around, tiger driver is academic.


COMPLETE & ACCURATE BERZERKER

Read more!

2006 Match of the Year

Jun Akiyama v. Masao Inoue NOAH 4/23

PAS: Inoue as ineffectual schmuck is one of my favorite wrestling characters. Here he is in his ultimate challenge. Inoue is perfect as the lovable heel loser getting his improbable big match. It starts with Inoue (who has visable indentations from his reading glasses) jumping Akiyama at the bell and hitting a big suplex and a roll up. Akiyama is established as a guy who can get upset quickly and the crowd buys the near fall. Akiyama locks on the choke, and you also buy Inoue going down quickly. Inoue then spends the next couple of minutes with some awesome stalling, and then some really great eye rakes. When Akiyama responds to the eye rakes with rakes of his own, the crowd starts booing him unmercifully. Akiyama is great as a guy who can't deal with the crowd booing him. There is a point where he just decides "fuck it, you want to boo, boo this" and just murders Inoue, including a calf branding into the steel barricade. Inoue is working as a guy with a limited number of options, he can't go toe to toe with Akyama, and he can't out quick him, out wrestle him, or out power him. He needs to either catch Akyama in a mistake or outsmart him. The rolls ups, and the stalling fit into that, and he keeps getting near falls by tricking Akiyama into almost getting counted out. Including a great figure four on the ramp which he just held it until the last possible second and sprints into the ring. Near the end Akiyama is just killing Inoue, but Masao won't go down. It isn't no-selling because he is so tough, it is more like he knows this is his only shot and despite all of his flaws wants to die on his sword. Not a ton of cool moves or fancy sequences, but still the best match of the year.

ER: Ahhhh, the match that made me love Masao Inoue. He's my absolute favorite chubby little loser. You know he has to be tougher than every one of us, but he's so convincing as himself that it's almost impossible to imagine. I would love to see footage of him training in the dojos, and I'm already laughing at the mental image of all the different fatigued faces he would be making. Tons of those faces are on display here, the full color wheel of schlub. He jumps Akiyama at the streamers with a lariat and a big sleeper suplex and gets about the most convincing nearfall of the match. He locks on his torture rack but Akiyama immediately grabs a choke out of it, due to Inoue being a schlub, and you buy that Akiyama could basically just hang out in that choke until Inoue passes out. Akiyama, for possible sportsmanship reasons, let's him go. Inoue spends the next several minutes recovering on the floor, hilariously rolling like a log out of the ring when Akiyama tries throwing him back in, and devotes a great deal of time to having the ref back Akiyama off so he can safely get back inside.

Inoue does all these great eye rakes, digging his fingers into Jun's eyes, and violently scraping his wristbands over the bridge of his nose. The second Akiyama does the same the crowd boos him, and he has this perfectly incredulous face, as the camera cuts back to Inoue rubbing his eyes, like your little brother after you got him to stop crying by saying the word poop a lot. Inoue somehow reverses Jun's attempt at a suplex on the ramp, hits his own vertical, then casually walks to the ring before going "oh shit wait!" and doing a funny run back to Jun, just to lock on a sloppy figure 4. The anticipation building in the crowd was tremendous as they catch on to his plan, as the ref count keeps getting higher and higher, and Inoue breaks the figure four at 17 to rush back to the ring, limping along the way as his own knee was hurt during the submission. But Akiyama makes it back in, and the beating commences. The crowd keeps booing Akiyama in a "why ya gotta pick on him" way, and Akiyama embraces his Legend Heel persona for the match. The calf branding into the guard rail was disgusting, not sure how Inoue came out of that one without a busted nose or mouth. Akiyama is pretty coolly vicious from this point, being cautious to not slip up and allow an opening, but knowing that he can coast. Inoue still surprises him with a couple great cradles, getting a really high scoop and honestly making it seem like Akiyama will be "the doof who keeps losing the title to cradles and roll ups", and nobody wants that moniker. So he starts killing Inoue not because he needs to, but because he can, and he wants that potential embarrassment buried FAR below. We get a bunch of knees to the back of the head, some exploders, and then one final, unnecessary wrist clutch version that we could have gotten a 15 count on. Very unique title match, and we basically owe it to ourselves and the world to go back and review tons of Inoue matches.


ALL TIME MOTY LIST

Read more!

