Boozehound Watches Something Random #9

Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi v Toshiaki Kawada & Masa Fuchi (All Japan, 1/7/94)

Kind of "low key" if you're comparing this to other All Japan tags of the era, in that it's missing the big finishing run and doesn't really escalate the way lots of Misawa v Kawada tags do, but for "low key," this was pretty great. Kobashi eats a nasty backdrop (right on his neck) early on and has to basically lie on the floor for the next ten minutes trying to recover, so from there Kawada and Fuchi focus entirely on Misawa. Kobashi will manage to climb back up onto the apron from time to time, but then Fuchi or Kawada will kick him in the face and he'll be back on the floor again. When he eventually does manage to get back into it, he's still groggy and can't really string anything together, so before long he's being worked over inside the ring. Still, Misawa is Misawa, and you know it's only going to be a matter of time before he puts a stop to an opponent's momentum. Great bit where he decides he's had enough of Kawada's shit and just boots him in the knee (which is even better if you know the history of Kawada's knee injuries). Kobashi hangs tough down the stretch and even gets the win for his team, but you get the sense the heat for the nearfalls on him would've been better if anybody actually bought Fuchi being able to pin him at this point. Match kind of feels like an appetiser for what's to come in the rest of the year, but it's a good appetiser.