Toshiaki Kawada vs. Keiji Mutoh, AJPW Summer Action Series 2003 Day Six (7/13/2003)

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This was a #1 Contenders Match.

More importantly, it’s yet another match between the ultimate forces of good and of evil as it pertains to professional wrestling.

To explain, for anyone not totally familiar with all of my psychoses — I love Toshiaki Kawada and I despise Keiji Mutoh.

I love Kawada for a lot of reasons. Gun to my head, he’s a guy I’d consider the second or third best wrestler of all time. I like him on a gut level because he’s the all time great tragic figure in wrestling, even moreso than a Bret Hart or an Eddie Kingston or a CM Punk or whoever else might spring to mind. Beyond just living in Misawa’s shadow and being a normal human being in a promotion full of people with gifts bestowed upon them from on high (magic elbow, being strong, being tall), by this point, he’s also become the last bastion of something, a holdout trying to preserve something he loved once. There are few easier wrestlers to support ever than Toshiaki Kawada, particularly in the first half of the 2000s. I love him, he is one of the most endearing wrestlers to me of all time, every decision and reaction he makes feels not only correct but like the most real shit imaginable. The thing old wrestlers always used to say on shoot interviews was that you can’t make the audience think every single thing is real, but that you can have your own work inspire that feeling in them. “This all might not be fake, but this guy is real”, or something to that extent. Believe in this one part of the show, this one wrestler, if nothing else. That’s all the best wrestlers ever, but that’s also Kawada. Everything seems correct — mechanically, emotionally, ideologically, spiritually — and nothing is phony.

On the other side of that, we have Keiji Mutoh, who I absolutely despise watching.

At his root, Keiji Mutoh is someone who is remarkably lazy and always present. A consummate politician, extending his career for decades after his far more skilled contemporaries through superior machinations, despite possessing none of the skill nor charm of any of them. Hating Keiji Mutoh at this point isn’t just about how he wasn’t as good as Hashimoto in the 1990s or as Kawada in the 2000s, it’s not about his bad “one last run” title reigns, thirteen years apart, it’s also about him as this symbol of how unfair and cruel things are (outside of Jun Akiyama, to be fair). Hashimoto died in 2005, still one of the best wrestlers alive. Misawa died in 2009, not really on that level anymore, but still better than Mutoh’s been for a long time. Kawada wrestled his last match in 2010. Taue in 2013. And yet, in 2021, Keiji Mutoh main evented major shows and won major titles. Usually, I’m all for this sort of a story, but Mutoh even removes all of the joy from one of the easier stories to tell in all of wrestling. There is a certain ironic fanbase for Mutoh’s nonsense (I choose to believe it’s irony, as I am an exceedingly positive person and don’t want to think the worst of many of you, although it may simply be horrible taste), and usually I’m all about taking joy in some very bad wrestling that steals a lot of money and makes everything worse. THE FIEND is hilarious to me, all of that, except Mutoh being the subject of that has a way of removing even the minor petty joy that I can take from that.

Mutoh is a wrestler whose every decision feels incorrect, and often times bafflingly wrong. As opposed to Kawada’s unflinching commitment to doing the realist things possible at any moment, his opposition here is one of the great phonies of all time. A refusal to bump at times that rivals any funny story about the Honky Tonk Man working the indies. Loose offense, horrible striking. I’m very much the sort of person who values physicality in wrestling (why aren’t you? it’s simulated combat, why wouldn’t it be physical?), but effort and skill in other areas can overcome that. This is also an area where Mutoh comes up short. Lazy matwork in the early stages that not only rarely leads to anything, but is rarely good in any way. A lot of lying around. It’s the sort of work that really makes one appreciate people who work a similar sort of style, but put far greater effort Watching Keiji Mutoh just lie on top of a guy for a while and occasionally grab an arm or a super limp waist or headlock is one of the more joyless experiences in wrestling, best expressed through altering one of my favorite quotes about a fraud in real sports.

Keiji Mutoh trick y’all, man, like he doing matwork. He just rolling around, doing nothing.

