Alternate Reality Wrestling

Hell yeah.

A few things would be happening differently because its not a direct comparison with Jumbo still around. You're not pushing Taue as strongly. He's protected and pushed, but he's not like making the 1995 Champions Carnival in my scenario. Kobashi would be a heavy favorite over Taue in this scenario by early 94. It is also worth remembering in real life, Akiyama got a pinfall over Kawada in 5/96. So you can definitely do upsets.

More broadly, Kobashi gets moved up faster. He'd have gotten a tag pin over Jumbo in 1994 and singles pin over Jumbo by 1995. He wouldn't be ahead of Jumbo by any means, but capable of beating him in a singles match isn't out of the question.

By 1995 I still want Misawa as my ace. He'd be favored in matches against Jumbo by then. My hierarchy looks something like this:

1. Misawa
2. Jumbo
3a. Kawada
3b. Kobashi
3c. Williams
4 Hansen
5. Taue
6. Akiyama

I'd have Kobashi established above Taue pretty quickly in 1993 to help the imbalance. The 3rd spot on the Misawa/Kobashi team could be utilized as a weak point in storyline settings and various people could be rotated in and tried out. Kikuchi keeps getting killed lets try this Akiyama guy. Yeah he's young and inexperienced, but he's bigger & stronger than Kikuchi. No he keeps getting his ass kicked? Ok, Maybe we need experience instead of youth so maybe we can get Baba to step up for one night. That sort of thing. At least until Akiyama is more established. Kobashi is so charismatic and popular he probably organically moves ahead of Kawada at some point. It happened in real life anyway.

Then with folks like Tenryu coming in in 1995 and bringing some WAR guys and then Takada, Vader & UWFi guys it gets fuzzier. I'd bring Tenryu in and have him pin Jumbo to restablish himself as an AJPW threat. I might make Takada my 1b where he takes the title from Misawa and goes on a long Triple Crown run where he beats everyone as Misawa is "working his way back up from the bottom" and also beating everyone before the big rematch in the Dome where Misawa wins. Vader I'd want to keep strong, but I'd honestly have Kobashi beating him sooner than later. Gaijin meant less by this point and Vader's not really moving the needle as much anyway when I'm bringing in Tenryu & Takada. So I'd use Vader's built up credibility to give Kobashi meaningful wins.

I'd probably make Taue my king of the All Asia tag titles. I love Taue and prefer him to a lot of these other folks. But I'd sacrifice his main event push if it meant healthy Jumbo, returning Tenryu and invading Takada. Taue vs Akiyama would be a great mid-card rivalry because with Jumbo, Tenryu, Takada & Vader in the picture, those guys aren't getting pushed to the same level (Taue) or as quickly (Akiyama).

Anyway, 3rd spot on Misawa/Kobashi team for house show 6 mans is less of a problem. The real problem is where do I put all the money we made.

Ric Flair appearing at Triplemania reminded me of an interesting what-if scenario. In 1983, EMLL wanted to bring Flair in and have an NWA title match on the anniversary show. That raises all sorts of interesting questions, like how well Flair would have meshed with lucha title match style and whether it could have led to greater cross-pollination between American and Mexican wrestling. The deal fell through when Harley Race, who EMLL had no interest in, won the title to set up Flair regaining it at the first Starrcade.

He'd just force them into the same generic Flair Opponent X formula and it'd be all back drops and gorilla presses. He couldn't figure out how to work with Sgt Slaughter but he's gonna work with Villano III and Atlantis? I wouldn't get my hopes up. 

Can any of them do the evil laugh as well as DiBiase? That's the key piece of the puzzle right there.