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Post by elliott on Sept 23, 2019 1:08:41 GMT -5
Keeping this short because I'd rather we all spent time on the Kawada questions I asked. Again I see no reason they couldn't have both matches like the Kawada/Taue 91 stuff and 6/3/94, other than the company consciously chose not to. El Dandy vs Angel Azteca 6/90 doesn't look anything like El Dandy vs El Satanico 12/90 but both are amazing all time classic matches. Nothing had to be sacrificed for both of those matches to exist. If the pillars were the greatest wrestlers ever, surely they could have figured out how to work a great brawl in their prime. That would be on them and not very smart. Just like pushing the stiffness and headdrops for the sake of easier things was on them and not very smart because it left them with nowhere else to go. Vader was also not someone who could be booked to work 30 minute long singles matches in when he went to AJPW...or really at any point in his career. And Misawa had the book for what... less than 18 months before the break up? Was Misawa's NOAH famous for all their short main event matches? Well, it is pro-wrestling. That's kind of like the entire point of its existence. You work the audience, you don't get worked by your audience. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaTXzeBuQSgTaue's chops? Baba's chops that all of the pillars sold in the 90s weren't blatantly phony? They also did do fake (perhaps we should say "worked") punches. In AJPW. You don't think doing powerbombs and irish whips made the product look blatantly phony? I know it was "presented as a sport" but do you think the fans thought you could irish whip someone against their will? There isn't a more blatantly phony thing in wresting than an irish whip. But AJPW fans accepted it. Because in wrestling you train the fans to accept what you want them to accept. Not the other way around. Otherwise you're bad at pro wrestling. NJPW ran angles, had a real mid card, had variety on their shows and was more successful than AJPW for all than like 2 years of its existence. Their fans didn't seem to have a problem with the Great Muta. I think that's probably true to an extent about them catching lightning in a bottle, but I do think it'd probably be fair to call them at least "very good" by 1991. Kawada was already almost a 9 year pro by their 1991 matches. So its not like he was inexperienced. Do you think their 1995 Carnival match isn't on that level? I always thought it was their best match together, but I'm not sure I would anymore. What about the 93 Kobashi vs Kawada matches? I also really liked the 3/93 Misawa vs Kawada match the last time I watched it. That might be my best pre-94 pillar match. But I need to watch that Taue match you referenced and rewatch the Kawada/Kobashi matches to be sure.
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Post by nintendologic on Sept 23, 2019 20:10:29 GMT -5
Keeping this short because I'd rather we all spent time on the Kawada questions I asked. We can split this discussion off into a separate thread if you prefer. Who considers Dandy/Satanico and Dandy/Azteca to be all-time classic matches? Both of those matches would have bombed in Japan, just like 6/3/94 would have bombed in Mexico. In each case, the company dictated the style, but they also had to work within the expectations of the fans they were marketing to. You can't simply presume that the ticket-buying fans in the 90s could have been "trained" to see wrestling the same way as 21st century Internet fans. So was every single Japanese wrestler of the 90s a complete idiot? Virtually all of them ended up crippled or dead. Maybe not, but it wasn't for lack of trying. The very first NOAH main event featured Akiyama choking out Misawa with a guillotine in two minutes. Misawa certainly made plenty of missteps in trying to get fans to accept more creative booking, but a big part of the problem was that the fans weren't willing to buy what he was trying to sell. The fans didn't necessarily look at the matches as legitimate contests, but they did consider the wrestlers themselves to be genuine tough guys. Even if Baba wasn't dishing out potatoes, his size and baseball career gave him visual and athletic credibility. You can get away with more if you have that credibility. In fact, that's probably why Kobashi was so driven. He didn't come in with a high-level sports background, so he had to do more to prove himself. You know what, maybe it's all Kobashi's fault. In the 70s and 80s, sure. But I don't remember too many clearly worked punches by the mid-to-late 90s. Again, you have to take the overall scene into account. The rise of shoot-style raised the bar for stiffness and forced the other promotions to catch up. Wrestlers who tried to work lighter and safer were literally laughed