Mitsuharu Misawa/Jun Akiyama vs. Holy Demon Army, AJPW Real World Tag League 1996 Final (12/6/1996)

This was the finals of the 1996 Real World Tag League.

I can’t speak to how this felt a quarter century ago, as I write this on that anniversary. However, it’s been fifteen or sixteen years since I first saw it. The ultimate testimony to this match isn’t that it’s as good now as it was when it happened, or as it was the first time I saw it. Those things may be true, but the real truth is that all these years later, it’s even better than I remember it whenever I watch it, and always in such different ways too.

It’s one of those matches, the All Japan Pantheon, matches known in many respects by date alone. Arguably, it’s the last one. Some might say 1/20/97 but I’m not sure that lands with quite the same punch as this or a 6/9/95, 6/3/94, 12/3/93, etc.

Beyond just name value, there are very few matches in All Japan history or wrestling history period that land with the same kind of punch that this does.

Mechanically, it’s stellar. Execution, construction, all of those sorts of things. Everyone’s pasting each other, there are at least three or four or five bumps off of suplexes in this that are absolute god damned screamers. All-time disgusting landings on a neck, a shoulder, or in a few cases, right on the top of the bean. It’s also pretty immaculately assembled. Everything feels like it happens at the right time, there’s a slow escalation to the finish, but without even a shred of wasted time. They begin the match hot and hold that pace, energy, and sort of furious feeling for the next half hour plus with very little surcease.

In a story sense, it’s one of the best ever told.

After Misawa and Akiyama have gone 3-0 against this team in 1996, in three different situations, there’s not really any fear here. Doubly so as Misawa’s already stopped the Army from winning the RWTL in two of the previous three years. They try for a rush job in the same way that the HDA did in July, only to get a little farther with it. The big thing in the first half of this match is what the meeting a week prior set out to establish, which is that Jun Akiyama is even better now. Far from only succeeding in May because of Kawada’s slump or needing Misawa’s help, Akiyama handles Kawada and Taue here at different points entirely on his own. While perhaps not quite the wrestler Kenta Kobashi is, Akiyama feels like a much better compliment to Misawa because he’s a smarter and less hotheaded wrestler, and they feel at many points in the foundational moments of this match like a better team, entirely capable of denying the Holy Demon Army the RWTL for a fourth year in a row, and beating them definitively in their fourth meeting.

What this match also does especially well in a story sense is the payoff.

“But Simon, Kawada already beat Misawa in June 1995! This is an inferior remake!”, one might say, exposing themselves in front of the entire world without revealing themselves. The payoffs in this match are not only better, but they are more plentiful and far more interesting. 6/9/95 already gave you Kawada’s first win over Misawa (a mistake, wasted on a match that already had so much against it from Kobashi’s glory boy cry selling to being 43 minutes long), but there’s so much to this beyond just that.

After Taue bailing Kawada out for so much of the year during the big Kawada Slump and being the stronger of the two, it’s now Taue who isn’t in the best place. He’s the one largely getting beaten around in the first half of the match, and it’s his stuff that’s always countered now. He’s still unable to hit the Nodowa Otoshi off the apron to Misawa like he wants, and pays for it each time he tries. Taue tries to dig back to the face work on Misawa that brought him close in 1995 (as Misawa is making none of the mistakes that let Taue win the title), only to fall short in that regard too.

Following a year of Taue being his keeper, Kawada now has the opportunity to return the favor, and it feels as good as any victory when he’s able to do that for Taue.

It’s also a match with so many of these great minor payoffs, just related to little moves or sequences. Akiyama is finally able to block Taue’s throw into the top rope in the exact way that Misawa learned to, before then stealing the move and hurting Taue with it. Akiyama managing to fight off the double team on his own at one point, not even needing Misawa this time. The double Tiger Driver spot from a week earlier not working on Kawada this time, and in general, the way that Kawada carries himself in the back half of this, like someone who has simply made up his mind to not lose. Game Six Kawada, whether that means glowering at the camera after shoving the monster in green off of him or a lights out shooting performance when it matters most to complete a heroic comeback. It’s the sort of performance that every great sports parallel feels applicable towards. An all time performance on every level, equal parts violent and endearing as the greatest loser of a generation finally gets his feel good win.

The big single move payoff comes when after trying for it and failing in every other match in the series, Taue is finally able to hit Akiyama with the Nodowa Otoshi off of the apron to the floor.

It’s the immediate game changer the match requires, and it’s the thing that FINALLY breaks right for Taue and Kawada. After struggling all match, it’s Taue’s big contribution, as well as the payoff of their struggles to figure something out all year. Instead of removing Misawa so that he can’t save Akiyama or trying to just isolate Akiyama as the legal man to do the opposite, it’s something else. Remove Akiyama so that he can’t save Misawa. Once again, Kawada and Taue are able to get Misawa in a two on one, but it feels so much different now. The sense of impending doom in a similar situation a year and a half earlier isn’t quite here, but it’s replaced by something even better, a sense that it still might not be enough, and that there’s a.) so much still to be done & b.) so much that can still go wrong.

The result is something even more satisfying when nothing goes wrong, Kawada keeps his head on straight in a crisis for once, and they inch closer and closer.

Akiyama manages back in, only to be dumped on his brain in increasingly horrifying ways. Misawa’s comebacks get cut off easier and easier as Kawada and Taue FEEL IT, the wind at their backs, the universe pushing them forward, something special and undefinable in the air. Taue helps out at a point and really might be able to beat Misawa again after a Nodowa Otoshi kickout, but instead opts to bring Kawada back in. It’s a truly beautiful turn from Akira Taue here, leaving it entirely in Kawada’s hands and just standing guard. 1996 would be the Year of Taue with a win here to give him the second of All Japan’s two big tournaments, in addition to a Triple Crown reign and win over Misawa. It’s one of the more selfless and perfect little moments in wrestling history, as Akira Taue puts it entirely into Kawada’s hands. Kawada saved him earlier, and the receipt is Taue tagging him back in at the end when they can both feel it. A tear to the eye.

