Talk about it here.

Another good Misawa and partner vs Jumbo and Taue match. Good match, but the finish fell a little flat.

Tsuyoshi celebrates his new haircut by getting obliterated, again. Jumbo manages to fend off a few Misawa pin saves while landing bombs on Kikuchi, but oddly finishes him off with an atomic whip and then a...sleeper. ISTR All-Japan on a bit of a submission kick at this point and I think they were trying to build up legitimate match-ending holds for each guy. Misawa already had his facelock, Kawada had the Stretch Plum and a sleeper of his own, and even Kobashi put out somebody with a body vice backbreaker. Or it could just be a bit of foreshadowing.

I enjoy Taue bodyslamming the likes of Kikuchi. One of those wait and see how Kichuchi gets put away. Flat finish.

Fairly generic tag until Jumbo becomes pissed off and really works over the back of Kikuchi and arm of Misawa. I liked the way everyone was set up in this match from a level standpoint. The win against Taue felt like a pretty big moment considering Taue's ascension up the card.

The sleeper was to build for Kawada vs. Jumbo. Kawada had beaten Fuchi and then Taue with his bodyscissors sleeper around a month or two earlier. So Jumbo using it to finish (obviously had to be Kikuchi) here seemed like a message to me.

I remember reading these threads before I started the Yearbook and hearing through them about what an epic series Misawa and friends vs. Jumbo and friends was. Suffice it to say that I'm disappointed, and that's putting it mildly. Yes, the matches feature lots of good action, more than in most North American tags at this time. But Misawa and company never seem to truly break through and distinguish themselves as equals, or even slight superiors. They hang in, give gutsy performances, even have Jumbo and crew on the run from time to time. But you always know who the superior side is, and they generally show it in dominating fashion.

 

In this match, for example, not only is Kikuchi put to sleep clean as a sheet, which is bad enough, but Misawa is obliterated by one of Jumbo's big boots so he can't interfere. It would have been one thing if he'd been pulled to the outside by Taue and had to fight him tooth-and-nail on the floor, but to have him taken out of action so definitively on top of Jumbo's clean submission win makes me question how Misawa ever got rematches with Jumbo and Taue like the one we'll see in early September, with Kawada taking Kikuchi's place. Wouldn't the fans have grown tired of seeing Misawa's side dominated? It wasn't just the finish either; many times Misawa came in to break up a pin attempt on Kikuchi, and instead of letting the referee get rid of Misawa, Jumbo or Taue would simply throw him over the top rope like yesterday's garbage. That's not the way to establish your opponents as true threats to you, and everyone involved in this bout has been around long enough to know it.

 

If you judge these bouts by in-ring action, as most people here seem to, they're all solid three-and-a-half to four-star bouts, and any of them would be a Match of the Night on a North American card. If you're looking at it from the perspective of trying to tell the story of a overarcing battle between two factions of which each match is a chapter, the chapters are repetitive and the story is predictable and in need of a fresh twist in a hurry.

This isn't bad, but it's pretty heatless through most of it. Misawa is still selling some kind of shoulder injury. A lot of garreta's problem comes from that strict hierarchy in AJPW that makes a lot of these matches seem formulaic after a while. I will say the way NJPW is booked leads to a lot more finishes you don't see coming a mile away. Oh yeah, how is Kikuchi able to do this night in and night out?