Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada: The Complete Story

This is all four parts of the legendary rivalry between Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada, from the start of their careers all the way to the end. Covering all the famous matches from the greatest feud in AJPW’s history and plenty more besides. Enjoy!

For extensive further info, please check out KinchStalker’s exceptional translation of the 2019 Four Pillars Biography on PWO: https://forums.prowrestlingonly.com/forum/1539-2019-four-pillars-bio/

Hi5ame’s translation of “The Testament of Misawa” from 2019: http://puroprogramtranslations.blogspot.com/2019/06/noah-testament-of-misawa-letter-to.html

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0:00 PART 1: The Super Generation Army and Jumbo Tsuruta, 1981-1992
47:59 PART 2: From The First Match to the Greatest, 10/21/92 – 06/03/94
1:44:34 PART 3: The Hunt Continues, 1995-1998
2:53:48 PART 4: The Breakup to the Final Battle, 1998-2005

#wrestling #puroresu #ajpw #wrestlinghistory

On June 8th, 1990, a young wrestler entered  the main arena of the Nippon Budokan with an   entire crowd roaring him on. Something that’s not  necessarily out of the ordinary, perhaps — in   the world of Pro Wrestling, you should kind of  expect that…but something was a little different  

On this night. The crowd had *that* much more  energy when cheering on this man, there was the   undefinable spark, the plainer measurement coming  in the money that had been taken on that night for   this particular wrestler’s merch. Only a couple of  weeks previously, the man had essentially declared  

Himself reborn — he threw off the trappings of  another identity into that crowd, and immediately   challenged the very biggest ace the company  had to offer to a match, and that match is   happening right now. It’s not a match anyone would  necessarily expect him to win, but everyone in the  

Crowd has a little bit of hope that he will.  And other people have taken notice of that. The man in question is, of course, Mitsuharu  Misawa — and this is his match against the man  

Who has been the ace of All Japan for well over  a decade, Jumbo Tsuruta. It’s not the first time   they’ve met, as such — they faced and teamed with  each other several times when Misawa was wrestling   as Tiger Mask — but everything about this time  feels so different. Jumbo, already regarded by  

This point as one of the greatest to ever lace  up a pair of boots, feels that whole new edge,   something far removed from the rookie who first  appeared in 1982, who then went to Mexico and  

Returned under that famous mask. And as the match  goes on, it all builds and builds — the crowd   only get further and further behind the younger  star, believing more and more that perhaps he   could pull this off, even if they’re also waiting  for inevitability — for Jumbo to roar back,  

Hit that high knee, pump that fist, deliver a  final, fatal backdrop. Before that point though,   Misawa has been delivering a fight for the  ages, taking everything and the kitchen sink   to Jumbo Tsuruta. It’s a phenomenal match,  and the atmosphere in the arena is one that  

The TV perhaps struggles to catch. Even if  Misawa loses, it’s a star-making performance. There is one particular moment however,  right near the end, which truly makes   the fans embrace the unbelievable — when  Jumbo seemingly readies for that comeback,  

Runs at Misawa to crush him as he’s done so many  others…only to be reversed, to be sent flying,   and to absolutely be mangled on the ropes, to  be thoroughly discombobulated and wrecked. The   screams and roars of Misawa get  THAT much louder. Seconds later,  

Misawa reverses a suplex and goes for a  backdrop — Jumbo desperately twists over   for a pin, but then…Misawa reverses the  position, and the referee counts. One, two,   three. It’s happened. Mitsuharu Misawa  has pinned Jumbo Tsuruta, and the crowd  

Becomes absolutely unglued — one of the biggest  reactions the Nippon Budokan has ever seen. This   is no longer just the making of a star — this  is the making of an ace, a man who is going to  

Define a promotion for the next decade. In many  ways, this is the night where our story begins. …And yet, not in every way. This is the  story of Misawa, of course — but it is also   the story of Toshiaki Kawada. In many ways,  it’s the story of this company as a whole in  

The 1990’s — by general consensus, the top  two stars in All Japan Pro Wrestling, Misawa   and Kawada would not just define the company  and the quality of their product in the ring,   they would define each other’s lives. They’d  known each other since they were teenagers,  

Had gone to the same high school, had both  achieved success in amateur wrestling,   and had both made the decision to go to All Japan  — with Misawa being the year ahead of Kawada,   Kawada had gone to the All Japan dojo after  taking Misawa’s own advice. Over the years they  

Would team together, they’d win trophies together,  belts together…they’d fight to establish the new   Generation against the establishment who didn’t  want to leave. But when they reached the top,   the friendship didn’t hold — they became bitter  rivals, not just inside the ring but outside of  

It too. Heated arguments and even occasional  fisticuffs in the back, however, would see   that heat taken over to the ring, and bring their  work up to even greater stratospheres. In the end,   even when they were apart, they were also  together — you simply can’t think of one  

Without the other, and their legacy, in the end,  is the greatest feud pro wrestling as a whole has   ever seen. This is the story of Mitsuharu Misawa  and Toshiaki Kawada. It’s naturally going to take   more than one video to get through it, so this  video starts with their background, and largely  

With the years when they were coming of age and  breaking into the main event. So, let’s begin.   Misawa and Kawada both attended Ashikaga-kodai  High School in the late ‘70s, and even though   Misawa was a year ahead of Kawada, both would find  themselves bonding – they had a fair amount in  

Common, particularly as both became members of the  school’s amateur wrestling club — as it happened,   the pair were pretty good at it, both winning  the Shiga National Athletic Meet for high school   wrestlers, one year after the other. Misawa  in particular was considered good enough to  

Potentially become an Olympian if he’d stuck  with amateur wrestling, while Kawada defeated   one Keiichi Yamada in his final, who would also  go on to become a wrestler — he’s better known   as Jushin “Thunder” Lyger. Outside of an early  love of puroresu and a general interest in sports,  

Kawada and Misawa is in many ways a good  example of the high school “sempai” system,   with Misawa very much being Kawada’s sempai  due to being a year ahead, and some would   argue that this served as an overarching  theme for their entire careers to come.

Another thing the pair had in common was wanting  to get out of the educational system as soon   as possible in order to become pro wrestlers,  although both in the end were convinced to finish   their studies. Mitsuharu Misawa had precious  little in the way of a homelife and came from  

A broken family with an abusive father, with  Puroresu — specifically All Japan — as one of   his few comforts. He wanted to enter the AJPW dojo  as soon as possible and reached out personally to   Jumbo Tsuruta himself in order to become accepted  into the dojo, but Tsuruta said that he had  

Finished his studies before entering All Japan —  and convinced Misawa to do the same. For Kawada,   the decision to finish his studies proved pivotal  — he did go to a dojo and he was actually   accepted…but it was the New Japan dojo. Kawada  had his own troubles in childhood, having lost his  

Father at a very young age – as with Misawa, he  would find a great deal of comfort in being a fan   of pro wrestling. However, he was more of a fan  of New Japan growing up and wanted to train there,  

But his mother convinced him to finish his studies  first and New Japan agreed to defer his entry for   a year. In the year that followed, Misawa — then  a part of All Japan’s dojo — convinced Toshiaki   Kawada that All Japan had a more familial  atmosphere and would be a better place for  

Him to train, and so Kawada eventually joined  Misawa in the All Japan dojo. So…yeah — if   Kawada’s mother doesn’t convince him of the  benefits of actually finishing his education,   there’s a big chance that nothing of what  we’re going to talk about ever happens.

Both men would have varying experiences in the  All Japan dojo — Misawa was certainly considered   a pretty hot prospect from the beginning, having  only been in the dojo a few months before making   his in-ring debut…Misawa was primarily trained  by Kazuharu Sonoda and Akihisa Mera — the  

Magic Dragon and Great Kabuki — with other  contributions coming from legends. Giant Baba   himself, Dick Beyer — the original Destroyer —  and even Lou Thesz himself contributed to Misawa’s   training. The main thing Misawa did have to  overcome, at first, was a rather visceral  

Reaction to being involved in the fighting —  he did at times get quite emotional in the dojo,   reminded of his childhood. Kawada, meanwhile,  primarily trained by Genichiro Tenryu,   wasn’t considered as much of a prospect at first,  having to really struggle initially to get noticed  

Compared to Misawa – although it certainly helped  that Misawa had a year on him. In any case, both   wrestlers soon made their full debuts for the  promotion — Misawa in 1981, Kawada in 1982.   There is record of them wrestling each other back  in these rookie days, although sadly nothing that  

Exists on video. The crowds did take a little bit  of interest in these guys early on, particularly   in Misawa, in the sense that they were waiting  to see what was to come. Eventually Misawa   had his first televised match in the Lou  Thesz cup for AJPW’s young rookies in 1983,  

Losing in the final against another hot  prospect trainee — Shiro Koshinaka. However,   the match itself was so impressive that Baba  gave both Misawa and Koshinaka the tournament’s   prize — that being a foreign excursion to  EMLL, in Mexico. Kawada would also, again  

Around about a year later, go on his own foreign  excursion — his would be to North America. The foreign excursion is very often  something that a young wrestler,   especially if they’re a hot prospect, will have to  do — the wrestler must go and hone their craft,  

Become familiar with other styles,  become well-rounded…and perhaps,   experience some bullshit. Just because a wrestler  is an incredibly hot prospect, doesn’t necessarily   mean they’re going to get top treatment — Misawa  and Koshinaka certainly had a tough time in CMLL,   wrestling as Kamikaze Misawa and Samurai Shiro  respectively, although Misawa was definitely  

Grateful for further tutelage from one of the  company’s most talented luchadors, La Fiera,   which would certainly put him in very good stead  for what was to come. As for Kawada…well,   his foreign excursion was a bloody misery. He  first went over to Texas All-Star Wrestling and  

From there over the Northern border to Stu  Hart’s Stampede Wrestling and finally Brian   Valos’s International Wrestling in Montreal. The  Stampede work is perhaps most famous, although   when he was there he either wrestled as the  masked heel Black Mephisto, or as “Koi” Kawada,  

Billed from South Korea despite having no Korean  heritage. One historical curio from this time is   a match from Stampede, as Mephisto, wrestling  against a young guy by the name of Chris Benoit   with the commentators basically taking the piss  throughout…but yeah. By all accounts Toshiaki  

Kawada utterly hated his time in North America,  and he’s not spoken about it all that much — his   excursion lasted way longer than Misawa’s,  ultimately adding up to nearly 2 years, and   during that time he only really made a couple of  friends — most notably Rick Martel in Montreal.  

Some even say that his time in North America may  have contributed to a reluctance to ever wrestle   outside of Japan again, and possibly even to  a distrust of foreign wrestlers in general. Eventually, both would be back in Japan — indeed,  Misawa would be back a great deal sooner than he  

Expected. All Japan bought the likeness rights for  the Tiger Mask manga character — originally and   most famously played previously by Satoru Sayama  in New Japan — from the character’s creator Ikki   Kajiwara, and Baba decided to bring Misawa back  to become Tiger Mask, even though he was only a  

Few months into his year-long excursion – Kawada,  who was a much more high-flying style of wrestler   at the time, was also briefly considered  for the role. One outcome of this was that   Shiro Koshinaka, the winner of the Lou Thesz  tournament and traditionally the only one who  

Would have received the prized excursion, ended  up becoming an afterthought and was left in EMLL   for too long — pissed off by this, Koshinaka  jumped to New Japan in 1985, and he’d be pretty   successful there. Anyway — Misawa made his All  Japan debut as Tiger Mask — usually known as  

Tiger Mask II to differentiate him from the others  who’ve played the character — on July 31st 1984,   wrestling against the man who’d mentored him in  Mexico — La Fiera. This excellent match is many   people’s first encounter with Misawa — indeed,  after he died the packages of matches that were  

Shown in tribute started with this match,  as opposed to the earlier televised debut   against Koshinaka. It is indeed a very good  match — one of the best Misawa had under the   mask — with a lot of the high-flying moves he’d  been taught taking a well-deserved spotlight,  

Although the highlight of the match really is  watching La Fiera, a truly magnificent luchador,   at work. Definitely worth checking  out this match if you haven’t seen it. However, for the most part Misawa hated his  time as Tiger Mask — as good as he was,  

Being Tiger Mask wasn’t really what he wanted,  and he never felt as though he was able to embody   the character quite like Satoru Sayama had done,  that it wasn’t quite fully his style — that and   he hated wrestling in a mask. Considering how  varied Misawa was in his skills as a wrestler,  

It’s perhaps understandable that he felt  as though the character and style that was   expected of Tiger Mask was a restriction on his  in-ring expression, and he wasn’t the only one   to have the same issues — the next man to play  Tiger Mask after him, Koji Kanemoto in New Japan,  

Had similar troubles connecting with the  character. It would take until 1995 and   the arrival of Yoshihiro Yamazaki — a trainee  of Sayama’s — to the character for someone to   really fully solidify themselves as Tiger Mask  again, so much so that Yamazaki is still Tiger  

Mask to this very day. Still, for all of Misawa’s  discomforts with the character, he still played   the role of Tiger Mask for six years — way longer  than the two years Sayama originally played him  

For — and he did a LOT of very good work in  that time, which we’ll be getting into shortly. After Kawada returned from his awful time abroad  in 1986, he soon found himself paired up with his   mentor Genichiro Tenryu — he’d be part of the  Revolution stable and, most famously early on,  

He teamed with Samson Fuyuki — later  Hiromichi or Kodo Fuyuki in FMW — in   the quite popular sprightly young team of  Footloose. I guess you could call Footloose,   being that it’s a duo of sprightly young and  attractive-looking men — this was before Kawada  

Lost his front teeth — a Japanese version of the  Rock ‘n’ Roll Express or the Midnight Rockers,   and it’s kinda apt that Kawada and Fuyuki actually  started teaming in America, when the pair were   on foreign excursion. Footloose got their start  in Texas, were originally managed by Gary Hart,  

Called the “Japanese Force”, and wrestled against  other young, similar teams — including one   consisting of Paul Diamond and a certain Shawn  Michaels. But it was back in Japan where they’d   really shine, capturing the All-Asia Tag Team  Championship three times over the rest of the  

1980’s. The Footloose years certainly show a very  different side to Kawada, and I’d highly recommend   checking out the matches that they had with the  Can-Am Express of Doug Furnas and Dan Kroffat,   because they’re pretty bloody good, just what  you’d expect from two high-quality teams really.

Tiger Mask II had a bit of success of his own,  winning the Junior title in 1985 — however,   being a Junior in All Japan was always going to  have a bit of a ceiling, seeing as the company  

Has always been centred a great deal more around  heavyweights, far more so than New Japan. He held   onto the Junior title until 1986, when he vacated  it after moving up to the Heavyweights where he’d   definitely have a great deal more exposure. Over  the next couple of years, a lot of that exposure  

Would come both teaming with and, indeed, facing  against Jumbo Tsuruta – the initial steps in a   rivalry between the young Misawa and the elite  Tsuruta came when Misawa formed a stable of   younger wrestlers called “Kekkigun”, something  of a prototype for what was to come – however,  

The Kekkigun stable was never quite able to  establish itself, partly due to being booked   rather weak and also due to Misawa suffering heavy  injuries in this time, most seriously a torn ACL,   that kept him out for lengthy periods  and ultimately pushed him away from the  

High-flying work expected of Tiger Mask. There  was a lot of effective work during this time,   as well as some quite curious matches —  Misawa as Tiger Mask did end up having   matches against the original Tiger’s two most  legendary opponents, Dynamite Kid and Kuniaki  

Kobayashi — one of his matches against Kobayashi  in particular was an absolute barnburner,   and the first of many Misawa matches to be voted  Match of the Year in the Wrestling Observer. Right near the end of his time as Tiger Mask,  he also had a match that, certainly later on,  

Would have been thought of as a dream match to  end all dream matches — Misawa vs. Bret Hart,   in April 1990 at the WWF-AJPW Supershow. And  the weird thing was…well, it wasn’t all   that good. There’s always been a bit of a mystery  surrounding this — these two just didn’t click,  

And some say that there was a misunderstanding as  to how much time they actually had, meaning the   end result was an unexpected draw. Bret Hart,  unlike most anyone else, was not particularly   enthusiastic about Misawa in his biography,  saying he “wasn’t worth shit” compared to  

The original Tiger Mask. Some others may also  point to Bret being considerably jetlagged and   Misawa just coming off a knee injury along with  the clash of styles and communication issues,   but…yeah, it just didn’t really work. There  were also intriguing matches against Curt Hennig,  

Ricky Steamboat and Ric Flair during  the Tiger Mask years — much like Bret,   this was the only time Misawa ended up  facing these opponents. Generally speaking,   these matches work out a great deal better than  the one against Bret Hart, and in something of a  

Parallel between the two legends who didn’t work  out: Much like Bret Hart in WWF, a match against   Ted DiBiase would be important — in 1987 Tiger  Mask faced DiBiase, then an All Japan regular, and   picked up his first significant singles victory  against a big heavyweight. Much like Bret’s later  

Matches with the Million Dollar Man that were  one of the first showings of just how good a   singles wrestler he was going to be, Misawa’s win  against the established DiBiase was a signifier of   how much All Japan were behind Misawa…or, well,  Tiger Mask — as he was then, much to his chagrin.

As the ‘80s draws to a close, both Misawa  and Kawada are getting more and more   shine — especially with Tiger Mask teaming with  Jumbo Tsuruta and Toshiaki Kawada teaming with   Genichiro Tenryu, playing their own part in what  was basically the main feud at the time between  

The company’s two top aces, and gradually getting  more and more significant wins in both tag matches   and singles. A part of this did have to do with  Giant Baba, recognising his age and limitations,   taking a couple of steps down the card and  allowing the youngsters to gradually take  

His place — Misawa and Kawada being the main  beneficiaries of this, and they would later be   joined by other hot prospects like Kenta Kobashi  and Akira Taue close to the end of the decade,   as they come from the dojo and start getting  reputations of their own. There’s a definite  

Slow build to Misawa and Kawada becoming  superstars as we head into the ‘90s,   but particularly in the case of Mitsuharu  Misawa, circumstances are going to push him   up the card a hell of a lot sooner than most  people thought he was going to get there.

We’ve talked a little about Misawa getting more  and more shine as Tiger Mask in singles matches,   but Kawada was gradually getting more of his own  — albeit mostly in tag matches with Genichiro   Tenryu. What you would often see a lot of the  time is a match where Kawada and Tenryu team  

Against the likes of say, Hansen and Gordy,  Tenryu gets taken out for quite some time   and Kawada ends up having to hold the fort on  his own — and often he’s more than capable of   doing so. Kawada’s team with Tenryu is his own  big breakthrough into the heavyweight world,  

And it comes from finally seizing an opportunity  – 1988’s year-ending Real World Tag League   tournament would have initially seen Tenryu  team with established heavyweight Ashura Hara,   but he was fired just before the tournament due  to running up gambling debts, and Kawada would be  

More than capable of taking his place. In fact,  the team of Kawada and Tenryu go all the way to   the final, eventually losing in an exceptional  match against Stan Hansen and Terry Gordy — one   of the best matches that the company had ever put  on at that time, Kawada was heavily showcased for  

Much of the bout, taking an absolute hell of  a beating and selling like no tomorrow. It   almost seems like he’s being set up as a tag  specialist, even…not a surprise really in   retrospect considering that Kawada eventually goes  on to become the most successful tag wrestler in  

All Japan’s history and he is undoubtedly one  of the greatest ever tag team wrestlers in   the entirety of wrestling. Already he’s had three  excellent teams — he’s had Footloose with Fuyuki,   the Revolution team with Tenryu, and he’s now  also started teaming with Tiger Mask as well!

Kawada and Misawa had already teamed before,  as early as 1984 when Tiger Mask debuted and   Kawada was still largely losing most of his  matches — but at the start of 1990 they   really began to team in earnest, bringing the  two school friends closer together. As juniors,  

The team were as high-flying as they  came — Kawada was just as capable,   if not even more so, of flying and flipping  around as a junior than Misawa was, but now   as heavyweights things were a little different  — the start of the ‘90s sees gradually adopt  

The style that he’s more famous for, the hefty  strikes and so forth, while Misawa was already   starting to dial down the acrobatics due to the  damage it was doing to his body, which was just   one of the many reasons why he really wanted  to drop the damn Tiger Mask gimmick already.

Misawa’s frustration behind the mask was hardly  something that he kept secret — it was pretty   bloody clear backstage, and he’d frequently ask  Baba when he’d be able to get rid of the blasted   thing, only for Baba to always tell him that it  would come eventually, and to be patient. Misawa’s  

Irritance bled through in other areas, taking any  little chance he had to subtly mock the gimmick.   It’s not like people knew that it was Misawa  behind the mask, after all — he’s Tiger Mask,   and Tiger Mask is supposed to be an ultra-clean  superhero for all the children. Mitsuharu Misawa,  

On the other hand, is a man who was always known  for joking around and having a rather dirty sense   of humour. And so you’d get the odd thing like  Misawa being interviewed by Japanese magazines,   as Tiger Mask, while he was injured  and saying that he’d spent a lot of  

Time during his recovery reading pornography.  Partly Misawa typically goofing out, partly   in order to get himself the damned hell out of  this bloody gimmick that he hates…and finally,   his time will come. And it’ll come with  All Japan having taken a MASSIVE hit.

The big rivalry in All Japan at the start of  1990 has been going for a good few years — Jumbo   Tsuruta against Genichiro Tenryu. They are the two  undisputed aces and biggest draws, and every time   they clash they absolutely bring the house down.  Not only are these matches very popular, but they  

Are also by far the best match the company can put  on — in particular, their match on June 5th 1989   is possibly the greatest bout the company had in  its history up to that point, and is considered  

By a lot of people to be a forerunner bout to  the King’s Road style that defined the company   in the 1990’s — we’ll get to that soon enough. On  April 19th, 1990, they face off in another classic   war — with Jumbo Tsuruta once again managing to  defend his Triple Crown title against Tenryu…it  

Is not presented in any way as being  the end of the feud between these two   incredible wrestlers — but it would be the  last time that Tsuruta and Tenryu were ever   in a ring together. Out of the blue, All  Japan is going to face a great Exodus.

Of course, if you want plenty of details about  what happened then I suggest you check out the   video I did about the SWS, or Super World Sports  — but to briefly summarise, Tenryu struck a deal   in April 1990 with Megane Super, a glasses company  who were looking to launch their own wrestling  

Promotion. Tenryu immediately leaves All Japan and  takes a whole bunch of the midcard with him — the   likes of Ashura Hara, Yoshiaki Yatsu, Shunji  Takano, The Great Kabuki and Hiromichi Fuyuki all   leave with Tenryu, seriously gutting the All Japan  roster. It’s a terrible turn for the company,  

And it’s not something that Giant Baba is going  to forget about — he flat out says that neither   Tenryu nor any of the wrestlers who left with  him are ever going to work for All Japan Pro   Wrestling again, which is something that will  indeed hold true — while Giant Baba’s alive,  

Anyway. It seems plausible that Toshiaki  Kawada could have left with Tenryu as well,   seeing as Tenryu was after all his mentor —  however, he decides to stay on at All Japan,   a decision that will prove to be very much the  right one, beyond the simple fact of SWS turning  

Out to be an utter disaster for everyone involved.  Desperate times will call for desperate measures. Under a different set of circumstances, Baba  may have decided to look to the outside — it’s   not like he’s never brought wrestlers in  from other promotions, after all. Another  

Promoter-cum-legendary wrestler may have  chosen to bring themselves back up the card,   especially if they were on Baba’s level. However,  he makes the decision to take a different   approach — instead he looks towards the younger  generation, the guys who decided to stay loyal,  

Who certainly have a hell of a lot of potential.  Of course, this means Misawa — his days as Tiger   Mask are now most certainly numbered. This is also  going to mean Kawada, the guy who’s largely been   in tags but has been climbing higher and higher.  It also means other youngsters — most notably,  

Kenta Kobashi and Akira Taue. This duo were  similar in many ways to Misawa and Kawada   when it came to their backgrounds – both Kobashi  and Taue came from poor childhoods and would have   undoubtedly been blue collar workers if not for a  path to pro wrestling that appeared through judo  

And sumo respectively. Taue in particular was  considered a decent prospect in the sumo world,   but he chose to reject the brutal and bullying  regime of dojo training in Sumo. In any case,   both would do their time in the dojo, having  their own initial struggles when it came to truly  

Getting noticed, and they debuted in early 1988,  a good few years after Misawa and Kawada. Also,   they stayed entirely in All Japan — neither  Kobashi nor Taue ever went on a foreign excursion,   largely because the end of the 1980’s would  mark the closure of All Japan’s long-standing  

Relationship with the National Wrestling Alliance,  as All Japan decided to become more insular. Giant   Baba decides that the answer to this crisis lies  inside the company, and he’s going to take steps   to make sure this doesn’t happen again — All  Japan, following the 1st exodus, is often compared  

To being a walled garden where no-one is allowed  to leave. You work with All Japan exclusively,   or you don’t work with them at all. This used  to be the way most Puro companies worked,   in fact — but in a time where companies like New  Japan were starting to work more and more with  

Other Japanese promotions, All Japan decide to  shut the door…and as it happens, this strategy   will pay dividends. The first order of business  is the creation of a new star to replace Genichiro   Tenryu, something that’s got to happen now —  and it all starts in earnest on May 14th, 1990.