– Russell Westbrook

Mutoh isn’t a great striker, he’s not great on the mat, and it’s not as if he has some gift for construction or mechanics either. There’s no hidden little thing about him. There really isn’t anything he brings to a match. I’ve never understood what people enjoy about him, even in a nostalgic sense in the present day. There’s a certain presence and charisma to be sure, but no more than any other major star of the era. It’s certainly not the sort of thing one sees in this match. Given Kawada’s expressiveness in this match, Mutoh can’t even lay claim to bringing that aspect of wrestling to a match like this, as Kawada has him beat there as well.

He is a burden to carry moreso than he is an artistic partner, and so Kawada once again must do all of the heavy lifting on his own.

The match goes as one expects.

Kawada has his knee worked on and Mutoh cycles through the same two or three things when attacking it, with very little sense of urgency or progression. They flip a switch and do moves to each other and that’s it. The weaknesses of Mutoh’s style all hinder the match, as it’s Kawada working a Mutoh match and not the other way around. The worst thing about it is probably the framing, giving them a face/face match for the first time, instead of their two more famous matches which at least frame Mutoh as what he is, this no-good carpetbagger trying to steal Kawada’s land. Weaknesses still being there, it’s a match without any real strong narrative attached to it, simply existing as plain old Kawada and Mutoh.

Left entirely to their own devices, it is what it is and what it isn’t is a great match.

It’s certainly not a bad one.

Kawada is exactly great enough to get them there. His knee selling is superb once again. His facials are magnificent, portraying both annoyance at Mutoh button-mashing his way through yet again and anger at his own body potentially failing him for the millionth time in the exact same way. His energy and raw aggression in the comeback carries it, and there’s certainly a satisfaction to be found in Kawada coming back and destroying Mutoh.

Unfortunately, it’s too much of a Mutoh match to be a great match.

Toshiaki Kawada does all he can, but his raw legitimacy and correctness runs into a brick wall by having to engage with something as phony as Mutoh. Him selling for Mutoh as an equal feels off, and even a Kawada knee work match falls short when it has to also pay tribute to this level of raw fraudulence. Keiji Mutoh is one of the all time thieves of joy in wrestling history, from beginning to end, and this may be his greatest work. Rendering a Kawada knee work segment dull and meaningless is something that’s seemed impossible for most of the previous fifteen years, but Mutoh does it. He makes it duller than ever, less vicious and violent than the sort of work his generational peers have done in the same position, and with everything that follows, also manages to render it meaningless. Again, Kawada’s knee selling is undeniably good, but he’s never quite able to get past the Mutoh-ism of it all.

Kawada overcomes in the end and wins with a Powerbomb, but in this match, the superhuman victory here belongs to Mutoh for managing to somehow miss on one of wrestling’s few seemingly absolute sure things.

I believe this was a match commissioned with good intentions. I’m not going to get on anyone for wanting me to suffer or picking a very uncomfortable match. These two had good to great matches in both 2001 and 2002, so it would be easy to imagine this one was of that same quality. It wasn’t, however, and in terms of all time shit wizard Keiji Mutoh finally bringing an all-time great down to his level, the third time was the charm.

I love writing about Toshiaki Kawada, but in the future, I would prefer to watch and write about Toshiaki Kawada in combat against good wrestlers instead.

 

Kenta Kobashi/Jun Akiyama/Kensuke Sasaki/Keiji Mutoh vs. Go Shiozaki/KENTA/Yoshinobu Kanemaru/Maybach Taniguchi, NOAH Final Burning in Budokan (5/11/2013)

This was Kenta Kobashi’s retirement match.