out of the building. Jerry Lawler is probably the greatest of all time at working a safe style, but even he didn't get over at all when he wrestled Fujinami for the IWGP title. You keep using the word "train" as if fans are circus animals that can be conditioned to accept anything. They're human beings with strong preferences and expectations. Maybe they can be "trained" to completely reevaluate their outlook, but that's a hell of a risk to take without a guaranteed payoff. They also were nearly put out of business by Inoki's insanity on multiple occasions. I can't fault Baba for preferring a business model that had lower peaks but more stability. They were certainly very good in 1991, but not GOAT-level. In the early part of the decade, it was an open question whether the Pillars or the Musketeers would end up better. In fact, if you judged them solely on their matches with each other, you'd probably put your money on the Musketeers. The 1991 G1 final in particular blows away any pre-1994 pillar vs. pillar singles match. I remember Kawada/Taue in 1995 being pretty good but hardly blowaway great. It's definitely not in the same galaxy as the Misawa/Taue Carny final. It's been a while since I've seen Misawa/Kawada from the 1993 Carny, and it didn't make much of an impression on me when I did see it. A lot of people seem to be high on it, so I'll try to revisit it. And to be honest, I'm not really all that big on any of the Kawada/Kobashi singles matches.
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Post by elliott on Sept 24, 2019 0:29:34 GMT -5
The thousands of people cheering in the stands during the matches and then many people who have discovered and watched them later.
I brought up the two El Dandy matches as examples of classic wrestling matches that were completely different that took place in the same company during the same year with one guy in both matches to illustrate that it is actually possible for wrestlers to do different things and for fans to comprehend it. Whether or not Dandy vs Azteca would have gotten over in Japan completely misses the point and is a strawman argument. How about this, Jumbo vs Terry Funk 76 and Funks vs Abby & Sheik all took place in the same company, probably in front of many of the same fans.
Of course this also completely misses the point that the matches I'm referencing I wish the 4 pillars did more of in 90s AJPW (Kawada vs Taue from 91) actually took place in AJPW in the 90s between the pillars. I'm not suggesting they should have done stuff like Dandy vs Azteca. I'm suggesting they should have done more stuff like stuff they actually did that we have examples of that I'm talking about.
How long did they try? Because change doesn't happen over night.
Fans popping for Baba's chops in 1993 against Misawa & Kobashi weren't thinking about his baseball career that ended 33 years earlier. They were popping because it was legendary Giant Baba in an important match long past his prime throwing his signature chops at new stars Misawa & Kobashi. THey didn't take a dump on his blatantly phony chops because they are fans of the promotion and are in on it. They know none of this is real and that Baba chopping Kobashi is "fun" because its Baba chopping Kobashi. They're not like "Oh, with Baba's size and the angle of the chop, he really got him even if it looks like crap." Its fun. Its wrestling.
Stiff worked punches are still worked punches. Thinking about the Hansen/Williams matches I watched recently.
Again, you have to take the overall scene into account. The rise of shoot-style raised the bar for stiffness and forced the other promotions to catch up. Wrestlers who tried to work lighter and safer were literally laughed out of the building. Jerry Lawler is probably the greatest of all time at working a safe style, but even he didn't get over at all when he wrestled Fujinami for the IWGP title. That Lawler match sucked because it lacked action above all else and because Lawler wasn't any sort of name in Japan. I'm not sure how much shoot-style "raised the bar" for stiffness. Wrestling was generally pretty hard hitting in Japan in comparison to US stuff. I always think of the influence of shoot-style being more in the clean finishes.
As for safe wrestlers being literally laughed out of the building, can you point to some examples? Didn't Osamu Nishimura make a career out of working a safe old school style in the 2000s? DId people laugh him out of the building? Owen Hart worked extremely light and safe in a promotion directly influenced to work stiffer than ever after shoot style raised the bar and had no trouble getting over. Wasn't Taue generally known as a safe worker? His big finishing bomb spot is really just a simple flat back bump. Oh and hey Taue even did those big Giant Baba inspired blatantly phony chops. Laughed out of the building?