On that date, the team of Tiger Mask and  Toshiaki Kawada face off against Samson   Fuyuki and Yoshiaki Yatsu, both of whom would  soon leave to join Tenryu in SWS. The match   goes through a fairly even middle and start,  both teams giving each other their best…until  

The big moment happens. Tiger Mask bursts in  a flourish, clears the ring in typical style,   and then suddenly commands his tag  partner to remove his mask. He does so,   revealing Mitsuharu Misawa for the first  time in about seven years or so — the  

Crowd goes absolutely wild. With this new burst  of energy, the Misawa/Kawada team utterly rout   their opposition — just a few minutes  after the unmasking, the match is over,   Misawa pinning Fuyuki with a German Suplex.  Immediately after the match, Misawa gets on the  

Mic and challenges Jumbo Tsuruta to a bout at the  Nippon Budokan three weeks from now, on June 9th. This of course, is part of the lead up to the  classic match that we already talked about in  

Detail at the start of the video — where Misawa  cements his status as a new ace by getting the   pin over the almighty Tsuruta. Also in the  build up, on May 26th in a 6-man bout – right  

In the middle of the tour — Misawa gets over his  brand new deadly weapon…that being his elbows.   Jumbo is not exactly in a giving mood — he’s been  knocking Kobashi and Taue off the apron all night,  

He tries to do the same to Misawa, who goes  absolutely apeshit and beats the utter snot out of   Tsuruta with elbows – and that was how the elbow  came to be regarded as Misawa’s signature strike,   as opposed to the kicks of Tiger Mask. The June  8th Tsuruta match, and indeed this whole tour,  

Will also be the beginning of a feud between  the younger and older generation that’ll see   the company produce fantastic work over the next  couple of years…the thing about Misawa’s victory   on that night was that it wasn’t necessarily  planned out that way — according to a lot  

Of people it was a decision that Baba made on  the very night of the show, seeing the energy   that the crowd had for Mitsuharu Misawa and  how much merchandise sales he was generating,   he thought that now was the time to strike, and  relayed the message to Jumbo in his locker room.  

Jumbo was quite taken aback and urged Baba to  reconsider, but his mind was made up and…well,   obviously it was the entirely correct decision  — history bares that one out. But it’s just   the beginning for Jumbo and Misawa —  there are many great matches to come,  

And these matches are going to involve the  likes of Kawada, Kobashi and Taue in a big way. The next couple of years of All Japan will be  dominated by a war between two factions — the   Super Generation Army against Tsuruta-gun.  The Super Generation Army is the youngsters,  

Led by Mitsuharu Misawa and consisting of Toshiaki  Kawada, Kenta Kobashi, Akira Taue, and also   Tsuyoshi Kikuchi — Kobashi’s tag team partner and  also a 1988 debutant. Tsuruta-gun is, of course,   led by Jumbo Tsuruta, with his second-in-command  being the surly Junior veteran Masanobu  

Fuchi — Fuchi had been with All Japan since 1974,  and there is perhaps no other wrestler more loyal   to the company than he…Fuchi still wrestles  for All Japan to this very day, and he’s 67 years   old. And he’s STILL good. Mighty Inoue, a 1967  debutant, is another grizzled veteran, while early  

On Yoshiaki Yatsu — like Jumbo Tsuruta, an  Olympian-level amateur wrestler — is also   part of the group. However, when Yatsu decides to  join Tenryu in SWS, he is replaced by youngsters   who’ve decided to follow Tsuruta’s path  — specifically…Akira Taue, who early  

On makes the jump from the Super Generation  Army to Tsuruta-gun. The perpetually slick,   smarmy and rodent-esque Yoshinari Ogawa, a  1985 debutant, is also a Tsuruta-gun member. While a lot of the major singles matches between  the Super Generation Army and Tsuruta-gun members  

Are especially worth highlighting, often times  the best way to really experience this titanic   feud is by watching the many absolutely awesome  6-man matches these stables would put on — any   combination of Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi and Kikuchi  against Tsuruta, Fuchi, Taue and Inoue is just  

About always guaranteed to utterly tear the house  down. These are the sort of matches that you show   to someone to disprove the often received and  frankly rubbish wisdom of Japanese crowds being   “respectful”, or “quiet” — the matches between  the old and new generations here are largely  

Absolute cauldrons of heat, with roaring crowds,  cacophonous stomping of feet at every nearfall,   and shaking hardcams all over the shop. Much  like the singles matches, the 6-man bouts   would be long, dramatic, and would often have a  clean finish — it’d be rare for them to end in  

A cluster schmazz, or a disqualification…that  was no longer the All Japan style. There are,   truly, so many examples of brilliant 6-man or  more tag bouts between the Super Generation   and Tsuruta-gun, but if you had to pick just  one of these bouts as an absolute must-see?  

It has to be the April 20th 1991 bout – the main  event of All Japan’s Fan Appreciation Day at the   ever white-hot Korakuen Hall, with Misawa,  Kawada and Kobashi taking on Tsuruta, Taue   and Fuchi. This one goes beyond even the usual  high standards these teams already had – what we  

Have here is a near-50 minute colossus of a bout  where six guys, at the very top of their game,   play their roles to perfection and construct an  in-ring epic, the sort that grabs you immediately   and makes you forget that time is even a thing.  A beautiful mix of technical superiority combined  

With utterly believable hatred, it’s one of the  greatest matches in All Japan history – and while   there are certainly other 6-man tags between these  two groups that reach the same dizzy heights, this   is undoubtedly the multi-man match where everyone  should start at. It’s here, both in the multi-man  

Matches and of course in the singles matches,  where All Japan and Giant Baba are starting to   build the style that will define them for the  whole decade — the Royal Road, or King’s Road. King’s Road differs immediately from  the norm in that it’s not solely a  

Giant Baba creation – all of the style’s major  proponents would have had a huge impact on it,   but initially a lot of the decisions that  led to All Japan’s change of style were done   in conference with editors and journalists from  Weekly Pro Wrestling, one of Japan’s most popular  

Puro mags and one that would get very close to  All Japan by the end of the 80’s, having a heavy   influence on booking decisions and, indeed, being  one of the driving forces behind the ascension of   the young Misawa. In fact, the genesis of King’s  Road really started a couple of years before the  

Events that seriously exacerbated it – a change  in style was necessary due to the white-hot   popularity of Akira Maeda’s UWF in 1988. Even  if this incarnation of the UWF didn’t last long,   its promotion of clean and decisive finishes and  a more “real” form of pro wrestling was completely  

Different to the established norms, and it changed  what the audiences wanted to see. In the 1980’s,   just as in New Japan, it was fairly common for All  Japan’s main events to end in draws, countouts or   disqualifications – this was something of a  cornerstone of what would nowadays be called  

“Showa” Puroresu, after the corresponding Japanese  era. UWF essentially tore that book apart, and the   two big companies needed to change accordingly –  the December 1987 New Japan riot in Sumo Hall was   symbolic of that need to change, although the  discontent and anger among grapple fans at the  

Repetitive nature of the big pro wrestling  wasn’t isolated to such extreme incidents,   and this necessitated the birth not just of King’s  Road, but of New Japan’s Strong Style. What’s   also important to note is that this is a time of  change in general – the Emperor Hirohito dies at  

The beginning of 1989, ending the Showa era and  beginning the Heisei era of Akihito. A new era,   in the eyes of both Baba and, indeed, Inoki,  necessitates the promotion of a new style of   professional wrestling. So, King’s Road is a  philosophy on how a match should be laid out,  

And what should happen in order to make it  the best match possible. As I just alluded to,   an important part of King’s Road is that usually  there should be a clean finish. In the 1980’s,   just as in New Japan, it was fairly common  for main events to end in draws, countouts or  

Disqualifications — not so in Royal Road, where  there usually is a decisive winner. 9 times out of   10, the victory will be by pinfall —  Giant Baba was not a fan of submissions,   and when King’s Road was implemented, submission  victories in All Japan became incredibly rare,  

To the point where on the highly infrequent  occasions when a match was won by submission,   fans would be confused as to whether the match had  actually ended or not. As far as the layout of a  

Match went, Baba had a simple guideline — that  it was foolish to repeat a move over and over   again and expect different results. A guiding  principle of King’s Road is that a match should   build up and up, with the moves getting bigger  and bigger over time, right up to the finish. As  

We’ll most certainly see in the course of Misawa  and Kawada’s matches, a philosophy like this is   what leads to incredible importance being put upon  moves, especially when it comes to new moves that,   quite often, are introduced specifically for  big matches. It’s in this environment where  

The super moves thrived — where we see the  likes of the Tiger Driver ‘91, Burning Hammer,   Dangerous DDT and so on come into play over time.  Beyond these big finishers, almost everyone has   a strike they specialise in to bridge the gaps  between moves — something which often can finish  

A match in it’s own right. To take a few examples:  Misawa has elbows, Kawada has kicks, Jumbo Tsuruta   has elbows and knees, Kobashi has chops and  lariats, Taue has chops and a lot of chokeslams. Of course, what we are seeing here is  the establishment of the young quartet  

That represent All Japan’s immediate future — the  Four Pillars of Heaven, or Four Corners of Heaven,   or simply the Four Kings. While “Four Pillars”  wasn’t explicitly used to describe these four   wrestlers until 1993, it’s in this period  where they come together. As it happens,  

This quartet are not the “original” Four  Pillars — the original moniker was given   out in the 1960’s, all the way back in the  JWA days, to Rikidozan’s four great trainees,   that being Giant Baba, Antonio Inoki, the  legendary Korean wrestler Kintaro Ohki,  

And the “Fireball Kid” Michiaki Yoshimura.  In many ways, the creation of this new set   of Four Pillars was a response to a similar  group of young wrestlers in New Japan — the   Three Musketeers of Shinya Hashimoto,  Masahiro Chono and Keiji Mutoh, and…well,  

Naturally the success of these seven wrestlers  can hardly be overstated. They certainly all fit   the billing. This moniker isn’t the only call back  to the past — there’s a fair bit to say about the   colours the wrestlers choose to wear. Misawa’s  choice of Emerald Green is actually in tribute  

To an All Japan wrestler who he cited as one of  his influences and first favourites when watching   the shows as a child– the heel Horst Hoffman.  Taue’s choice of red is a clear Baba reference,   as is a great deal of his moveset. After  several rather questionable stylistic choices,  

Kawada settles on black and yellow — which is in  direct reference to his mentor, Genichiro Tenryu. These are the sort of little details that  will become commonplace in the long and epic   rivalries that define All Japan in the 1990’s,  and they’re certainly worth poring over. Although  

Of course the matches themselves are where it’s  at. There’s so many great ones — on August 31st,   Kenta Kobashi puts on a spirited  performance against Jumbo Tsuruta   despite being so clearly outmatched, showing  off his own credentials. The very next night,  

Jumbo looks for revenge against Misawa — and the  result is perhaps even better than the 1st match.   Things are different in this match — this is  no longer a friendly rivalry between a master   and his pupil — this is deeply personal, and  Jumbo wants to put this young pup back in his  

Place. The heat in the Nippon Budokan is unreal  even before the bell, the chants at the very   top of the lungs, and even the deep voiced Baba  on commentary might get a little carried away. The entirely different feel this match has  to the first one is filled with layers — the  

Bitter enmity in storyline between the two, the  desperation for Jumbo, a man who had basically   been peerless in All Japan for more than  a decade, to try and hold onto his spot,   the callbacks to that first bout and Misawa’s  desire to get the better of Jumbo once more.  

There’s more than just moments of technical  brilliance — there’s also times when the whole   thing threatens to get out of control, where it  almost becomes a fight and Jumbo becomes so savage   that the crowd even boo him — something that  previously would be unthinkable. It just makes  

Misawa’s comebacks all the hotter as he flies  through the air at Jumbo, peppers him with elbows,   gets near falls from roll-ups and suplexes. On  this night at least, Jumbo will get a measure of   revenge — after an epic 25 minutes, a superplex  followed by his signature backdrop hold will get  

Him a 3-count…but, needless to say, this  isn’t over in the slightest. I wish I could   highlight every match this pair had — but  if you have to see two…well, you’ve got   to see the June 8th and September 1st matches,  because they’re two of the very greatest ever.

Of course, Toshiaki Kawada will also have great  matches against Jumbo Tsuruta — particularly   in 1991. Unlike Misawa, Kawada never  quite manages to get the better of Jumbo,   and perhaps the matches he has aren’t quite on the  same level of heat, but they’re still damned good,  

And feature Dangerous K really starting to come  into his own — like Misawa, he’s fully found the   style that works for him…the brutal kicks, a  little touch of arrogance, the stiff intenseness   when required. The 2nd half of 1991 in particular  sees Kawada really shine — with Misawa taking  

A fair bit of time off to nurse some injuries,  Kawada gets some big spots and incredible matches   of his own. His match against Jumbo Tsuruta  on October 24th is magnificent — the pair   take some absolute lumps out of each other, and  the crowd sure do love it. Outside of the whole  

Super Generation vs Tsuruta-gun feud however,  the definitive Kawada singles matches before   Misawa-Kawada really kicks off come against Stan  Hansen in 1992 — this pair were quite simply made   for each other, and the raging, utterly violent  pair of matches they have for Hansen’s triple  

Crown are highly recommended, almost as much  as I’d recommend the Misawa-Tsuruta matches.   From a business perspective, this elevation of  a new generation — not just Misawa but Kawada,   Kobashi and company — going against the  older guard, was excellent, and it would  

Continuously sell out the Nippon Budokan  and most any other venue that the promotion   ran in. This brand new style for All Japan,  this Royal Road? It seriously bloody worked. That said, Misawa and Tsuruta was the main  story, and indeed the main draw. The general  

Crux of the story, especially after June  8th, was that the crowd were desperate to   see Misawa pin Tsuruta again, to get that full-on  decisive victory — but in true All Japan style,   Baba as booker had a lengthy story to tell, and  would stretch it out as long as possible with the  

Ultimate ending being Misawa defeating Tsuruta for  the Triple Crown Titles. He’d have a chance to do   just that on April 18th 1991 in what is, needless  to say, another classic of a match — but again,   he would come up short. Misawa would get  some revenge on Tsuruta on the 4th September  

When his Super Generation Army team with Kawada  defended the Tag Titles against Tsuruta and Taue,   and Misawa scored a rare submission victory  against Jumbo using his facelock — in AJPW   booking logic as in most other places, a pin, or  submission in this case, in a tag bout is most  

Certainly a big step towards a pin in a singles  match, only the great length of All Japan King’s   Road-era stories highlights such moments even  more, as we’ll see when we get to Misawa-Kawada.   The crowd always wants it so desperately, the  story stringing it all along until we reach the  

Breaking point…and unfortunately, the Misawa  and Tsuruta feud didn’t quite make it there. Tsuruta and Misawa was a feud that, through  outside circumstances, didn’t come to that   decisive end. The pair continued at a blistering  pace until 1992, when Jumbo was diagnosed with  

Hepatitis B. He tried to continue a full  schedule, but eventually found it too   much — he took a whole year off after the October  Giant Series tour. And so, the last singles bout   between Misawa and Tsuruta was on April 8th, 1992  during the Champions Carnival, and they went to a  

30-minute time limit draw — while presumably this  wasn’t supposed to be their last singles match,   it is something of a decent ending for it  to finish this way — Misawa and Tsuruta as   absolute equals at the very top, unable to get  a clear advantage over each other…in the end,  

It’s honours even. Jumbo Tsuruta was never  the same after his return from treatment,   but he would continue for a few years in the  midcard, much like Giant Baba, until officially   retiring in February 1999. Before his retirement,  he flat-out told Motoko Baba to step aside and  

Let Misawa take his rightful position at the head  of the company, words that unfortunately fell on   deaf ears and led to Jumbo leaving the company  altogether. Sadly, Jumbo Tsuruta wouldn’t have   long after this — he and his family moved to the  USA to work part-time at the University of Oregon,  

But was diagnosed with liver cancer caused by his  hepatitis. Jumbo Tsuruta passed away in Manila on   May 13th 2000 from complications during a liver  transplant operation. For all he had achieved in   his career and life, Jumbo was only 49 years old  when he passed away, but Jumbo Tsuruta left a damn  

Near unmatchable legacy as one of the greatest  to ever do it in professional wrestling history. …With that, this first part will end —  amusingly, we haven’t actually got to the   first Misawa vs Kawada match yet. However, with  all the storylines and details that run through  

This feud, it’s important to look at what  came beforehand — not just their upbringing,   but the shared rivalries. There’s a very  clear line from Tsuruta against Tenryu,   to Tsuruta against Misawa, and then to Misawa  against Kawada — and examining these classic  

Feuds just makes watching Misawa vs Kawada  all the better, really. When we return,   we’ll be in 1992, and Misawa will finally take  to the ring against his partner…at first,   it’ll be quite friendly. But make  no mistake, this will not last.

August 22nd, 1992 would go down as one  of the most important days in the entire   history of All Japan — a night where, at  last, the changing of the guard was fully   completed. It was the 207th day in the Triple  Crown reign of one of the company’s foremost  

Foreign stars — Stan “The Lariat” Hansen, who’d  held the title since defeating Jumbo Tsuruta in   January. Over the next few months he’d held off  several challengers, including the man he was   due to face tonight — three of All Japan’s four  pillars had fallen to his Western Lariat. Hansen  

Had been at the top of Puro for a long time, and  he certainly wasn’t ready to relinquish the title   immediately…but there comes a night when it  feels like it has to happen for someone — and   for Mitsuharu Misawa, his opponent, August 22nd  was that night. The man who shot to prominence  

Two years previously against Jumbo Tsuruta was  now ready to take the final step over the line. As ever, there’s a fair bit of story going  into the bout — Misawa had taken on Hansen   twice in singles this year, and in big matches  too. He fought Hansen for the Triple Crown,  

But the Lariat prevailed. He got even closer  in the 1992 Champions Carnival final, but again   Hansen emerged victorious. As with most of the  legendary feuds from All Japan’s Royal Road era,   this climactic August title match builds on all  the major bouts that came before, to make this  

Feel more and more like it’s going to be Misawa’s  night. The ornery Cowboy from Borger, Texas is one   of the few who are tough enough to stand up to  Misawa’s lethal elbows, but as the match goes on  

They have more and more of an effect. A facelock,  the same one that once submitted Tsuruta,   sends the crowd into a frenzy. Misawa stands up to  the toughest weapons Hansen can throw while also   avoiding the one fatal shot, the Western Lariat,  that’ll put down anybody. The two go at it until  

They stand face to face, both with basically  nothing more to give. Hansen’s boot knocks Misawa   back a few steps, but as he advances, Misawa takes  one final swing with his elbow and hits his mark,   Hansen slumping to the floor. Three slaps  on the ground from Joe Higuchi later,  

And at last…it’s done. Mitsuharu Misawa has  claimed the top prize in All Japan — the Triple   Crown Championship is his. It’s official now —  Mitsuharu Misawa is the top star in the company. One of the men who’s the first in to help  him recover, to raise his hand and to help  

Adorn the new champion’s body with his three  belts will, of course, be the man who helps   to define this new era, the one who stands in the  opposite corner as Mitsuharu Misawa’s main rival,   the one who’s seemingly always been a year  behind him. In this 2nd part of our look  

Back at Misawa vs Kawada, we’re finally going  to see them go at it — and make no mistake,   they WILL go at it. As good as the action  we’ve seen so far has been, Misawa vs Kawada   are going to create history, and they’re going  to create matches that are the stuff of legend,  

Something lapped up by eager wrestling fans the  world over back then, that still has an impact   right now — matches that changed the way a lot of  people thought about pro wrestling, without which   things would be an awful lot different. This 2nd  part, along with various tag matches, will cover  

The first three big singles dates — the 10th  October 1992, 29th July 1993, and the 3rd of June,   1994. There will be plenty more besides that,  mind you — this is the time when, understandably,   the relationship between Misawa and Kawada starts  to take on a very different hue. And so, we have  

To start by looking back a year or so before  this title reign starts — to the tag division,   where Misawa and Kawada, the Super Generation  Army, are heading right to the very top. The Super Generation Army tag team is probably  more important from Kawada’s perspective than  

Misawa’s — as good as Misawa was as a tag  team wrestler and indeed a wrestler in general,   the team with Misawa is where Kawada really starts  to establish himself as one of the greatest tag   wrestlers there’s ever been, and it speaks a lot  to his incredible skills that a team with Misawa  

Isn’t even Kawada’s most successful team. It’s  also where he starts to build more and more of   his character — it took Toshiaki Kawada a few  years to really establish the hard, striking   and somewhat arrogant style that he became very  well known for, but the Super Generation Army  

Years gradually start to see him build up that  confidence, while also showing the sheer amount   of punishment he could take — there’s so many  times when Kawada has to fend for himself in tag   team matches, often taking a serious amount of  damage and doing an amazing job of selling it.