Longtime readers will know that I’m not a big fan of Kenta Kobashi. Or, that I wasn’t for a long time. In the true sense of the word “fan”. I recognize the greatness, of course. It’s Kenta Kobashi. He’s one of the twenty to thirty greatest wrestlers of all time. But I’ve rarely ever watched a Kobashi match and rooted for the guy. It started with the overly emotional overselling in the early 1990s, easily being the least cool or interesting of all the big names. Then, I was a hardcore Kawada fan. Then I was a big Akiyama fan, so even around 1998 when Kobashi stops weeping so much every time he so much as falls down, I’m far more interested and invested in his partner. Save for some undeniable situations (vs. the evil Kensuke Office, the Takayama match), I’ve rarely ever wanted to see a Kenta Kobashi victory. I have loved a whole lot of Kenta Kobashi matches though. I might have hated the guy, but long term, he’s undeniable. One of the best ever. One of the all time definitive Big Match Guys, and for a solid ten to fifteen years from 1991ish to 2006, save the time missed due to injury and then cancer, he was perpetually one of the five to ten best wrestlers in the entire world. In 2008, working only tags, he still might have been. It’s his retirement match, I don’t see the point in being all that negative about him just because Baba’s booking of him really pissed me off a while ago and because I don’t respect crying. I just didn’t exactly watch this with the tear in my eye like a lot of other people seemed to have.

And yet, this absolutely whips ass.

The outcome is obvious from the start. From the moment the line up was announced. Taniguchi or Kanemaru is a clear and obvious fall guy, and Kobashi is almost definitely winning his final match. But this is way more about Kobashi against his two sons in KENTA and Shiozaki, and getting to punish and beat up Kanemaru one more time. It’s a shame that two of Kobashi’s greatest ever opponents are on his team with him, and it’s an even bigger shame that Keiji Mutoh found a way to be in this at all. But it is what it is. Aside from the brain screaming every time Mutoh gets in the ring or does anything at all, it’s hardly a problem. Akiyama and Kobashi teaming up for his last match makes sense, and if we’re doing an All-Star Game instead of a real collection of Kobashi’s greatest foes, the young vs. old theme is fitting.

Staying true to NOAH’s central philosophy, the young get absolutely nothing. Not a god damned thing. To some extent, it’s the point. People are here to see the hits. Nobody expects Kobashi to do a job or anything, but like, come on. Go Shiozaki spends the match in big chop wars with Kobashi and Sasaki and neither can even take a bump for him. He and Kensuke basically repeat their series from the 2010 singles epic, right down to Go not being able to even move this fucking lug, despite actually having the better chops. KENTA isn’t quite so embarrassed because he’s a little smarter and largely only faces Kobashi, so he’s getting knocked down by the focus of the match and never quite so often as Shiozaki. It’s the sort of match that reaffirms every single reason Go Shiozaki had to leave NOAH, even if this is barely a NOAH show at all. It’s one of the most Pro Wrestling NOAH matches of all time, and a show of why Go badly needed to get out of there.

There’s also just so much Maybach in this! He constantly gets exchanges with Kobashi, and he’s treated only like a small level below KENTA and Shiozaki. It’s obviously just such horse shit. His elbows suck. Mutoh knows well enough to land his low dropkicks, Dragon Screws, and a Shining Wizard or two and get out of there, so Taniguchi is the only one in this not just absolutely killing everyone he comes into contact with. He’s a soft little mediocrity and pretending otherwise is a gigantic hole in this thing, even if it is the only hole.

There’s also not nearly enough of Jun Akiyama in this, clearly being treated as the least important vital of the legends once the bell rings.

Every problem with this absolutely does not matter, because it’s a pure sugar rush for forty minutes. A complete victory lap that feels like it could have been half as long, but wound up delayed because nobody actually wanted it to end. For every flaw too, there’s something incredibly interesting or really endearing, often at the same time. My favorite example is the way Kobashi would watch the Shiozaki/Kensuke chop wars, and seemed like he was rooting for and giving Shiozaki advice against him. Kobashi is also cool enough to be the only guy on his team who actually gets isolated. I certainly won’t call a retirement match where he not only doesn’t put anyone over but also barely even bumps for anyone else (save a German Suplex from Go) a selfless thing, but given how the rest of this goes, it’s a nice surprise for sure.

At the end, Kanemaru is decided upon as the fall guy and he absolutely eats it. Knees and Lariats and in the end, Kobashi’s moonsault follows Mutoh’s, and the poor guy is finally done.