Toshiaki Kawada feels the hand of history upon his shoulder, and hits a second Powerbomb in a row to beat Misawa again, this time in a far more emphatic and important feeling way and in a bigger match as well.

As heartwarming as any payoff in this match or at the very end of it is the way Taue and Kawada react. Taue is hugging Kawada and Kawada lets him do it, before looking like the most enormous weight in the world has been lifted off of his chest. Kawada looks like he’s been through actual Hell, ready to collapse, and being held up by Taue as the physical and emotional toll begins to reveal itself. It’s not beating Misawa for the first time, but it’s something he communicates as even heavier, being able to do it again in addition to shaking off every problem he’s had internally and externally since his initial failure to repeat that success. Taue and Kawada both speak to the crowd, and they die laughing when Taue speaks and pump their fists uproariously when Kawada says something.

You don’t need to speak the language to feel the moment, and this is one of the better feeling ones in the history of the medium.

Not only just because of the victory, but of what it represents moving forward.

The result of this match isn’t an immediate revenge for Misawa. Baba will make mistakes in 1997 and draw it out until May 1998, but there is something different about AJPW after this match, at least to me.

At the end of this match, the Holy Demon Army largely snaps the Misawa/Akiyama war machine over their knees. It’s a solved equation for them, having not only faced this unit all year and come out on top when it mattered, but faced the worst parts of themselves with the same result. Misawa and Akiyama never quite gel as a team like the teams either man had with Kenta Kobashi before and after. They never touch the World Tag Team Titles again, and following Misawa becoming more and more detached from reality and the idea of helping out the kids throughout 1997, split up a year later after a RWTL finals rematch in which Misawa largely just abandons Akiyama to take the loss. Misawa still has another yearlong plus Triple Crown reign in 1997-98, but there’s more of a desperation in his wrestling in those matches after this, as if he’s finally in jeopardy and aware of his tenuous grip on his position after this match, and as Kobashi starts to become an adult and a proper main event presence. Misawa will never again regularly team up with anyone near his level or who could ever surpass him. The Holy Demon Army will repeat their RWTL win in 1997, and spend much of the rest of the decade dominating the division and holding the titles, before ceding that ground to the Kobashi/Akiyama superteam at the end of the decade.

You can’t rightly say that 6/9/95 was inconsequential, but time revealed that not all that much actually changed. It’s one area where this match has it beat, because it really does feel like the end of something and a definitive sort of victory. If not for Kawada himself, then certainly for the Holy Demon Army, finally toppling one of these teams and securing their signature victory as the best tag team of the decade.

Is this the greatest professional wrestling match of all time?

I don’t know.

That’s a big question.

Absolutely though, this is the best All Japan match of the decade.

Certainly the best tag team match.

The question is always this or 6/9/95, but as an astute Reader may have caught onto, I don’t think it’s a question at all. I think it’s insulting to this match to even suggest that. But sure, for the sake of argument, why is it better than 6/9/95?

For starters, it’s ten minutes shorter. So much of that match felt like it was filling space so as to have a Long Match at nearly forty three minutes. A match conducted by four all-time greats, absolutely, but a match that always felt as though an eye was on the clock, and drawing things out as far as possible. While this is no short match, at thirty one minutes and change, that always feels like the natural result of the match wrestled and the story told. In short, a match that happens to be long instead of a Long Match. The rare example of a match over half an hour that genuinely felt as though they needed almost every second of that.

Another part is that, again, while Jun Akiyama may not be better than Kenta Kobashi at this point, he’s better for this story and these kinds of tag team matches. There’s a complete and total absence of this look-at-me leg dragging vanity selling, there’s not a spilled tear to be found on Akiyama’s behalf. It gives him an edge here that Kobashi never had, and allows the matches to feel like more than exercises in how to benefit only one man out of the four. Akiyama sticks to his role, and I find him more interesting here as a young killer trying to supplant Taue and Kawada than I find Kobashi as — theoretically — a sympathetic young guy. You’re not going to get me to feel sorry for Kobashi at this point and I’m never going to root for Misawa to get past Kawada for the nth time.

That’s the main reason I like this so much better, I suppose.

Primarily, the reason this is better than its chief competition is that it more freely allows me to react the way that I naturally always would.

While Kawada and Taue are still the aggressors, it’s a much more even thing. The history is also more on their side here, as instead of parity, it’s a total domination by Misawa and Akiyama up until this point. There’s real odds to overcome, a significant mountain to climb, and a pair of more grounded and realistic performances that inspire me to want to see them achieve those things. In addition to that, this also lacks the Kobashi leg excuse, forcing Kawada and Taue to have a much harder fight to the same goal. That’s both in the match itself, but also in the last year plus of the story leading up to it, with every little failure, setback, and stutter step. Naturally, it has the effect of making it all the more satisfying, not only seeing the Army finally beat this Misawa/Akiyama team, but also doing it to win the Real World Tag League for the first time, and it being the culmination of Taue and Kawada’s individual stories in an out of the team. Following the all-time great slump story and the performances in it by Kawada, it’s his masterpiece as a theoretical babyface. While the 1995 match suggested a tragedy that never quite landed with me, this match instead projects a sense of triumph that’s unmatched throughout most of wrestling history before and after this match.

For all the head drops and gross shots and huge moves, what works most about this match and the best matches from this time period is everything else. Characters and little facial sells. Everything in between those moments, the build up and the after effects. The ways in which little moments feel like major victories because of all the work put in to get there. Everyone’s copied, stolen, photocopied, and mimicked everything about this match and matches like this, but it’s the raw gut feeling of the thing that really makes this so special and enduring in the end.

Few results have ever felt as good as this one does, and that’s the secret.

A transcendent piece of work, the defining wrestling match of a time and place, and one of the great payoffs in wrestling history. Save perhaps one (1) match so inexorably linked with my own live experience, this is as good as wrestling gets.

*****

Holy Demon Army vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Jun Akiyama, AJPW Real World Tag League 1996 Day Eleven (11/29/1996)

This was part of the 1996 Real World Tag League tournament.

It’s not the famous one, but it is once again really really great.

