Wrasslin’ Roundtable: All Japan New Year’s Giant Series 1997

TL: Tim Livingston
MC: Mike Campbell

TL: Welcome to the second Roundtable that Mike and I have done, with our last one being the 9/6/03 All Japan PPV. Boy, was that one a disappointment.

MC: Nine months later, and we’ve tried it again after the reviewing success and formatting failure that was Roundtable #1.

TL: When you get more feedback saying that the review looked horrible because of the formatting than for the actual review itself, you’ve got problems. Hopefully, this will be a much better attempt at such a feat. This time around, we take on the 1997 New Year’s Giant Series commercial tape from All Japan, a tape that features the big matches from that month’s tour. One of the matches just happens to be one of the greatest matches of the 90s.

MC: First thing is first though, and you have to understand what was going on in All Japan at the time, because in January 1997, AJPW was pretty interesting. You had Kawada and Taue ending 1996 by winning the Real World Tag League and earning a shot at the World Tag Titles, Kawada winning his team the match by pinning Misawa. Kenta Kobashi had broken away from Misawa and went on his own, and he won the freakin’ Triple Crown.

TL: That’s good enough for now. Now for the review.

1/17-AJPW World Tag Team Titles-Johnny Ace and Steve Williams (c) vs. Toshiaki Kawada and Akira Taue

TL: The champs upset Misawa and Akiyama in September to win the belts and defend them against one of the most celebrated tag teams in AJPW history. No real build up here; the challengers get the title shot via their win in the RWTL the previous month.

MC: The big story here is one that has been following the champions for as long as they’ve been teaming up. Simply, Johnny Ace can’t step up and prove that he can hold his own. Early on in the match Williams hurts his shoulder, and Kawada and Taue, being Kawada and Taue, kick the hell out of it. They replace their head kicks with shoulder kicks. Ace has to pick up the slack and he can’t even dream of being able to survive.

TL: Williams ain’t Misawa and Ace is certainly not Akiyama so they can’t pull that “#2 needs to survive so the team survives” story as well as they’d like. Williams goes totally overboard with the shoulder selling though (watch him pull a Rodman and kick at a cameraman) and does all the work for his team about as well as he can. If the roles were reversed, this would be so much better because I buy Williams over Ace as a hot tag man every time. However, since they were going for the story they had going, the work suffered as a result. Watch Ace flub a pumphandle, and then watch him try a chain sequence into a lariat that looks God-awful two minutes later. He certainly wasn’t at the level he was 7 months earlier against the team they eventually took the belts from.

MC: Williams has to tag himself back in, just to even have a prayer. But when he gets back in, Williams goes off the wall. He’s running, screaming, and swearing like a madman. It looks like he’s not selling the shoulder, but he’s very subtle in his selling of it. The poor victim turns out to be All Japan’s resident victim, Kawada.

TL: Kawada is Kawada and when Taue is ready to go, he can go. The exchanges between him and Williams are great. Taue cleans Williams’ clock with an enzuigiri that was just supposed to be a transition move. Kawada actually has to stop himself. Williams then cleans Taue’s clock with a shot on the apron, and then Kawada kicks him off the apron and that’s when he hurts the shoulder. Williams’ run at the end with Kawada is to get some payback from his injured shoulder, and they do a good job of making things happen in the end, but that’s about the best one can find in the finishing sequence.

MC: Kawada is Kawada, but Taue is also Taue. Taue’s whole career has been him being different. Misawa and Kobashi liked to take to the air, but Taue just kicked them in the face. Kawada liked to use his face kicks to set up bigger moves like the Stretch Plum, Dangerous Backdrop, and High Angle Powerbomb. Taue stuck with the simple Nodowa. When Taue sees Kawada is down and looking out. He simply walks in, takes care of Williams and Ace, and then drags Kawada to the corner and tags himself in. Forget the “hot tag”, its the “Taue tag”. With Taue being legal in the ring, he just obliterates Johnny Ace with the Dynamic Kick and a series of Nodowa Otoshi’s. Kawada is able to pull himself to his feet in time to level Williams in the head. But the win was due to a combo of Ace’s inability to step up, and Taue’s ability to just take control when he needs to. ***3/4

TL: Taue is the #2, but unlike Ace, he knows how to step up and take over a match. With Kawada in trouble, he was able to do that. Killing off Ace was only the exclamation point. If Ace had been able to do what he did in June, this match would have been better off; however, this can only be described as a good match and somewhat of a weak title switch in my opinion. ***1/4

MC: I thought it was a really good match, but didn’t have that little extra to push it into the **** territory. Ace’s problems helped tell the story, which made it even more favorable with me.

