Jumbo Tsuruta vs Mitsuhara Misawa (AJPW - 9/1/1990)

This clicked with me this time. As great as the story of this is, the thing that got this over with me was noticing just how tense everything feels. This match is the embodiment of big fight feel between how responsive the crowd is to everything and how everything these guys do seems to have some kind of snap behind it. Even though much of the action in the beginning and mid-section isn't the most thrilling stuff when taken in isolation, it works because it all plays out like some sort of mind game or battle for oneupsmanship. Everything Jumbo does is to break Misawa's will, while everything Misawa does is about showing that he's not going to break. Ironically, it's Jumbo who ends up breaking first when he loses his cool and attacks Misawa with a chair. The deal with Jumbo trying to avoid Misawa's elbows while also trying to make Misawa respect his own elbows was a brilliant little subplot that showed itself at various points in the match, up until the final brief elbow exchange where Jumbo gives up and decides to just slap Misawa down. Also, as great as Jumbo's performance is here and as easy as it is to get into it, Misawa also deserves some props for his selling. So badass seeing Misawa already doing his stoic ace selling while Jumbo is having a meltdown. The finish stretch actually kind of lost me for this part, which is probably the sloppiest I've seen in a big 90's AJPW match, but everything around that is pretty undeniably great.