Can't help but notice you've dropped the part about chops.
And again. The matches I was praising initially and said I wish AJPW did more of were the Taue/Kawada matches from 91. They were both stretchered out after one of them. They were stiff matches where they beat the fuck out of each other. You keep asking me to take the overall scene into account. I wish you would do that with this thread because I have no idea what you're arguing at this point and now can't help but ask, did you just bring up Jerry Lawler because you knew I'm a fan of Lawler?
Dude, it is pro-wrestling. Every pro-wrestling fan accepts an irish whip because they are conditioned to accept it. A non-fan takes one look at it and thinks its stupid and blatantly phony.
The most over move in pro-wrestling in the year 2000 was The People's Elbow. This is post ECW, post KOTR 98, etc when fans have been taught to expect wrestlers to push violence and crazy bumps further than ever before. And the most over move in wrestling was the People's Elbow.
Why?
Because it is pro-wrestling.
And also.
For the folks following at home.
In case they've forgotten
More matches like Kawada/Taue 91 are what I'm asking 90s AJPW fans to accept.
Don't think I am?
"I watched the two Kawada vs Taue matches from 1991 and it is such a shame that AJPW got a way from matches like that amongst the pillars. I know what everyone loved was how AJPW was so "pure" and there would always be a clean finish and all that bullshit. But we couldn't get one Misawa vs Kawada match ever where tensions boil over and then they just brawl for 14 minutes with someone getting bloodied?" - Me at the beginning
"I'm not saying if Misawa wrestled in barbed wire cage matches, maybe he'd be alive. Nor am I saying they should have been doing cage and ladder matches. My real point is, given how awesome those Kawada/Taue 91 matches were, its such a shame they went in the direction they did as a company and they no longer had room for a 14 minute blood match where both guys get stretchered out. That sucks!" -Me Later in the Thread
"Again I see no reason they couldn't have both matches like the Kawada/Taue 91 stuff and 6/3/94, other than the company consciously chose not to." -Me in the last Post I made in the thread.
"Of course this also completely misses the point that the matches I'm referencing I wish the 4 pillars did more of in 90s AJPW (Kawada vs Taue from 91) actually took place in AJPW in the 90s between the pillars. I'm not suggesting they should have done stuff like Dandy vs Azteca. I'm suggesting they should have done more stuff like stuff they actually did that we have examples of that I'm talking about." -Me earlier in this very post
Of course the period we're talking about (90s AJPW) saw Choshu with the book in NJPW, Inoki not really involved as much and NJPW was the company putting on the biggest shows in wrestling history, but sure whatever.
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Post by fxnj on Sept 24, 2019 1:12:16 GMT -5
AJPW didn't move away from rugged and disrespectful brawling. You can still find plenty of that sort of stuff sprinkled in matches throughout the decade. For famous singles, you've got the Hansen/Kawada, Hansen/Kobashi, and Kawada/Akiyama series which are filled with that. Some of the Misawa/Kawada matches err towards that as well, especially 6/6/97. Whether or not those matches have blood is largely a matter of aesthetics. Yeah, it would have been cool if Hansen/Kawada had blood or if Kawada busted open Akiyama in one of their tags, but there's also something admirable about how Baba refused to allow his guys to take shortcuts in their work. Kawada/Akiyama at CC 95 seems exactly the kind of match you guys want, in that it's 15 minutes of guys who don't like each other beating the shit out of each other.
Also, the best pillars match pre-1994 is Kawada/Misawa 7/93. People really sleep on that one but it's the perfect prelude to 6/3/94 a hell of an epic in its own right.