1/20-Triple Crown-Kenta Kobashi (c) vs. Mitsuharu Misawa

TL: After Kobashi’s split with Misawa, Kobashi actually found singles success, defeating Akira Taue to win the Triple Crown. He even avenged one of his most historic adversaries in Stan Hansen (albeit Stan was WAY past his prime in 1996) but couldn’t get a win against Kawada, having yet another 60-minute draw with his rival. Now, facing the man who took him under his wing and led him to glory, Kobashi has his biggest singles match in his career ahead of him.

MC: Kobashi’s title reign was due to politics though, not that it was undeserved. But with Kawada being in the Baba doghouse, the fans tiring of Misawa’s reign, and although probably the best out of all four of them Taue, winding up with the title. Taue’s reign just screamed transitional.

TL: The first few minutes set the tone; Misawa starts fast with the tope suicida and starts working Kobashi over, but then Kobashi gets an opening and starts working over the midsection for the Celestial Moonsault. Misawa comes back and does his suicida feint, but the diving elbow hits guardrail, and then the fun begins.

MC: “The fun” that Tim is refering to is Kobashi laying a beating on Misawa’s arm so bad, that he was probably screaming at the referee to amputate it, then and there. The key to Kobashi’s arm work is that it shows that sometimes, less, really is more. He doesn’t do much else than the old armbreaker by dropping it over the shoulder, but Misawa sells it like death. It makes perfect sense to do, since it takes away the elbow, Misawa’s prime weapon of choice. At one point Misawa even hits an elbow, and grabs his arm in agony, which Kobashi doesn’t even sell. Kobashi even shows how smart a worker he is, by using Misawa’s distraction to hit the half nelson suplex, and when the staple of Misawa, no selling the big German and hitting a running elbow, Kobashi counters that into a Fujiwara armbar. Kobashi came with a clear game plan, and he’s making “the man” look like his third successful title defense. Misawa’s arm take such a clubberin’ that when he hits the Tiger driver, he can’t even hold the pin.

TL: Poor Misawa. He’s getting his ass whooped…and then BAM! We see how resilient he is. Kobashi tries a lariat, but Misawa blocks it, bad arm and all. Suddenly, it’s KOBASHI rolling around on the mat holding his right arm, which is one of his main weapons. From there, it’s Kobashi using what he can to hold him down. The Orange Crush doesn’t get it done, and Misawa blocks another lariat, but Kobashi’s biggest mistake is going for the big bomb in the powerbomb off the apron, which Misawa counters into a hurracanrana. From there, Kobashi doesn’t really recover.

MC: The match downgrades to the big bombs getting thrown out, but it makes sense when they do it here, because they’ve both done some very smart work to wear down each other, contrast with their Triple Crown match from October of 1995, or their GHC match from March of 2003, when the bombs were just going out for the hell of it. Kenta Kobashi, king of the fighting spirit, sucks up everything thrown at him, and when Misawa fires off the Tiger Driver ’91 that won it for him in October of 1995, Kobashi kicks out. Then Misawa tries Tiger Suplex ’85, which put Kobashi away during the 1995 Champions Carnival. Kobashi used every ounce of energy he had to survive though. Misawa’s arm is sore, but he’s been able to rest it a little while, so when he fires off the running elbow, its not a big offensive no selling slap in the face, to the work on the arm before. Kobashi did his best, and showed how much he wanted to keep the gold, but Misawa wanted it back, more than Kobashi wanted to keep it. ***** Best match they ever had.

