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Otani and Takaiwa: Where do they rank among the best tag teams?


Ellsworth Toohey

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As the title says, where would you personally rank Shinjiro Otani and Tatsuhito Takaiwa among the all-time greatest tag teams?  They were far and away the best team in the world in 1998 and 1999 and their "Big Wednesday" match against Black Tiger II and Chris Jericho was my personal choice for 1998's MOTY. 

 

It's a shame, to me, that they aren't better remembered both in Japan and here among the Internet crowd the way that Tenzan and Kojima and MIsawa/Kobashi are. 

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Ohtani/Takaiwa were good. Ohtani/Kanemoto were better, they just played off each other better personality wise. League of Penises era Kanemoto/Ohtani are just the 2 skeeziest punks from the NJ system ever produced!

 

James

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I really liked their 2 year run but it was only 2 years and probably less than 10 standout matches, so... yeah. 

 

The Eddie/Jericho tag as MOTY is baffling. Like I can vaguely see someone enjoying it, but it's not remotely a MOTYC. Not much story, not much heat, not as exciting or action-packed as their other tags (let alone everything else in '98)... would love to know where the love is comin' from!

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Hypothesis for lack of hype: something to do with 98/99 NJ being a bit of a memory black hole and Takaiwa spending the last ten years when we have accessible coverage being consistently unremarkable? Even when Takaiwa was still somewhat relevant I remember him being distinctly uncool due to representing evil Choshuism tarnishing the holy land of 90s NJ juniors. Doesn't hurt the matches but people have to choose to go back and watch them in the first place.

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