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Post by elliott on Sept 24, 2019 5:03:15 GMT -5
Before replying to fxnj, I wanted to mention that tonight I watched the 4 big matches from the 1993 tag league, excluding the final. So I watched: Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Steve Williams & Big Boss Man (JIP) (AJ 11/24/93) Giant Baba & Stan Hansen vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (AJ 11/24/93) Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Stan Hansen & Giant Baba (JIP) (AJ 11/30/93) Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Steve Williams & Big Boss Man (JIP) (AJ 12/1/93) They just happened to be the next matches on the list of stuff I was planning on rewatching. Literally every one of them is excellent. But given this thread I couldn't help but laugh at Big Boss Man being completely over as fuck in front of this crowd, while wearing his Halloween costume gimmick and throwing completely believable worked punches (several of which made the crowd go OHHHH). And it happened in a post shoot style Japan (just weeks/days before the biggest show a shoot style promotion would put on in the 90s) in a company that presented itself as legitimate sport. Maybe Bossman had built in credibility because his size and the reputation of American Police Officers using excessive force. On a serious note, Boss Man was fucking awesome in the 93 Tag League. I love those matches. Moving on to fxnj's post... Each of these are problematic for what I've been asking for. 1. Hansen vs Kawada is 24 minutes. 10 minutes longer than the sort of thing I'm asking for. And it wasn't very good 2. Hansen vs Kobashi is utter perfection and my favorite feud from 90s AJPW by far. But also problematic. The first problem being that even their shortest great matches are a bit longer than what I'm looking for at 14 minutes. The second problem being that the series overall is sort of indicative of the general problem I have been referencing with 90s AJPW. Hansen and Kobashi's last big singles match in 1996 is 26 minutes long and years past the point where Hansen should have been working 25+minute long matches. But by September 1996, AJPW Budokan main events were always 20+ minute events with very few exceptions. Hansen vs Kobashi is actually the perfect example of a series that would have benefited from AJPW doing the sort of thing I'm asking for by the time they had moved away from it. 3. Hansen is sort of a problematic example in general being that he's: a. Not one of the pillars b. He's famous for brawling and had many short bloody famous brawls, including in Japan and including in AJPW so we know he was capable of doing it it just didn't happen in mid-late 90s AJPW because they moved away from doing that sort of thing. c . Hansen is someone who would have been the biggest beneficiary of AJPW doing matches like Kawada/Taue 91 in main events in the mid-late 90s. But they didn't and Hansen became less and less relevant. Obviously age had something to do with that...but that would have been less relevant if AJPW were more open to doing shorter/less over the top main events and there wasn't the pressure to work 25+. So it was really a self fulfilling prophecy. A notable exception is the 98 Tag League Final that went 19minutes. 3. Kawada vs Akiyama is problematic because Akiyama wasn't a peer of Kawada. That 1995 Carny match you reference is Akiyama still as young up and coming wrestler going against the #2 guy in the company. By the time Akiyama was in position to work main events, we were years past Kawada/Taue 91. Literally more the twice the length of Kawada/Taue 91. "I watched the two Kawada vs Taue matches from 1991 and it is such a shame that AJPW got a way from matches like that amongst the pillars. I know what everyone loved was how AJPW was so "pure" and there would always be a clean finish and all that bullshit. But we couldn't get one Misawa vs Kawada match ever where tensions boil over and then they just brawl for 14 minutes with someone getting bloodied?"- Me at the beginning I mean, yeah of course it is largely a matter of aesthetics and sure there is something admirable about Baba pushing his guys to work the way they did, even if it burned out all of his wrestlers. All noted and pointed out earlier. But literally my point for the 1000th time is this "I watched the two Kawada vs Taue matches from 1991 and it is such a shame that AJPW got a way from matches like that amongst the pillars. I know what everyone loved was how AJPW was so "pure" and there would always be a clean finish and all that bullshit. But we couldn't get one Misawa vs Kawada match ever where tensions boil over and then they just brawl for 14 minutes with someone getting bloodied?" - Me at the beginning I even acknowledge people liking how "pure" AJPW was which is clearly a reference to Baba "not allowing his guys to take shortcuts." If this was like 2000 when Akiyama & Kawada were closer to the same level and it went 15 minutes with "tensions boil over and then they just brawl for 14 minutes with someone getting bloodied" then yes, it would be what I'm looking for. But in 1995, Akiyama is much lower on the totem pole than Kawada. Akiyama finished the Carnival directly beneath Furnas & above Kroffat.. Kawada finished tied with Hansen one point below Finalists Misawa & Taue. Great choice. I like both of the Misawa/Kawada matches from 1993 a lot.