TL: The ultimate meshing of the King’s Road style with the dangerous moves that became the norm throughout the late 90s in All Japan, using great limb work, selling, and context with the moves used to put on a performance for the ages. Both men sold their asses off and the atmosphere was simply amazing. The crowning achievement in their feud and the last masterpiece from All Japan. *****

1/2-Hiroshi Hase vs. Kentaro Shiga

MC: Hiroshi Hase makes his All Japan debut, after leaving New Japan in early 1996, supposedly for his political career. I don’t think that Baba could have picked a better person for Hase to debut against. Shiga’s judo experience makes him very adept on the mat, so he can potentialy give Hase a run for his money, and at the same time, he’s got that rookie mentality that just screams out that he’s going to be just another victim of Hiroshi Hase.

TL: Shiga, personalized whipping boy of All Japan, takes an ass whooping at the hands of Hase…and if there’s anything I like, it’s Shiga getting his butt whooped. It’s just fun to watch. I loved him in the 95 Carnival. Hase gets all dickish, too; he eggs Shiga to come get some, and Shiga stands up and tries to stand toe to toe and actually gets an advantage for about two seconds before the GIANT SWING OF DOOM. Shiga matches at this time in his career are always fun.

MC: Onto the mat they go, and Hase just puts on a clinic of “how to separate a leg”. The moves aren’t just a painful and cool looking way to work a leg, they also give Shiga openings to try to escape, and play the underdog that a stick boy like Shiga, will always play. They start trading the bitch slaps and while Shiga is getting slapped into oblivion, Hase barely feels anything, so Shiga comes back with a big springboard dropkick knocking Hase on his ass, getting the crowd behind him, and showing Hase, that he can’t just disrespect him like that.

TL: Well…that is until Hase just no-sells it and gets the THIRTY-COUNT GIANT SWING. That’s all I have to say. *

MC: Shiga is dead after that, one Northern Lights suplex later, and goodnight Shiga. It was fun to watch Hase do his thing, and fun to rally behind Shiga. **

1/20-Akira Taue vs. Jun Akiyama

MC: Jun Akiyama spent the last half of 1996 as Misawa’s tag team partner and while attempting to survive the onslaught of whoever they happened to be facing, Akiyama only survived thanks to Misawa always saving him. Tonight though, he’s on his own, against a former Triple Crown champion, former and current half of the World Tag Titles, and an all around brutal wrestler, who will have no problem with just laying down a beating.

TL: This almost looks like the opening to what would normally be a semi-main-main event caliber match with such a quick start, but then Taue starts the race for the Nodowa off the apron and suddenly it turns into Taue trying to dispose of the upstart as soon as he can. Akiyama basically just tries to avoid all of Taue’s big offensive moves when he can.

MC: Its just Akiyama doing what he can to survive, because he knows Misawa isn’t ten feet away and ready, willing, and able to throw an elbow and leave Taue on the mat. If he’s going to win, he’s going to earn it. If he loses, he’s not going down without a fight.
TL: The flash pin off the jumping knee and the exploder is exactly that: a lucky pin. However, as the old adage goes, “A win is a win.” It’s Akiyama’s biggest singles win to that point in his career. *1/2

MC: Total shock here, just to help hammer home that Jun Akiyama is ready to play with the big boys in All Japan. It was first shown during the 1996 Real World Tag League final, the month before, but now it’s undisputed, as he just pinned a former Triple Crown champion. No rating for its insane shortness.

Closing thoughts:

MC: Definitely pick up this All Japan commerical release. You get a really good Tag Titles match, and a freaking classic Triple Crown match. The fun Shiga vs Hase and non offensive Akiyama vs Taue, are just icing on the cake. Misawa vs Kobashi is THE Misawa vs Kobashi match to go for. Not the head drop marathons, with little to no selling, or wacked out “psychology”. This has the selling, simple psychology, and the great storytelling.

TL: For an All Japan release, this is definitely a one-match tape. Nobody buys it for any other reason than the Misawa/Kobashi masterpiece. That alone warrants this as a big time tape to get. The rest is good, but there isn’t anything else that would jump out at the buyer. The Akiyama win is definitely a shock, and I thought the tag title defense could have been better, although it is good, but if you’ve never seen the Misawa/Kobashi masterpiece, pick this up.