We’ve previously mentioned that this Misawa-Kawada  team would be the constant in just about every   multi-man match against the Tsuruta-gun team,  whether they were teamed with other folks or   going up against Jumbo and Akira Taue. Back in  the video on Steve Williams, we also looked at  

Their other great rivals — the Miracle Violence  Connection, the team of Dr. Death and Terry “Bam   Bam” Gordy which, if anything, would produce even  more intense wars than the bouts against Tsuruta   and Taue. Misawa and Kawada won their first  tag titles against the MVC on July 24th 1991,  

But they would get their revenge a few months  later in the final of the World’s Strongest   Tag Determination League, defeating the Army and  winning back the titles in an all-time classic   that might just be the best tag match in the  company’s history up to that point — again,  

It’s a match where, especially at the end,  Misawa gets basically taken out the equation,   Kawada is left to fight for himself against two  absolute monsters and even despite such odds which   ultimately prove impossible to overcome, there  are times where you believe that he might actually  

Do it. He gives every last bit of himself, even  when everything appears to be utterly hopeless. Throughout 1991 and 1992, we see this team  continue to improve, and continue to be a part   of big moments — such as the time when Misawa  shockingly submits Jumbo Tsuruta to win a tag  

Bout and defend their tag titles. As Misawa and  Jumbo continue to take on each other in classic   main events, the two second-in-commands also go at  it — Toshiaki Kawada and Akira Taue establish an   utterly heated rivalry, one where the pair take  absolute lumps out of each other and you could  

Almost believe that they legitimately despise each  other. Kawada seems to take a page out of Jumbo’s   book — just as Jumbo seemed to see a touch of  Tenryu in Kawada and appeared to take his former   rival’s betrayal out on him, Kawada saw the same  in Taue — enraged that a young contemporary like  

Taue, one of the four pillars, would cross  the floor and side with the older guard. The Super Generation Army team firmly establishes  their greatness at the Tag League in 1992,   finally winning the tournament — a big feather  in the cap of Kawada, for whom it’s his third  

Attempt at trying to win it. They defeat the  team of Akira Taue and a face we haven’t seen   previously…Jun Akiyama. Scouted by All Japan due  to his success as an amateur wrestler in school,   Akiyama had only made his debut a few months  previously in a televised bout against Kenta  

Kobashi, but he was incredibly hyped up and is  often seen, unofficially, as the 5th Pillar of   Heaven. Giant Baba saw something in him,  something that made him decide to push him   to the moon — relatively speaking for a young  lion, most of whom never come close to the level  

Of competition Akiyama achieved in his very first  year. He’ll certainly be game in the tag league,   hanging with the very best and helping the  team get all the way to the final — seizing   an opportunity seeing as Taue would have  teamed with Tsuruta if it wasn’t for Jumbo’s  

Hepatitis diagnosis and having to take a leave of  absence — and even if he ends up eating the pin,   he’s established himself as a serious contender in  the future. For Misawa and Kawada, the victory in  

The Tag League and the 2nd title reign that comes  with it probably represents their peak as a team,   coming pretty close to the end of their  time together…things being as they were,   it wouldn’t be long before they became heated  rivals indeed. As a matter of fact, they’d  

Already had their first big singles match —  and it’s probably about time that we covered it. The first big singles match between Mitsuharu  Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada would come at a   thoroughly symbolic time — it would be the main  event, in the Nippon Budokan — where else — on  

The final night of All Japan’s 20th Anniversary  Tour. It’s a tour that sees Giant Baba,   appropriately enough, take a significantly  higher spot on the cards than he had done   for the past few years, the return of old  company legends such as Dory Funk Jr.,  

And arguably the last tour in which Jumbo Tsuruta  has any considerable presence. It’s very fitting   that a celebration of the company’s two decades  such as this one ends with the two wrestlers who   are seen as the company’s future, and two that  the fans had been utterly clamouring to see go  

At it in a big match basically ever since  they’d started teaming up with each other. How did it all come about, especially considering  that Misawa and Kawada were tag team partners?   Well, in classical style, it was booked thanks  to a No. 1 Contenders match between two heated  

Rivals that was one of the featured attractions  of the previous tour — Toshiaki Kawada against   Akira Taue. As is often the case, the two  absolutely bring the pain towards each other,   Kawada putting as much oomph as possible into his  kicks and forearms, Taue responding with power  

Moves, in particular his favoured Nodowa Otoshi  chokeslam, and also resorting to heel tactics   such as DDT’ing Kawada on the exposed arena floor.  Taue’s power, and his nodowas, take him very close   to victory — but it’s Kawada’s kicks that finally  turn the tide — at last, he reverses one final,  

Desperate Nodowa attempt into his main submission,  the Stretch Plum, right in the centre of the ring.   Taue struggles, fades, and at last submits  — the crowd goes absolutely wild not just   for Kawada’s victory, but for what that victory  means. There is a little sign of respect between  

These two hated rivals at the finish before  Kawada walks off, knowing that his next big   match will be against his partner. This, by the  way, is a fantastic match — highly recommended   and obviously historically important, not just for  being the set-up to Kawada and Misawa’s first big  

Meeting and for the rare King’s Road submission  victory, but also as the match that establishes   the Stretch Plum as one of Kawada’s lethal moves.  This facelock variation, originally devised by and   named after JWP Joshi wrestler Plum Mariko, looks  like Kawada’s trying and near-enough succeeding at  

Ripping the opponent’s head off when done right.  Much like Misawa’s facelock, the Stretch Plum   very rarely finishes a match — but in Puro and  especially in King’s Road, if it’s used for just   one important victory like this one, or Misawa  tapping Tsuruta? Then it’s a big move forever.

Anyhoo, that’s how we get to this big night —  the first meeting between Misawa and Kawada,   in front of a sold-out crowd at the Budokan. It’s  the hardest ticket to get in Puro, and the most   sought-after match not just for Japanese fans, but  hardcore wrestling fans the world over — the sort  

Who subscribed to newsletters like the Observer  and the Torch, the folks on the tape-trading   lists, even those who were spurred on by the  tidbits of coverage in Pro Wrestling Illustrated.   These matches, along with the best from the likes  of New Japan, the burgeoning shootstyle promotions  

And the ever-incredible world of Joshi, come at  just the right time — don’t forget how miserable   a period this was for major wrestling in the USA,  with WWF and WCW both experiencing some of their   very lowest lows. It is at this time when many  more dedicated but thoroughly dissatisfied smarks  

Decided to look elsewhere — and in Puroresu,  they found just what they were looking for.   They may have been a small niche, but more and  more Westerners were getting just as excited   for the first dance between Mitsuharu Misawa and  Toshiaki Kawada as the Japanese home fans were.

It goes without saying that even with incredibly  high expectations, this match does not disappoint.   Hell, the very first lock-up between the two at  this level results in Kawada dumping Misawa on   the back of his neck. What we largely get  here though, certainly in the first half,  

Is a technical and grounded contest — Kawada  works over Misawa, concentrating on the shoulder   that Misawa’s had to rehab a few times already  in his career. We see moves that seem to be quite   appropriate for the occasion, passages that are a  bit more reminiscent of the All Japan that Misawa  

And Kawada grew up watching, moves that were  made more famous in the hands of names like Baba,   Tsuruta, Hansen and Riki Choshu. We even see  Kawada use moves that Misawa used to throw as   Tiger Mask — spin kicks, bow and arrows, even  Misawa’s senton. Throughout this segment though,  

Strikes do infrequently bubble up to the surface,  especially Misawa’s elbow — a constant little   equaliser, something that often sends Kawada  rocking, especially when he dares to get just   that little bit more arrogant and takes a few  elbows from an angered Misawa for his trouble.

The frequent submission attempts do serve as  a build up to the tries at the Stretch Plum   and Misawa’s facelock in the 2nd half of the  match, but there is a definite shift into the   more contemporary All Japan as we get into that  part, a realisation that famed submissions might  

Not get the job done, the strikes getting stronger  and attempts at suplexes becoming more frequent.   The German Suplex, the Enzui Lariat, the 1st  Tiger Driver, the Ganmengiri…the big bombs are   starting to get thrown. Kawada does lock in the  Stretch Plum and the crowd goes wild, especially  

Seeing as Kawada just got a big win with this very  move, but Misawa escapes to the outside and this   signals the start of the last stretch. Misawa  makes his own callbacks to his Tiger Mask days,   utilising the spin kick of his own, top rope  splash and a powerful elbow suicida. Even still,  

A 2nd Tiger Driver doesn’t quite make it, and  a huge Ganmengiri that Misawa runs straight   into could possibly change the balance…but  Kawada, again, gets a little arrogant and it   proves to be his undoing. As is his want, he does  those little kicks to the face as Misawa’s lying  

On the ground — but again, they only serve to  wake Misawa back up, to re-focus him, to anger   him. Misawa responds with some vicious elbows,  including one absolute stonker to the back of   the head. A 1st Tiger Suplex is only just kicked  out of, but ultimately? A 2nd Tiger Suplex is  

Enough. Mitsuharu Misawa has won the 1st encounter  after 28 minutes, and it’s an all-time classic. I don’t really need to say that you should watch  this match immediately if you haven’t — it’s a   classic that works on so many levels, as the  opener to Misawa and Kawada’s legendary series,  

As a perfect tribute to All Japan that highlights  and calls back to the best of their 20 years,   simply as a damn fine technical main event  encounter…but there’s a fair bit still to   be said about the aftermath. It’s not necessarily  the most enthusiastic of celebrations — it’s all  

Perhaps a little muted, being the first time that  these tag partners and friends have taken each   other to the limit in this way. Perhaps there’s a  recognition, in the story, that after this moment   things may never quite be the same — there is  a big mark of respect between the two, a hope  

That things can perhaps get back to normal after  this match…but they never will. Not after going   hard like this. Not after Kawada came as close as  he did to dethroning Misawa. Even if the serious   and heated rivalry between this pair hasn’t quite  started, this match does mark the beginning of the  

End for the Super Generation Army — Kawada knows  it, and Misawa knows it too…even if that’s not   spoken, that’s the subtext here. The 1st dance  may be somewhat different in many ways to a lot  

Of the matches to come, but it sets up an awful  lot too, and the next time that these two meet   in a singles match? Things are going to be very  different. 1993’s going to ring in the changes.

Misawa and Kawada’s 2nd title reign only lasted 56  days. They packed a good couple of defenses into   that brief time, but eventually they succumbed  to the Miracle Violence Connection in another   typically fiery match — sometimes, the strength  of the combined forces of Steve Williams and Terry  

Gordy is just too much for anyone to take.  And so, from the 30th January 1993 onwards,   Misawa and Kawada don’t exactly have an awful  lot to keep them together aside from being part   of the remnants of the Super Generation Army.  Seeing as their main opponents, Tsuruta-gun,  

Aren’t exactly a thing anymore, what’s  the point of that? If the banner of the   Super Generation Army isn’t quite dead yet, a  priest is surely reading the last rites. And,   sure enough, Kawada makes an announcement in  February that after the February/March tour,  

He will no longer team with Misawa — it’s  all very professional, and all very dignified,   with Kawada announcing that he  intends to follow his own path. Still, a set of circumstances do kind of  fall into place to set the stage for Kawada  

Switching from Misawa’s partner, to Misawa’s  rival — and as has often been the case,   it’s a response to unexpected events. Again,  we go back to Jumbo Tsuruta’s sudden departure   late last year — what was first described as  a liver problem became more and more serious,  

And in February Jumbo suffered kidney failure.  When it became clear that he wasn’t going to   be back for a long time and that he wasn’t  really going to be the same on his return,   that left a rather large hole in the main event  scene for a top heel — and sure, while Misawa  

Can get plenty of mileage out of fighting Hansen,  Williams and company, a homegrown rival is really   needed to replace Tsuruta — and once again,  as Baba has done for the last couple of years,   he looks at what he’s already got and  decides to elevate someone. Kawada,  

Thanks to his own lengthy history with Misawa, is  clearly the only choice. Hell, it kinda looks back   to the past in ways — mirroring the breakup of  the legendary Tsuruta and Tenryu tag team which   led to them becoming heated rivals for most of  the 1980’s. Giant Baba isn’t necessarily a booker  

Who seeks to break new ground, but he knows what  works and knows how to deliver it effectively. So…how’s the turn going to happen? It’s  fitting for it to occur at what’s normally   All Japan’s first big tour of the year —  the Champions Carnival from March to April,  

The big singles tournament — and, by the way,  one that both Misawa and Kawada have still yet   to win. The Champions Carnival sees every big  star in the company face each other — and yes,   that includes Misawa and Kawada,  who duke it out on March 27th.  

Even if Champions Carnival matches aren’t  necessarily as big a deal as title bouts,   they’re still an opportunity to take a point  or two — even if often, due to the format,   matches against big names like these two usually  end in 30 minute time-limit draws. Even if this  

Is not a major bout in the rivalry, it’s the  last one in which this pair’s rivalry could   be described as a friendly one, and even here  the relationship’s showing signs of strain. The Champion Carnival format often  promotes a faster style than the norm,  

And this is certainly the case here — the pair go  at it straight away, and Misawa even hits a Tiger   Driver early on. It’s definitely more of a fight  than the technical first bout, even if this can be  

Explained away by the Carnival not really allowing  for a lengthy wearing down of opponents. As such,   this is a pretty cool sprint, with barely any  downtime, that’s worth looking at — especially as   it’s not really talked about as much as the main  Kawada/Misawa matches. And even if matches between  

Big rivals often end in 30-minute draws…this one  does not. Kawada ducks a dropkick and hits a big   backdrop and seems like he’s in the ascendancy,  but then Misawa blocks a Ganmengiri attempt, both   run at each other…and Misawa hits the perfect  elbow strike — right on target. Kawada just  

Slumps down, slowly. Even though Misawa doesn’t  pin immediately, feeling the effects of blocking   Kawada’s kick, it doesn’t matter because Kawada  is knocked out, and the ref still counts the 3.   Kind of an odd ending, but Kawada’s selling does  make it — he does a good job of selling being  

Utterly KO’d. Once again, Misawa’s elbow proves  to be the difference maker, and Kawada’s decision   to go his own way doesn’t appear to have gotten  him any closer to defeating Misawa. That said,   it’s not all bad news — a few days after the loss  to Misawa, Kawada finally manages to get his first  

Pinfall victory over Stan Hansen, having had many  previous failed attempts. His signature Ganmengiri   proves enough to defeat The Lariat, showing off  the lethality of Kawada’s own preferred strike. A few days later on April 12th, Kawada faces off  against Akira Taue — these two have been taking  

Lumps out of each other for years as part of a  heated rivalry between the second-in-commands   of the Super Generation Army and Tsuruta-gun, and  this bout is hardly expected to be different. The   two beat the crap out of each other in the usual  style, but as the time ticks down it appears as  

Though neither can beat the other — Taue’s  hardest weapons like the Nodowa Otoshi aren’t   enough, but as much as Kawada is desperate to  get Taue to submit to the Stretch Plum that beat   him previously, Taue refuses to give up. Finally,  just as Kawada manages to nail Taue with the Soul  

Powerbomb, the bell rings — Kawada and Taue  have fought to the time limit, and both have   their hands raised. Not only that, but these once  vicious rivals share a firm handshake, initiated   by Kawada — something that elicits gasps from  the crowd. It appears as though, just as one  

Big rivalry is starting, another has ended. In the  context of All Japan’s history, this match is the   most important one of the 1993 Champion Carnival  — even more important than the final, which   perhaps surprisingly saw Stan Hansen claim his  2nd Carnival victory, against Mitsuharu Misawa.  

Once again, Baba’s not ready to give ALL the  singles accolades to the new top star quite yet. The next tour in May is preceded by  a shock announcement — you know all   that talk about Kawada deciding that he  was going to be an individual?…Well,  

It turns out he wasn’t going to be away from  the tag scene for long — he’s found a new   partner. And that man is Akira Taue. The new  team made an immediate impact — on their very   first tour together they faced the Miracle  Violence Connection for the Tag Team titles,  

And they won. As much as they were heated rivals,  Kawada and Taue make for perfect partners, and   once again Kawada is at the top of the tag pile.  Of course, this is his greatest team — the team   that soon acquires the ultra-cool moniker that is  The Holy Demon Army. Ostensibly, the pairing of  

Taue and Kawada is a further acknowledgement  that no-one really knows when Jumbo Tsuruta   is coming back and if he’s even going to be  in the main event when it does — bringing   Taue and Kawada together makes the traditional  six-man tag matches that headline most regular  

All Japan cards more balanced. In our story, this  could be considered the official start of the big   rivalry — Kawada allying himself with Taue means  that he is now firmly on Misawa’s opposite side. With the typical 6-men matches that  All Japan run getting a little samey,  

It also brings a lot of fresh match-ups into  play…including a tag combo that, in many ways,   is just as big a deal as Misawa and Kawada going  at it in singles. June 1st, 1993 sees the first   encounter between the teams of Kawada and Akira  Taue, and Misawa and Kenta Kobashi. With a crowd  

That’s as heated as you’d expect, the two teams  deliver a phenomenal match — just one of many   that they’re going to have over the next couple of  years. In this clash featuring all four pillars,   every one of the quartet performs their role  perfectly — Misawa and Kawada heading things up,  

Taue as a ruthless brick wall, Kobashi the least  established of the four but the most fiery of   the lot…it’s wonderful tag team wrestling. On  commentary, Giant Baba said that this contest was   the greatest tag bout that he had ever witnessed  — an impressive statement considering who made  

It, and…well, there’s even better to come. On  this night, the Holy Demon Army win it — Toshiaki   Kawada pins Kenta Kobashi with the Soul Powerbomb  after nearly 30 minutes of unrelenting action.   The Holy Demon Army have established themselves  as the preeminent force in the entire company,  

And Kawada? Well, he might just be ready  for another crack at the big prize. Since his first defense against Kawada, Mitsuharu  Misawa had successfully defended the Triple Crown   twice — Akira Taue got his chance in February  but came up short, while Stan Hansen’s victory  

Against Misawa in the Champion Carnival  gave him another opportunity in May — the   Lariat was as burly as ever, but Misawa emerged  victorious. With Mitsuharu Misawa getting close   to his first whole year as champion, Toshiaki  Kawada emerges once again as his next opponent,  

A match set to take place on July 29th, guaranteed  as ever to sell out the Nippon Budokan. The show   itself is an utterly packed one, continuing the  trend of these Misawa/Kawada matches falling on   important dates: It’s a double main event show,  with Kenta Kobashi taking on Stan Hansen in the  

2nd match from the top in what promises  to be their most intense encounter yet,   and one given almost as much hype as the  final match. Speaking of final matches,   this show also features the final match of  one of the most successful foreign wrestlers  

In the history of Puroresu: The Original  Destroyer, Dick Beyer, takes his final   bow in a 6-man match, teaming with Giant Baba  and his son Kurt Beyer against Masanobu Fuchi,   Haruka Eigen and Masao Inoue. There’s even  room for a beefy slugfest between Akira Taue  

And Big Bubba Rogers — or y’know, Big Boss Man,  seeing as he’s still wearing his old WWF costume. It should be noted, before getting to the match,  that the July 29th 1993 All Japan Budokan show in  

General is a classic — just about every match on  the card delivered, and some critics called it the   greatest Budokan Hall wrestling show ever, which  is no mean feat considering how many wrestling   shows have been held there. The match between  Kobashi and Hansen is legitimately one of the  

Greatest ever, and one of the bouts that utterly  made Kobashi — he’d continued to get more and   more shine, had probably the best match of the  year’s Champion Carnival in a brutal showdown   against Kawada, and then there’s this freaking  war. The two beat the absolute living hell out  

Of one another to the point where Kobashi’s  left eye is swollen shut by the end of it,   and it ends with THAT Lariat from the turnbuckles  — the one you’ll see in every single All Japan   highlights package, forever. The Summer of 1993  is the making of Kobashi — he’s a lot more than  

Just Misawa’s second, or his tag partner,  he’s now a fully-fledged main eventer who’s   pretty much on the same level. What an absolute  skirmish…unbelievably, Misawa and Kawada had   to follow this match. And despite having to go  after such a classic, they manage to deliver.

The opening exchanges spell out the differences  now between this match and the 1st title bout in   1992 — this is not a technical contest,  it’s a battle to see who’s strongest,   both determined to show the other that they’re  best. The strikes take centre stage — both hurt  

Each other early on. A kick to the back, an elbow  to the chin, a kick to the throat…it’s like   they both put across that one kick or elbow  could end this at any time, just like what   happened in the Champion Carnival. We see Misawa  asserting dominance by sending Kawada outside,  

Then kicking and elbowing him back out onto  the rail when he tries to return — very much   sending the message across that this is HIS  ring, and Kawada’s going to have to take it.   Kawada takes control and spends a considerable  amount of time working over Misawa’s elbow arm,  

Knowing that he has to weaken Misawa’s primary  weapon. He ensures that the elbow will hurt Misawa   everytime he throws it, and even though Misawa  can kick well, Kawada remains like a rabid dog,   not letting Misawa up for even a second. The  kicks that he always throws at a grounded  

Misawa seem less like the sign of arrogance they  usually are — they’re more like a manifestation   of anger. Even when Misawa’s able to get a  move on Kawada, it feels like Kawada ensures   to at least get straight back up and send  Misawa down with him before recuperating.

Misawa, meanwhile…well, he’s different — he’s  never not stoic, determined not to show pain or   a lot of emotion in general. He rallies,  fighting through the pain inflicted on the   elbow and landing a peach of a strike to set up a  splash and a nearfall. The favoured submissions,  

The facelock and Stretch Plum come into play as  we enter the 2nd half, interspersed with attempts   at Tiger Suplexes and Ganmengiris — a lot of  parity. It’s notable now that Misawa’s slower to   react to the typical Kawada kicks — in the 1st  match, they’d normally be responded to with an  

Angry flurry of elbows, but this time the energy  isn’t there. The big moves come as we roll into   the final third – German Suplex, Powerbombs,  even a straight punch to the face — but not   getting the job done for Kawada quite yet. But a  3rd punch becomes a mistake — Misawa blocks and  

Hits a roaring elbow. A Tiger Suplex and another  roaring elbow produce incredibly close near falls,   Kawada barely getting his shoulder up — perhaps  only saved by the damage he did earlier preventing   Misawa from covering immediately. At the  finish, he becomes desperate — he’s able  

To hit a Dangerous Backdrop and Ganmengiri,  but has no energy left to capitalise. In the   end he can only desperately throw his body  at Misawa, who replies with three vicious,   dangerous German Suplexes. At last, a Tiger  Suplex is enough to put the virtually lifeless  

Body of Kawada away, after just over 25 minutes  of an epic, dramatic, story-filled main event. The much more serious nature of the rivalry  and the heat that Kawada brought to this   match got him a hell of a lot closer to defeating  Misawa this time around, but in the end…well,  

He’s the one who has to be helped out of  the ring. No handshake or anything this   time — it’s hardly appropriate now. It’s the sort  of victory that does feel quite decisive — one   where you do feel that Kawada still has a fair  ways to go before being able to defeat Misawa,  

One that might make you wonder if he’s ever  going to get there. Such is the nature of   these incredibly long Royal Road stories — you  wonder what on earth else Kawada’s going to be   able to bring to the table that’s going to topple  Misawa from his perch. There WILL be more to come,  

Of course — much more. This 2nd match emphasises  the fact that these two are no longer friends,   that the days of brotherhood are over…but still,  the gap between Misawa and Kawada that’s always   been there still remains. In terms of quality,  it’s another obvious classic…but seriously,  

What’s going to happen next? Is it possible  for these two to top even this bout? Perhaps we should talk a little about the state  of the company, the impact that Misawa and Kawada   were having, and what we know about the goings  on backstage in the locker room. Where does All  

Japan fit in currently, in the world of Puroresu?  Well, overall they were definitely the #2 company,   as had generally always been the case —  New Japan were the top company, of course,   and their product was fantastic at the  time. A more modern product than All Japan,  

With a much deeper roster and influx of talent  from other promotions — something that Baba’s   promotion didn’t do. The other thing New Japan  had, of course, was their exceptional Junior   scene — this was something All Japan didn’t  really focus on at all. It’s not necessarily  

That New Japan was better or the other way around,  mind — they were just very different products,   and both had lots of appeal. All Japan’s main  trouble, really, was when it came to making   money — they were a very old-school promotion  even at the start of the 1990’s, and pretty much  

All of the money came from live shows, mainly  the ones at the Budokan. The TV was what it   was — they had a long-standing national slot  on Nippon TV, but it was in a graveyard slot of   around 1am that in 1994, only got worse — moving  to Saturday nights at 2.30am…even this didn’t  

Stop the Tokyo live business being excellent,  mind you. All Japan most probably could have made   a lot more money than they did — they could have  chosen to run some bigger venues, they could have  

Run the Budokan more than the 7 times they usually  did in a year — that itself a recent increase   from 4 — but the Babas were rather set in their  ways and stuck to what they were comfortable with.

Even if All Japan had some issues on the  business side, they still put on one hell   of a show — even if they had a relatively thin  roster compared to New Japan meaning that their   main events often largely featured the same  wrestlers going at it most all the time,  

The quality of their wrestling was such that  they still managed to shine. Good thing too,   really — the Puro scene in this period was so  exciting, and so competitive…it really was a   place where there was something for everyone, and  everyone was doing their best. The UWFi were the  

Top shootstyle promotion, and they had the odd  show which actually could compete with New Japan   in terms of gates drawn and money earned. If you  liked deathmatches and hardcore wrestling? Well,   you had Atsushi Onita’s FMW — also very popular  indeed. Joshi Puroresu was in a 2nd wave of big  

Popularity after the heyday of the Crush Gals  in the middle ‘80s, and All Japan Women arguably   had the best quality in-ring product of any  promotion in the entire world — the talent there   was phenomenal. There were even some junior-based  indies, up in the north of the country, that were  

Making waves — the likes of Michinoku Pro, for  example. It was an absolutely glorious time for   just about every form of wrestling in Japan, and  All Japan were just one part of it — they may  

Have had the most traditional product and in terms  of presentation it may well have been a bit behind   the times compared to a lot of others, but…well,  you just couldn’t argue with the quality. What of the goings on backstage, then? The  relationship between Misawa and Kawada?  