Unlike May or July, Kawada and Taue now face off against this team as the best version of themselves.

That primarily means Kawada is back at his best, but that extends to that it no longer affects Taue like it did in July. Misawa and Akiyama try to go after just Taue early on, but keeping Kawada at bay isn’t quite as easy as it was in July and in May before that. For their part, the HDA approaches the match in a more productive way instead of getting bogged down in some petulant rage when a thing doesn’t go well. They also choose to focus less on that anger against Akiyama, as they instead spend the match trying to bomb out Misawa. It stands to reason that if a Misawa hot tag is always what turns things and if he’s always so capable of breaking up double teams, it’s sort of a waste to go after the other guy. Misawa teams lose when Misawa can’t make a difference. Get Misawa beat up and he won’t be so able to do that, and force some distance. Misawa and Akiyama win when Misawa can help Akiyama and set him up. It’s how Doc and Ace got the titles off of them in September, it’s how the Army beat Misawa and Kobashi whenever they beat them. It’s still a really hard fight, as the past has shown, but it makes a lot of sense.

Kawada and Taue are better and more insistent in the attack on Misawa than they’ve been in over a year too. As soon as they get the distance, it starts with the Doomsday Nodowa Otoshi to the floor, a Powerbomb on the floor minutes later from Kawada, and an attack that’s clearly working. They’re able to totally keep Akiyama out of the match for the first time ever, and it very much feels for the first two-thirds of this like this is a match that the Holy Demon Army win.

Unfortunately the one thing they don’t seem to account for is that Misawa also bothered doing some homework.

He debuts new backflip counters to the classic Backdrop Driver/Nodowa Otoshi double team, gets out before they can do real damage, and they turn it back around. It’s not the drumming that it felt like in July and Kawada doesn’t totally blow it for the team like he did in May, but there’s a big enough momentum shift that you can really feel it when watching for once.

Beyond just Misawa improving, Akiyama makes a big stride in this match too. Akiyama now is able to completely hold Taue at bay. After the year Taue’s had, it feels like a bigger victory than holding Kawada at bay in July or even beating Kawada in May. The classic strategy works once again then, although it’s on Kawada this time. He fights everything, he’s defiant in fun and meaningless ways because he can’t not be, but Taue is cut off from the match entirely. It’s a handicap match in the last several minutes, creating a really sort of casually cruel thing where Kawada has to now find out what it was like for Taue when Kawada was going through his shit in the spring and summer.

Kawada survives the Tiger Suplex, before Misawa gets real matter of fact about this and hits two (2) Tiger Drivers in a row to give them the win.

Even with everything going right, they can’t do it. It feels particularly mean spirited, even if Misawa and Akiyama did absolutely nothing wrong. A very casual dismantling in the back half, after a year of the Holy Demon Army struggling, adjusting, and getting back to where they were. After spending half or more of the match doing seemingly everything right, only for it not to matter at all. Kawada shook off the slump and came here more motivated than ever, only for Misawa to finally put himself in against him and painfully knock Kawada back down to Earth one more time. As much as the HDA have grown and re-unified, Misawa and Akiyama have now started to gel as an actual team instead of just getting by on the strength of Misawa as a solo force, and the mistakes other wrestlers were making against Jun Akiyama.

It’s as if a Warriors Third was conducted by a James Harden team instead, the same dominance out of nowhere but removed of any joy or fun.

A genuine heartbreaker. Kawada and Taue came into this off of a major non-title win, spent the first half seeming unstoppable, only for it to all fall apart. This time, without any real reason for doing so. For the last year, they’d been able to point to some reason for a loss, a why of it all that they can go and fix. Without any of that this time, it feels like they just might never beat this team.

***1/2

Mitsuharu Misawa/Jun Akiyama/Satoru Asako vs. Holy Demon Army/Yoshinari Ogawa, AJPW Giant Series 1996 Day One (9/28/1996)

It’s a great little K-Hall six man tag match that’s rightfully forgotten given the quality of so many of these matches in the 1990s, but such a weird and fun little thing.

Once again, an example of just how great the Kawada Slump story really was.

Here, we have a match that seems innocuous. Another early tour build up six man tag that could easily mean nothing, or come down to the lowest ranked men in Asako and Ogawa. Barring that, it could leave one in there for the most obvious finish, as All Japan tended to do a lot of the time throughout their history.

Weirdly though, this is the match in which the slump finally breaks.

I love that.

Because, truly, it’s never the most obvious thing or the most grandiose moment in which someone fixes themselves. It’s the moment after everything else. Sometimes, one hangover is just especially rough and you need to ease up just a little bit, you know? Sometimes you get up and feel a certain way and sometimes it’s some small interaction you have throughout the day. Failure isn’t so much the act of falling down as it is the act of staying down, and in this match, Toshiaki Kawada finally decides to get up.

It’s made all the more satisfying by the way the match unfolds prior to that point.

Kawada doesn’t even enter the match for the first two-thirds of the match. Not only do Taue and Ogawa sort of just decide to try this on their own, but Kawada’s occasional save attempts get immediately and wholly stuffed by Misawa. Taue even seems affected by the slump in the first two-thirds of the match at points, not able to really get moving at all. Akiyama even helps little Satoru Asako do a double chokeslam on Taue, which is absolutely some kind of mockery. In his control work on poor little Asako, it’s actually Yoshinari Ogawa that feels like the most successful member of the team in the first half, and he’s a delight in all the ways he always is.

Those little segments between the two and with Asako in general are a real blast too. Satoru Asako is one of my favorite weird little wrestlers of the era, this short pudgy junior in lime green trunks who has the classic ability of never knowing all of the many many many ways in which he’s deficient to the others around him. He’ll never be more than this, but it is always so much fun to watch characters like these. In another decade with more cultivation beyond just being in matches like these and fun in spurts, he could have been Makoto Hashi.

In this match and in this moment though, he is the fulcrum upon which Toshiaki Kawada turns and finally snaps back into place.

