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[Remedial Wrestling] #1: Misawa/Kawada and Friends


Matt D

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Both Joshi and Lucha could interest me. I enjoyed watching this as I'm already a huge AJPW mark (70's - 90's) so seeing other folks reactions was fun. I've seen some Joshi  and know some of the names but haven't "gone deep" as it were. I'd love to see some of Akira Hokuto's angles and matches developed. Lucha on the other hand is a complete fucking mystery to me and I need some one to help me into the shallow end of that pool to get started.
 

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Joshi would be way easier for me.  Their psychology clicks with me personally, a hell of a lot closer than Lucha ever has.  Which is ironic, since I kinda-halfway speak Spanish and have worked with actual luchadores, while speaking precisely zero Japanese and never having even met any wrestlers from that country.  But still, lucha has generally just hardly ever made any damn sense to me in an instinctive way, while puroresu is something which instantly clicked with my soul of souls from the very first time I watched it.  

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Hey now, this project ends with the 6/9/95 tag. 

As it should.  Although there's at least a couple of legit masterpieces afterwards you might wanna check out: the 1/97 Kobashi/Misawa title match, and the 12/96 Misawa/Akiyama vs Kawada/Taue tag tournament finals.  

 

 

And oh yeah, going into 6/9/95, there's a couple more things you need to know which aren't covered in the other matches you watched.  First and foremost: Misawa is vulnerable, in a way he's never been before.  Kawada recently broke Mitsuhara's orbital bone (for the biologically challenged, that's the part of your skull that surrounds your eyeball) with a kick during a Champion's Carnival match.  You can tell something is weird and wrong watching it, because Misawa doesn't sell like THAT and Kawada actually lays off the kicks to the face afterwards (until the last ten minutes, when he remembers that he fucking hates Misawa and doesn't really give a shit about his old "friend"'s health).  So anytime they hit Misawa in the face in 6/9/95, the fans know it's hurting the ace a LOT more than usual.  

 

Misawa still managed to rally and win the round-robin Carnival tournament anyway, but those matches showed him as being weakened and fragile in a way the fans had never seen before.  Although oddly it wasn't the injury-dealer Kawada who ended up with the new time in the spotlight: no, that belonged to his partner, Akira Taue.  The big guy trounced his own tag partner in a singles match during the tournament, just beat the living hell out of poor Toshiaki.  Then he took Misawa all the way to the finals, which basically had to run twice because the first climax match went to a time limit draw.  Also: that's when he invented the chokeslam-from-the-apron-to-the-floor, the newest hyper-death move in the company.  It's an interesting move; because it can't be the finish, AJPW never had Falls Count Anywhere rules.  But there's this sort of feeling that if Taue manages to hit that move, that it takes SO much out of his opponent that their chances of ever winning the match in the future just became drastically smaller.  

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Thanks for the extra insight. I was going to watch tonight but it'll probably wait til Friday-Saturday now as I wanted to give people a bit more time before I hit the last match, though they can follow afterwards of course.

 

Joshi would be way easier for me.  Their psychology clicks with me personally, a hell of a lot closer than Lucha ever has.  Which is ironic, since I kinda-halfway speak Spanish and have worked with actual luchadores, while speaking precisely zero Japanese and never having even met any wrestlers from that country.  But still, lucha has generally just hardly ever made any damn sense to me in an instinctive way, while puroresu is something which instantly clicked with my soul of souls from the very first time I watched it.  

 

Once i watch another hundred lucha matches or so I want to write a big essay trying to tackle it. It's very fluid though. That's how I'd try to explain it. You sort of catch lucha philosophy out of the corner of your eye. It in a liquid state instead of a solid state, but it's all about anticipation be it for the comeback or the dive or the captains facing off or just the finish for a title or apuesta match. And of course, all wrestling is sort of like that, about the anticipation and payoff in the form of big moments, but in lucha it's almost as if the mood is more important than the details, but that can make it somehow more primal. You ride the emotional wave of it. It's all a little abstract for me still. 

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Triple Crown Title Match: Misuharau Misawa (CHAMPION) v. Toshiaki Kawada

 

The first All Japan I watched was a comp tape made for me by Mike Lorefice. 6/3/94 was the marquee match on it and I sat in awe of it. I still do. Then during my years of re-watching things to put in context, I watched everything that built up to THE MATCH. The ongoing story of Kawada's hurt knee, the tag matches with Kawada/Taue v. Kobashi/Misawa, The Champion Carnival.... All Japan from this period had this ability to make the TC matches  (and tag title matches) FEEL real in terms of it was presented. Then you actually see these guys go at each other. First time out for it was just mind blowing. My only previous exposure to any Japanese wrestling before this had been AJW when it was on US cable. This was totally different than that. Heroes? Villains? No that shit is for kids. These are 2 MEN using their athletic ability to craft a story of what they are both willing to do to win, yet no resort breaking the rules. This is a story trying to convey the notion that this is a competition , this is a struggle. I love this match still. I always will. When friends of mine who are wrestling fans have expressed an interest in seeing Japanese wrestling I show them this.

 

It is perfect to me.

 

James

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Hey now, this project ends with the 6/9/95 tag. 

As it should.  Although there's at least a couple of legit masterpieces afterwards you might wanna check out: the 1/97 Kobashi/Misawa title match, and the 12/96 Misawa/Akiyama vs Kawada/Taue tag tournament finals.  

