AJPW You Might Have Missed: 02/28/93

This day in puroresu history...Stan Hansen & Toshiaki Kawada had a really great match here. I didn't think it was a classic but, pretty comparable to Kawada's match versus Jumbo in 1991 in terms of greatness. Here's some of the other matches that happened that you might have missed:

Kenta Kobashi vs Dan Spivey: JIP This was an intense yet somewhat unorganized bout. It was plenty exciting but, not to the effect that is was super engaging. Spivey botched a Canadian Backbreaker Slam or something so it came out as a Headspiking Dominator/Complete Dust which was cool after it was clear Kobashi wasn't dead. Too much was edited to really appraise the match honestly but, fun stuff.

Terry Gordy vs Jun Akiyama: Too short to rate. What was shown was great. Akiyama worked well with Bamm Bamm, who was just brutal.

Masa Fuchi vs Tsuyoshi Kikuchi- Jr. Heavyweight title: Kikuchi played the scrappy youngster who wouldn't quit. He came right out of the gate and bloodied Fuchi with a Zero-ken kick to the nose. There was some average work in the middle and then Fuchi dumped Kikuchi on his head about a dozen times in a row that would make Dr. Death proud. As sweet as this was from a brutality standpoint, it diminished the efficacy of the snap backdrop. This was a very good mid-card match, with moments of brutality.

Mitsuharu Misawa vs Akira Taue - Triple Crown title: Maybe I 'm guilty of buzzed viewing & this isn't all that good but, from what I saw it was a great match. Having seen the Jumbo saga play out really assists this match. I really appreciated the arm-work section where Misawa tries using his technical skills to control Taue. As we know, Taue isn't that far away from Misawa in terms of dangerous-ness so, it's a sound plan to work him over a bit before jumping into the heavy stuff. Where the Hansen-Kawada match was dragging in the middle, this match made up for it with great selling or what I think was a legitimately injure Misawa. He hurt his back performing a move on Taue or he hit the guardrail (can't remember) and Dynamic T when after it in his usual manner. Really good stuff! Also Taue was back up to performing wrestling duties and was doing all kinds of different dropkicks including a missle drop kick from the top! Eventually Miawa came back with some devilish elbows but Taue never looked out of it until the end. There were a couple execution cock-ups early on but they were worked out and what we have here is another great match from today. And better than the Hansen match to me...