Posted December 20, 20186 yr comment_5873620 A great hidden gem of a match Kenta Kobashi was amazing in this, nobody was bad but he was really the best person in the match by some distance. From the start they established a strict hierarchy that all great AJPW Tags and six mans from the early 90s followed. The hierarchy here being Kobashi>Hayabusa & Shinzaki>Shiga. Kobashi could shrug off what the two FMW guys could throw at him and would easily take back over if ever found himself on the defense. Shiga on the other hand would never really be able to muster much of any sort of sustained offence against the FMW guys and that which he did would be handed to him after tagging in when Kobashi was in control. It is a logical formula and always led to really good matches here was no exception. Kobashi though his body language as well as his moves showed that he knew he was above these guys but was still really competitive about winning and when Shiga was being beaten down he became more and more animated before they went into a full blown finishing run with some incredible saves of pinfalls that had me bite big into two of them. The tags that Hayabusa would do on the Budokan hall shows in 1997 were a mixed bag often they seemed to be aimless other than purely to have Hayabusa on the card, he would often move from spot to spot and do nothing in between and often be quite bad in them. Here though when following a simple but highly effective story he worked really well and felt for the first time in AJPW that he belonged as part of the roster not just a special attraction that would show up for the big shows. This bodes well going into his involvement in the RWTL in November and December. ****
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