What a wonderful thing.

Kobashi agnosticism aside, it’s the most celebratory and joyful retirement match I’ve ever seen.

If Pro Wrestling NOAH was a television show, this is the series finale. The central character bows out, both on a stage they haven’t stepped foot on since and with a sense of grandeur and importance that NOAH hasn’t touched since. Most importantly, it’s quintessentially NOAH, both at its best and its worst. Dynamic personalities throwing hands at each other forever. A big event feel. Totally refusing to give the younger generation a fucking SCRAP. And most of all, incredibly fun, overwhelmingly fun.

A match that definitely has some flaws, but also a match where none of them matter even a little bit.

One of the most fun and purely watchable matches in wrestling history. A forty minute long hug.

***3/4

Jun Akiyama vs. Keiji Mutoh, AJPW Pro Wrestling Love in Ryogoku Vol. 14 (3/20/2012)

This was for Akiyama’s Triple Crown title.

This was a bad match.

Jun Akiyama worked a near miracle in February, but Keiji Mutoh is beyond miracles. Just a dogshit performance. Mutoh did all he can do, which is Dragon Screws, low dropkicks, and Shining Wizards. Akiyama hit a lot of knees and decided to pretty much ignore the knee stuff. I’d complain, but actually you’re not gonna have a great match with Mutoh at this point, so at least this total disrespect for everything he’s trying to do did something for me. That’s about all in this match that did anything for me. They repeated the same sequence seemingly several hundred times. Only so many times Jun can hit a knee and have it caught into a Dragon Screw, or for them to trade Exploders and Shining Wizards. Both shitty and lazy, classic Mutoh two for the price of one. Akiyama eventually wins with the Sternness Dust, so much more than Mutoh deserves when at this point it looks like he could be beaten by a slight wind. Fuck.

The nicest thing I can say about this is that it wasn’t quite as bad as Taiyo Kea’s challenge in November.

Nobody watch this.

Keiji Mutoh/SMOP vs. Strong BJ/Yoshihito Sasaki, AJPW Excite Series 2012 Night One (2/3/2012)

Keiji Mutoh fucking sucks. I hate him. Hate him like I’ve hated very few other wrestlers ever. Yeah he’s a legend or whatever but who cares? Muta was a hero to most, but he never meant shit to me. I was born a year after the fabled 1989 NWA run. I don’t give a fuck. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen all of it, and there has never once been a great Mutoh/Muta match where he wasn’t absolutely the worst guy in it. Beyond that, I don’t know how anyone could enjoy anything he’s done since like 2001-2, outside of some occasions where he’s been horribly owned, which is at least emotionally satisfying. Here though, he’s doing what he always goddamned does, inserting himself into a winning formula and into a hot thing to try and steal a little of it for himself, even while he’s embarrassingly bad and drags the entire production down when he’s in the ring because he can’t hang at all and even at his best, he would have been the sixth best wrestler in this match by a thousand miles.

Fuck him and anybody who’s going to yell at me in his defense.

Every time Mutoh isn’t involved though, this whips ass.

SMOP vs. Strong BJ is far from over, and even if he’s the one ultimately tasked with putting this embarrassing and decrepit husk of a once-mediocre wrestler over, the god Y-Sasaki extracts his pound of flesh along the way and beats the absolute shit out of Mutoh up until the finish. God bless. Akebono and his son get the best of the invaders this time, leaving poor Sasaki all alone, once again punished in some way because of Sekimoto. He’s ganged up on, before Mutoh then takes advantage and god damnit, you guessed it, he beats Sasaki with the Shining Wizard.

I don’t want to give Mutoh credit for anything good ever, so I’ll simply say that this was a very admirable job by five great wrestlers, managing to craft together a very fun match before then having to somehow weave in this languorous dullard at the end.

(this was very good though)

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Keiji Mutoh, NJPW Wrestle Kingdom III (1/4/2009)

This was for Mutoh’s IWGP Heavyweight Championship.

