AJPW Excite Series 1997

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AJPW Excite Series 1997 - Day 9 - 01/03/1997

Kenta Kobashi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Jun Akiyama & Kentaro Shiga
I’m glad that I watched this before skipping to the Semi Main Event. Not only did Kobashi and Akiyama have some great exchanges but the addition of the young boys, Yoshinobu Kanemaru and Kentaro Shiga, are a net positive, adding to the match just as much as their seniors did. Kanemaru showed a lot of his signature underhandedness, teasing and antagonising Akiyama like a young brother would to his older brother. Kanemaru stomped on Shiga’s head, looking right at Akiyama before running away to Kobashi’s corner when Akiyama had enough. Another great piece of character work from him was when Akiyama beat him up and threw him to Kobashi to get Kobashi in the ring but he ran back to Akiyama and hit a series of elbows. Shiga was more bland but he showed some fire himself, rolling Kobashi up in the cradle and relentlessly hitting dropkicks to knock Kobashi off his feet. Kobashi and Akiyama do what you’d expect and don’t go to the next level, preferring to let their partners shine, whether it was Shiga vs Kanemaru, Shiga vs Kobashi or Akiyama vs Kanemaru. Quality match, ***1/2

AJPW World Tag Team Title Match: Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada (c) vs. Gary Albright & Yoshihiro Takayama
This is Takayama’s debut in All Japan Pro Wrestling. He clearly only had eyes for Toshiaki Kawada, who he had faced a few months earlier for the UWFI in the Meiji Jingu Stadium event. It would take several months before these two would lock up in a singles match however but this was a great preview. Takayama is a lot more skinny than he would become. He is a bit like a shoot version of Giant Baba in how he looks. The match had its moments. Taue has better exchanges with Takayama than I expected although the more magic moments come with Kawada. Taue’s better moments come with Albright, who just throws him around the ring. Taue does work the mat with Takayama and works more shoot based strike exchanges. This was nothing if not different. The finish was brilliant. It's rare that the Stretch Plum actually wins the match but it did and the crowd jumped up in surprise. ***1/4

Triple Crown Title Match: Mitsuharu Misawa (c) vs. Steve Williams
I thought this was fairly boring. The action was stiff and moved fairly well but this seemed dead outside of the high spots of the match. A lot of Misawa’s Tiger Drivers didn’t get a reaction and a lot of his submission attempts were poor. He applied a very loose front face lock many times. Misawa’s elbows were great but that’s really it. **1/2

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