Well…things had changed a little over the years.  They’d come in as friends, of course — they’d   gone to high school together, they were on  the wrestling team, all of that…but now,   they weren’t particularly close. Misawa and Kawada  were very different people — Kawada was a very  

Serious man, very much dedicated to his craft, and  his conditioning. Misawa, on the other hand, was   much more laid back — he liked to goof off, liked  to go out often, took joy in taking a country boy  

Like Kenta Kobashi — who he got on very well  with — out to get slaughtered and be a fish   out of water in the Tokyo streets and izakayas.  There’s a lot of these details that have come  

Out in recent years thanks to a 2019 biography of  Kawada, Misawa and the rest of the Four Pillars,   something that’s been wonderfully translated by  KinchStalker and is naturally linked to in the   description. Already by this point, Kawada and  Misawa had gotten physical – in recent years, it  

Was revealed that they’d had a bar fight in 1991,  when Misawa’s occasional rough-housing of Kawada   – something of a holdover from their school days  – gave Kawada a cause to respond. This incident   didn’t necessarily affect their relationship in  the short term – they made up quickly after – but  

It’s something of a harbinger of things to come.  Kawada grew to resent the success of Misawa, if   not necessarily thinking that he was undeserving  of his status but that he should be treated much   more like his equal — it is kind of inarguable  that, if you look at the two wrestlers in terms  

Of their body and fitness, that Kawada was much  fitter and in better condition than Misawa.   Kawada certainly knew it, and it irritated him a  little, and then a lot, that Misawa was seen as   the favourite — especially in the eyes of Shohei  Baba. Hell, the Babas at one point decided to try  

And take things a little further…there was  always a familial atmosphere in the All Japan   locker room, with the Babas treating their  wrestlers like their sons — amplified by the   Babas being unable to have children of their own.  Once, they took Misawa to one side and basically  

Offered him the chance to be the heir to the  Baba’s — essentially, he would become their   son in nearly every regard. Misawa thought  about it, but ultimately declined the offer. Kawada’s interpersonal relationships with  the other three pillars are also of interest,  

In particular his one with Kobashi. While Kawada  and Kobashi would never get particularly physical   or personal with each other, it’d be hard to  describe them as friends – there was always a   certain barrier between them, one largely  put up by Kawada. A lot of this, again,  

Comes back to their beginnings – we’ve spoken  already of the tough times that Kawada had,   the miserable foreign excursions, the  years of work just to even really get   noticed…Kobashi didn’t really have that –  he never even went on foreign excursion,   and indeed he was promoted pretty quickly  after his debut, featured in magazines,  

Promoted in a way that appealed to AJPW’s female  fans, given angles to bolster this such as a   losing streak in big singles matches designed to  send him rocketing up when he broke it…these were,   of course, not opportunities that were ever  afforded to Kawada – he sure as hell wasn’t going  

One-on-one against Jumbo Tsuruta two years into  his career, he was still curtain-jerking at that   point. They were, of course, also fundamentally  different wrestlers – far different in style and   in how they expressed themselves in the ring,  something which would often be the subject of  

Professional debate between the pair. Kawada, on  the whole, was very different from the other three   pillars – he was certainly the most insecure  about his position. This insecurity, however,   did tend to manifest itself in a need to push  things forward and try to ensure things didn’t  

Get stale – Kawada was often the one to drive new  ideas to ensure that the product didn’t get stale,   and he was the most vocal voice when it came to  actually kicking the feud with Misawa off. Even   if things looked good today, Kawada always wanted  to secure tomorrow…largely because lord knows,  

He didn’t ever want to experience anything like  what he’d gone through in the States again. There’s a bit more to talk about when it comes  to the backstage goings on in All Japan which we  

Will get to at a later time, but for now let’s  head back to the ring. The Holy Demon Army’s   first reign comes to an end just before the Real  World Tag League, when they lose the belts to the  

Reformed team of Stan Hansen and a returning Ted  DiBiase, back in All Japan after six years in the   WWF. This naturally sets up the American team  as serious competitors for the Tag League, but  

They only last one match — DiBiase gets a severe  neck injury and has to pull out after a match with   Abdullah the Butcher and Kimala II, which would  prove to be his last as a full-time wrestler —   unwilling to risk injuring himself further, the  Million Dollar Man decides to call it a career  

Shortly after. With DiBiase out and no-one really  available to replace him, Baba steps in for his   biggest slot on the card in a few years — the  Hansen/Baba team get quite far, and for someone   who’s 55, somewhat oddly built and hasn’t really  pushed that hard in an age? Baba does brilliantly,  

Rolling back the years. That said, these events  add to what is already quite a ramshackle Tag   League, with a bunch of makeshift teams like  Steve Williams and Big Bubba Rogers, who’s in   there to replace Terry Gordy. Not to mention the  continued noticeable absence of Jumbo Tsuruta.

In the end though, it all comes down to the two  teams you’d expect to be there at the end – Kawada   and Taue against Misawa and Kobashi, on December  3rd. The winner will top the table and win the  

Tag League. As good as their match in the Summer  was…well, this is an even better bout, and after   such a chaotic tournament it’s a perfectly fitting  end, a great finale to the year with one hellish,   fiery and dramatic bout for both the Tag League  and the Tag Titles. It ends with Kobashi getting  

His first pinfall over Kawada, just about  outlasting him and finally getting the three   count following a backdrop — an excellent end to  his breakout year, and his first big tournament   win. Of course, it’s Misawa’s 2nd Tag League in  a row. It’s a highly emotional moment, especially  

For Kobashi, and another match that you absolutely  have to check out if you haven’t seen before. This takes us onto the 1994 Champion Carnival, a  tournament that’s seen Hansen and Misawa face off   in the last two finals, with Hansen winning both  contests. One might think that this would be the  

Perfect time for Misawa to win the tournament, and  to finally get the Champion Carnival — after all,   if that happens then he’ll have pretty much  won everything, right? And perhaps this was   the plan…however, it doesn’t happen. Early on  in the tournament Misawa suffers a neck injury in  

A match with Doug Furnas, and even though he  doesn’t drop the Triple Crown because of it,   it’s bad enough that he has to pull out for  the remainder of the Carnival. Although he   does return later in the tour and even though  it’s a non-tournament match, Misawa and Kawada  

Do end up facing each other in a special match  on April 11th, the same time as they would have   in the carnival…one presumes that putting this  on was something done to help out the live gates,   which may well have suffered if Misawa was absent  for too long. Anyway, it’s a typically amazing  

Showing between the two, as ever — and this time  you do get the result that you’d expect, in that   the match ends in a 30-minute time limit draw.  Indeed, neither Misawa or Kawada would ever defeat   each other in the round robin version of the  Carnival again — they’d have 4 straight draws,  

From 1995 to 1998. These matches aren’t obviously  the biggest encounters that the pair have ever   had, but they do make for highly entertaining and  often quick-paced affairs — a great taster of   the sort of thing the pair are capable of, even if  they don’t reach the heights of the title matches.

Most expect a Stan Hansen vs Kenta Kobashi final  to be the result of this, but neither of those   two make it — Kobashi ends up getting his first  pinfall win against Hansen in the Round Robin,   while Kobashi’s final hopes are dashed by a loss  to Steve Williams, meaning that Toshiaki Kawada  

Ends up facing “Dr. Death”, in something of a  surprise — however, it does go a way towards   establishing Williams as a top main eventer. We  did already cover this match a bit in the Steve   Williams career video, but it’s just the sort of  smashmouth slugfest you’d expect from this pair,  

As two stiff bastards beat the snot out of each  other for a good 20 minutes or so. In the end,   Kawada emerges victorious. It’s  actually kinda important — at last,   Kawada managed to beat Misawa to something! He  won the Champion Carnival, traditionally the  

Company’s 2nd biggest tour after the Tag League,  before Mitsuharu Misawa did. And also…well,   winning the Champion Carnival traditionally  means that you’re going to get a shot at the   Triple Crown. Meaning that Kawada is going to  get his third bite of the cherry — the third  

Match between the former partners is on the cards.  It will take place on June the 3rd, 1994, and it   will go down in history as one of the greatest  matches ever in the history of pro wrestling. We’ve already gone through most of the build  up with Kawada winning the Champion Carnival,  

So there’s not a whole lot to say before the match  starts except that it’s nearly a year since Misawa   defended the title against Kawada for a 2nd time,  and in that time he’d successfully defended the   belt against Steve Williams and Stan Hansen. You  may be a little surprised at the lack of defenses  

— this is actually Misawa’s first defence of the  title since the 23rd October last year. However,   the All Japan tour schedule usually means that  the Tag League and the Carnival take up a big   chunk of that portion of time, so it’s not all  that uncommon — the Triple Crown isn’t defended  

As much as a lot of other titles. Also of note is  another epic bout between Misawa and Kobashi and   the Holy Demon Army — Misawa and Kobashi defeat  them once again on May 21st in a 40-minute match,   retaining their Tag Team titles. This time around,  Kobashi pinned Taue after a Moonsault…again,  

You might think that this would be a good time for  Kawada to pin Misawa, but it doesn’t happen — and   if that’s not booked, then it makes sense for  neither guy to be involved in the finish. And  

With that…well, the scene is set for the third  big encounter between Misawa and Kawada — and,   chances are, the one that many people saw first.  As much as every meeting between these two is a   golden one, there’s probably two dates that  stand out over the rest — the first is a tag  

Match that we’re going to be looking at in the  next video, and the 2nd is this match right here. Just the first 5 minutes plays out like the best  parts of the openings of the previous bouts,   complete with new layers — an initial pause  and respect for each other’s skill gives away  

To nasty kicks, a spinning backdrop, and an  elbow that sends Kawada reeling to the floor   early on. Misawa even reaches into the Tiger  Mask drawer, doing the famous Tiger Feints and   trying to follow with an elbow from the apron, but  Kawada anticipates and lands a vicious elbow of  

His own. This vicious bump is enough for Misawa  to get a nasty cut on his ear, and it’s quite   notable because previously we haven’t seen too  much outside fighting in these matches — that   we’ve gone to it so early is a mark of the hatred  that now exists between these former friends.  

Kawada wastes no time working over Misawa’s wound,  pounding him with strikes and making it clear he   wants to go for the knockout — he’d like nothing  better than to defeat Misawa with his kicks.   However, a series of low kicks from Misawa turns  the tide, and this time around it’s the champion’s  

Turn to work on his opponent’s main weapon in an  attempt to take it away from him — Misawa goes at   Kawada’s leg with gusto. Even though Kawada shows  that his kicks can be dangerous from any position,   Misawa uses his technical knowhow to keep away  from them. Suddenly Kawada can’t kick without  

Collapsing in pain, and the challenger is in  perhaps his toughest situation against Misawa to   date — if he can’t throw his kicks properly,  how can he possibly hope to defeat Misawa?   This situation spurs the crowd on to get behind  Kawada somewhat — even faint boos can be heard  

As Misawa continues to brutalize the leg. In his  meticulous approach and attention to detail here,   Misawa is more like that one wrestler he  didn’t quite gel with than he’s ever been. Kawada has had to work more from behind in this  3rd match so far than he had to in the previous  

Two, but the wounded animal still fights through  the pain, landing kicks whenever he can. And yet,   already, just one elbow is enough to send him  crashing to the mat. Still though, he rallies,   outsmarting Misawa on a dropkick attempt  and finally taking the chance to uncork  

Some of his most powerful hits to date. I can’t  stress enough how perfect the timing here is,   and the psychology — everything seems to come  at EXACTLY the right moment. Kawada now focuses   on Misawa’s neck, sensing a weakness, hitting  it with enzui dropkicks, kneedrops and chops.  

We go into the 2nd half of the match with  the crowd already at a fever pitch, blood   pouring out of Misawa’s ear, and both wrestlers  blocking each other’s big moves — somewhat back   on a level playing field once more. Misawa takes  advantage once more, hits some of his favourites  

And tries to wrench Kawada’s head off with  the facelock, but Kawada keeps going. It   feels as though Misawa’s in a similar position  to where he was at the end of the 1993 match,   seemingly with plenty left while Kawada’s barely  hanging on…but then comes a great equaliser,  

And one of the most famous spots of the match  — Misawa leaps off the top for an elbow attack   and right into a Ganmengiri. It’s absolutely  vicious, and the crowd goes utterly wild for it. We’re about 25 minutes in, and this time  around? These two are still toe to toe with each  

Other — just when Misawa thinks an elbow might  keep Kawada down? He’s back up and attacking, and   then he’s knocking Misawa down for a change. We  reach a point, at last, where the tables are fully   turned — Kawada is now seemingly able to hit his  biggest moves at will. The Dangerous Backdrop,  

The Powerbomb, several ganmengiris…this  feels like it’s going to be it — this is   Kawada’s biggest chance to defeat Misawa. And  yet, even though he hits Misawa with basically   everything he’s got, it’s STILL not enough —  Misawa always seems to get his shoulder up,  

Even when he has nothing. The crowd is in agony by  this point — the whole of the Budokan screaming   the count and roaring every kickout. Kawada  locks in the Stretch Plum in the very centre   of the ring and he’s absolutely TWISTING it,  as if he can remove Misawa’s entire torso,  

Desperate for the end, the commentary barely  audible…and STILL. Not enough. 30 minutes are   gone and Misawa, from somewhere, starts replying  with elbows — enough to buy precious seconds   of recovery. Misawa rains the elbows down,  finding a new lease of life from somewhere,  

Crushing Kawada with a release German suplex  — just as he did in the last match. A Tiger   Suplex follows — this beat Kawada in 1993,  but here he just kicks out. All of a sudden,   Kawada finds his own untapped sources, luring  Misawa in and hitting the Abisegiri — a rolling  

Koppa kick that sends Misawa reeling.  Amazingly, this match isn’t over yet. In this, the final part of the final stretch,  Kawada hits a 2nd Abisegiri and sends Misawa to   the floor. He waits for Misawa to recover, and the  pair lock eyes and mentally prepare themselves for  

What’s to come. As soon as Misawa re-enters,  the pair begin one final strike exchange,   throwing their very best. Kawada blocks  a roaring elbow and takes Misawa to the   corner with headbutts, trapping him in and looking  for the knockout…however, Misawa weathers it,  

Blocks and hits a big counter elbow to send Kawada  back, followed by a vicious Roaring Elbow. Misawa   follows up with a vicious combination of elbows  and a 2nd Roaring Elbow…he knows, however,   that there’s only one way this match can end. He  goes for the underhook but Kawada tries to rally  

One final time with low kicks and a 3rd Abisegiri,  but Misawa blocks and comes off the ropes for   a savage, knockout elbow strike. Finally, he  locks in the underhook, and he lifts Kawada up. After 35 minutes, it took the greatest weapon in  all of Misawa’s arsenal, the Tiger Driver ‘91,  

To finally defeat Toshiaki Kawada. Nothing  else was going to get the job done. This time,   Misawa falls to the ground — both are worked  on by their seconds following such a dramatic   and brutal bout. Misawa does get up and receives  his belts, and when Kawada finally gets up, with  

The ring chock full of people, there is — for the  first time in quite a while — a brief handshake.   A mark of respect, even between two incredibly  bitter rivals. Fitting for such a match,   really…this pair had reached some incredible  heights already, but this match? It blew all of  

That away — unbelievably, they managed to reach  an entirely new level. I’ve watched this match so   many times and the story it tells both as a single  match and as a part of this entire story…well,   it just never gets old — if anything, there’s  still new layers to be found. It’s almost become  

A cliche to call this one of the greatest matches  ever — but…well, it is. And it was a match that   had such an impact not just on Puroresu, but on  Wrestling as a whole. It’s one of if not the first  

Match anyone thinks of when these two wrestlers  come to mind. It probably inspired and continues   to inspire a hell of a lot of people to start  wrestling themselves, or to get involved in some   way. It was shown over the course of two episodes  of the company’s TV show, and the complaints sent  

To Nippon TV’s switchboard for not showing  the match in full were plentiful — the match   was soon fully released on a commercial tape  just by itself because…well, it didn’t need   anything else. How many people watched this match,  pissed off and bored by a lackluster and lifeless  

American product, at the time utterly marred by  controversy and bullshit going on in courtrooms,   and had their love of wrestling not just  rekindled, but brighter than ever? It’s…truly   something else. If Misawa and Kawada had never  wrestled each other again, this would still be  

One of the great feuds — and this will always be  one of the very greatest matches. They did that. And…well, it’s not over. The hunt will  continue — Kawada will not rest until he   has finally beaten Misawa, ideally for the Triple  Crown. Misawa and Kawada will continue to define  

Each other for years yet…but naturally,  we have to stop this video here. The hunt   will continue on in the next part, going over  the next few years, continuing the pursuit,   encountering a tag match that’s just as  important as June 3rd 1994, and tracking  

This incredible feud’s evolution as it becomes  the defining feud of the entire decade in Puro. On the October 22nd, 1994, the 2nd of the Four  Pillars of Heaven managed to make his way to   the top of All Japan Pro Wrestling — Toshiaki  Kawada, a man who’d already done enough to lay  

His claim as one of the best tag team wrestlers  of all time, who had won the company’s Champions   Carnival earlier in the year and had competed in  a match that people were already describing as the   greatest of all-time just a few months previously,  finally won the Triple Crown in the Nippon  

Budokan. However, there was a slight sting in the  tail — it wasn’t by defeating the man he’d chased   for the past two years. Kawada won it through  defeating Dr. Death Steve Williams, the man who  

Had put an end to Misawa’s 705 day reign on the  28th July. He did it in typical Kawada style,   weathering a powerful storm from the ruthless ,  countering with his signature strikes, and finally   polishing Williams off with the Ganmengiri to win  a title he’d desperately wanted for a long time.

However, the hunt was still not over. Triple Crown  or not, Toshiaki Kawada was still yet to defeat   Mitsuharu Misawa, the man who’d always been a step  ahead of him, who was once his schoolfriend and  

Was now his bitter rival, both in storyline and in  real life. This 3rd part of our look back at the   Misawa-Kawada rivalry covers a period from 1995 to  1998, featuring several legendary singles bouts,   a particular tag match that’s just as important  as the bout that happened on June the 3rd,  

1994, and it will culminate in the biggest  match of both wrestlers’ career to date,   in Japan’s biggest venue for wrestling.  We’re eventually going to the Big Egg,   but first, we’re headed to the start of 1995  — with Kawada at the top of the company.

Toshiaki Kawada was able to see out the rest of  1994 with the titles, with one memorable defense   coming right at the start of 1995. Kenta Kobashi  continued to stake his claim as a singles wrestler  

On the same level as both Kawada and Misawa, but  wasn’t yet able to dethrone Kawada to get a title   reign of his own…however, Kawada equally wasn’t  able to overcome the utterly game Kobashi, and the   two wrestled to that rarest of things in King’s  Road All Japan — a 60-minute time limit draw in  

A title match, with the two leaving absolutely  every last thing in there, and contributing yet   another classic match to this company’s incredible  period. A truly incredible match for many reasons,   in front of a highly appreciative and  emotionally charged crowd in Osaka that  

Occurred just a few days after the horrifying  earthquake in Kobe, it would be a battle worthy   of an entire video if we weren’t covering Misawa  against Kawada.. As for the Real World Tag League,   the Holy Demon Army of Kawada and Taue would also  draw with Misawa and Kobashi in the course of the  

Tournament, going all out over 30 minutes,  and while Kawada and Taue would get close,   ultimately Misawa and Kobashi would repeat  their success of 1993 — defeating Williams   and Johnny Ace in the all-important final  match. With Misawa ever so slightly on the  

Backline for a chunk of the early part of 1995,  Kawada seems set to enjoy a bit of quality time   with the Triple Crown…however, he runs into  a surprise that people didn’t expect to happen. On March 4th, 1995, the 45-year old Stan “The  Lariat” Hansen defeated Kawada for the Triple  

Crown, in the last tour before the Champions  Carnival. It had taken a long time for Kawada   to get his first victory over Hansen previously,  finally knocking him off for the first time in the   ‘93 Carnival. The two had always had some pretty  severe and violent wars, pretty much all of which  

Are worth watching, but it certainly came as a  surprise for Hansen to get the victory here, over   Kawada, in 1995. But…well, Hansen wasn’t known  as the Unsinkable Battleship for nothing – after   over 30 minutes of brutal wrestling, with his main  arm hanging uselessly at his side, Hansen threw a  

King-hell lariat to take down Kawada once more.  It’s Hansen’s 4th Triple Crown reign, and the   title will be his going into the annual Carnival.  Kawada’s 1st reign ended suddenly, after 133 days   and only one defense — in a match he didn’t win.  Take note, for this theme will develop further.

Before we get to the Carnival, there is a  little special event that’s most certainly   worth covering — the Bridge of Dreams, in  1995. This one-off event. Organised by the   Puro magazine Weekly Pro Wrestling, saw just  about every major Puro company come together  

For a special exhibition card in the Tokyo  Dome. A trio of fabulous curtain-raisers sees   the best of Joshi go at it — All Japan Women,  Japanese Women Pro-Wrestling Project & Ladies’   Legends Pro-Wrestling all take the stage. There’s  a high-energy junior 6-man tag from Michinoku Pro,  

A hardcore blooodfest from IWA, an Onita  explosions showcase out in the left field   from FMW, the best shootstyle representatives from  UWF-i, RINGS and Fujiwara-gumi, an MMA match from   Pancrase featuring Minoru Suzuki and even a  spot for the weird antics of Ryuma Go and his  

Self-titled promotion Go Gundam. Naturally, the  two main spots belong to All Japan and New Japan,   with NJPW’s Shinya Hashimoto and Masahiro Chono  closing out the card in a somewhat underwhelming   bout, but the biggest energy in the Big Egg is  most certainly reserved for the semi, a typically  

Brilliant 6-man tag where the Holy Demon Army and  Johnny Ace take on Misawa, Kobashi and Hansen,   in a fantastic duel that ultimately results in a  30-minute draw. Now, of course, All Japan puts on   6-man tags like this damn near every other week —  but not necessarily on this big a stage. Even if  

New Japan is traditionally the home promotion  of the Tokyo Dome — the only company perhaps   that can run the venue all by themselves without  having to rely on big-ticket freelancers or join   up with other promotions, as the Joshi promotions  did for the Big Egg Universe — when All Japan run  

Their tag bout at the Bridge of Dreams? It feels  like they might just be able to do it as well. The ‘95 Carnival has a winner that you  might well have expected, but it’s not   necessarily a smooth road to get there. The  main drama occurs before the tournament,  

When Steve Williams gets found to be in  possession of marijuana at Narita Airport,   and is sent home — suspended for a year. Quite  a big loss, considering that Williams was almost   certainly set to go far in the tournament, but  things are naturally rejigged pretty sharpish.  

The main beneficiary of all this is Akira Taue,  who goes on a hot run through the tournament,   largely running the table, only losing to Stan  Hansen, and getting a crucial win over his   tag team partner that ties him on points with  Mitsuharu Misawa, and takes him to the final.  

Misawa’s run through sees him not lose at all,  only dropping points through draws with Taue,   Hansen and — of course — Kawada. Mitsuharu  Misawa is quite clearly the favourite in this   bout, and naturally the odds are not upset — Taue  fights as hard and as vicious as possible, with  

The result being an epic contest that’s probably  up right there with the NOAH title match against   Kenta Kobashi as the very best singles bout of  Taue’s career…but in the end Misawa does emerge   victorious and, at long last, claims his first  Champions Carnival. With this victory, Misawa  

Now has a full set of All Japan honours, and  naturally another title shot against Stan Hansen   is going to take place pretty soon. The table  is being laid, it seems, for a 2nd Misawa reign. Sure enough, on the 22nd May 1995, Mitsuharu  Misawa faced Stan Hansen with the Triple Crown  

On the line, and Misawa won. There’s not a great  deal to say about it, as it’s exactly what you’d   expect to happen — it’s Misawa getting a final,  decisive win over one of his toughest opponents,   in what is one of the big man from Borger,  TX’s last big singles matches — while Hansen  

Will continue to be a major threat in  the tag division for several years,   he’ll only fight for the Triple Crown one  more time. Mitsuharu Misawa begins his 2nd   reign with the belt, and with him on top there  is a certain normality — he is, after all,  

Most assuredly the face that runs the place. And  naturally, with Misawa holding the belts again,   thoughts once again turn to another meeting  between Misawa and Kawada. And indeed,   it’s coming — but this time, it’s going to  be set up through a spot of tag team action.