An important match, if not a good one (and it definitely is not a good one). If you’re reading this, and if you’ve read this Tanahashi series so far, I think you know the history. To summarize, Hiroshi Tanahashi was a Mutoh student before he left New Japan in 2001-2. Tanahashi patterned himself early on after Mutoh and Tatsumi Fujinami, and whenever Tanahashi’s been involved with people from AJPW, people have used the Shining Wizard on Tanahashi or vice versa, as a nod to this. It’s both fanwank and canon, and their meeting here is a big deal for Hiroshi Tanahashi. 

This is also important because it marks the end of pretending that Hiroshi Tanahashi is not The Guy. They tried with Shinsuke Nakamura, he failed, and having Tanahashi in this spot and not Nakamura is a not so tacit acknowledgement of where things lie now. It’s not a random title change, it’s the first time one of the Three Musketeers has lost the IWGP Title and passed a torch in almost a decade. This is less of a failing by the Lost Generation than it reads like because Chono may as well have never had it, Mutoh was gone for most of the decade, and Hashimoto is dead, but it’s a big deal and it’s not going to Nakamura this time. It’s a very clear statement. 

The match itself is not good, as I said. In fact, it is very bad. It’s needlessly half an hour — because it is both a Tanahashi and Mutoh epic — and Mutoh is beyond washed up. So much of this match feels like a bargain on Tanahashi’s end, like he’s going through this stuff because it’s the sort of bullshit one has to wander through to appease older people at work. Mutoh is obviously not on his level on the mat in the early grappling run, but everyone has to pretend. Tanahashi’s knee work is obviously far better and nastier than Mutoh’s half speed attempts at the same thing, but everyone has to pretend. And oh boy, the fucking double knee work. I actually started this match over because I wanted an actual count on this thing, and there were fourteen different dropkicks to the knee(s) and thirteen different Dragon Screws. The majority of both came from Keiji Mutoh. There were also three different long Figure Four spots with no real difference between them. People accuse a lot of New Japan main events of aimlessly filling space, but this is the most aimless and blatant of all of them. None of the knee work mattered much at all, and the bare minimum route of “Tanahashi does Mutoh’s thing better than him” is something they pretty much run away from as Mutoh’s knee work dominates the match and Tanahashi comes back without it. That could be a conscious choice here in Tanahashi’s big stage coronation, to show that he’s TOUGH, but it doesn’t really land. It doesn’t land because Mutoh’s knee work sucks, Mutoh is visibly pathetic, and while the intention is something like, “wow, look how tough Tanahashi is! What guts!”, the result is more like, “yeah, OF COURSE Tanahashi is tougher than this. Are you kidding? What are we doing here?”.

This had all of the bloat and lack of self awareness of a modern Triple H big stadium epic, except with Keiji Mutoh genuinely trying and not actively trying to ruin the career of his opponent with such a bad match (for once). I don’t know if that’s better or worse. It’s less interesting. It’s a little more endearing. I hate both of them a whole lot regardless, and I wish this match was held up among the worst ever just like those are. It deserves it just as much. 

Tanahashi wins the title back with a series of High Fly Flows, which is far more than this deserved. This is two or three times as long as it should be, and achieves about the opposite of everything it sets out to. The tag on this is usually that it’s some necessary evil we had to get through, but fuck that. Tanahashi isn’t passed a torch here so much as he’s allowed to hold up the one he’s already had for the last year and change, and that isn’t worth celebrating or bargaining with. It’s always nice when a promotion stops lying and embraces the reality they’re presented with, but this is one of the worst ever instances of a promotion going through that cycle, because it doesn’t even allow the visceral thrill of some sort of symbolic act to confirm this. It’s a plodding and predictable mess that offers nothing exciting for most of it, and then turns it on for a good final sixty to ninety seconds. That’s all that it has to offer and it took half an hour to get there for some reason. Tanahashi finally expelling this old shit and his ilk from the main event scene is something to celebrate, but not so much when it comes at the end of the worst Wrestle Kingdom main event of all time. 

One of the bigger pieces of shit of the last fifteen years. Absolutely loathsome match.