2014 Ongoing Match of the Year

42. Jun Akiyama v. Takao Omori AJPW 6/15

PAS: I love watching Jun Akiyama when he gets pissy. He is the closest thing to prime Tenryu as exists in wrestling these days. Omori has always bored me, but his role in this match is to take a nasty beating and get his arms ripped apart, and man does Akiyama tear up his arms. Omori is a lariat guy, and after Jun gets hit with one, he zeroes in and just obliterates both arms, lots of cool little touches in holds like compressing the wrist in weird and painful looking ways, along with some nasty throws into ringposts and knees into biceps. Finish run was pretty great with Omori just saying "fuck it" and throwing these dead arm lariats because that was the only arrow he had in the quiver. Would have liked to see what Akiyama could do with a more vibrant opponent, but this was a great performance.

ER: Akiyama looked so great in this! I thought Omori looked really good taking all of Akiyama's offense, but looked very not good when doing offense. But still if you're good at taking nasty offense and getting your limbs yanked on, Akiyama will gladly yank limbs and knee faces. I liked all the early risks Akiyama took that ended up paying off, especially his jumping knee from the apron right into Omori's arm. Akiyama is filling that Finlay kind of vibe in my heart, the guy that doesn't let an opponent rest on his laurels or ham it up too much. At one point Akiyama hits an Exploder and Omori is sitting forward, leaning up selling it. Instead of waiting for Omori's natural momentum to eventually cause him to lie down, Akiyama grabs him by his questionable hairstyle and jerks him to the mat. I love that kind of stuff. Taking too long to stand up? Akiyama will gladly kick you in the arm and face until you do. Omori gamely gets kicked in the arm and face, and man does he fly hard into the ring barrier. The spirit of Misawa lives on in him through those. All of Akiyama's arm stuff here is so great. He has all these great takedowns with the arm, really worked over the shoulder joint, wrist, everything. All the arm stuff looked so damn nasty. I like that Omori's big comeback came when the same risks that paid off for Akiyama earlier in the match came back to bite him. He goes up for a knee off the top and Omori levels him with his numbed up arm. loved his sliding Axe Bomber too (I'm a big fan of the sliding clothesline). I don't know current hierarchies of Japan, so I was surprised to see Omori go over (that was likely not surprising to every other viewer) but I like how strongly Akiyama was portrayed here. Dug this match.


2014 MASTER LIST

Read more!

Best of Japan 2000-2009: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Jun Akiyama, AJPW 2/27/00

1. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Jun Akiyama, AJPW 2/27/00

Well let me be the first person ever - online, in person, really actually anywhere - to state that this right here is a great, excellent match. I've always heard matches described as "passing the torch" but usually that seems like an observation that's only able to be made in hindsight. But this match gave off that vibe for the whole thing. You can feel the sea change, of Akiyama stepping up as the ace, and nothing about it felt cheap or forced. Some matches you can look at all day and find different psychology or in-match stories, and some of them may have even been intended by the wrestlers, and not just projected by us, as nerds. But this match lays its very simple story and structure right out in the open, in the same way the Rude/Steamboat iron man did, but also different in a 100 ways. It's just a flat out classic match, hitting all the right notes and nailing all of the peaks.

I was a major fan of latter days cranky old gunslinger forced servitude ace Misawa, and elements of that are already peeking through in this match. The sighs are heavier, the "I'm getting too old for this shit" faces and long pained squints are more noticeable than they had ever been. There are hardly any wasted moments in this match, with a pacing that is among my favorites in a match ever. I'm not going to run through a move by move analysis as I imagine it's been done to death for a match like this. But everything about this match was just so damn good.

Apart from the pacing and the story, the most impressive thing was the execution. Both guys laid into everything and all the moves looked picture perfect. When you imagine Misawa locking in his crossface chinlock, you picture it like this, with his arm forcing Akiyama's nose into his brain. There's just not a missed moment or clumsy move in the whole match. Misawa looked as crisp and on point in this match as I've ever seen him, maybe ever. From delivering killer moves like his climb up dropkick in the corner, stiff senton, nasty elbows; to taking the moves nastier than most humans would take them, like flying chin first into the ring barrier, taking an Exploer off the apron like a nut, getting dumped on his head a bunch, taking all the knees to the face, Misawa just looked incredible here.