Despite the advances of the Holy Demon Army,  the team of Misawa and Kenta Kobashi have been   the absolute dominant team in the company over the  last couple of years — essentially, they’ve held   the belts since December of 1993, only breaking  for the traditional vacation of the titles for  

The 1994 Tag League — a tournament that they won  for the 2nd year in a row, giving them the belts   straight back. Even if the tag scene in All  Japan is somewhat top heavy, with Misawa and  

Kobashi only ever defending the belts against two  other teams — the Holy Demon Army and the duo of   Johnny Ace and Steve Williams — the company does  their best to pull out a lengthy story from the  

People they have available, and the story of the  Holy Demon Army vs the last two standing from the   Super Generation Army is, in many ways, an epic  on par with the Misawa-Kawada singles feud. Again,   it’s a story of a long chase — Taue and Kawada  defeated Kobashi & Misawa once before, but they’ve  

Been pursuing them for the past couple of years,  and had been getting closer and closer…the start   of the year had seen the pair face off in another  60-minute draw, similar to the Kawada and Kobashi   title match, and one which saw Kawada firmly  get over a simple punch to the face as a lethal  

Weapon — he coldcocked Misawa midmatch, putting  him out of action for 20 minutes and leaving   Kobashi to fight the Holy Demon Army on his own,  but they still couldn’t put Kobashi down. And of   course, you add this to Toshiaki Kawada having  never pinned his main rival either in singles  

Matches, or in tag matches. It all builds up to a  major point in this tale — and that comes on June   9th, 1995 where, a little over a year after Misawa  and Kawada’s epic 3rd encounter, the Four Pillars  

Come together for another match that instantly  makes the short list of truly legendary bouts in   Wrestling history, and is usually thought  of as the greatest tag match of all-time. June 9th, 1995 in the Nippon Budokan, the last  match of the year’s Super Power tour, is very  

Much a one-match show — there’s not an awful lot  going on in the rest of the card, and the semi   main event features Stan Hansen destroying the  frankly awful Giant Kimala — not the more famous  

Kamala played by James Harris — in short order. A  younger Rob Van Dam faces off against Dan Kroffat   in All Japan’s forever neglected Junior Division,  Giant Baba and the rest of the old-timers make an   obligatory appearance — it’s all very typical.  You can certainly pick out issues with the depth  

Of All Japan when you analyse the whole of  the card, and we’ll talk about the state of   the company later on in the video — but with  these four wrestlers on top against each other,   the show obviously sells out anyway. The crowd  is hot, even if this is far from the first time  

That these teams have faced each other — they  are fully enraptured by the lengthy story that’s   been told, and they’ve come here tonight  expecting to witness a very important beat. You know, almost immediately, that the Holy Demon  Army has bad intentions — only a minute or so in,  

Taue takes a warning shot at Kobashi’s heavily  strapped up leg, eliciting boos from the crowd.   Kawada also takes opportunities to kick  both Misawa and Kawada off of the apron,   and immediately it becomes clear that there’s  little the Army won’t do to finally get this  

Win tonight. The faces weather the storm and start  working over Taue, leading to a great moment where   Misawa does his suicide dive fakeout, ends up  rolling all the way back, and blasts Kawada with   a vicious elbow. And then, naturally, he executes  the elbow suicida on Taue with Kobashi holding him  

In place…beautiful, fluid tag wrestling. Taue  finally tags out after driving Kobashi to the mat   from a 2nd rope dive, and Kawada immediately  works over Kobashi’s obvious weak point — vicious   strikes to the leg, and lots else besides.  The Army works Kobashi over with submissions,  

And whenever Kobashi tries to fight back, they  usually once again savage the weak leg with   strikes — again, the crowd boos. There’s a LOT of  heeling going on in this match, it has to be said. Misawa soon returns and goes to work with  elbows aplenty on Taue. Kawada thinks he’s  

Dodged an attempt to knock him off the apron,  and relaxes a bit — only for Misawa to hold   the ropes on an irish whip and return the favour  after Kawada knocked him off earlier. However,   there will be a painful rebuttal, in one of the  match’s most famous spots. Kawada comes back in,  

Casually walks up to Misawa as  he’s got Taue in a Boston Crab,   and kicks him directly in the skull. It works both  as a callback to their match earlier in the year   where Kawada took Misawa out of the action with  a single strike, and even — if you want to go  

Far back — to the infamous Akira Maeda shoot  kick on Riki Choshu from the 1980’s…I mean,   it’s basically the same stroll and kick. Again,  there’s a LOT of boos. The crowd actually applauds   a little when Taue helps Misawa back in without  hurting him further, but it’s a false dawn…he  

Simply tags out and leaves the wounded Misawa  to bedlam. Kawada unleashes — anger upon anger,   kick upon kick on Misawa in the corner, even  throwing Kyohei Wada aside to continue the   onslaught. Misawa eventually recovers somewhat to  start fighting back, but now both Kawada and Taue  

Are on him. Kobashi comes into help, but soon eats  a dropkick to the back of his injured leg — more   boos. Misawa and Kawada continue fighting, now  with Misawa hitting elbows in the corner until   Taue thrusts him down, Kobashi comes back for  chops on Taue…it’s all just such a furious,  

Never ending sequence of brutality, the most  hateful point of this entire story so far,   until Taue finally, famously, throws Misawa down  directly onto Kobashi’s injured leg. At this point   Kobashi is in agony and basically immobile, and  it’s not helped further when Kawada hits a knee  

Drop on the leg from the 2nd rope — he’ll be out  of commission for a while, and the Army have taken   a big advantage. As an aside? This is some of  the most dramatic tag action you will ever see,  

With a crowd that’s absolutely screaming. And it’s  only going to get even more intense from here. Taue and Kawada both go to work on Misawa over the  next couple of minutes, punishing him with chops,   kicks, and submissions, looking to press their  advantage. Taue hits a nasty Atomic Throw, and  

Even when Misawa tries to fight back with elbows,  Kawada comes back with a lariat. Soon enough,   Kawada has the Stretch Plum locked on in the  centre of the ring and it’s at this point when,   despite the pain, Kobashi comes back  — unbelievably, he’s full of fire.  

Taue tries to take the leg out once more,  but Kobashi retorts with lariats for him,   and for Kawada. Kobashi gets tagged back in and  goes toe to toe with both members of the Army,   winning the battles, and ultimately setting  the scene for a double Tiger Driver on Taue.  

The Super Generation Army continues to press  their advantage — suplexes, a Tiger Driver,   lots of elbows and various near falls, and  things seem hopeless for the Army when Kobashi   locks a sleeper on Kawada, just as Misawa has  the facelock on Taue. Kawada manages to power  

Out eventually and gets Misawa to release  the hold, finally making a big counter with   the Dangerous Backdrop. At this point, nearly 30  minutes into the bout, both teams are very even. Kobashi and Misawa continue to get the best  of the exchanges, even as both teams get  

Dangerously close to empty. Kobashi peppers  Kawada with strikes, as well as a couple of   suplexes — but they’re not enough. Even despite  the weakness in his legs, Kobashi’s been trying   for the moonsault all match, only for one of the  Army to thwart him — finally, he gets a shot  

After Kawada gets nailed with a Misawa frog  splash. Kobashi finally hits the moonsault,   the crowd firmly expects a 3-count…and Kawada  kicks out at 2.9. Kawada somehow manages to hold   on through a vicious Misawa release German and  the Tiger Suplex, but then Taue comes into save  

The day with 2 Nodowa Otoshis on Misawa — one  from the top rope. Kobashi tries to prevent the   2nd chokeslam, but a hard running kick to the leg  seems to bring all the pain back at once, sending  

Him to the floor. An Abisegeri sends Misawa to a  waiting Taue on the Apron, and here’s where the   truly decisive moment happens. Misawa desperately  holds on for dear life, but an Enzui Lariat from   Kawada seals the deal, and Taue chokeslams  Misawa from the Apron to the floor complete  

With the loudest “ABUNAAAIIIIII!!!!!” you’ll  ever hear from the commentary. Finally, Misawa   has been utterly poleaxed. The Holy Demon Army  are fully in the ascendancy, and now is the time. In this final part of the match, the Super  Generation Army have just about nothing left.  

All that Kenta Kobashi can do is crawl and  climb over his partner in the vain hope of   saving him from more punishment — usually with  the result being that he receives more punishment   himself. This is the part where things can  get a little emotional. Finally Misawa is  

Rolled back to the ring, only for him to roll  back out again — when he’s finally back in,   he’s able to kick out. Kobashi desperately holds  onto Misawa’s leg, but is soon brushed off and   the Holy Demon Army hits a powerbomb and Nodowa  on the Army — still, Misawa kicks out. Kawada  

Tries to stomp the very life out of Misawa,  Kobashi attempts to smother Misawa once more,   and it’s here where the Holy Demon Army have had  enough of his interventions. Kobashi is destroyed   completely by a Dangerous Backdrop/Nodowa Otoshi  combination, and he will take no further part  

In this match. The execution of Kobashi gives  Misawa enough time to try one final flourish,   hitting Taue with a Roaring Elbow, but then he  walks straight into a Ganmengiri. At long last,   Kawada seems to have his moment…he plants  Misawa with another Dangerous Backdrop. Somehow,  

Misawa raises a shoulder. As Taue holds  the nearly lifeless body of Kobashi back,   Kawada strains to lift the deadweight of  Misawa up for a Soul Powerbomb…for what   seems like forever, until at last he  gets him up there and plants him down.

It’s done, at long last. For the first  time, Toshiaki Kawada has pinned Mitsuharu   Misawa — after years of trying in singles and  tag matches. As big a milestone as this is,   it also shouldn’t be forgotten that the Holy  Demon Army have also won the Tag Team titles,  

Ending Misawa and Kobashi’s nearly unbroken  year and a half with the straps. The interviewer   is more than eager to stress this to an  utterly spent team as the crowd goes wild,   along with acknowledging the fact that this is  Kawada’s first pinfall on Misawa. He’s done it  

In a match that will go down as one of the  very greatest ever — in terms of story and   being such a climactic moment, not to mention  the sheer quality of the in-ring action, it’s   hard to think of another tag match that’s on this  one’s level. It achieved this status very quickly,  

Both in Japan and for Puro fans across the world  — Dave Meltzer broke his star scale for it,   proclaiming that the match was 5+ Stars, something  he’d only done once before for Misawa and Kawada’s   June 3rd ‘94 battle. On a personal level? This  is actually my favourite match of all-time,  

A place that cements itself just that little bit  more every time I watch it. I’ve watched many   great matches, even more so since I’ve started  doing these videos…but for me? 06/09/95 is still   at the very top…what a moment. What a match.  One that anyone who wants to start a journey  

Into Puroresu simply has to watch — either on  it’s own or as part of this story…it’s very   special. And now that Kawada finally has that  pinfall over Misawa under his belt? I’m sure   you won’t be surprised to learn that another  tilt at Misawa’s Triple Crown isn’t far off.

Indeed, things move very quickly – a Misawa vs.  Kawada title match will headline the very next   tour, the Summer Action Series, on July 24th. This  is still by some distance the hottest match that   the company can put on, meaning that it sells  out the Nippon Budokan almost immediately. It’s  

Not as if selling the Budokan out is much of a  surprise — All Japan are generally guaranteed   to pack it no matter what, and they claim to  have a streak of well over a hundred Budokan  

Sellouts at this point — but the tickets go that  much quicker when these two are on top. Makes you   think if they could run it at a bigger venue than  the Budokan’s 16,300 seats, really…in any case,  

The story going on here is simple — Kawada has  finally proved that he CAN pin Misawa. He’s now   done it, at least in a tag…but can he do it  in a singles match? The answer is surely yes,  

And he certainly has the momentum going into this  bout, after such a famous victory, to pull it off. The opening exchanges show the parity here —  a lot of big moves and strikes are gone for,   and almost all of them are blocked or  dodged. At this point, these two know  

Each other VERY well — almost as well  as they know themselves. Finally however,   a boot and Abisegiri hit their mark, sending  Misawa outside. Kawada presses the advantage   quickly, hitting a powerbomb on the floor, and  for the first 5 minutes of this match Kawada  

Gets basically ALL the offense, peppering Misawa  with Ganmengiris, vicious kicks in the corner,   and a couple of suplexes. It’s the most dominant  Kawada has ever been at the start of one of these   matches, to the point where you wonder if he’s  in Misawa’s head — he simply can’t get anything  

In whatsoever. Is this going to be the night?  Misawa, however, finally does get a big hit   in with a roaring elbow, and it’s a telling one  — the sort that’ll damn near knock Kawada out,   and this starts a lengthy period of Misawa  offense. This is a reminder of just how  

Tough the task facing Kawada still is, and  just how lethal an equalizer Misawa has in   his pocket — Kawada does plenty of damage to  Misawa in the first 5 minutes, and yet Misawa   levels the playing field with just ONE well  placed elbow. He’s the champion for a reason.

Misawa presses further, with some vicious  neck-wrenching suplexes of his own,   not to mention even more elbows. The facelock gets  locked in, and applied with authority — even if   it’s not enough to make Kawada submit  and such a thing would be unthinkable,  

It’s a great way to wear him down. Kawada finally  comes back in, even if he has to bend the rules   somewhat to do it — there’s times when only  a stiff punch to the face will do the trick.  

A big enzui lariat follows, and Kawada wears  Misawa down with a Choke Sleeper — occasionally   going a bit too far below the chin for Wada’s  liking. A Dangerous Backdrop is soon nailed,   and Kawada has his own opportunity to severely  wrench in the Stretch Plum, in the centre of the  

Ring…Misawa almost seems to fade away and Kawada  goes for the cover, but Misawa kicks out at 2.9. A   Soul Powerbomb follows, but again — Kawada cannot  get that third slap of the mat, no matter what. He  

Must be wondering just what on earth he has to do  to take down his former senpai, once and for all. Kawada lands a Ganmengiri, and follows  it up with another vicious release German   Suplex…it should be noted that there’s  definitely a fair few more dangerous,  

Head and neck-drop suplexes in this match than  there have been in the previous Misawa/Kawada   battles. We get 2 more Soul Powerbombs, and again  — Misawa continues to roll his shoulder up.   Misawa manages to reverse a Dangerous Backdrop  that could have well proved decisive — this  

Gives him enough time to exchange some strikes,  and recover a little…that’s quite necessary,   as Kawada soon hits the Backdrop after a nasty  low kick. It is STILL not enough. And then,   again…well, it’s all about the equalizer. A  missed Ganmengri, a blocked boot, and a vicious  

Elbow strike, followed by several more. Misawa  follows up with a nasty Release German Suplex,   and a Tiger Suplex — Kawada barely kicks  out…seriously, all the offense that Kawada   has had here — and all of a sudden it seems  as though Misawa’s kicked it into another gear,  

One that Kawada didn’t even know he had.  A roaring elbow strike is followed by two   absolutely sickening release Tiger Suplexes,  sending Kawada into complete oblivion.   Misawa lets his stricken opponent get up, plants  another roaring elbow to send him onto the ropes,  

Then comes off them for the coup de grace — a  savage running elbow strike…there’s not much   grandstanding — Kawada simply slumps to the mat,  defeated. The cover. The count. One, two, three. You would have thought that Kawada would have had  all the momentum, that this was his best chance so  

Far…and yet, following the end of this match,  Kawada appears to be further away than ever.   Misawa has found something else, something that  allowed him in the end to not just win this match,   but to win it in decisive fashion. This is the  “You haven’t even seen my final form” moment  

In the story, basically. Did the release of  finally getting that one pin make Kawada a   little lax going into this bout? Maybe — but  for all that he was able to get onto Misawa,   so often it took just ONE hit for Misawa to make  things even again. And this, despite a great deal  

Of neck damage from all those damned head drop  suplexes. Misawa once again prevails, and Kawada   will seemingly always be a step behind. Now, from  a match quality point of view this is the first   match of the series that doesn’t improve on the  ones before it — although that’s not a surprise  

Seeing as June 3rd ‘94 was their last singles  match, and it’s still an absolutely fantastic   main-event encounter, one that absolutely should  be seen by every Puro fan. After the highs of   June 9th, this is a low for Kawada of course  — but it means that this story is a long,  

Long way from being over. And that means we’ve  got plenty more great action to look forward to. Following July the 24th, we do go through a  relatively quiet period in this story — there’ll   still be some excellent matches of course,  but it’ll be nearly 2 years before Misawa and  

Kawada have their next title match, and beyond  the typical Champions Carnival 30-minute draws   that they have every year, the majority of  their meetings will occur in tag matches.   Does this mean that the quality of the action  diminishes at all? Well, no — there’s still  

Tons of exciting things happening, and a couple  of these tag matches are absolutely colossal. So,   before we take stock of where we’re at as far  as the state of the company and puroresu as a   whole goes, not to mention the state of the  relationship between these two incredible  

Gladiators, it’s worth going through the  highlights of the rest of 1995, and 1996. The traditional last tour of 1995, the Real World  Tag League, sees Kenta Kobashi and Mitsuharu   Misawa win once more, getting a bit of revenge  over the Holy Demon Army in the final and making  

For a historic three-peat. There’s a slight change  to the tournament in that the winner does not win   the tag belts, instead receiving a title shot on  the next tour — however, Misawa & Kobashi decide   not to take the shot. With Kobashi becoming  yet more prominent as a singles wrestler,  

Driving Misawa himself pretty hard in a tough  title defense in October, he largely forgoes   tag wrestling to compete in singles, although he  still remains part of the Super Generation Army.   His place as Misawa’s regular tag partner will  be taken by Jun Akiyama, who cements his place  

High up the card with a victory over Akira Taue  in early 1996 — his first pin on one of the Four   Pillars is enough for Giant Baba to claim that  there is now a “Big Five” instead of a Big Four.  

As for the tag titles, the Holy Demon Army lose  them in January to the new hot team on the block   — one consisting of Stan Hansen, who needs little  introduction, and Gary Albright — the ultra-tough   mulleted Amateur wrestler who’s come in fresh from  making waves in the once hot and now ailing UWFi.

The Holy Demon Army regains the tag titles back  just a month later, and naturally they continue to   reach dizzying heights with the Super Generation  Army — on the 23rd May they have an absolute   ripper of a match with Misawa and Akiyama. Misawa  and Akiyama take the big win on this night,  

And Akiyama claims his first championship…but  the next night springs something of a surprise.   Despite his earlier loss to Akiyama, the first  half of 1996 has seen Akira Taue make a great   deal of waves. He got to the Carnival final last  year and had a couple of barnburners with Misawa,  

And in 1996? He goes one better — the  Dynamic One wins the Champions Carnival,   besting the returning Steve Williams  in the final. And then, the very next   night after losing the tag titles? He defeats  Mitsuharu Misawa, to claim his first Triple  

Crown Championship — it’s quite the rise for  the man from Chichubu, who is often seen as a   couple of steps behind his fellow three Pillars  of Heaven. He even successfully defends the belt   against his tag team partner — Kawada falls to  Taue on June 7th, before Taue drops the straps  

To Kenta Kobashi on July 24th in an absolute  blinder of a match which is, as it happens,   Kobashi’s first singles pinfall win against Akira  Taue. 1996 is arguably Taue’s best in-ring year,   one where he’s very much on the same level as  the rest of the quartet, and with these wins, all  

Four Pillars have now held the Triple Crown title.  Kobashi held onto the Triple Crown for the rest of   1996, defeating Stan Hansen in the Lariat’s final  title attempt and going to another utterly classic   60-minute time limit draw with Kawada, before  dropping the belt to Misawa on January 20th, 1997.

The final notable thing to mention — and it is  very notable — is that the Holy Demon Army win   the Real World Tag League for a 2nd time,  defeating Misawa and Akiyama in another   staggering bout — it’s quite possibly the best  RWTL final ever, and is often seen as being almost  

On a par with the June 9th, 1995 match — it’s  that freaking good of a contest. Sure enough,   it ends with Kawada proving that 06/09/95  wasn’t a fluke occurrence — the two teams   leave everything in there, each performing  essential roles. Misawa is the ace of course,  

And Akiyama is his pupil. The Holy Demons are  on a more even keel, but they make a great   balancing act — while Kawada is always so full of  rage, often to a point where he can make errors,  

Taue is the more measured wrestler, the one who’s  always there at just the right moment. In the end,   when Akiyama gets firmly taken out of  commission with a Dangerous Backdrop,   Kawada seals the deal with the folding Soul  Powerbomb on Misawa, getting his second pinfall  

On him in an all-time legend of a match. Again,  just…what a battle this one is. This brings us   just about up to date with the big events in  All Japan in time for the next portion of the   Misawa/Kawada cycle, so…what’s the general  state of things when it comes to the company,  

And in Puro as a whole? Are people sick of  watching this group put on incredible matches yet? Generally speaking, the people haven’t yet  tired of these incredible matches — but that   does come with some caveats. All Japan is the most  traditionalist promotion of them all, and business  

There basically hasn’t changed, ever. There’s a  significant market for that, but the market is   very much centred in Tokyo — they sell out the  Budokan every time, but audiences are decreasing   when they go out on tour, with programs like the  Real World Tag League going down in attendance  

Every year outside of Tokyo. A big reason for  this is because the house shows are, indeed,   very samey — pretty much no-one new comes in,  and while the product is obviously good…well,   it is basically the same wrestlers, week in and  week out. Prelim wrestlers in ok enough matches,  

A somewhat overlooked juniors match, a light  comedy bout featuring Baba, Tsuruta, Rusher Kimura   and the like that to be fair is usually  one of the most over things every night,   some hefties in the semi, and the big 6-man main  event where you’ll see Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi,  

Taue and so on. There’s certainly things  that the company could have done to change   this — putting an end to their isolationist  policy, bringing more folks in from outside,   but these are risks that the Babas aren’t  too willing to take, happy to stick with  

What works. Not everyone there is happy about  that — Toshiaki Kawada even goes as far as to   question the isolationist policy in an interview,  comments which land him in the doghouse for a   little while. There are slight signs of things  changing when a deal is rumoured to be in the  

Works to cross-promote with UWFi in the fall of  1996, but this soon falls apart and things go   back to the usual. As good as the product is,  for some people it is becoming a bit stale. There are other potential issues in how  top-heavy everything is. Sure — Misawa, Kawada,  

And Kobashi are three of the greatest wrestlers in  the world. There are others who are thought of on   the same level at this time, generally speaking  — Akira Hokuto, Manami Toyota, Nobuhiko Takada,   Chris Benoit, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart. But  when it comes both to skill and drawing power,  

All Japan’s main trio are kinda hard to beat…if  you want to look at Meltzer as a measure for how   well thought of these guys were, then have  a look at the following. All Japan wrestlers  

Won the Observer’s top award, the Wrestler of the  Year, 6 times in the ‘90s — Jumbo Tsuruta in ‘91,   four in a row from ‘94 to ‘97 with Kawada, Misawa,  Kobashi and Misawa again, and then Misawa for a  

Third time in ‘99. As far as 5 star matches go?  Well, the Four Pillars of Heaven were involved   in no less than TWENTY NINE matches in the 1990’s  that were rated 5 stars or more — in other words,  

All of All Japan’s 5 star matches. All Japan  Women were 2nd to them in the ‘90s, and they   had sixteen…that’s an amazing number too, but  it’s still a pretty big gap between 1st and 2nd.   These guys are undisputed wrestling gods, there’s  no doubt about it — but a lot of people had a  

Few worries. Every year they get a little bit  older, and get a bit more wear and tear on their   body — a big concern with this company’s hard  style…a lot of people wondered just what would  

Happen if one of these guys got severely injured  and were taken out for a period of time, similar   to what happened with Jumbo…how bad would  that be for All Japan? Because the standard of   wrestling here is so phenomenally high, how would  you even go about replacing someone like Misawa,  

Kawada, or KobashI? Is that even possible? These  were pretty fair questions to ask. Some of the   big folks who do sign up like Gary Albright and,  quite shockingly, Hiroshi Hase from New Japan,   are damn good — but even they aren’t seen as  potential Misawa, Kawada or Kobashi replacements.

All that said, business is still good — for  the most part, it’s utterly consistent. Because   of the way things are run in All Japan and the  credibility of the name, things like being stuck   on an often changing graveyard television slot  doesn’t really affect them — they’ll still smash  

Tokyo every single time, and every Budokan show  makes a cool million dollars — this is virtually   guaranteed. In other parts of the Puroresu market,  things are starting to trend downwards. By the   middle of the decade, the boom in Puro has come  to an end — things like the brutal recession  

That defined Japan’s lost decade are starting  to take effect, and wrestling is not immune.   Nobuhiko Takada’s UWFi are one of the first and  most notable casualties — they go from being one   of the hottest promotions around in 1994 to being  on the brink of death in 1995. New Japan steps in,  

Resulting in the INCREDIBLY hot UWFi vs NJPW  invasion angle, but once this is all over? Well,   UWFi is essentially finished. Shootstyle as  a whole suffers the worst, very probably not   helped by the rise of mixed martial arts in Japan  — when the likes of Pancrase become popular,  

It effectively kills it. UWFi and Fujiwara Gumi  both folded in 1996, while Akira Maeda’s RINGS   switched and largely became an MMA promotion.  Other promotions start to falter a little,   such as the hardcore alternative FMW and IWA  Japan, along with Genichiro Tenryu’s WAR.  