 

 

And oh yeah, going into 6/9/95, there's a couple more things you need to know which aren't covered in the other matches you watched.  First and foremost: Misawa is vulnerable, in a way he's never been before.  Kawada recently broke Mitsuhara's orbital bone (for the biologically challenged, that's the part of your skull that surrounds your eyeball) with a kick during a Champion's Carnival match.  You can tell something is weird and wrong watching it, because Misawa doesn't sell like THAT and Kawada actually lays off the kicks to the face afterwards (until the last ten minutes, when he remembers that he fucking hates Misawa and doesn't really give a shit about his old "friend"'s health).  So anytime they hit Misawa in the face in 6/9/95, the fans know it's hurting the ace a LOT more than usual.  

 

Misawa still managed to rally and win the round-robin Carnival tournament anyway, but those matches showed him as being weakened and fragile in a way the fans had never seen before.  Although oddly it wasn't the injury-dealer Kawada who ended up with the new time in the spotlight: no, that belonged to his partner, Akira Taue.  The big guy trounced his own tag partner in a singles match during the tournament, just beat the living hell out of poor Toshiaki.  Then he took Misawa all the way to the finals, which basically had to run twice because the first climax match went to a time limit draw.  Also: that's when he invented the chokeslam-from-the-apron-to-the-floor, the newest hyper-death move in the company.  It's an interesting move; because it can't be the finish, AJPW never had Falls Count Anywhere rules.  But there's this sort of feeling that if Taue manages to hit that move, that it takes SO much out of his opponent that their chances of ever winning the match in the future just became drastically smaller.  

 

Also, 6/9/95 is HUGE because it's the fist pinfall Kawada ever got over Misawa. Thus, it added more fuel the fire for Kawada's next run at Misawa. 90's AJPW is one giant interconnected story and both 6/3/94 and 6/9/95 are enormous parts of the overall narrative.

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Guest Xenophon

Fuchi wrestled in Memphis and seems to have brought some of that back to AJPW--fun cheap shots and heeling and facials. Honestly I think he was the glue that held together a ton of the 6 mans and has tons of fun singles matches (I love his 92 match against Kawada that is all submissiony/mat wrestling and ends with Kawada doing some proto Tazmissions deal). He's great fun stretching everyone to death and working submissions and being a dick and beating guys with a Thesz Press. He has a sort of Regal type quality for me--I get why he was never the man, but damn, I love watching him work. 

 

 

He was part of a fun mid card of AJPW that really dwindled in 95-96ish that led to a lot of the headdroppery and overuse of the main guys.

 

Then again I'm the sort of weird guy who LOVES Joel Deaton and Billy Black tag matches and finds the Fantastics in AJPW to be criminally underrated.

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Guest Xenophon

 

Fun video showing him doing what he does best, cheating, stretching people, backdropping people, throwing closed fists in AJPW, facial expressions.

 

The other fun thing with Fuchi is that he's the guy if you watch his singles run as junior champ that beat Ogawa, Kikuchi, Malenkos, whoever with tons of random and hurtful looking submissions, so the complaint people have in here sometimes of, "Why work the arm/leg when it goes away?" doesn't apply with him as much.

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Fuchi reminds me a lot of Fujiwara, for what it's worth.  Not quite as great in big singles matches, maybe, but as mentioned his forte was being a tag wrestler anyway.  Jumbo will be doing Jumbo stuff and Taue will be doing Taue stuff; and heeeere comes Fuchi to sneak in real quick, give a dirty Lou Thesz headlock/nose-punch combo, and then tag right back out again with this "What, what did I do?" innocent reaction to the fans booing him.  Imagine a Yoshinari Ogawa who doesn't suck, basically that's Masa Fuchi.  

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Don't curse the good name of Fuchi by bringing up Ogawa. 

 

Serious Matt watch ANY of those 6-mans with Jumbo/Fuchi/Taue when Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, and especially Kikuchi are on the other side. The sheer dickery of Fuchi and the mauling that poor Kikuchi gets are some of the best things in wrestling ever. Ever.

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Don't curse the good name of Fuchi by bringing up Ogawa. 

 

Serious Matt watch ANY of those 6-mans with Jumbo/Fuchi/Taue when Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, and especially Kikuchi are on the other side. The sheer dickery of Fuchi and the mauling that poor Kikuchi gets are some of the best things in wrestling ever. Ever.

 

Misawa vs. Jumbo six man tags to check out:

Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi vs. Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi (All Japan 10/19/90) - The first classic six man tag of the feud. Kobashi takes a brutal beating in this one.

 

Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi vs. Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi (All Japan 4/20/91) - 55+ minutes of EPIC wrestling. The best six man of the feud. Hell, it might be the best six man tag of all time. A true classic.

 

Jumbo/Fuchi/Ogawa vs. Misawa/Kawada/Kikuchi (All Japan 7/26/91) – Jumbo is on fire in this match. One of the best six man tags of the feud.

 

Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi vs. Misawa/Kawada/Kikuchi (All Japan 10/15/91)

Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi vs. Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi (All Japan 5/22/92) – This match is a classic and the second best six man of the feud. This is Taue’s return match after a leg injury, and everyone is at the top of their game. This is also the last time we would see this particular six-man combo.

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