When Toshiaki Kawada finally does come in, it’s a try at a slap flurry from the kid that finally seems to unlock something in Kawada again. Fucking Satoru Asako is trying to make a reputation off of him now, and he totally loses it and never once really eats shit again in the match. He kicks and slaps the dog shit out of Asako, takes his cheap shots, and never looks back. Kawada comes back in at the end, and Misawa and Akiyama run the playbook that’s worked all year, except that it just finally doesn’t anymore. When Taue keeps Misawa at bay, Kawada isn’t beaten by Akiyama. The double teams start to fall again for the Holy Demon Army, and when Akiyama survives, Kawada manages to not lose his head in the face of adversity for the first time all year.

The second powerbomb allows Kawada to finally pin Jun Akiyama again, as he always should have been able to, and something feels correct in the universe again.

All Japan can rightfully be criticized for taking forever to do things and being hamfisted in a lot of respects, but this being their greatest post-Jumbo storyline, it was lovely to see a return to form with a more natural approach here regarding self improvement and when and how those decisions are made.

A great match, but above all, a testament to how great the story was and has been for the last year or so that Kawada simply beating Jun Akiyama in a Korakuen Hall six man tag feels like the semi-major victory that it does. It’s on the patient and incisive decisions that All Japan’s made to sell the slump almost as much as it’s been on the ways Toshiaki Kawada has sold and communicated the idea, but both working in concert allow a return to form in accomplishing the routine feel like such a shift.

Wrestling is so cool.

***

 

Mitsuharu Misawa/Jun Akiyama vs. Holy Demon Army, AJPW Summer Action Series 1996 Day Nine (7/9/1996)

This was for Misawa and Akiyama’s AJPW World Tag Team Titles.

It’s not new, the way in which they approach this, but it works. It’s also very clearly a match that aims to extend the story more than to start or to finish it, and that’s never as fun to watch. Honestly though, they’re all just so great together and the Kawada Slump story is so fascinating to me that I’m pretty much going to be interested in anything that comes out of this match up or that story. It’s treading water here, to some degree, but there are slight changes and a development at the end that I think does exactly enough to move things forward in an interesting way.

After what happened in May, the approach of Taue and Kawada is obvious.

Jun Akiyama has to pay.

Thankfully, All Japan once again takes the scenic route to a familiar destination.

The Holy Demon Army rushes Akiyama and they try to make this QUICK. It’s a hell of a swing, the exact thing you’d expect from a guy obviously in a slump like Toshiaki Kawada is, which always adds so much to these matches. Misawa bails him out so it falls short, but in now trying to take out Akiyama to leave Misawa alone, it’s a return to what famously worked so well for them against a Misawa team thirteen months prior. Taking out the partner and focusing on slowly bombing out Misawa, and importantly, avoiding the scenario where Misawa constantly disrupts and breaks up double teams, and practically hands the win to his partner.

It’s the way in which Misawa always beats the Holy Demon Army, no matter the partner, and every time they’ve blocked it, they’ve won.

There’s a first time for everything though!

Taue and Kawada have their way with Misawa for a while and the match goes as it does, but Akiyama doesn’t vanish like Kobashi did at points, and he’s actually able to save Misawa and prevent the match from ever becoming like that. Akiyama constantly being able to save Misawa and actually return the favor means that the HDA are just stuck in between worlds. Eschewing the chance to isolate Akiyama means he’s there to help Misawa, and that means Misawa also can never got totally taken out either. When they try and return to the attack solely on Akiyama in the back half of the contest, they both make the mistake of getting tunnel vision, once again allowing Misawa to recover just in time to again save Akiyama from the Nodowa Otoshi off of the apron.

Without anything working, they’re forced into a pure bomb throwing contest against Misawa and Akiyama.

For his part, Taue does very well. He and Misawa are once again even, and Taue is able to handle Akiyama in a way Kawada isn’t this go around.

Again, it’s that pesky slump of Kawada that hurts them in the end, even when Taue makes sure to install himself as the legal man when it’s time to try and close the match out. Because of his own constant charging in and the mistakes that come from Kawada now being 1000% aware of his slump, Kawada winds up entirely boxed out at the end. When Akiyama can, he keeps Kawada away from making the save, and throws him almost at will. When he can get past Uncle Jun and he tries to stop Misawa, Misawa keeps knocking him back with elbows. More often than not, it’s a combination of the two. In effect, Kawada is rendered as useless in this match as Kenta Kobashi was in March, wholly powerless to do a single thing about the champions’ attack on his partner.

Taue survives one Tiger Suplex, but a second in a row pins him.

It’s not the emphatic and important win that Akiyama over Kawada in May felt like, but it’s a killer in its own specific way. Following finally getting past Misawa for the Triple Crown six weeks prior, there’s a revanchist sort of feeling to how this goes for Misawa and Taue. He has the Triple Crown (for another few weeks, before losing it to Kobashi in a long awaited payoff to that story), but Misawa’s able to best him once again here. It’s hard to really trace it to Taue losing the title fifteen days later, but there’s something especially rude and disheartening about Misawa just so easily beating him yet again.

Kawada’s slump now affects Taue as well, and it’s becoming a real problem.

***1/4

Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Akira Taue, AJPW Super Power Series 1996 Day Six (5/24/1996)

This was for Misawa’s Triple Crown Title.

Once again, it’s a true delight to watch these two go at it.

Misawa vs. Taue lacks the emotional punch of Misawa vs. Kawada or the unrivaled bombast of the Kobashi pairings, but there’s something simple and clear about this pairing that I really do love. Instead of years of history and this move leading to that move and so on, you tend to get more matches like these, down around twenty minutes and largely just displays of two hyperconfident wrestlers unloading on each other.

That’s not to say there’s NO story though.

The last time Misawa had to turn back Taue, it was by a closer margin than ever before. Taue had him scouted in every way, but was only felled by Misawa avoiding the big stuff and always giving himself just barely enough space with those elbows until something broke. While Taue wrestled an incredible match, Misawa wrestled one of the more airtight matches of his career or anyone’s career, perfectly synthesizing his own attack with a total avoidance of the biggest bombs that the opposition had to offer. It’s a road map not only against Taue, but against any opponent, ever.

