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Post by elliott on Dec 18, 2017 21:39:45 GMT -5
Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue vs Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW - 9/30/1990)
The first tag match between these two teams and they have a fantastic match. This is a 45 minute draw that is worked at a fast pace with a ton of heat. I'm not sure what to say about matches from this feud. They're all great. Everybody knows it.
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Post by jetlag on Jan 8, 2018 11:30:18 GMT -5
2nd this. Not sure where this ranks among the lithany of AJPW super duper ultra classics, but it's just a really well worked long match with a good story and BLOOD.
Full review:
This was a little hesitant in parts, but when it got going it got going good. Misawa and Kawada are assholes to Taue, working over his bloody face and slapping him around, and the crowd gets behind him big time. Speaking of Kawada, he is now in the black and yellow and as asskicking as you all know him including sumo palm striking Taue in the face. Jumbo dishes out some big punishment as if to confirm his regained confidence from beating Misawa, and they keep the action really high until the very end. I actually felt they threw out a little too many moves with not quite enough urgency especially Jumbo. I mean, common, old man, this match has been going for 40 minutes, surely you can attempt a backdrop driver now and not a neckbreaker? But to hell with it. They have the crowd by the balls and they go nuts for some of Misawa's reversals. You could tell they were booked to go long, but they delivered a hot match and this was a great way to keep people guessing in the feud.
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Post by childs on Jan 9, 2018 14:13:31 GMT -5
Probably my favorite match from the first great tag feud of '90s All-Japan. The rivalry between Jumbo and Misawa was white hot, and they kept a hot crowd on the hook for the full 45 minutes. This might end up on the next 100 pile for me, because there are just so many choices. But it should be in the mix.
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Post by bossrock on Feb 17, 2019 14:51:49 GMT -5
Tremendous tag match and easily the best between the two teams (even besting Misawa's submission over Jumbo). Jumbo and Taue surprisingly work underneath for a good portion of this leading to a terrific "face in peril" performance by Taue. Misawa and Kawada meanwhile are absolute dynamos on offense.
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Post by KB8 on Feb 21, 2020 10:12:44 GMT -5
To nobody's surprise this was not a bad wrestling match. It had lots of really good stuff and some that was great. It's just that, at this point in my life as a wrestling fan, 45 minutes of a style I don't love like I once did was always going to be a bit of a bumpy ride. But it's these four so, you know. I thought Misawa was excellent in this. He was more assured here than in either of the Jumbo singles matches and best of all he was SURLY. Maybe it was because of Jumbo's general presence, maybe he was still pissed at Taue jumping ship, but either way he was about as grumpy as I can remember seeing him. Even in that very first exchange with Jumbo he looked like a man who was there to claim his rightful spot in the pecking order, and he carried that attitude with him the rest of the way. I'm not sure Kawada was all that great yet but he was certainly starting to look more like the Kawada we became accustomed to, at least in that he'd dropped the spinning wheel kicks and quasi-juniors offence for the short kicks and knees to the face. Taue really took a shit-kicking and I thought the strongest section of the match by a mile was his extended heat segment. Him and Kawada hated each other to death around this point and Kawada kicked him in the head many times, but Misawa was downright Tenryuish in how he'd just stomp his skull into the canvas. Taue getting opened up and it leading to some working of the cut naturally appealed to the vampire in me as well. That the proper heat segment came later, after they teased it early on when Taue started bleeding to begin with, is one of those cool bits of foreshadowing 90s All Japan did so well. I also thought the match hit a wall after Taue finally tagged out, which came at about half an hour in. It's not that it went off a cliff or anything, but it felt like they started to run out of ideas down the stretch. Even if I don't have much interest in going back to those '95 tags that went an hour or even the Kobashi/Kawada broadways, they had their formula down by then and the pacing and transitions were much sharper. Still, this was the first time anybody had gone this long in years so it's hard to be too critical. I suppose overall it held up pretty well. I think I'd need to watch 90s All Japan in small doses nowadays, but this did give me an itch to open that book again.
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Post by puropotsy on Mar 2, 2023 20:03:23 GMT -5
As a fan of Taue I am so happy to see him stand out in these 1990 matches. He was great on offense and defense here. He looked like such a wounded warrior when Taue beat him to the back area and Taue helped him to the ring. But he kept fighting back. His tope was amazing and I always love when he does the tsuppari slaps. His interplay with Kawada was a blast. Tsuruta threw some great dropkicks here as well and had great interaction with Misawa. A great match as expected.
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