So yes, if you've somehow not seen this match at this point in your life, you clearly need to. Just flawless execution, storytelling, pacing and incredible build. All the peaks and valleys really mean something to the match and it's just too damn satisfying.


BEST OF JAPAN MASTER LIST

Read more!

Embrace of the Backstroke: NOAH “Great Voyage in Tokyo ‘09″, 9/27/09

Consistency, uncertainty remain in Misawa's wake

I find NOAH to be one of the easiest promotions to watch: there’s a predictability to their format and booking that’s approachable (if frustrating to some), and their roster is deep. This may prove less the case in the months to come: it’s been speculated that without their flagship television, talent will be cut. Conspicuously absent from the card were Takuma Sano, Masao Inoue, and Ippei Ota. Solid hands Tamon Honda, Junji Izumida, Kentaro Shiga, and Kishin Kawabata were reduced to an untaped tag opener. In what some are calling the last time NOAH will ever sell out Budokan Hall, this first in a pair of Misawa memorial cards proved a mixed bag that signaled neither certain doom nor a turning point for the company. It was largely the same familiar NOAH that always goes down smooth. What can I tell you: sometimes grits are all you’re hungry for.

Akihiko Ito vs. Genba Hirayanagi

Genba is a sometimes fun version of Dick Togo still in search of motivation, not likely to ever find Togo’s breakneck pace or precision. Ito works so light that dropkicks which connect perfectly well still look like they’re rolling over Genba’s form like waves in Bermuda. They try the rudo spot of Genba grabbing the ref to avoid being taken to the mat before being bridged for a pin. It ended up looking like Ito playing hopscotch, which for those of you under 25 is kinda like Dance Dance Revolution on pavement. This is the first boring Hirayanagi match I can recall, one where his heel act of not giving a damn felt like legit apathy or laziness.

Atsushi Aoki vs. NOSAWA Rongai

Nosawa’s a hooligan character. When reading his name here I thought of him being dragged into an interrogation room.

“Who are you?”
“Rongai.”
“Yeah, that’s what they all say.”

Aoki’s entrance music is a Japanese pop-punk cover of “Hotel California”. The point of this match is to make Aoki look great by jobbing out a known, overconfident outsider. Preferably by tapping him with an armbar, which Aoki has successfully made NOAH’s first over submission. Instead this was worked as competitive, with a stilted momentum stemming from Nosawa’s comedy and lack of fluidity. Aoki gives Rongai most of the match, coughing up a lung when kicked and writhing in pain when “caught” in limp crossfaces. The inevitable deadweight section of modern Japanese juniors wrestling, in which two men play Triple H and hit a series of Irish whips that go nowhere, was here followed by something far better: believable nearfalls which did hype Aoki’s armbar as instant death. In a match against a guy who takes himself too seriously but is engaging to watch vs. a cad getting polite applause out of crowds, I’ll take Gary Sinise over Drew Carey. And I will stand by that half-baked analogy considering how much Rongai’s mugging resembles Carey’s.

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi/Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Ricky Marvin/Taiji Ishimori

Kikuchi has always had stubby crooked arms, but his entire physique has now become a knotted slab. His trot around the ring and perpetual shaking of cobwebs are reminiscent of Rick Steiner, his face equally canine. Ishimori hit several flashy psych-out non-moves that clearly weren't really going to be executed and thus psyched out no one but his opponent. Marvin in contrast is far better at telegraphing one move, and surprising a crowd by delaying, biding time, then hitting something different and more impactful, as he does with a tope to Kanemaru. What I said about juniors sharing Hunter’s Irish whip overkill does not apply to Marvin, who should be throwing them all the time after killing Kanemaru with one into the guardrail. The Kikuchi-as-dog phenomenon continues when he bites Marvin’s hand and is reprimanded by being swatted on the snout. This being a Sunday, any section of the paper would have fared better rapping against Kikuchi’s skull. Marvin’s rope running and flips were great as ever: he is too agile and precise in movement to have a bad match right now. I’m a sometime defender of Kanemaru, but he was the weak link throughout, hitting cross-bodies that looked like curtsies and no-selling so as to sneak in bad lariats. This was the first match on the card to feel like an actual Misawa tribute, or proxy tribute to King’s Road, as the story told was that of Kikuchi’s resilience, and willingness to take offense as stiff as Ishimori’s brainbuster. The vaudeville finish of dudes beating on each other while they literally ran offstage and crashed into the company logo worked.