Like Taue’s Carnival final against Steve Williams, there isn’t a whole lot to this beyond the immediate moments. It’s a straightforward display of offense, and I absolutely love it.

Fascinatingly, both men enter this match and conduct themselves as the more surefooted men alive at this moment, and it is a delight.

The immediate thought is that each man has a valid reason for trepidation after their last match. Akira Taue lost, and Mitsuharu Misawa almost lost. Despite the quality of Taue’s attack in September, he was never able to hit his biggest move. Despite Misawa keeping the title, Taue put up a stronger fight than ever before, and one theoretically ought not to rely on the stopping power of an elbow alone and the sheer quality of their offensive arsenal. However, Taue is coming off the biggest singles win of his career the month before and Mitsuharu Misawa hasn’t tasted defeat in any meaningful way since the famous June 1995 tag team match, and not as a singles act since July 1994. As much as they have reasons to display caution, both also have equal reasons to believe themselves immune to consequence, and it makes for a wonderful meeting.

They charge at each other from the start and spend the match like that.

While Taue’s confidence is charming, this match is largely about that of the champion. Misawa blocks the big bombs with elbows early on, and meets all of Taue’s newer offense (his new leaping Dynamic Kick and a freer flowing use of German Suplexes) with a looser style of offense than usual. Not in execution, as this is in fact Misawa’s stiffest elbow performance in quite some time, but certainly in the choices he makes. Misawa flies more than usual, feels more confident than usual, and in general, seems to think less and react more. There’s an ease to it that isn’t always present in the matches where Misawa has a plan or something in his head that he has to avoid. He’s not mocking Taue or slapping the big man around, but there’s a complete and total confidence in Misawa here that I absolutely love. It’s one of his more human performances of the era, not only wrestling it like a man who cannot suffer consequences, but then ultimately suffering those consequences in a sudden and humbling manner.

Finally, Misawa’s unbelievable confidence leads to a mistake.

In the end, despite pummeling Taue over and over with elbows once again to escape the doom that comes with distance, Misawa goes back up top for no real reason. He’s winning the stand up battle but wants to feel the breeze upon his back.

The air is not on his side tonight, however.

As Misawa goes about in pity for himself, a great wind pushes at his back and sends him flying out of the air and into the waiting and loving arms of Akira Taue, who catches him into a mid-air Nodowa Otoshi, and that is it.

Akira Taue wins his first Triple Crown, in the exact way befitting of his slow progress against Mitsuharu Misawa for the past year and change. Despite being stopped by elbows and speed, Taue’s friend against Misawa was always distance and the longer reach he had than anyone. The trick, it turns out, was not figuring out how to disarm or combat Misawa’s elbows, but to catch him in a way where they did not matter. To catch Misawa literally out of thin air is the most natural extension and climax of the story about distance being Taue’s friend. Running in is one thing, but the moment Misawa gets so confident he no longer believes his actions have consequences and leaves his feet so Taue doesn’t even have to do THAT for himself is fittingly the moment in which he finally loses to Taue.

Not only does Taue come through and finally win his Triple Crown, but he beats everyone else to Misawa. Despite it coming in the form of the success of his best friend, it’s as much of a blow to Kawada as anything else, shaking off his slump somewhat in the previous match, only for unassuming Akira Taue to beat Misawa when it actually matters and take the Triple Crown off of him before Kawada ever could, in a convincing fashion that it feels like Kawada could never manage.

The Year of Taue was a joke from 1995, but in 1996, it is an undisputed reality.

***1/2

Holy Demon Army vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Jun Akiyama, AJPW Super Power Series 1996 Day Five (5/23/1996)

This was for Taue and Kawada’s AJPW World Tag Team Titles.

On paper, it’s a day before Taue’s shot at the Triple Crown after winning the Champion Carnival the month before. On paper, it’s an obvious build up match. Everyone knows about Misawa and Taue at this point. They’ve been fighting for almost six years since Taue betrayed his generation. Taue is smarter than everyone else but Misawa always has the big elbow to bail him out no matter how much Taue seems to see him coming in an offensive sense, while also having a deeper arsenal to pull from and never needing to rely on one thing in the way Taue sometimes seemed to in the past. It’s a great story and one still with a lot of road to run on, but it’s not a new one. Most importantly, it’s one better saved for the next night.

Thankfully, one of the best things about 1990s All Japan is that they rarely ever treat tag matches, Tag Title matches especially, as just exercises in the purely obvious. Instead of going to that old well, this one is way more about Jun Akiyama. Two and a half months earlier, Jun challenged with big brother Kobashi as his partner, and did really well. Unfortunately, Kobashi wasn’t ever really able to make a stop and get in there himself, so Akiyama got stuck alone and was slowly just run down until the end came.

In this match, Jun Akiyama learns from the failure in March and comes not only more prepared, but with a much better tag team partner.

Just having Misawa doesn’t make it immediately easier though, and I really really appreciate that, and how they approached this.

First off, mechanically (as can often get lost when discussing these stories and approaches they take to tell them), this is lovely once again. Kawada is obviously pristine, but everyone else does so well. Akiyama walks the line perfectly between being sympathetic but having the energy and force needed to bring it when the match asks for him to do that as well. Taue and Misawa aren’t asked to do quite as much, but each does it so well. Taue portrays an indignation at Akiyama’s survival that pairs perfectly with Kawada’s anger. Misawa is in his element, asked only to dish out offense and serve as a measuring stick for everyone else. His offense rocks, he’s fiery and energetic, and the quiet calm has a way of naturally highlighting how everyone else in the match is not like that at all, each for their own wildly different and interesting reasons.

