Matches
- Super Generation Army (Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi) vs. Holy Demon Army (Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue) 09/06/1995
- Misawa, Kobashi & Asako vs. Kawada, Taue & Honda 10/6/1995
- Holy Demon Army (Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue) vs. Can-Am Express (Danny Kroffat & Doug Furnas) 20/7/1995
- Kenta Kobashi vs. Akira Taue 24/7/1995
- Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada 24/7/1995
- Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Akira Taue 9/10/1995
- Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue 15/10/1995
Rambling
I got into puroresu very recently, binge-watching Stan Hansen matches on youtube (I think it was summer of 22?). His terrifying presence captivated me and I soon started watching matches involving native Japanese talent like Kawada, Kobashi etc etc. The match that made the final click and made me love puroresu was Kenta Kobashi vs. Jun Akiyama 24/7/98 (or was it Kobashi v Akiyama 6/8/2000?), I was blown away by the stiff strikes, the sick bumps and how realistic and sports-like it all looked. While I did watch modern NJPW in 2015-2016 for a few months, it didn't seem all that different from WWE at the time and it didn't leave me particularly excited. Soon after this I found out that 90s AJPW is considered to be the best pro wrestling product of any company PERIOD. I wanted more.
I knew I wanted to watch more AJPW, but where to start from? Following any sort of storyline was nearly impossible, matches on youtube didn't have any chronological order and I didn't know the usefulness of cagematch.net back then. After some searching I found exactly what I was looking for, Joseph Montecillo's video series on King's Road. That at least provided me with some stable ground that I could work off from and is the inspiration for this blog! The need to watch matches chronologically then made me remember theditch's AJPW and NOAH archive, where I get almost all my matches from. I can not thank those two both enough, without them, I wouldn't have been able to enjoy puroresu the way I do now, and this blog wouldn't exist!
So what's all this fuss about? Why is AJPW so great and why do I like it so much? I think the main points are as follows:
- Wrestling is treated like a legitimate sport.
- This does not mean that I do not like comedy in my wrestling or that I want it to be "old-school rasslin" or whatever. I just want the wrestling product to be presented legitimately as a sport. I can't easily explain this into words, it's more of a "if you know you know" type of feeling. Just to make this more clear, I've only managed to find this feeling in 80s territory wrestling, too bad that product has aged terribly and every match I've seen is basically an absolute snoozefest.
- Wrestlers never drop their selling.
- Seriously, most modern wrestling I find unwatchable due to constant no-selling. I understand that matches now are more of a showcase of athleticism with an overarching story, but I strongly prefer matches feeling like real fights. Someone works the leg? Their opponent WILL spend the rest of the match selling that leg. Someone throws a desperation shot to get their opponent off their back? It's only a matter of time before they go down on their own, they didn't just forget getting beat down. This makes the offense being dealt out feel a lot more significant and impactful and I get invested more easily in the way a match evolves.
- Regaining control requires chaining multiple moves together.
- More often than not, it is not enough to regain control of the match using a singular move. An array of attacks needs to land. This makes the wrestlers look tougher, heightens the drama of the match (will they make it? won't they?) and makes transitions of control all the more satisfying.
- Stiff and spectacular in ring work
- I just love a stiff kick straight to the face, a high-angle neck-crunching Backdrop, or a Lariat that looks like it could decapitate someone. 90s AJPW has all that and more.
Wrestlers