Bison Smith vs. Shuhei Tanaguchi

Smith is a fine photocopy of a boardwalk caricature of Vader. He’ll likely never have a match as good as Misawa’s GHC defense against him. Tanaguchi is a petrified goober, Mike Graham with a bleached mushroom cut. Bison quickly press slams him from the ring to the ramp, powerbombing him back into it, on and on in a series of moderately impressive displays. Watching Smith, this seems a new world order, in which the monster gaijin is no longer the menacing foreign invader: this audience’s grandparents are dead, and this Coloradan Caucasian wears both the American and Japanese flag on his trunks. In fact, Smith gets the biggest round of applause thus far off his running shoulder tackle tope from ramp to ring. They go through the motions of a comeback, but all we learn is that Tanaguchi is presently a third-rate Sugiura who can lift heavyweights up for timid backdrops. Smith tires of this and hits an impressive lariat from his knees. That he then wins with a Styles Clash feels meager and out of place, like Sherlock Holmes ruminating over a bubble gum cigarette.

Jun Akiyama/Minoru Suzuki/Takashi Sugiura vs. KENTA/Takeshi Rikio/Mohammed Yone

If you’ve seen Sugiura and/or Yone wrestle tags in the last few years, you know how this starts: rope running from both, leg drops from Yone, and frenzied swing-and-miss Yakuza kicks from Sugiura. This doesn’t get going until several minutes in when Suzuki and KENTA square off. Both fake hatred well: Suzuki in particular has built this autumn of his career on getting into a Sheriff of Nottingham-level quantity of slap fights. The story told throughout the match of Suzuki taking the piss out of Akiyama fizzles, even if Akiyama gets that someone has to play the rube for the bit to succeed. Rikio has gotten an unfairly bad rap in the past, but his face is too soft to play ringleader of the motocross gang, or whatever gimmick they’ve got him penciled in for. Your heel Cena can’t look like Lou Albano. His ring work is equally uninspired and brings the match to a halt. KENTA on the other hand shines no brighter than in tags, this one no exception. Even Suzuki and Akiyama failed to match his viciousness. Were Marufuji a better face-in-peril, the two would today make a premier team. This slogged to the finish line, with everyone killing time and looking out of position, none moreso than the ref who glaringly ignored Rikio’s rope break, presumably thinking they were going to the Sugiura tap out victory earlier than they were.

Kensuke Sasaki/Takeshi Morishima/Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Genichiro Tenryu/Yoshinari Ogawa/Kotaro Suzuki

From the outset Sasaki surprises: he asserts his size advantage over Suzuki on the mat and throws a series of quality chops. Tenryu takes some bumps from Morishima, drawing less crowd sympathy and humor from his begging off than expected. But the interplay of Tenryu as Nakajima’s drunk, berating uncle pays off: when they finally tussle, Tenryu’s chops and lariats blister. Nakajima sells Tenryu’s double chicken wing for lack of anything else to do: he is stuck. Later, Ogawa’s eccentricity is apparent in a shot of Tenryu on the apron that pans shortly to Ogawa chewing tape off his fist. Sasaki and Tenryu have a chop battle here that can stand toe-to-toe or higher (ankle-to-ankle) with every other time that bit’s been done in NOAH. The difference is Tenryu’s expressive bracing of himself with each chop, the tense willing of himself to press on. He hulks up at least three times here, each better than the last. The finish is disengaged routine, but the Tenryu vs. KO clashes are too deep to not name this fight of the night.

Kenta Kobashi/Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Keiji Mutoh/Akira Taue

