[1994-10-07-AJPW-October Giant Series] Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama vs Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Kevin Ridge]

Ended up just watching this twice to see if my opinion would change. Just couldn't get into it enough for whatever reason. We get the regular good stuff with the main four in there against each other. Jun is game when he gets in there but I've never really got behind Ogawa. Did Meltzer give his one 4.5 stars? The dates don't match the info I'm looking at but it's the same participants. I'm just not seeing that rating if it is the same match.

[Loss]

Kobashi is an incredibly talented guy. He does the graceful Steamboat armdrags in the early stages of this, which is something I've never seen from him. Has there ever been a more physically talented wrestler in history?

 

I thought this was really good. The most fun thing about watching 1994 All Japan has been that so many of the matches aren't aiming to be classics, and there's a nice selection here of matches that are good, perfectly enjoyable matches that have no ambitions of changing the world. Sometimes that's nice. This is just solid, basic, smart wrestling.

 

What I also like about this is that while M-K-K are so talented that it will always be obvious, the normal gap that exists in these matches between the Four Corners and someone like an Ogawa isn't as huge as I'm used to seeing.

 

One of my favorite moments is when Kawada tortures Akiyama with this really basic hold I haven't really seen him roll out much -- he stands him on his head and tries to bend his leg behind him. Immediately, Misawa and Kobashi stand in the ring. They don't save, but they seem to both realize they may need to very soon. It was a cool way of getting over the hold.

 

Akiyama is in peril for a big chunk of this. The hot tag to Misawa gets a pretty big pop. I guess that makes apparent that despite the Triple Crown loss, fans still view Misawa as The Man, because he gets a far bigger reaction than anyone else in the match.

 

I've also noticed going back to '92 that Misawa seems to enjoy working with Ogawa. He doesn't sell for him like Kawada (nor should he), but he always lets Ogawa get in some offense on him and sells it well.

 

So yeah, while there is much better All Japan, I really liked this, and it's the type of match that would be considered a MOTYC if it was a main event on Raw today.

 

I'll make a side observation that Kobashi has scored the pinfall for his team more often than not on this yearbook. He was pushed pretty hard in 1994.

[jdw]

One of my favorite moments is when Kawada tortures Akiyama with this really basic hold I haven't really seen him roll out much -- he stands him on his head and tries to bend his leg behind him.

That would be the Kawada Crab. When he first started doing it, he would start with the full two legged crab, then let go of one leg, then stand on the head.

 

John

[Exposer]

This was good but I couldn't get myself too terribly interested. Ogawa just does nothing for me at this point. Akiyama put in one of his better performances so far this year but it wasn't enough for me to like this match a lot. I will say Kobashi's push is pretty extreme in 1994.

[soup23]

Enjoyed this a great deal. All roles were defined but Ogawa and Akiyama got some flashes in and you saw Kobashi's continued elevation to the top. The Kawada crab given to Akiyama did look especially nasty in this.

[PeteF3]

Nice to see another AJPW 6-man, but from the work to the atmosphere this is a ways off from the early-'90s classics. It's still really good, and solid and well-worked, and it gets better as it goes along, But it's just a nice solid match. The guy who really surprised me here was Ogawa--he was spunky and full of fire and energy and got in a lot of offense and all-in-all looked like he really belonged. This is probably the best performance of his on any Yearbook so far.