In March, Akiyama humiliated Kawada. He still got pinned by Taue in the end, but it was a harder win for the HDA than it should have been given the inexperience and failings of the Kobashi/Akiyama duo. It’s the sort of thing that nobody REALLY remembers given the ending, but that a maniac like Kawada has clearly been thinking about non-stop since then. Every time he’s in the ring with Jun Akiyama, Kawada is out not only for blood, but also out to put the entire process on display. It’s not only kicking and slapping around Akiyama whenever possible to try and punish the kid for having a breakout at his expense, but wanting to put it in front of the world and being a little showier than usual. Kawada isn’t usually the sort of wrestler to make such a show of things, but he is here, and it is a DELIGHT.

the most pissed off boy of all time pic.twitter.com/Wet4yI4CO4

— killer spelled backwards (@ElHijoDelSimon) December 1, 2021

 

The great part about the performance isn’t just how angry and mean it is, but also in how it doesn’t actually matter much as a result of a.) how good Akiyama is & b.) the different that Misawa makes.

Early on, Kawada tries to get Akiyama into his kind of a match, but instead of slapping and kicking with Kawada when pressed, he steals both from Misawa’s playbook against Kawada and Kawada’s playbook against everyone else by hauling off and just punching Kawada as hard as he can right in the jaw. Poor Toshiaki just CRUMBLES down, and gets out of there, once again humiliated against Akiyama. Similarly, Taue tries to get in on the act like he did in March to help his buddy out, only for Akiyama to almost immediately beat him in the same way he almost got Kawada at the start in March. When they take control of the kid, it’s very obviously the work of guys who have felt deeply emasculated by this rookie, and it’s such a different display from the kind of quiet confidence and more assured aggression they’ve displayed for the last three years. It’s also the kind of work that opens them up much moreso than they’d been before, and allows these pockets for Akiyama.

Had that not happened though, one still gets the sense that Misawa would have opened them up anyways.

As soon as Misawa makes his first saves and runs in the match, it’s very clear that he’s a better partner for Akiyama in this moment than Kobashi was. Beyond that he has a greater stopping power than Kobashi did, he’s also infinitely better about separating Taue and Kawada. He removes the double team that Akiyama was constantly faced with in March, and also gives him much more room to breathe when saving. Without even mentioning the hot tags and how they’re both effective and exciting, he’s just a much better helper.

Even when they can shut down Misawa and bring it back to Akiyama, it takes them so much more of an effort to do that, and it makes all the difference in the world.

Akiyama goes to Kawada’s historically bad knee to open him up at the end. In these moments, with Kawada already hindered, Misawa can help set Akiyama up for the big win in the exact same ways that he did it for Kobashi in the famous 1993 Real World Tag League final under very similar circumstances. Taue and Misawa cancel each other out, and with Misawa softening him up and a hurt knee, Kawada gets humiliated yet again. Akiyama drops two Exploders in a row on him, the famous big knee, and with a third Exploder, Akiyama not only wins his first major title, but gives Kawada one of the more humiliating moments of his career in the process.

It’s a beautiful end to the story, not only getting Akiyama this major win, but making it feel as good as possible and as legitimate as possible without going overboard. This match displays a perfect kind of balance, making it not only feel great as Akiyama gets revenge for the bullying all match, but also uses all of that to craft the big win in a way that feels genuine. Kawada and Taue make the mistake of trying to make a show of it. It’s not Akiyama’s win alone, but when the idea of “Akiyama’s win” is still such a big deal, that doesn’t matter much at all.

An incredible match, and improvement on the match from March in every way. 

***1/2

Holy Demon Army vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi, AJPW Real World Tag League 1995 Final (12/9/1995)

This was the finals of the 1995 Real World Tag League.

It is what it is.

Of course, it’s not ideal that this is happening again. It’s a completed story being thrown back out there so that Misawa and Kobashi can win the final time that it ever takes place.

God forbid one of them ever taste defeat in any lasting manner, right?

To get it out of the way, dessert before veggies, this is a great match in spite of all booking problems. It feels brisker than any of their 1995 matches and while it’s certainly no 6/9/95 or 12/3/93, on this go around, it’s one I gained a lot of esteem for. The strengths of this stand out especially clearly when compared to their two sixty minute draws in 1995. The attack of Kawada and Taue is especially great, losing some nastiness and making up for it in raw hustle. Real go and get it attitude from two absolute firecrackers in the bullpen (all four here are inscrutable, obv.). Kobashi’s selling is fine, but Misawa actually beats him here with the way he sells the early beating he takes all match, and a general exhaustion. A few of Misawa’s better hot tags in recent memory (in 1995, obviously. he has not had an especially great hot tag in at least twelve years in real time.) come here, and the finishing run is also a delight.

In spite of the failing of the match on deeper levels, and the failure of the company in booking it again, it’s a really great match.

However, I repeatedly backed up and deleted the phrase “great little match” when writing this, and that’s sort of a thing. Having to fight my immediate natural instinct to call it a “great little match” when it is the finals of a big tournament is real embelematic of the problem with the match and AJPW as a whole in 1995.

While a great match for the obvious reasons, this falls short of what the pairing is capable of not for the usual reasons that some of these matches underachieved. Instead of being overlong, it’s a nice and tight twenty seven minutes that I have no real issues with in terms of pacing or efficiency. Instead of any performance issues, like Kobashi spending half the match weeping and crying like a wounded animal or anyone not being up to par, it takes the cue from their previous meeting in October and targets Kobashi’s arm in a similarly great change of pace.

The biggest problem with this is that we’ve been here before.

Not so much in the sense of how many times this match has happened, but in the sense that we have seen this story told before, from start to finish. It is not new, and on the eighth meeting total and fourth of the year (with two having gone an hour each), there really needs to be something new. Barring that, as a riff session is hardly the end of the world, it should at least be not such an obvious re-run.

It’s a match in which Kobashi needs Misawa to bail him out in key moments, and then manages to pin Taue with a second Moonsault, only once Misawa has helped him out.

A more well read Reader may recognize that this is also the plot of the May 1994 match, right down to the finish.