Kobashi sporting a shiner was weird, as if one’s senile grandfather took a spill. This isn’t much until Kobashi and Mutoh lock up, and even then the awe isn’t there. Mutoh’s offense is too loose and sloppy for this setting, especially considering he dwarfs Kobashi in height and mass, a surprise even when considering Kobashi’s cancer. Kobashi’s selling of these moves is admirable, but can’t hide Mutoh hitting shining wizards and bulldogs with the wobbly tentativeness of a modern Mick Foley. The timing of tags throughout feels arbitrary. Takayama and Mutoh have had two exciting, violent singles this year. Yet when they lock up here, Mutoh settles for sitting in a weak STF. The crowd is up for this match but is given little to applaud: these are broken men performing an act too hobbled to be drama, and too humorless to be comedy. The highlight is Kobashi’s selling while stuck in Mutoh’s figure four: a testament to his expressiveness that’s been at times lost or taken for granted in recent years, but which now seems his greatest asset entering this pseudo-Baba phase of his career. The hold is broken in an illogical moment of Kobashi reversing the figure-four, and Mutoh reversing a second time, yet for some reason going for a rope break, even though it should be he who then has the leverage over Kobashi. Taue improves as the match progresses, getting a huge pop for his Shining Wizard and taking an insane Kobashi rana from the top rope perfectly. Like Kobashi, his selling made this all that it was. The ending is weak and too sudden, ironic given how overwrought NOAH finishes can be. While it may seem naïve to expect more from four wrecked workers, an excess of workrate or brutal head drops is not what’s missing, but a lack of storytelling, as if it was thought that simply putting these cogs together several years too late would suffice.

Go Shiozaki vs. Akitoshi Saito (GHC Title)

It’d be easy to give this one high marks for sentiment, but initially it really does click on several unexpected cylinders. Saito’s kicks are very stiff, and the backdrop driver is teased appropriately as a big deal. Even the test of strength works well. Shiozaki’s execution is still lacking, and for a presumed ace his size, his strikes still lack fire. The story early on is of Saito working over Shiozaki’s arm for several minutes. When Saito is on offense, Go sells. When Go is on offense, he does not.

One misunderstanding in the ongoing debate regarding selling in Japanese wrestling is the idea that if someone sells, they’re doing all that can be asked of them. Yet like any aspect of any emotive performance, selling can be convincing or unconvincing, effective or ineffective. Shiozaki recognizes that he is supposed to be selling, and makes a sporadic effort to do so, but like a goon actor whose crocodile tears we don’t buy in a romantic comedy, continues to chop with the right arm at full blast. If anything the strikes are stronger after the arm has taken a thorough mauling. The logistical flaws to such un-selling are often dismissed with the false ideas that a) Japanese audiences don’t care about selling, b) because they don’t, neither should anyone else watching and/or critiquing the match, and c) that wrestling is like a sport, and in sports, athletes play through pain thanks to grand intangibles such as “heart” and “adrenaline”. Option C is not a terrible story to tell in professional wrestling. Yet it seems obvious that the telling of that story would be more engaging were the worker persevering through pain visibly express that anguish, as Kobashi, Tenryu, and Kikuchi all did earlier on this card. It would ring false for me to criticize any of them for making will-powered comebacks given that all expressed how brutal the ass kicking they had taken was. For Shiozaki to use the arm as if nothing has happened negates the work Saito has put into clobbering it: from a kayfabe perspective, Shiozaki’s weapon is his right arm, and Saito aims to neutralize it. Good selling achieves two apparent, crucial goals: it gets over the offense of one’s opponent, and in turn gets over one’s self for being able to endure what is being dramatized as devastating. The issue isn’t that Shiozaki uses his arm to win with a proverbial Hail Mary: it’s that he uses the arm crucially in nearly every single move he hits through the remainder of the match, and after a minute or so of selling gives no indication that the arm has been damaged.

That said, Shiozaki does take a true beating, and the middle section of this isn’t bad. Modern Japanese wrestling is often dragged down by the compulsion to have a long-as-fuck epic, and in doing so fill the middle of the match with a bunch of wind sucking and lollygagging. Saito is capable enough to know that if you’re gonna catch your breath, it helps to break up the monotony with a vicious lariat or two. In what can be taken as a tribute to Misawa in itself, Shiozaki’s elbow smashes are the best strike he throws, something he should add to his arsenal. Using your destroyed arm to hit a handful of quick, nicely executed elbows also seems less glaring than using it to hit a half dozen lariats in succession. And while the victor of the match is never in doubt, Saito’s last stand is well executed, hitting a great suplex and as stiff a scissor kick as I’ve ever seen. His performance was not merely one those sympathetic to woe he’s expressed over hitting Misawa’s deathblow could pat him on the back for. This was an inspired performance by one who NOAH would do well to depend on as a maestro guiding the next generation for whatever time the promotion has left.

Read more!