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Post by nintendologic on Sept 24, 2019 18:04:33 GMT -5
This discussion is getting a bit more heated than I'm comfortable with, so I think it best to take my leave. No need to disrupt the civility of this board over something as trivial as whether 90s AJPW could have/should have featured more bloody brawls.
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Post by bossrock on Sept 24, 2019 20:24:38 GMT -5
I've been watching more of Kawada's 2000's stuff and being the only pillar not to jump ship to NOAH means he had by far the most interesting post-pillar period. Some 2000's matches of his that I really like (not including the obvious stuff like Tenryu and Hashimoto):
vs. Don Frye (10/26/2003) vs. Katsuyori Shibata (11/3/2004) vs. Kazuyuki Fujita (8/14/2005) vs. D'Lo Brown (7/30/2006) vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (1/4/2007) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi (8/4/2008)
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Post by elliott on Sept 24, 2019 20:30:59 GMT -5
Man, tell me about that match with D'Lo Brown....
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Post by bossrock on Sept 24, 2019 20:46:29 GMT -5
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Post by nintendologic on Sept 24, 2019 22:05:30 GMT -5
What do you think of his match with Foley?
EDIT: I just checked the Foley match out myself, and it's actually pretty good. It's nowhere near either guy's best, but it's probably the best match they could have had with each other given the clash of styles and how banged-up they both were going in. The crowd clearly didn't buy Foley as a serious challenger, which hurt it quite a bit. The kick to the head that ended the match was absolutely disgusting.
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Post by elliott on Sept 24, 2019 23:55:22 GMT -5
I always wanted to watch that Foley match too actually just because I was out of following wrestling when it happened and only heard about it years after the fact. Talk about a totally bizarre match to hear about way later. (I'm still confused about Hustle in its entirety, as I've only ever looked at matchlists and not watched or read anything in depth).
Kawada vs Naoya Ogawa has also been on my watch list forever as far as 2000s Kawada goes.
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Post by microstatistics on Sept 25, 2019 2:40:17 GMT -5
I always wanted to watch that Foley match too actually just because I was out of following wrestling when it happened and only heard about it years after the fact. Talk about a totally bizarre match to hear about way later. (I'm still confused about Hustle in its entirety, as I've only ever looked at matchlists and not watched or read anything in depth). Kawada vs Naoya Ogawa has also been on my watch list forever as far as 2000s Kawada goes. That is one of Kawada's better 2000s matches, IMO and a good number of people are super high on it. I thought it had some redundant segments but it's hard to go wrong with a match that has focused limb work and consistent selling.
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Post by bossrock on Sept 25, 2019 5:17:39 GMT -5
I thought the Foley match was fine for what it was, wasn't super crazy about it. Foley trying to use the barbed wire bat is crazy though.
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Post by nintendologic on Sept 25, 2019 19:17:01 GMT -5
It's worth noting that Foley was a last-minute replacement. He was still recovering from his hardcore match against Randy Orton and could barely walk, but Hustle offered him an absurd amount of money to work for them after Kawada's scheduled opponent injured himself during training and had to pull out (Hustle had the same parent company as Pride, which was also known for throwing money at fighters to put together fights they wanted). That original opponent: Goldberg. Man, what a match that would have been. Either an all-time classic or a total trainwreck.
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Post by bossrock on Sept 25, 2019 20:04:26 GMT -5
That original opponent: Goldberg. Man, what a match that would have been. Either an all-time classic or a total trainwreck. Good God almighty.
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