Joshi took a massive hit when All Japan  Women’s owners, the Matsunaga Brothers,   filed for bankruptcy in 1997. In the fallout from  this the scene fragments even further as AJW,   JWP and LLPW are joined by the introduction  of Chigusa Nagayo’s GAEA, Aja Kong’s ARSION,  

Jaguar Yokota’s JD, Kyoko Inoue’s NEO and various  others over the next few years…there’s a lot of   promotions and they’re mostly very high quality,  but it gets a bit tough to follow. While the top   promotions are still pretty healthy, a lot of  the niches of Puro are sagging as the bull market  

Ends. The only big exception to the downturn,  really, is New Japan — between white-hot   interpromotional angles, a great and diverse  roster, the quality modern product they put   on as well as being allied with WCW during that  company’s hottest period, none of this trouble  

Affects them and business is still booming for  Inoki and company. It ought to be stressed that   as good as All Japan is, it’s #2 by a very long  distance — we’re talking WWE vs. TNA levels here. One thing that does help the main companies at  least, is a certain mainstream presence — a  

Difference in the way that wrestling is treated,  perhaps. Something that, back in the middle of the   decade before the NWO and the Attitude Era really  started hitting, wasn’t that present in American   wrestling where mainstream coverage was mostly  quite negative. In Japan, Wrestling is more of a  

Normalised thing — the results of pro wrestling  cards are printed and commented on in the sports   pages, right alongside the baseball and sumo. All  Japan still enjoys a slot on a national station,   even if it is in the dead of night. Wrestlers will  be seen very often on various entertainment shows.  

When a tabloid-worthy event happens, the gossip  pages can’t get enough of it — take, for example,   the whirlwind romance that happened when Akira  Hokuto and Kensuke Sasaki met at, of all places,   the New Japan/WCW show in North Korea and ended  up getting married all of a few weeks later — the  

Tabloids were all over it, and they’re a popular  celebrity couple to this day. The Puro scene does   not exactly have its Phil Mushnick to write  scathing articles about the horrors of the   business, or a Phil Donahue to tut his head at  the fakery and steroids on a chat show — it’s all  

Quite positive, and supplemented by strong sales  for weekly magazines — Weekly Pro Wrestling and   Weekly Gong being the main ones. Mind you, even  here there’s the odd bit of credibility-tarring   drama. The Weekly Pro Wrestling-run Bridge  of Dreams Dome show that featured every major  

Promotion except WAR wasn’t even given an inch  of coverage in the other mags, amusingly — who   instead ran attacks on the magazine, accusing  them of trying to take over the business   they’re covering. Hell, the reason why WAR weren’t  there is an amusing one — that all went back to  

Tenryu’s hatred of Weekly Pro for running attack  articles aimed at his previous promotion, SWS,   back in the early ‘90s…articles that were paid  for by Giant Baba, in the form of a brown envelope   full of Yen. Even the big old smiling giant with  the deep voice isn’t immune to the dark arts.

…So yeah. The Puro scene, to us in the West  as we became more and more aware of it back in   the day thanks to the Internet, seemed like this  absolute oasis, this dreamland where wrestling   is treated with the utmost respect, everyone  treats each other with respect, there’s no  

Drama or politics or anything like that…of  course, the truth is different — there’s   plenty of drama and politics here, and a fair  bit of struggle. And there’s certainly drama   between Misawa and Kawada — the relationship  between them has not gotten any better. Kawada  

Still often feels legitimately angry at Misawa for  always being the more favoured one. Misawa knows   exactly how to push Kawada’s buttons — he’s  full of ribald jokes and is rather easy going,   while Kawada is deadly serious when it comes  to wrestling. The two do argue a fair bit,  

And there were even a few times when those  arguments did come to actual blows and the   pair had to be pulled apart backstage. These are  things that people have only really become aware   of in later years — there weren’t any reports  on backstage fights between the pair at the time,  

And details have only really creeped out through  things like interviews and autobiographies such   as the one that Kawada wrote, now that all  the participants are either retired or sadly,   no longer with us. So yes — as much as this pair  put on an incredible act, a dangerous act where  

They put their lives in each other’s hands and  present the art of wrestling at a higher level   than it’s perhaps ever been…there is a fair  bit of real-life ill feeling here, of that you   can be sure. And as we head into 1997, we’re  about to get into another chapter of the feud.

In 1997, the general sameiness of the All Japan  product did gradually start to bite harder, to the   point where, after a great deal of persuasion, the  Babas did start to change their ways — at least,  

A little. We do gradually see a few more outsiders  make their way in, at least into the midcard and   the like — it’s becoming necessary seeing as  audiences are starting to sag a little, even in   the company’s home turf, and it was getting to the  point where running in some cities was becoming  

Unprofitable. There is still a feeling that doing  this is against Baba’s better judgement — he’s   still utterly steadfast about not working  with anybody who previously left All Japan,   although Baba is a bit more welcoming towards  those who didn’t. He even allows Kawada a single  

Opportunity to work outside, in late ‘96 — one  of the last UWFi-led multi promotion shows, going   against a younger and darker haired Yoshihiro  Takayama — who will soon find himself in All   Japan’s ranks once the company folds. But when  Baba publicly makes a note that he has no plans  

To attend the show himself, you can kind of sense  that it’s not something he fully approves of. As it often does, the gaze falls on Misawa  and Kawada to provide a fully exciting main   event — even if this would be their fifth main  event singles title bout over the last few years,  

It’s still hardly a tired match. The build-up  for this next bout, as is often the case,   comes in the Champions Carnival, where Kawada,  Misawa and Kobashi all end up finishing on the   same amount of points, and a special one night  round robin is needed to decide the winner.  

Kawada and Kobashi go first, and Kawada manages  to defeat Kobashi in 20 or so minutes. Misawa   then comes in to face Kobashi, perhaps hoping  that a more weakened Kobashi will allow him   to get a quicker victory…but no — the fiery  Kobashi takes him to a 30 minute draw. And so,  

In the end, a slightly more invigorated  Kawada faces an utterly spent Misawa,   and the Dangerous One seals the deal in  7 minutes with the folding Powerbomb,   winning his 2nd Champions Carnival. This could  technically be classed as Kawada’s first singles  

Pinfall over Misawa, although nobody thinks of it  that way and it kind of obviously doesn’t count at   all — in the storyline, Kawada is still yet to  score the really big one against his main rival.   But as ever, winning the Champions Carnival  does guarantee a title shot against the Champ,  

Which happens to be Misawa, and that’ll take place  on June 9th, 1997 — the Super Power tour in Early   Summer is often the place for big occurrences  in this feud, and so it will prove again. The match starts off with Misawa getting into  the ascendancy after an initial strike exchange,  

And absolutely blasting Kawada with some savage  elbows, even following it up with a Tiger Driver   on the floor — we’re going hard immediately.  Kawada is quickly reminded, as if he needs to be,   of how dangerous these elbows are —  and so when he does get an advantage,  

He goes straight for the elbow arm, trying  to lock Misawa into cross armbreakers,   but Misawa makes the ropes each time. The arm  assault continues, and it soon gives Kawada the   chance to seriously mangle Misawa’s arm  on the floor — and even if Misawa does  

Get the odd elbow in, it’s notable how much it  makes him smart. He’s less able to capitalise,   more prone to lunges, and when he  does he’s prone to getting countered. Misawa deploys fighting spirit to fight through  the pain, but Kawada has plenty enough of his  

Own and we do get a fairly lengthy sequence of  big moves followed by desperation responses,   until both are down. Misawa tries for a roaring  elbow, but it’s dodged, Kawada hits a dangerous   backdrop and soon follows it with a powerbomb on  the floor. Soon enough though, we’re back to the  

Straight up exchanges, and they get quite vicious  — not only are they exchanging elbows, they’re   also exchanging punches and even a straight up  slap…and no, definitely not a fighting spirit   one. The Tiger Driver gets a 2.9, and then — in a  call back to the 1994 classic — Misawa jumps off  

The top rope for an elbow attack, but dives face  first into a Ganmengiri. Kawada is fully in the   ascendancy — he follows up with more Ganmengiris,  a Powerbomb, trying to pry Misawa’s head off   with a Stretch Plum, a couple of Dangerous  Backdrops…all the big hits. He then hits the  

Dangerous DDT — a brutal sheer drop brainbuster  that he’s recently started employing…Misawa is   poleaxed, and this feels like it could be  Kawada’s moment..and then he makes what can   only be described as a mistake. He gets fixated  on submission, and opts to lock in a Triangle when  

You would have thought the best thing would have  been to hit the Powerbomb and possibly get the   3 count. The Triangle is locked in right, but  Misawa makes the ropes. A missed opportunity? Kawada hits another Dangerous Backdrop, but  Misawa fights through to hit a running elbow  

Before going down. Misawa gets the better of the  next climactic strike exchange, and from there   we basically go into Suplex City — a couple of  Tiger Suplexes, a bunch of German Suplexes…some   pretty damn nasty bumps that almost seem to tear  Kawada’s neck to ribbons. Alas, it appears as  

Though Kawada has lost his opportunity. He tries  to rally, coming up once more off a Tiger Driver   attempt for some strikes, almost in defiance more  than anything. Misawa hits elbows of his own,   has a roaring elbow blocked, Kawada throws a  desperate punch, Misawa hits a roaring elbow,  

And then a running elbow when Kawada comes up  again. He covers, and the referee counts…but for   some reason Wada doesn’t count the 3, even though  Kawada doesn’t get the shoulder up. The crowd   thinks it’s over when it weirdly isn’t, and Misawa  seems a bit annoyed. In any case, he lifts Kawada  

Up and hits a German Suplex for the 3 count in a  finish that I have to assume was botched in some   way, likely by the referee. And so, Misawa has  prevailed once more — the Triple Crown remains  

Around his waist, and while Kawada had some strong  moments in this one? He has again come up short. I have to say, I’m not awfully sure how to feel  about this one. There’s definitely some good  

Story in this match — I like the attempts by  Kawada to get the submission, and I like how it   plays into Kawada missing what may well have been  his best opportunity to win the match — the red  

Mist gets the better of him and he tries to make  Misawa submit when he really should have gone for   the pinfall. And yet, for me it is probably the  weakest of all the main Misawa-Kawada matches in  

A lot of ways. Not that it isn’t a great match  still, it’s just not as amazing as some of the   others…the botched finish is unfortunate, of  course — but there’s other things that drag the  

Match down a little too. One thing I do think  about this one is that it shows how the King’s   Road style has changed over the years, and perhaps  not for the better — with the same wrestlers   always going at each other and people starting to  complain about the predictability of the contests,  

There have been a few changes to the action. One  change was to have more sudden finishes — it   did get to the point where a crowd wouldn’t  really react all that much before a match   got to the 20-minute mark, because they knew it  wasn’t going to finish before then. While that  

Doesn’t come into play here, another one  was to make the action even more extreme,   and to go even harder. It’s not as if King’s Road  style wasn’t hard enough already, but the amount   of nasty bumps and sick head drop suplexes has  increased a GREAT deal — there were way more of  

Them in this match than any other Misawa/Kawada  encounter so far, and there was already a bit   more than usual in the 1995 match. In hindsight,  knowing what’s to come in later years? It’s not   necessarily the easiest thing to watch, and  it does slightly diminish the storytelling a  

Bit — in earlier matches these big moves were  most definitely worked towards, and now they   seem to happen from the opening minutes. Again,  with all this said, it’s not like this isn’t a   damn good match indeed — but the standards are  pretty freaking high here. If there was one of  

The Misawa/Kawada title matches that I’d choose  to skip over? It would probably be this one. In 1997, All Japan’s Forbidden Door did start  to creak a fair bit, even if it didn’t fully   open. The company does gradually start to  move away from their usual isolationist and  

Conservative policies — titles start to change  hands a bit more, some new faces come in from   outside promotions, and talk starts to bubble up  about doing the big one — finally holding a solo   All Japan show in the Tokyo Dome. Talk of this  is especially strong in 1997 considering that  

It’s the company’s 25th Anniversary, although it  doesn’t actually end up happening in this year.   As far as talk with other promotions go, there’s  a lot of word going around about All Japan and FMW   talking with each other — quite a shocker,  seeing as Atsushi Onita is FMW’s main star,  

Is an ex-All Japan guy, and because of this is  someone that Giant Baba has generally treated   as persona non grata. One upshot of this is that  the Real World Tag League sees a dream junior team   join the fray — the FMW’s Hayabusa and Michinoku  Pro’s Jinsei Shinzaki. Hayabusa is one of the  

Most exciting high flyers in all of Puro, while  Shinzaki — previously known to WWF audiences as   Hakushi — is his frequent tag partner. Speaking  of WWF, All Japan also started making overtures   to Titan Towers, which perhaps isn’t quite as  surprising — the companies did have a pretty  

Established working relationship back in the  ‘80s, after all. One of the first outcomes of   this is that The New Blackjacks, Barry Windham  and Justin Bradshaw, also compete in 1997’s Tag   League — not the most exciting team, but it’s  still people from outside. Sabu & Rob Van Dam also  

Team in All Japan for a bit — at least until  they decide to dedicate themselves more to the   rising ECW. One name that perhaps shouldn’t be  forgotten in all of this is Yoshiaki Fujiwara — a   forever underappreciated legend and one of the  great masters of technical wrestling, Fujiwara  

Wrestled a couple of matches for All Japan as a  freelancer at the start of the year, following   the folding of his shootstyle group, Fujiwara  Gumi. He was one of the first to open the door   to All Japan’s walled garden, and from there the  company started to see quite a few more new faces.

There’s also a virtual arrival — All Japan makes  a deal with Sega, and from this Jim Steele comes   in to portray a real-life version of Wolf  Hawkfield from Virtua Fighter. Add this to   the recent arrivals of Hiroshi Hase, Gary Albright  and Yoshihiro Takayama along with the increasing  

Presence of wrestlers like Takao Omori, Maunakea  Mossman and Yoshinari Ogawa, not to mention Jun   Akiyama’s firm placing in the main event, and the  roster actually does undergo a little bit of much   needed freshening up over the course of the year.  Of course, there’s departures too — over the next  

Year or so the company loses a fair bit of talent  to WWF. Steve Williams is obviously the big one to   come here in 1998, but dependable midcard talents  like the team of Doug Furnas and Dan Kroffat and  

The Patriot also jump ship. Other names that  didn’t make it are more lost in the midst of   time — a lot of dojo prospects who the company  really fancied the look of and put a bit into,   but they just couldn’t hack it because…well,  All Japan is hard. With all this in mind,  

It’s a good job that the company did start doing  a lot more hiring and reaching out, really. A big part of these various changes is down to  pressure from outside sources — while All Japan’s   ratings on Nippon TV aren’t usually all that  bad for the incredibly late time slots that they  

Get stuck into, the network was getting rather  frustrated with the sameness of their product,   not to mention the total lack of modernity, and  so they did start to lean on All Japan to try and   do something different and, y’know, actually  take some risks once in a while. You can’t  

Really blame them, and to be honest the company  really did freaking need it — it’s amazing,   really, to see the quality of the wrestling  that All Japan put on and then realise that   they actually made an awful lot less money than  they really should have, to the point where they  

Often struggled to stay in the black and really  faltered outside of the capital city. There are   good and bad approaches to the way the Babas did  business…the good is in the long storytelling,   the simplicity, and the quality of the  wrestling which they encouraged to be as  

Rich and deep as possible…but my word,  they were just so damn conservative and   risk-averse — and it did start to really bite  them in the arse in the 2nd half of the ‘90s. What about All Japan wrestlers going out  and doing spots in other companies? Well,  

That doesn’t happen much — it’s kind of  a shock whenever it happens at all. Even   the young Takao Omori’s brief spot in the 1996  Royal Rumble was kind of a surprise — it’s   usually completely verboten. We get another  rare example in 1997, when Kenta Kobashi and  

Hawaiian AJPW-born wrestler Maunakea Mossman —  better known as Taiyo Kea later on — team up to   defeat Hayabusa and Shinzaki, as a prelude to the  latter team’s participation in the Tag League. The   AJPW/FMW relationship is an odd one and we don’t  end up with a lot of evidence of it in the ring,  

But there were some wild plans, including the  idea of Onita taking part in All Japan’s planned   Dome show and doing a classic Onita deathmatch —  y’know, one with explosions and all the trimmings,   the sort that he still happily does to this very  day, and said match would have been against Baba  

Himself. Obviously this didn’t end up happening,  but the thought of an Onita deathmatch taking   place on an All Japan card, against Baba of all  people, is just utterly surreal and outrageous,   and…well, gah — it’s almost a shame that it  didn’t end up occurring. Other ideas were thrown  

Around the place — notorious ex-yokozuna Koji  Kitao getting involved, a dream singles match   between Tatsumi Fujinami and Jumbo Tsuruta that  was largely nixed due to the latter’s condition,   some exploratory negotiations with ECW that  may have seen Shane Douglas defending the  

Belt against Hiroshi Hase, or Kobashi taking on  Bam Bam Bigelow. Ultimately Baba ends up vetoing   most of the more outlandish ideas, as well as any  thoughts of working with the WWF and headlining   the Dome show with, say, a main event WWF talent  going against an All Japan main talent…while  

WWF will have a presence at the Dome, some rather  fractious negotiations between both sides marred   by a general lack of understanding of each other’s  product means that it ends up being a lot less   than either originally planned. In the end, Baba  says that if we’re going to do the Dome show,  

We have to close it out with our best wrestlers  — and you can see his point. With this in mind,   you can probably guess what the main  event of this Dome show’s going to be. With all the wrangling that’s going on and  the various ideas of just what the company’s  

Going to do inside the Big Egg, All Japan ends up  missing their 25th Anniversary, at least in the   Dome — instead they make plans to run a belated  anniversary show there in the Summer of 1998 that  

Kind of serves as a triple celebration — 25 years  of All Japan, 45 years of Nippon TV, and Giant   Baba’s 60th birthday. Giant Baba announced at the  end of 1997 that the show would take place on May  

1st, 1998. Historically, he’s always thought that  if All Japan were to run the Dome, it would take   the shine off of the traditional big events at the  Budokan Hall, and he’s not necessarily alone here   — both Misawa and Kobashi were also not in favour  of running the Dome, and advised Baba against it.  

But it’s going to happen, and Misawa and Kawada  will naturally main event the show. There will   be a few outsiders — the on-off FMW relationship  sees the Headhunters and Mike Awesome — in his   Gladiator gimmick — feature on the undercard.  Hayabusa and Shinzaki will also be there in an  

Odd match, going against each other in a bout  where Hayabusa will team with Giant Baba — an   odd mixture of the classic comedy old-timer antics  and high flying action. While there was all sorts   of conjecture as to how the WWF-AJPW relationship  was going to affect the show with rumours of All  

Japan desiring Steve Austin, Ken Shamrock and  Shawn Michaels for the card followed by the firmer   ideas of running Undertaker vs Taue and Vader vs  Kobashi in singles at the Dome — which may also   have resulted in Kobashi working a program in WWF  with Vader over the Summer, believe it or not, the  

Ultimate end result is that Vader makes his first  All Japan appearance, forming a dream team with   Stan Hansen in the semi main, up against the team  of Kobashi and Johnny Ace. And Hiroshi Hase has   time off from his senatorial duties to appear  on the show, going against Jun Akiyama! Still,  

In the end…as ever, it’s all going to be about  that main event. Nearly six years later? Yep, it’s   still the biggest match in the company’s locker,  and now it’s going to be on the biggest stage.

As far as build up goes, most things that happen  are pretty usual. The Holy Demon Army won the ‘97   Tag League, defeating Misawa and Akiyama again  in the final — another fine match of course,   although nowhere near as amazing as the ‘96  one. The Champion Carnival saw Misawa win once  

More — this time he ended up facing Akiyama  in the final after the pair tied on points,   and naturally the champ prevailed. Misawa has  been champion since January of ‘97 after beating   Kenta Kobashi, and has actually defended the  belt an awful lot more in this reign than he  

Has in his previous 2. 8 successful defenses  — the one against Kawada that we’ve covered,   two against Akiyama, another absolute classic  against Kobashi in October, as well as two against   Williams and one each against Taue and Johnny Ace.  Perhaps another sign of All Japan trying to boost  

Up their cards — the Triple Crown has gone on  the road, with more defenses occurring outside   of the typical Budokan Hall. The big match itself  was finally announced in March along with the rest   of the card, although there was the possibility of  a last minute shake-up when, later in the month,  

New Japan and WCW’s long-standing business  relationship basically fell apart overnight.   Baba did make overtures to WCW and, if there  had been more time, perhaps some of those guys   could have been there — but it was ultimately  too late in the day. In the end the All Japan  

Dome show is actually not that different from a  regular big Budokan Hall card with typical All   Japan presentation and not much in the way  of the surprises or pyrotechnics that are   usually expected at Dome shows. While this was  a bit of a disappointment for the paying fans,  

At least before the show itself, All Japan still  drew around 58,300 people to the Dome, very little   of which was papered, and this was plenty enough  to make the show very profitable — the gate alone   was somewhere around four million dollars.  There were also worries about wrestlers’  

Conditions going in — Misawa, in particular, is  pretty freaking banged up, suffering injuries to   his back, neck and one of his fingers during the  Champion Carnival and a broken kneecap in his last   defense against Johnny Ace. With all this, plus  people grumbling about the quality of the card,  

Can Misawa vs Kawada actually deliver  on the biggest Puro stage of them all? Misawa starts off strong, hitting elbows and  a flying lariat. Kawada tries to ground him,   but Misawa blasts him some more with elbows to  send him reeling. If Misawa’s knee is hurting,  

And you can see the bracing under his tights,  he’s not showing it — he comes off the top for   a big dropkick, and then a crushing elbow  suicida to the outside. Misawa works the   facelock and goes for the Tiger Driver, but  Kawada hits a spinkick and then positions  

Him on the top for a superplex. Amazingly,  Misawa flips out of it — a move that must   have been hell on that knee — but Kawada  nails a boot and follows up with a vicious   brainbuster. Misawa ranas out of a Powerbomb  attempt, but Kawada’s there with the boot  

Again before Misawa can get any momentum — a  theme that’ll be common in this match. Kawada   is desperate to be a step ahead of Misawa at all  costs — something he’s always struggled with. Misawa gets the better of the next strike  exchange, and manages to hit a couple of  

Suplexes not long afterwards. However Kawada  dodges a roaring elbow, hits a big German,   and follows up with a Ganmengiri to win back the  advantage. But then Misawa catches Kawada on the   wake up with more elbows and a German Suplex  to send Kawada out of the ring — he brings  

Him back up and nails him with the Tiger Driver  as we go back and forth. Kawada crucially finds   a way forward by attacking the weak point —  twisting Misawa’s leg with a dragon screw,   he then opts for big submissions on the wounded  limb like a half crab, and a figure four leglock.  

Misawa survives, but the pain is pretty clear.  Still, even if the leg’s hurting, the elbows are   pretty strong — Misawa hits some vicious ones to  knock Kawada down, and a roaring elbow to the back   of the head sets up a Tiger Suplex. It’s a move  that’s beaten Kawada before, but he kicks out.  

