Posted March 11, 200817 yr comment_5429360 Kuniaki Kobayashi vs. Tiger Mask (06/21/85) - KObayashi starts it off fast and furious. He misses a kick, tries again and nails a kick and then throws Misawa out of the ring and into the guard rail. Inside, Misawa turns it around with a nice dropkick. As they go back and forth, they do some high flying and flipping sequences. Some of them come off as really cool and other scome off as awkward. Thankfully, they work holds inbetween the sequences so that they stand out when they happen. For instance, Misawa's flip outside the ring was pretty insane. In the end, it looked like Misawa was going to put it away but Kobayashi fought back and got the upset pin. After the match, Onita attacks Kobayashi out of nowhere and you don't see that in All Japan often. I could see this as the type of match that people would rate high but Phil would hate. Nomination. (AJC 114)
November 28, 200915 yr comment_5446071 This is one of Misawa's most famous early matches, so it probably has to go on. But it was a real mess. Everything that people are bitching about with the NJ juniors was on display here -- botched spots, non-existent selling, random movement from one plan of attack to another. The pace, violence and crowd heat helped to counterbalance the flaws, but this will be divisive at best.
September 3, 201015 yr comment_5455284 NWA International Jr. Heavyweight Title: Kuniaki Kobayashi © vs. Tiger Mask II (6/21/85) We now have a full blown rivalry between these two and the hatred is there early with Kobayashi trying to kick TM's head off. The match then transitions into some really good back and forth action where they had a good mixture of wrestling and spots although some of the spots were off but the ones that weren't were very effective. Kobayashi was great here as usual drilling TM II with a backdrop suplex then killing him with a kick but TM II would recover hitting a HUGE tope con hilo to the floor getting tremendous air. Next we would have some great nearfalls before Kobayashi put him away with 2 Fisherman's Suplex holds. The retired Atsushi Onita shows up at ringside and he gets into a pull-apart with Kobayashi. This was some really good shit and moves forward easily.