While I certainly appreciate that this is thirteen minutes shorter than that match, there’s no real narrative point to it happening again. There are slight changes like the arm or focusing a lot on Kawada now not being able to save Taue at the end, but it’s pretty much the same thing. Kawada pinning Misawa six months earlier is the narrative culmination of this feud. For whatever issues I have with it, it’s the payoff to every story told in their previous meetings from the Kawada/Kobashi knee work, to Misawa always bailing Kobashi out in the end. This is a regression in the story, going back to things that have already happen and that you would think everyone knew they had moved past. Not only does it feel old, but because the story’s moved on past that in a lot of ways, it’s also kind of jarring in its own way. Because of the regression in the long story being told, the triumph of Misawa and Kobashi at the end also winds up feeling lesser. Part of that is that I don’t root for them in the way that I root for Kawada and Taue as they rarely feel like actual human beings, but part of that is that there’s no reason to take joy in someone doing something they’ve already done before. It just is what it is, that’s all.

The thing that really does the match in is the transparency of it all. With nothing new offered up as a story and the action itself feeling sort of warmed over from what worked in the past, it’s very clear that this is only really happening so that Misawa and Kobashi can win and THEN the feud can be over, only once the precious golden boys have finally reclaimed their victory.

It’s an indignity suffered once again by Kawada and Taue, as if the individual title losses to Misawa following the hallmark June 9th win weren’t enough. However, it’s one I’m not quite apoplectic over, given the beautiful and wonderful payoff to all of these small insults and indignities a year later.

***

Holy Demon Army vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi, AJPW Giant Series 1995 Day Twelve (10/15/1995)

This was for Kawada and Taue’s AJPW Unified World Tag Team Titles.

In 1995 and 1996, All Japan Pro Wrestling began experimenting with hour-long draws, as if big matches hadn’t already begin overplaying their hand as it came to length. Two of the four major All Japan time limit draws of this two year period came out of this match up and two in Kawada/Kobashi title matches. The success rate was roughly fifty percent, with one of each pairing actually working out. The first Kawada/Kobashi draw from January 1995 did a much better job than their October 1996 draw would of coming together to create something close to a great sixty minute wrestling match, whereas the January 1995 tag didn’t quite do as well of a job of getting there as this did. The weakness of each of the four matches is the weakness not only of many post-1980s sixty minute draws in the first place (feeling like a match is going an hour as an attempt to garner praise more than anything else), although this is the best of the bunch for at least trying to do something to differentiate it from the others.

(of course none of them come close to the most soulless and frustrating hour of the 1990s — the Manami Toyota vs. Kyoko Inoue hour from May 1995 that I absolutely hate)

More than any other non-mandated hour long match in the 1990s — as the Bret Hart fancam iron man matches against Ric Flair and Owen Hart respectively are matches I hold in high esteem —  this match does a great job of trying to answer the big question that all of these matches have to face, if they’re worth anything. It’s one that not only feels asked of every hour long match past a certain point, but also that I find myself asking of just about every long match ever. It’s a question that longer All Japan matches often fail to answer adequately (6/9/95 could have been just as great with fifteen less minutes!), making the ones that did (4/20/91) stand out all the more.

That question is simply, “Why is this match so long?”.

The answer to that question can be a story they tell that’s larger than what moves happen at what time, it can be entirely about strategy, it can really be anything. So often, there is no real answer but shouting “MORE!” or “LONGER!”, so when a match like this gives it an honest shot, it’s impressive.

Of course, like any good question, the answer is never just one thing.

In this match, there are a few answers that they proffer, and that’s to their benefit.

The first is that Misawa is feeling himself a lot too much after his recent Triple Crown defenses and gets himself Nodowa Otoshi’d off the apron within five minutes, putting him down on the floor for fifteen to twenty minutes. The second and third answers come when Kobashi’s left arm becomes a target and when Kawada’s historically bad knee comes into play. None of these really come close to answering that question in a satisfying way, you can do all these things in half of the time, but they are better ways to fill space and make the time feel properly utilized and not wasted for the sake of publicity.

Of all responses to the question, the first response here is by far the most interesting. It’s a fascinating consequence of Misawa’s growing invulnerability, and it’s why I find the second half of the 1990s to be his most interesting work. That’s not quite to say Misawa ever feels human in the way others do, but there’s something approaching that. It’s fun to see him screw up in the way the others do in matches like these. Misawa, Kawada, and Kobashi are all dumb in different ways, and the way Misawa is dumb is that he never really considers much of everything. He has that flaw for the same reason he doesn’t suffer the consequences in the same way that others do, because he always has the elbow to bail him out. Or in the case of going against Kawada, he can rely both on that and/or Kawada psyching himself out against this guy who has and will live inside his head until the day that too goes in the ground.

What I don’t love about that is what that answer brings to the match, which is fifteen minutes of Kobashi alone. Because of the pace, it’s never as interesting as that could be, so it’s not really even Kobashi playing hero ball. That being said, the attack on the arm of Kobashi is especially good and mean spirited and a much needed change of pace from a Kobashi control segment in one of these matches. It’s one of the better pieces of control on Kobashi in any of these matches, as it doesn’t lead to him crawling around on his belly and weeping while selling it like his knee selling often can. My problem with so much 90s Kobashi is that it feels at many times like the point of his big dramatic selling performances is less to help with the match and the story and more to leave everyone talking about how great he is at selling. With the arm, that’s not really the case. He’s hurt and even gets taped up, but he’s capable of fighting back and kicking ass, even if he does occasionally border on the overly theatrical. Above all, what I don’t like about Kobashi in the early and mid 1990s compared to the late 90s and his NOAH work is that there’s no reason to root for him in the former period, whereas he kicks a lot of ass in the latter. While troublesome, his work in this match is a show of real progress.

The last of the three elements here is sadly the element of the match that is given the least focus, which is a shame in particular because Toshiaki Kawada is the best knee seller of all time. The transition to that is especially nice, as Misawa makes his comeback into the match, catches a kick from Kawada, and has time to really think about it before driving an elbow down into the knee of Kawada. There’s intent to it now before the strike that adds so much and while they never get to really attack it like in the past, Kawada does a remarkable job of selling it anyways. Stutter steps, rolling in pain, trouble with a few things. Even when it’s not a focus, he makes it a focus, and that’s the difference between Kawada and everyone else. Selfish in the way all great wrestlers are, but without it ever becoming overbearing.

It’s the last fifteen or twenty minutes when this really loses something, and it’s really not the fault of any of the four wrestlers in the match.