A Ganmengiri gets blocked, but Misawa hurts his  elbow arm in the process and Kawada takes notice,   hitting a running boot to the arm, then the head,  and following up with a cross armbreaker — he’s  

Going to have to break Misawa down, limb by limb  if he has to. Raw spirit allows Misawa to hit   more elbows and another Tiger Driver, but Kawada’s  still there as we head into the closing stretches. Kawada continues to nail the arm, the damage that  he’s done is pretty evident on Misawa’s face,  

And this sets up for bigger blows like  the Abisegiri and Ganmengiri. Still,   Misawa’s able to backdrop out of a Powerbomb  attempt — only to be hit with an Enzui lariat   and a German. We get another German with a sick  rotation and another Ganmengiri — but it’s  

Still not enough. Is this another moment where  Kawada’s going to get so close and yet so far?   Misawa threatens the comeback, elbows signalling  the final exchange that Misawa always seems to   get the better of…until Kawada cuts it short  with another Abisegiri, and then the biggest  

Ganmengiri yet seems to knock Misawa for a loop.  The crowd goes wild, sensing that the moment’s   finally at hand. Kawada gets Misawa up straight  away for the Dangerous DDT, but Misawa kicks out.   Kawada finally manages to hit the Soul Powerbomb  but Misawa kicks out AGAIN. Surely, surely it has  

To be now? Kawada picks up the nearly dead weight  of his great rival, strains and strains to get   him up there…but then with one last heave,  Misawa’s up on Kawada’s shoulders. He stays   there for what seems like forever, until Kawada  sends him crashing down. And at long last…

…It is done. The hunt is complete. Toshiaki  Kawada has finally defeated Mitsuharu Misawa   in a singles match for the Triple Crown, at the  sixth time of asking — and he’s done it on the   biggest stage in Puroresu. Kawada was finally  able to produce that perfect performance — and  

It damn well needed to be in order to get the  job done. The crowd absolutely roar the victory,   and his seconds are just as happy — Tamon Honda,  Takao Omori and Yoshinari Ogawa lift the exhausted   Kawada up on their shoulders, celebrating what he  has managed to achieve after so long. Lord James  

Blears hands him the belts, and in the interview  afterwards, an emotional Kawada thanks the crowd   at the Tokyo Dome for helping to make this  night the happiest that he has ever been in a   professional wrestling ring. It’s been such a long  fight to get here — but Kawada defeated Misawa  

At last, fair and square. The match itself is a  brilliant one, of course — for all the worries   about Misawa being banged up, or whether it  would work in the Tokyo Dome? It absolutely did,  

And they pulled out all the stops and more. They  gave the Big Egg a stone cold classic, and ended   All Japan’s big solo Dome show on a high note —  enough for the show to be a success critically as  

Well as commercially, and definitely enough for  Giant Baba to say that they’ll be running the   Dome again next year. As far as the story goes,  it’s one hell of a release for Kawada to finally  

Get this big win, and big moment — the biggest  of his whole career, perhaps. It may take a long   time for All Japan to get there, but hoo-boy is  it worth it when they do. What a superb contest. Of course, even if Kawada has now beaten Misawa,  

That doesn’t mean this story’s over at all.  The man has a trio of belts to defend. And yes,   the pair will cross paths again — both in  All Japan Pro Wrestling, and beyond All Japan. We have, so far, covered 6 years’ worth of  rivalry between two of the greatest Puroresu  

Stars of them all – Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki  Kawada. The amount of classic matches they’d had,   both in singles and in tags, would already be  enough to overwhelm a lot of people – a colossal   amount of encounters that represent wrestling at  its peak. And it’s still not over – we have one  

More part to do. In many ways though, it’s going  to be a part that’s a little different – in this   last chapter, Misawa and Kawada are going to  be spending most of their time apart from each   other. The politics of pro wrestling will come to  the forefront, the entire landscape of Puroresu  

Will change forever, and a new drum will be  beaten. The old ways will start to die out,   and even when this pair might feel like  they should begin rolling into the sunset,   as elder statesmen, or as figures of the  past…they’ll still be very much in the  

Present. Indeed, they’ll have to be. In the  end though, they’ll still have each other. For now, we go back to the late ‘90s  in All Japan. We still have a couple   of direct meetings between Misawa and Kawada  to look at, of course – but we ended our last  

Part on the Dangerous One’s greatest moment of  triumph…having tried his damnedest for six years,   he finally got a completely decisive pin, with  not a single caveat, on Mitsuharu Misawa in a   singles match. He did it in the main event of  the biggest show that the company had ever run,  

In the Tokyo Dome in front of over 58,000  people. Finally, it appeared as though   Toshiaki Kawada’s time to be the ace had come.  But in a very delicate time where everything is   soon to be turned onto its head…things are  never quite that simple. Let us continue.

So, Toshiaki Kawada has the Triple Crown on his  waist and his shoulders. He was the happiest   that he had ever been in a pro wrestling ring.  The people looked forward to seeing him with   those belts for a long time to come…and his  Triple Crown reign lasted all of 42 days,  

From the 1st of May 1998 to the 12th of June.  The Super Power series, the very next tour,   ends with a new champion. Kawada doesn’t  even get to have a successful title defense,   and the crowds of Puroresu fans are once again  shocked by the result. So…how did all of this  

Happen? Initially it appeared as though Toshiaki  Kawada was going to defend his titles first off   against Jun Akiyama – and even though Akiyama  was getting hotter and more and more established,   that’s certainly a match you’d expect Dangerous  K to win. But plans are always subject to  

Change – with Mitsuharu Misawa off of the next  tour and recovering from his various injuries,   the call is made for a much bigger main event and  a much tougher opponent…Kawada will face Kenta   Kobashi in his very first defense. A man who’s  previously held the Triple Crown, has already  

Taken Kawada to the limit, and has already had  the better of him on several occasions. Outside   of a rematch against Misawa himself, it would  be hard to find a tougher opponent than Kobashi. With Misawa out of commission, Kawada doesn’t  exactly enjoy the best crowds for his first  

Tour as champion – the shows outside of Tokyo  represent some of the company’s most miserable   audiences over the past few years. David Heath,  soon to start appearing in the WWF as Gangrel,   gets a main event slot on one of them. In  something that could be another entry into  

A book called “Inexplicable Jun Akiyama-related  booking decisions”, Akiyama goes to a 30-minute   draw with Steve Williams in what is Dr. Death’s  last match with the company before going to WWE,   and quite obviously a match that Akiyama should  have won. The booking tries to keep fans guessing  

A little bit – Taue pins Kobashi in the Holy Demon  Army’s tag title defense, something that doesn’t   usually happen on tours where the challenger for  the main title is normally protected throughout.   In a different sort of booking to the norm,  Kobashi is given something of an underdog role  

In the build-up to his challenge, a traditional  sell-out at the Nippon Budokan – he gets a worked   injury to his knee, and even does a stretcher  job at the hands of Kawada in Aomori. In the end,  

Even if it’s not one that All Japan usually tells,  it’s a wrestling story that’s as old as time. Naturally, the match between Kobashi and Kawada  is a great one – it’s everything you would want   it to be. The new champion’s arrogance is as  strong as over, happy to toy with his prey,  

To pick apart his injuries, to exude  self-confidence…but the Orange man   keeps coming back. He never stops fighting, he  weathers the storm of Kawada’s best shots and,   in the final stretch, poleaxes him with a lariat.  Kobashi pumps his fist, raises Kawada by the head,  

And knocks his block off with the Burning Lariat  – a relatively new addition to his offense,   and it’s enough for Kyohei Wada to count the 3, in  33:18. Kobashi, much to the surprise of the crowd,   has overcome the odds – he’s the Triple Crown  champion for the 2nd time. For Toshiaki Kawada,  

Much like his 1st reign, the chase proved to  be a whole lot better than the catch – all   that time was spent getting here,  only for it to be lost so quickly. Why did Kawada’s reign end up being so  short? Well, there’s a couple of bits of  

Speculation – some felt that All Japan looked  at the poor attendance for a lot of the shows   on the Super Power tour and panicked, thinking  that they quickly needed to hotshot the title   to someone else. The cruel irony about this being  that such low attendances weren’t necessarily the  

Fault of Kawada being the champion – they were  almost certainly the fault of Misawa not being   there. Even when he’s not on the shows, Misawa  still ends up having something of a negative   effect on Dangerous K…then there’s a school of  thought on how All Japan sees Kawada – in that  

He is a great challenger, but not necessarily  the best champion. In the eyes of the booking,   Misawa is of course the top star, and the  other man who is fit to hold the title for   lengthy periods? That’s Kobashi. Kawada, on the  other hand, is not seen to have that undefinable  

“champion” character – that’s not necessarily a  knock on him, it’s just an estimation of where he   fits into the card. Unlike Kawada, Kobashi will  enjoy a more sizable reign – he’ll have 141 days   and successful defenses against Jun Akiyama and  Akira Taue, before once again seceding the belts  

To Misawa on 31st October. The year will end,  once again, with the titles around the waist of   the man who’s had them for a combined total of  1,511 days and counting – that’s a little over   4 years and 1 month of the 1990’s. Are Misawa  and Kobashi destined to be the true champions,  

With Kawada always being the chaser? Is  there perhaps something else behind this   altogether? A certain need to rush things  forward for reasons that no-one might be   aware of? That’s something else to think about,  as we move towards another significant meeting.

With Misawa back on top, business gets back to  something more consistent, although this is a   situation that does give him a bit of discomfort.  He is becoming more and more open in interviews   about a need for All Japan to change things a  little, saying in a conversation with Tokyo Sports  

That the company does need to think seriously  about modernisation and switching up the same old   routines. He also says that he has no intention  of fighting for the Triple Crown again until 1999,   although naturally plans change with his  victory on October 31st – presumably this  

Was down to flagging attendance. Despite the  enduring popularity and enduring love that   the wrestlers have for Giant Baba, a man who  celebrated wrestling his 5,700th match in July,   even he is not necessarily immune to public  questions from his own stars. The wear and  

Tear is still a severe problem – almost all the  big stars are banged up to one degree or another,   some like Kobashi to the point where they require  surgery – in Kobashi’s case, to both knees. And  

Yet all are also in a position where it’s tough  for them to take the required time off to get   said surgery because they’re too important, and  there’s too much pressure to stay on. There is,  

Of course, a shot in the arm to come at  the end of the year – the arrival of Vader,   fresh from the doldrums in the WWF but still  a huge star in Japan, is a very important one,  

One of the few people who is very much on the  starpower level of the company’s best and can be   slotted into the main event scene immediately.  His arrival immediately gives the business a   huge boost, but with all this in mind and even  despite running the big match at the main event  

In the Big Egg only a few months previously,  it’s not too much of a surprise that it took   less than a year for Misawa and Kawada to meet  in the ring again, with the belts on the line. Behind the scenes, there’s a lot of  movement going on. In a pretty big  

Change to the structure of the company, Misawa  is effectively given the book in October by Baba,   in a somewhat surprising move that looks to  change things up. Immediate consequences here   include the uplifting of people like  Yoshinari Ogawa, Misawa’s good friend  

Who has spent the majority of his career  very much in the undercard of the shows,   mainly because he’s somewhat smaller than most of  the big stars and therefore not someone Baba would   consider pushing – now he’s going to partner  Misawa in the Tag League. Misawa also wants to  

Push talent with a more “legit” background,  as in shootstyle or shootfighting – here,   Yoshihiro Takayama and Masahito Kakihara are  both beneficiaries. People who lose out include   Johnny Ace – struck down the card immediately –  and Maunakea Mossman, who was due to team with  

Misawa in the Tag League but was deemed too  green by Misawa as soon as he got the book. It’s hoped that outside talents will benefit  from Misawa’s influence – previous signings like   Hiroshi Hase had pretty much been wasted because  Baba would never book them even close to the  

Same level as the homegrown talent. Vader is, of  course, the immediate beneficiary here – his first   match as a company regular, in the Tag League,  sees him get a pinfall over Misawa in literally   7 minutes. In general, it’s hoped that Misawa can  get some of his plans for modernising All Japan in  

Place – if Shohei Baba is willing and his wife,  Motoko Baba – who Misawa has never particularly   gotten along well with – is out of the creative  picture, that’s seen as a possibility. That said,   Misawa doesn’t necessarily have all the power –  it’s not necessarily his decision to become Triple  

Crown champion again so soon, but Baba still has  control over the belt and it’s his decision to   have Misawa on top – for what it’s worth, the  classic match that Misawa and Kobashi have on   October 31st is seen as one of the most successful  Budokan cards in quite some time. In other  

Respects though, Misawa is starting to take a lot  more control – we’re at a stage where Baba, after   having his usual undercard match, is now showering  and leaving shows completely in order for Misawa   to run things by himself. The Misawa/Ogawa  tag team doesn’t do a lot in the Tag League,  

Where the new team of Kobashi and Akiyama take  the prize over the dream team of Hansen and Vader. The 8th big Title match between Misawa  and Kawada is announced for January 22nd,   at the end of the Tag League, as the big match  of the New Year Giant Series tour. Normally  

All Japan’s January tour isn’t exactly one of the  biggest of the year, particularly as the last show   of it usually takes place in Osaka at the Furitsu  Gym as opposed to the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo,  

And that doesn’t change here – but the big ticket  main event and the arrival of Vader in singles,   facing Kenta Kobashi in a match to determine  the first opponent for the winner of the   Misawa/Kawada match, signals that this  year’s kickoff is a bit more important  

Than usual. In other more minor news, Giant  Baba missed shows on December 2nd and 3rd,   his first misses in over six years.  Such news wouldn’t necessarily be big,   but the lengthy time between missed shows even  starts up rumours that his health is in very  

Bad shape. As it is, he said he had the flu and  returned for shows on the 4th and 5th – but the   later news that he won’t be taking a planned trip  to Vancouver where he was likely to have a meeting  

With Vince McMahon and other WWF officials is  treated with a great deal more concern. We’ll   have more on this in a little while, of  course – but for now…well, there’s a match   to go through. The show will go on, and Misawa  and Kawada will take to the ring once again.

The match starts with a slow feeling out process,  both fully aware of what the other’s capable of by   now, but it’s not too long before we get the  first big strike exchange – one that Kawada  

Just about manages to edge. Misawa soon manages to  get a hold in though, using his kicks and elbows,   and then a big elbow suicida when Kawada retreats  to the floor. Misawa hits the spinning backdrop,   and then we see a famed spot we’ve seen a  couple times already – Misawa goes to the  

Top rope for an elbow and dives straight into  a Ganmengiri. It’s a high-risk sort of spot,   but one that comes off flawlessly as ever.  Misawa now has to retreat to the outside,   and soon finds himself booted  to the floor, ran to the rails,  

And kicked into the audience. Kawada returns  Misawa to the ring and runs through a range   of his favoured strikes – cracking knife-edge  chops, a side kick, and those arrogant little   face kicks. He tries for a Powerbomb, but  Misawa reverses with a hurricanrana – however,  

Just as in the 1998 match, Kawada’s straight  up with the running boot to keep the advantage. And it’s here, only seven minutes in, where  the key moment of the match happens. It seems   innocuous – Kawada goes for a suplex, Misawa  blocks with elbows, and Kawada hits him with  

A backfist. But it goes horribly wrong – the  contact appears to be Kawada’s wrist and forearm   right on to the back of Misawa’s cranium,  and you hear the crack of it. Kawada walks   away immediately – I believe he pretty much  knows already that he’s broken his right arm  

And wrist on that shot. Kawada still executes the  German Suplex, and it’s followed by a Ganmengiri,   but the feeling of the arm and talking to  the ref tells you quickly that something’s   gone wrong. Misawa takes control for the next  while with elbows, a couple of Tiger Drivers  

And even a kneeling Tiger Driver – not exactly  a Tiger Driver ‘91 – but it’s evident that a bit   more care is being taken because, after all, the  match has to go on. When Kawada takes the offence,  

You see how much care he takes, relying  mainly on kicks and being as careful as he   can be to avoid putting much pressure on,  or landing on his broken arm…even still,   he’s an absolute marine for continuing  on, with still such a long way to go.

Kawada is finally able to get back in, dodging  a Roaring Elbow and hitting a Dangerous Backdrop   followed by another Ganmengiri, playing  through the pain. Kawada works Misawa’s   leg hard and goes in for the Stretch Plum,  even if he’s not quite able to put as much  

Into it as usual. Perhaps it’s a bit to do with  the injury but this match does seem to take on   a more old-school vibe – certainly less of the  endless headdrops that have often defined the more   recent Misawa-Kawada bouts. Kawada tries to knock  Misawa out in the corner, but as ever the stoic  

Champion powers through the hits, responding with  elbows of his own to knock the challenger down,   and then coming off the top with a missile  dropkick. However, Kawada beats him to the punch,   scything him down with a kick to the leg and  then going big with a figure four leglock…Misawa  

Just about reaches the ropes. He comes back  with kicks of his own and the roaring elbow,   before going for a running elbow strike that has  finished Kawada a couple of times before…this time   Kawada blocks and hits a couple of Ganmengiris for  near falls as we start to enter the last stretch.

Kawada tries the Dangerous DDT, but Misawa is  able to power out with a Snap Suplex. He dodges   a strike and hits a Bridging German – another  previous match finish – but it only gets 2.9.   Misawa goes for another Tiger Driver, but Kawada  back bodydrops out and turns things around with  

The Abisegiri, followed by the Dangerous DDT for  another near fall. And then, we get the match’s   most famous moment…Kawada, broken arm and all,  tries to lift Misawa up for the Soul Powerbomb.   With one big heave, he gets him there but only  halfway with Misawa’s head pointing towards the  

Ground, and then…well, you know the rest. The  most legendary, the most brutal move. The Kawada   Driver, or the “Ganso Bomb”, as it was usually  known online. The scream of the commentary is   bloodcurdling, and amazingly this move – which,  yes, is basically a botch due to Kawada not being  

Strong enough to lift Misawa, does not finish  the match. Indeed, Misawa almost desperately   tries to throw elbows after, despite a total  lack of energy…but Kawada holds firm. Finally,   he lifts up Misawa and hits another Dangerous DDT,  and this one’s enough to get the 3-count – it’s  

Kawada’s 2nd major pinfall against Misawa,  and his 3rd Triple Crown Championship. However, there’s not all that much  celebrating. Kawada stays down afterwards,   not just selling the effects of the match but  clutching at his arm, which will soon have an  

Icepack applied to it. He has to wait for a  makeshift sling to be put on before he can   even get up properly…it’s all rather muted,  probably because even despite the victory,   Kawada knows what’s coming – he has badly  broken his arm after all. It’s a victory,  

But at quite a severe cost – a cost that will  mean that almost as soon as Kawada has won this   Triple Crown, he will have to relinquish it. He  says as much in the talk to the press afterwards,  

Just before he gets into an ambulance to be  transported off to the nearest hospital. It   should have been another great moment, and in  many ways it still is…but it’s a muted one. The January 22nd 1999 bout is a very different  one to every other Misawa/Kawada fight – a very  

Special match, for different reasons. Obviously  a lot of this match was changed due to Kawada’s   injury a few minutes in – the pair did a great job  not just to work on the fly, but to take a great  

Deal of care. You see the professionalism here  as much as you see just how tough Kawada is for   powering through despite a serious injury that  is going to keep him out of action for several   months. The big moments are justifiably famous, of  course – but this is a great story-telling match  

Even without the Gansobomb and the like. This  pair can still surprise you a great deal, and they   can adapt and overcome despite the most serious  challenges – it’s still one of the great matches   of the decade, and for one man in particular,  it was the finest match he had ever seen. Those  

Were the words of Giant Baba, the patriarch  and owner of All Japan Pro Wrestling, on his   61st birthday – as he sat surrounded by his wife  Motoko and two of his closest friends and longest   employees, referee Kyohei Wada and announcer Ryu  Nakata, in his bed at the Tokyo University Medical  

Hospital. It was the finest match he’d ever seen,  and it was the last match he would ever see. Until the announcement that Giant Baba was going  to miss shows on December 2nd and 3rd 1998,   no-one had given too much thought to the man’s  health. For Giant Baba, the days had usually  

Progressed in much the same way – be on the bus,  be at the show, go out and get a little exercise   in a 6-man comedy match with old buddies Rusher  Kimura, Mitsuo Momota, Haruka Eigen and company,   do a bit of commentary, sit at the merch tables,  pass messages to wrestlers through intermediaries  

In the traditional way. From the way that Giant  Baba lived, you’d probably never have guessed,   for example, that he was one of the richest  men in the entire pro wrestling business,   or one of the biggest stars that it had ever  known. Few would be able to estimate his power  

And influence – a man who could, at times, bend  even the law of the country to his will. He was,   simply, Giant Baba. He had spent almost 30  years presenting his own vision of wrestling,   and how he thought it should be – over time  some things had changed, such as the switch to  

All clean finishes that announced the arrival  of King’s Road, but All Japan was always his   vision. Even though the company had seemingly  been plagued by a certain inertia in the past   couple of the years to the point where Mitsuharu  Misawa himself had issued an ultimatum for things  

To start changing or he’d start looking  elsewhere, this is still the house of Baba.   The very thought of an All Japan Pro Wrestling  without Giant Baba was completely unthinkable. With the announcement of Baba’s two show  misses being due to a bad case of flu not  

Exactly stopping the rumour mill, he went out  to the ring on the 4th and 5th with a view to   silencing the worries about his health. His  match on December 5th at the Nippon Budokan,   teaming with Momoto and Kimura against Eigen,  Masanobu Fuchi and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi would be his  

Final ever bout. The worries, however, would  begin anew when his usual December holiday   was cancelled – he had been due to take a trip  with Johnny Ace to Vancouver, where he’d attend   the WWF’s Rock Bottom PPV and have a meeting with  Vince McMahon and company. The public reason given  

Was that he’d had a resurgence of the flu – this  rather flimsy excuse did not stop tongues wagging.   The true reason was that a check up at the doctors  had revealed the presence of cancer in his colon,  

And he had to have an urgent operation to clear  it. Almost nobody knew anything about this at all. It was soon announced that Baba was going  to miss the entirety of the January tour,   which was quite a shock – the excuse given was  that Baba was still trying to recover from the  

Flu and that he was worried about a lot of  the arenas on the tour not having heating,   which again seemed like an unusually weak  excuse for someone who, prior to last month,   hadn’t missed a single show since 1992. Usually  the January tour would open with an introductory  

Speech from Baba to start the year, and it  would often include his birthday celebration   with a big party on the 23rd – however,  neither of these things would be happening.   By the middle of January it had been made clear  that Baba was in the hospital for a procedure,  

But the word cancer was still not mentioned at  all – even if by that stage it had been said that   Baba may not be able to take to the ring again  after the procedure. The word used was “ileus”,  

Which is just a generic term for a blockage in the  intestines. The real reasoning, again, was that a   check-up on January 8th following the operation  had shown that the cancer was still there, and   was indeed at an advanced stage. A 2nd operation  was scheduled, and he would not leave the hospital  

Again. The birthday celebrations on the 23rd were  confined to simply Motoko, Wada and Nakata, and   he watched the Misawa/Kawada match with a smile on  his face. Still, at this time, the public response   to questions about Baba’s health was that he was  recovering from a procedure and that it wasn’t  

Serious. Right up to Baba’s death, the only people  who truly knew how serious things were, were the   people in that hospital room. The secrecy can be  put down to several things – partly protective of   the boys, partly due to the general private nature  of Baba, partly cultural in a country where still,  

At this time, a public admission of cancer  diagnosis, particularly a terminal diagnosis,   could be thought of as something  of a taboo in certain circles. On January 31st, at the age of 61, surrounded  by Motoko, Wada, Nakata, his older sister and   his niece, Shohei “Giant” Baba closed  his eyes for the final time. Officially,  

He passed away just after 4pm from liver failure  brought on by the effects of colon cancer. Things   were still kept private for a time – it was almost  a full day before a press conference was called   and the passing of Baba was officially announced  by Misawa, Jumbo Tsuruta and Mitsuo Momota. Misawa  

Himself was only told about Baba’s death two  hours before this conference – he’d had more of   a role to play backstage in the past few months,  but all of a sudden he was now, by inheritance,   the President of AJPW and one of the most  powerful people in the industry. Or at least,  

That should have been the way…most people expected  Motoko Baba, Shohei’s widow and the person who’d   always been at the head of the business side  of the company – to retire to the sidelines   following Baba’s death. This did not happen, and  as previously mentioned Misawa and Motoko were  

Not fond of each other. Indeed, a lot of the  wrestlers weren’t too fond of her – she was,   after all, the “bad cop”, the one who would always  be giving the bad news, or scolding wrestlers or  

What have you, while Giant Baba would never do  such a thing himself. She was by some distance   the most powerful woman ever in the entire  wrestling industry aside from Stephanie McMahon,   she didn’t have the nickname “Dragon Lady” for  no reason, and she wasn’t going away lightly.