By this point in history, they’ve had their big classic in June. They’ve had the 1993 Real World Tag League final. Shit, they’ve already even had one sixty minute time limit draw already, nine months earlier. When they’re just trading bombs again, it’s fun and cool, but not new, and the sort of thing that loses its thrill easier and faster than the more substantive work in the match. It’s a hard thing to do to keep this interesting, especially as Kobashi’s arm and Kawada’s knee fall into the background (to the credit of both, neither is forgotten), and it becomes the same match as always. This sort of an end run is also a big ask given that nothing is really new about it in a story sense. So not only is this sort of tired as a match up, having reached the climax in June, but it’s also not a story that has anything new to offer.

In every sense, the last ten or fifteen minutes is the problem more than anything else, with everyone just running out of interesting things to do on every level.

Even if it means less than in the decades before or after it, it’s still one of the better hours of the decade, and one of the better matches in this series. It falls short for me in the way that many matches out of this particular pairing do, but still of a certain undeniable quality and with an admirable approach to a very boring situation. It’s a match that I admire more than a match that I love.

More than anything, it’s a hard effort not to respect, even if they do fall short.

***1/4

Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Akira Taue, AJPW Summer Action Series II 1995 Day Seventeen (9/10/1995)

This was for Misawa’s Triple Crown Title.

It’s the second of two title matches for the Holy Demon Army coming off of their Tag Title win over Misawa and Kobashi, with Kawada falling short in July and experiencing a debilitating letdown after finally managing to pin Misawa the month prior. It’s Taue’s third shot at Misawa in 1995, going to a draw in the Champion Carnival and then losing the finals to Misawa, with Taue feeling closer than ever in each match, and very arguably being the actual key to the 6/9/95 win with his Nodowa Otoshi off of the apron. The latter saw Misawa as beatable as ever with a broken orbital bone, so in the build up to this match specifically, Taue and Kawada specifically targeted Misawa’s knee to try and hobble Misawa in a new way.

Unfortunately, none of the possible ideas (third time in a year as Taue has come closer each time, previously broken face, hurt knee) this match could play with are given full and proper attention. Instead, they try to handle all of them at moments and receive the full benefit of none of them. It’s a shame, to some extent, that they take the approach that they do as Misawa’s knee is a particularly good and newer story for them, but it’s minimized into being an anchor Taue occasionally pulls on more so than it is any real crucial piece of the match.

While frustrating, it’s still a little too much to ever properly dislike, and that’s sort of the thing with 1990s Misawa, and a lot of 1990s All Japan in general. While approaches to many things can make me roll my eyes, more often than not, things whip too much ass to ever really hate.

Despite an infuriating bit where it’s Misawa’s bridge on a suplex that REALLY hurts his knee moreso than Taue’s earlier attack, the knee attack is also handled pretty well. Misawa’s selling, for what the match asks of him, is good. Particularly effective is a good little piece of nerd bait where Misawa fails to roll fast enough on a Rolling Elbow because of the plant leg, so Taue is able to cut him off. He also walks for much of the match with a hobble, never seeming unaffected by the work. Taue doesn’t devote all that much time to it, and so it lives up to what I’m looking for in a setting like this. Which is to say that despite some issues, the knee still does always feel like it matters, and the match seems to react to the work itself.

Misawa’s hot start is both an interesting change of pace, and also thematically appropriate. Taue can only really get going when he first kicks the knee out and meets Misawa on those same terms, but Taue’s most major error occurs at the very start. As previously stated, the knee is less a focal point and more something that tethers Taue in place at certain moments. He seems intent on trying to bomb Misawa out with power moves, and it’s a shame because Misawa is much more ready to and capable of countering Taue’s major offense than he is prepared to deal with a knee attack. The major point here at which Taue loses is that he keeps going for the Nodowa Otoshi off the apron from June, but Misawa is more ready for that than anything. Taue can knock him off the apron by hurling him back into the railing or by kicking his knee out, but Misawa avoids the one big improvement that Taue’s made all year.

That’s really the other major thing in play here, that Taue is better at countering Misawa than anybody else when he can run in. You can put it down to having a longer reach than anyone, but you can also put it down to Taue just being smarter than everyone else (really the only SMART Pillar, as Misawa, Kawada, and Kobashi are all dumb in unique ways). The great thing is that you can put it down to either or both, it’s the sort of thing that makes sense from a few different angles. Every time Misawa charges or runs or needs to go up to something, Taue can grab him or avoid him. It’s only when Misawa begins forcing Taue to get up close or he can dump Taue on his head that Misawa has any real chance at it, and Taue eventually stops using the knee as an anchor entirely, giving Misawa more of a runway in the end than he had for most of the match up to that point.

In the end, Taue can’t fight in a phone booth with Misawa. He also can’t hit any of the moves he needs to hit to win the match, and didn’t do nearly enough to force the match to become one he might actually be able to win. It’s a matter of time, as Misawa once again beats someone by making them do it his way. Misawa finally sends Taue flying backwards to the mat with a Rolling Elbow from close range, following another series of right and left elbows, and that’s that.

When Misawa beat Kawada six weeks before this, it felt demoralizing and cruel, but the big difference here is that it feels like he JUST got by Akira Taue.

The knee, while not the issue I would have liked it to have been, was just enough to slow Misawa for a key portion. Had Taue stuck with that, he really maybe had it. And had he not gotten drawn into Misawa’s game, he still might have won anyways. Despite his victory in the end, Misawa makes mistakes against Taue that he never does or would against Kawada. It’s a clear sign of some level of disrespect, but he’s still exactly talented enough to constantly bail himself out with the magic elbow. Taue winds up baited into a bomb throwing contest when he’s not as aggressive on the leg as Kawada would been and is the least able of all the Pillars and other major players of fighting in a phone booth with Misawa. It’s no coincidence that Misawa relies entirely on elbows at the end more so than other bombs, and that it’s an up close Rolling Elbow instead of a running one or a simple running elbow that gives him the win in the end.

Misawa once again barely survives Akira Taue, but if he doesn’t change up one of these times, Taue’s really gonna catch him.

***1/2