Now, we have covered a lot of these events  before – I advise you to look at my video   on the Great Exodus from All Japan to NOAH for a  more detailed account of these times, but we’ll go  

Through some things still. The death of Baba was,  of course, a massive shock – not just to Puroresu,   but to the entirety of the country…it can’t  really be underestimated how huge a figure he was,   really – an icon far beyond the reaches of  the squared circle. A private funeral would  

Soon be followed by a huge memorial, with  channels carrying specials on the life of   Shohei Baba for a long period – particularly  Nippon TV, of course. As for All Japan,   the death of Baba sent the company into a period  of not just panicked transition, but mourning that  

Didn’t really finish until May 2nd, the company’s  next Tokyo Dome show. This show was, at one point,   set to be headlined with another Misawa/Kawada  bout – however, Kawada was not ready to return   to action until the day of the Dome itself, and  therefore it was decided not to rush the big  

Match back to the ring…instead, Kawada faced  Hiroshi Hase, and the main event was Misawa   against Vader, with Misawa once again claiming  the Triple Crown from the Mastodon. Of course,   the big attraction in all honesty was Giant Baba’s  “retirement” ceremony, a celebration of his career  

Featuring many of his legendary opponents and  friends – The Destroyer, Stan Hansen, Bruno   Sammartino…and of course, the emotional sight of  Baba’s boots in the ring as his music played for   the last time. The Giant Baba Memorial Show was  an even bigger financial success than the previous  

Year’s Dome show, a sellout of 65,000. With  Nippon TV covering most of the costs for running   the show as they had done last year, it proved  to be a very lucrative night for the company,  

And one where they could say that Baba had finally  managed to sell out the Big Egg, even in death. If it weren’t for certain circumstances,  it would perhaps feel a bit much for three   Misawa and Kawada title matches to occur within  the space of a little over a year – especially  

Considering that the first one was at the  Tokyo Dome. But what with the company getting   into an ever more chaotic state following  the passing of Giant Baba – more on that   later – it’s not necessarily surprising.  Of course, Kawada does have a legitimate  

Claim to a title match – after all, he never  actually lost the title. While he was absent,   his tag team partner Akira Taue ended up fighting  Vader for the vacant crown, in a match which Vader  

Won. While Kawada wasn’t fully ready to go for a  title match at the Tokyo Dome, the Summer Action   series would see him geared up for a chance  to reclaim the title that was, in his eyes,   rightfully his – and with Misawa defeating Vader  at the Dome, this old rivals are fighting once  

More in what is their fifteenth singles match. And  let’s not forget, Kawada has won the last two – so   really, for a change, the form book is very much  on his side. The familiar setting of the Nippon  

Budokan will be the venue for another chapter  in the conflict between the pair, and the onus   is on Misawa to take down Dangerous K and prove  himself to be the undisputed champion once more. With this one, it’s a little trickier to  work this into the normal style of going  

Through it moment by moment, big move by big move,  observing the bout as it fits into the classic,   epic King’s Road style – the July 23rd ‘99 bout  really doesn’t follow that at all. Of all the   Misawa-Kawada bouts, this is the one that feels  the most like a straightforward, flat-out fight.  

It’s the shortest title match between the two by  some distance – only 21 minutes 58. In an odd way,   it feels like the one that’s most connected to the  real-life animosity between the two – if you want  

To see the flat-out stiffest shots that this pair  chucked at each other, then you’ll find them here.   All of these things make for a match that’s very  different to just about any other Misawa-Kawada   match – we don’t have any submissions, very  little in the way of technical wrestling at  

All…just blow for blow viciousness – not that  the match is any less great because of that. The main story of this one, I think, is that  Kawada has a certain psychological edge, and as a  

Striker he is finally presented as equal or better  to Misawa for the most part. A lot of the time in   the pair’s matches, Misawa’s elbows have always  had the upper hand in the end – Kawada’s kicks   aren’t exactly a lesser weapon, but often they’ve  functioned as a counter, a way to keep control,  

Sometimes even a hail mary out of desperation.  For Misawa, the elbows are the constant, the   true brutal weapon – to the point where a strike  has finished their matches from time to time. Here   though, Kawada’s kicks are the aggressor – he’s  able to hang with Misawa all the way, and directly  

Overcome the elbow in these exchanges. He has  periods of dominance like he’s never had before,   and it really does feel like he’s got Misawa’s  number – he can now beat him consistently. Of course, it’s not so simple. We do eventually  get to some of the big moves, and we get call  

Backs to various moments of this rivalry. Kawada  shows some of his smarts with counters to counters   that have floored him in the past. Sometimes his  arrogance still gets the better of him – wry shots   to the back of head responded to with elbows  that leave him on spaghetti legs. And there’s  

A tease for both the Emerald Flowsion – Misawa’s  most recent big finishing move – and of course,   the Kawada Driver, the move that was introduced  in such a brutal fashion in January. Both of these   moves are escaped this time around, however  – and eventually, it comes down to a battle  

Between the more faithful weapons…and,  again, Misawa is able to find the way. The elbows at last truly take hold – Kawada,  his selling as masterful as ever, is at last   poleaxed by them. One of the overarching  stories of this match though is that Kawada,  

For all his dominance throughout the ace in  the hole, cannot quite produce that ace in   the hole – the truly big hit that’ll destroy  anybody. Misawa, after a succession of utterly   brutal elbows, is able to do such a thing – he  underhooks Kawada and hits him with the Tiger  

Driver ‘91. The same move that defeated Kawada  on June 3rd, 1994, and still one of the scariest   in the business. It’s quite an odd ending,  actually – for Misawa, it appears as though   the Tiger Driver ‘91 wasn’t quite enough  – he wants an even more decisive finish,  

To put Kawada down with a running elbow strike.  It takes Kyohei Wada to come over, tell Misawa   that Kawada is completely finished, and convince  him to cover so that the three can be counted. It  

Feels like they were going for a sort of legit  ending – to make it look real, like a legit   knockout of sorts. Does it come off? Hmm…just  a regular pin would have been better, I reckon.

In any case, Misawa has been able to overcome  Kawada once more – he’s got rid of the hoodoo   that Dangerous K has had over him, and has  successfully defended his belt in one of the more   hellish matches, and almost certainly the stiffest  match that the pair had ever had. It didn’t feel  

As though they held back on their blows at all in  this one – they laid them well in. Misawa did say,   after the fact, that the pair would channel  their real-life dislike of one another for   their big matches – and this bout here? It’s  definitely the big example of that. Oddly,  

June 23rd 1999 is often the most overlooked  of all the Misawa/Kawada matches – perhaps   because of the differences, the shorter  length, the chaotic times it occurred in   overshadowing it a little…but it’s definitely  a bout worth watching, and one that adds even  

More layers to the rivalry…even now, after  so many matches, Misawa and Kawada can still   serve up something that feels incredibly  different to anything they’d done before,   and the diversity of their classic matches  is an underrated aspect of their long feud.

Believe it or not, this victory over Kawada  is Misawa’s final ever successful All Japan   Triple Crown defence. His fifth reign with the  belt is one of his shorter ones – he loses the   belt back to Vader on the 30th October. In  fact, Misawa will not compete for the Triple  

Crown again following that loss to Vader…we’re  now getting to 2000, after all. The year that   everything changed, the time when All  Japan Pro Wrestling would implode – the   various tensions in the company would be  too much for people to take. And of course,  

The result of this would leave Misawa and Kawada  at the heads of different promotions. Naturally,   the friction had been building up since well  before July 23rd 1999 – so it’s time to look   again at the Great All Japan Exodus, and the  events that ultimately gave birth to NOAH.

In front of the cameras, All Japan celebrated  the name of Baba in glorious style, just as he’d   deserved. Behind the scenes, it didn’t take long  for a power struggle to begin – one that people   already feared would end in the worst possible  result. Jumbo Tsuruta had grown to take the side  

Of Misawa and the boys rather than Motoko and  her executive allies – on the occasion of his   retirement in March of 1999, he was effectively  bounced out of the company as a result, without so   much as any severance pay. Motoko, who had wished  for Mitsuo Momota to inherit the presidential  

Position, blamed Tsuruta for using his influence  to help Misawa into the position. Tsuruta warned   Motoko that if the company were to survive, Misawa  had to take over – and his exit was the result.   In treating a legend like Tsuruta so terribly,  Motoko continued to build a rod for her own back,  

Diminishing her popularity with the locker room  even further – but she did not care. Misawa would   try to steady the ship, guaranteeing that Motoko  would be paid the same salary that she had always   been paid during Baba’s lifetime, but this too  had no effect – Motoko and Misawa had no working  

Relationship, after all. More than that, Motoko  would not forgive Misawa for bouncing her out of   the creative process completely – he’d essentially  asked Shohei Baba to ask his wife to leave the   company in 1998, and the rift between them was  already considered by most to be unfixable.

Giant Baba himself, as much as he had built  All Japan as his house, virtually entirely in   his vision, was also pretty aware of how things  were likely to go once he’d gone – he knew that  

All Japan Pro Wrestling, as he had built it, was  living on numbered days from the moment he died,   which is why he left the presidency to Misawa  in his will. He’d also asked Kyohei Wada,   head referee and one of his closest friends, to  stay by Motoko’s side no matter what – perhaps  

Because he knew that the oncoming storm was  not likely to help with her popularity. The   fight between Mitsuharu Misawa and Motoko Baba  can be categorised as one between two stubborn   and grief-stricken people, really – both of  whom knew how to battle for every last inch,  

And both were completely opposite to each other to  a point where it was never going to work. Hi5ame,   one of Puro’s great chroniclers, has revealed  details that seem so innocuous to most,   but usually resulted in a major conflict.  Baba never had a desk in his office,  

And when Misawa installed a desk in his office?  Motoko complained. Motoko complained when Misawa   wore one of his favoured pink shirts, saying  that white was the only appropriate colour   for business. For Motoko Baba, the only way  forward was to keep things exactly the same,  

To run All Japan exactly as Shohei Baba had.  For Misawa, every single possible move to   modernise the company, even down to the pettiest  things imaginable, was filled with friction. All of this too, was not helped by a divide that  was very much festering in the locker room. By  

This stage, Misawa and Kawada also had pretty much  no relationship – they didn’t share a locker room,   and they didn’t even talk to each other.  When they wanted something from the other,   they would pass a message on through someone else,  usually with Kobashi acting as an intermediary.  

Partly due to the rivalry and also due to a sense  of old school kayfabe that the company maintained,   the divide wasn’t just limited to individuals, it  was also present between the wrestler’s trainees.   When an 18 year old Naomichi Marufuji  stepped into All Japan’s dojo in 1998,  

He was assigned to Misawa – and from that point,  Kawada would have nothing to do with him. There   wouldn’t even be a solitary bit of advice – the  hierarchy of the promotion was that twisted.   Jun Akiyama had faced a similar situation  earlier on, particularly as he became more  

Allied with Misawa – but perhaps not quite as  pronounced. Rivals were supposed to be rivals,   and that counted backstage, or at functions,  just as much as it did in the ring. For all that things are terrible,  with the company largely continuing  

To flounder through all of this and the  relationships between Misawa and Motoko,   Misawa and Kawada and so on getting worse and  worse with each passing day, there is one more   match between the pair to have a look at in  an All Japan ring. It’s not a major match,  

In particular – it takes place at the Champion  Carnival on the 31st March 2000, which takes on   the special format of being a knockout tournament.  The pair are drawn together in the first round,   and the usual fireworks are most certainly  expected. By this stage, reports of massive drama  

And friction in the company were commonplace, and  people did wonder if this might be the last time   they’d see this pair in singles competition for a  while, simply because they didn’t know when it was  

All going to blow up – they just knew that such  a thing was inevitable, and this would indeed be   the pair’s last singles meeting for five years. As  such, it’s important to have a look at it – it is,  

After all, the last time that the two met in  singles at a stage that could be considered at   least close to their primes, even if really those  primes had happened a couple of years before. Being that this is a Champion Carnival match,  this is not a slow-paced affair – what we have  

Is a powerful 15 minute sprint where the pair of  legends run through a lot of their greatest hits,   upping the levels with strike exchanges and  big moves in front of a very appreciative and   hot crowd – not a deep match, but certainly an  enjoyable wrong. It doesn’t take long for the big  

Guns to come out – all sorts of elbows and kicks,  Dangerous Backdrops, the good old dive off the top   into the Ganmengiri, Tiger Drivers…there’s  plenty of that, and less in the way of big   submission attempts or any kind of resting. We get  the usual stage where it feels as though Kawada’s  

Incredibly close to victory – he hits his Soul  Powerbomb and his Dangerous DDT, but is only able   to get 2.9 from them. There’s even a tease of the  Kawada Driver, with Misawa finding himself in that   precarious position once more – but he rolls out  of it. Finally Misawa gets the decisive edge with  

His old faithful – one particular spinning back  elbow seems to knock Kawada for six. A climactic   exchange of strikes is finally won by Misawa  with a devastating 1-2 elbow combo and a running   strike, but still Kawada manages to get his  shoulder up…finally however, Misawa finishes it.  

For the first time, Misawa defeats Kawada with the  use of his relatively new finisher, the Emerald   Flowsion – the brutal side tombstone that would go  on to be his main move of choice in NOAH. There’s   something poetic about that, really – a signifier  of what’s to come, of where these wrestlers’  

Futures lie. And, as he generally always has  been, Misawa is still one step ahead. He’s still   the senpai. Another great match, and a fine way to  close out this long rivalry in All Japan – despite   all the other things that are going wrong in  the company. As it goes, Misawa will not win  

This carnival – Kenta Kobashi will get the better  of him in the semi-final, and then go on to defeat   the tournament’s surprise package, Takao Omori,  in the final – giving Kobashi a much-deserved   Carnival victory at the last time of asking.  Omori’s push in this tournament is, as you might  

Expect, very much a Misawa move – and again, as  you might expect, the push of someone who hadn’t   done an awful lot up the card previously was met  with great resistance by Motoko Baba and company. At last, in late May, it all comes to a head.  The tragic passing of Jumbo Tsuruta, someone  

Who had fully supported Misawa’s moves even if he  was not planning to join him in a new promotion,   oddly appears to force everyone’s hand at once.  Misawa is forced to resign as President, and   promptly takes most of the talent – and indeed,  most of the board – with him to his own vision  

Of a new promotion, Pro Wrestling NOAH, something  that is pretty easy to do seeing as almost every   homegrown talent had not signed new contracts in  March, and thus were working as free agents. All   Japan is left with very few people on the whole  – even those who were thought of as Motoko Baba’s  

Allies such as Mitsuo and Yoshihiro Momota,  the sons of Rikidozan who Motoko had wanted   to install as President following Baba’s death,  leave with Misawa. Only the most loyal people   generally stay on – the aforementioned Kyohei Wada  stays as a continued favour to his late friend,  

As does Masanobu Fuchi. As for Kawada? Well, there  was never any chance of him going – he did want to   be the top star, after all, and he knew there was  no real chance of that with Misawa around…indeed,  

Even if he retired before Kawada, Kobashi  would have been ahead of him in the pecking   order. It’s not like people didn’t ask,  of course – Akira Taue made a big effort   to try and convince Kawada to leave, but it  wasn’t going to happen. The final tour with  

All the wrestlers together in the Summer is as  awkward as it gets – the All Japan faithfuls   and the NOAH troop are completely separate. Only  Masanobu Fuchi, ever a gentleman, crosses over   to say that he has no hard feelings. For all the  worries about long and protracted legal battles,  

When Nippon TV switched their own allegiance  from All Japan to Misawa’s new promotion, there’s   little else where Motoko Baba and company can go.  The House of Baba, as it had existed for 28 years,   was no more. And with it, the feud between  Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada is no more.

Once again, it should be said that a lot of this  time period has been covered – All Japan itself   did not end, even if that did look like a distinct  possibility. Things did change, as they rather had  

To – the likes of Genichiro Tenryu come into the  company from the cold, while Toshiaki Kawada is   freed up to make appearances in other promotions,  as he’d often wanted to do. The historical big   two, All Japan and New Japan, work together more  and more with some quite spectacular results,  

While NOAH establish themselves as a leader of  the circuit over the next few years…naturally,   we’ve covered a lot of that as well –  from the formation to the golden moments,   such as Kobashi’s much deserved ascendancy to  the very top. Things in All Japan change even  

Further following the shocking arrival of Keiji  Mutoh, who assumes the position of top star and   company President, officially ending the era of  the Babas, while Toshiaki Kawada also, at last,   gets his own lengthy reign with the Triple  Crown that he never managed to have previously.

In all this time, were there thoughts of getting  Misawa and Kawada back together for one more   match? Of course – there were plenty of rumours,  although most of the time there was never even   the slightest hope of such things materialising.  One of the biggest rumours of it happened in 2004,  

When NOAH were set to run their first Tokyo  Dome show in 2004, called “Departure”,   and All Japan and NOAH actually worked together on  it. There were apparently talks of running Misawa   vs. Kawada on this show, but they were basically  nixed by Dangerous K – he was the reigning Triple  

Crown Champion at the time and would not entertain  the idea of doing a job. And so instead we had the   appearance of Mutoh and Taiyo Kea – the former  Maunakea Mossman – going up against Misawa and   Ogawa as a way of fulfilling a Misawa/Mutoh  dream match, to go along with the much more  

Built-up main event clash between Kobashi and  Jun Akiyama. This was by far the most concrete   rumour of anything happening between the pair,  and in truth it didn’t last long. It should be   noted that a part of this new-found relationship  between All Japan and NOAH was, at last, a sort of  

Homecoming – Mitsuharu Misawa stepped foot into an  All Japan ring for the first time in four years,   first for a dream match between generations  against Satoshi Kojima, and then to team up with   Keiji Mutoh against the reunited team of Hiroshi  Hase and Kensuke Sasaki, on the event of Mutoh’s  

20th Anniversary in Wrestling. Both cards were  held at the legendary Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo,   and in the year when a lack of funds meant that  the company had to leave behind their spiritual   home at the Nippon Budokan, they represent the  biggest cards All Japan had had for a while.

Not that the pair didn’t think about each other,  of course – in a much more open wrestling world,   there was a lot more commentary on the  competition, so to speak, not all of   which was necessarily negative. This wasn’t  something that Motoko Baba would have wanted,  

Naturally – in the period following Misawa’s  great exodus, she had barely spoken of him only   to register a disappointment that was almost  comparable to being forced to disown a son,   and just about all mentions of Misawa or the past  had been excised from the company’s programming.  

Naturally this changed somewhat with the arrival  of Mutoh and Pro Wrestling Love, and it changed   in wrestling as a whole as companies realised  more and more that they would have to work   together with each other – in the face of a  booming Mixed Martial Arts and the worries of  

Another severe downturn which would become reality  later in the 2000’s, it was no longer possible for   any promotion to be an island unto itself, as the  house of Baba had been. Again, this collaboration   gives people the thought that they might see  the two greats pair up again – and still,  

There’s not a whole lot of chance of it happening.  Ultimately, with so much other wrestling going on,   it ends up going to the back of people’s minds…but  of course, we’re not quite through here yet. Toshiaki Kawada’s 5th and final reign with  the Triple Crown was, at last, the lengthy  

One he’d always seeked out – it lasted 529 days  and featured a great deal of successful defences,   starting with his victory over Shinjiro  Otani in a tournament final. It took in   matches that could certainly be described as  big ticket dream bouts – a meeting at last  

Between two of the hardest hitting guys  in the game, Kawada vs Shinya Hashimoto,   not to mention a contest against old mentor  Genichiro Tenryu. Other hard-hitting battles   included Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Kensuke Sasaki, the  latter being someone Kawada had a rivalry with  

Ever since Kawada had sensationally appeared on  a New Japan show to challenge him and ultimately,   defeat him at the 2001 January Dome Show.  Other All Japan mainstays such as Taiyo Kea,   Jamal and Osamu Nishimura would also fall to  Dangerous K, and then you do have some of the  

Odder bouts – a rather MMA-styled fight with Don  Frye, and one hell of a styles clash bout that saw   Kawada go up against Mick Foley – that’s…certainly  a very weird bout. A good few of these bouts   are quality ones though, even if Kawada was  starting to get quite a ways past his prime.

Still, the reign had to end at some point – and  it did so in spectacular fashion. Toshiaki Kawada   and Satoshi Kojima, one of the hottest names  of a younger generation and already holder of   the IWGP Title, played out a fascinating  duel that turned into an epic contest,  

And finally saw Kojima use his trusty Lariat to  take Kawada down and become the first man ever   to hold the IWGP Heavyweight Championship and the  Triple Crown at the same time. Sure, this wasn’t  

An All Japan card held in the Nippon Budokan, as  they were back in the prime days – this was in   front of 6,000 at the Yoyogi Gymnasium in Tokyo,  but the result still caused ripples throughout  

The Puroresu world. It was enough of a ripple for  NOAH to notice, and put out a sensational result   of their own – the end of Kenta Kobashi’s lengthy  GHC Heavyweight Championship reign at the hands   of Takeshi Rikioh, someone the company had been  steadily grooming for stardom since the beginning.

With the loss of his Triple Crown, Kawada made the  decision that he was going to become a freelancer,   able to wrestle where he pleased – a part of  this was because All Japan’s perpetual financial   troubles wouldn’t allow them to afford his hefty  salary any longer, but it also made sense in the  

Wrestling world of 2005 where other big names like  Kensuke Sasaki, Yoshihiro Takayama and Genichiro   Tenryu had also gone down the freelance route,  allowing themselves to pick big dates for big   money with various companies – Kawada himself  was already doing a fair bit of stuff outside,  

Such as his regular appearances in Dream Stage’s  rather silly but popular HUSTLE promotion. It was   a move that would, again, set the gums flapping  – is Kawada about to step foot into NOAH? The   company do have another Dome show potentially  on the cards in July, it needs a big main event,  

Kobashi’s not the champion anymore…and while  people still thought it unlikely that Kawada would   step through NOAH’s ropes, this time the wagging  of tongues was not without any basis. As questions   were asked about the plans for NOAH’s Dome show  in July, Misawa himself was asked about the  

Possibility of facing Kawada again, and he denied  that there had been any contact between them. Finally, on April 24th, the cat came out of  the bag. It was the final show on Takeshi   Rikio’s first tour as GHC Champion, and it  hadn’t particularly sold well – however,  

When the news leaked that a “special guest” was  going to appear, the Budokan just about sold out   immediately…I guess you can think of it as NOAH’s  version of AEW doing everything but announcing   the return of CM Punk in Chicago, only 16 years  earlier. The crowd chanted Kawada’s name before  

His music even started, and came unglued when  Holy War kicked in at last. Toshiaki Kawada simply   asked for Misawa to come out, and said that he  was a professional, that he wanted to do the match  

That everybody wanted to see, and that he was free  on July 18th – funnily enough, the same date that   NOAH were holding a show at the Big Egg. Misawa  said that he looked forward to Kawada’s arrival,  

And they agreed to a no time limit match at the  Dome. They shook hands, Kawada said thank you,   and he left…and that’s pretty much all that was  needed to get this show on the road – no other  

Matches in the meantime, no big rekindling of  the feud or whatever, no shoving matches or pull   aparts. Misawa vs. Kawada was official for the  Dome, and that’s enough to sell plenty of tickets. The show itself, called Destiny, was NOAH’s  2nd and, to date, their final appearance at  

The Tokyo Dome – and it truly was a great  card, pretty much from top to bottom. There   were plenty of show-stealers – the young and  brilliant KENTA winning the Junior title against   Yoshinobu Kanemaru, for example, or the equally  hot Naomichi Marufuji teaming with Minoru Suzuki  

Against Akiyama and Makoto Hashi. Of course,  no-one quite stole the show in the way that   Kenta Kobashi and Kensuke Sasaki did – their  match, announced on the same night as Kawada’s   arrival into the Budokan Hall, would prove to be  one of the great matches of the decade – still  

Perhaps the greatest bout ever to take place in  a NOAH ring. So many incredible moments here,   of course – but nothing quite got the Tokyo  Dome as wild as their near 5 minute chop battle,   an inconceivable and highly emotional moment that  seemed to just happen on the spur of the moment,  

But most certainly happened as a tribute  to the legendary Shinya Hashimoto,   who had shockingly passed away due to a brain  aneurysm a week prior to the show. This was   the semi main-event, and for anyone it would be  an almost impossible act to follow – for the 43  

Year old Misawa and 41 year old Kawada, both  with plenty of wear and tear on their bodies,   it would be especially difficult. But finally,  the moment was here – after five years,   the pair were set to face each other again.  When the music hits, the ages and battle scars  

Stop mattering – it’s all about this pair of  legends, taking each other on, one last time. We have a pretty slow feeling out process to begin  things, as the pair once again get to grips with   each other. Kawada gets a win in the first strike  advantage, but soon enough it’s Misawa whose  

Elbows take him ahead, as they’ve done so often  in the past. He quickly starts to take a dominant   position, hitting a frog splash and going for the  facelock early, but Kawada’s able to come back  

With knees and send Misawa to the floor. However,  he goes for too much – he exposes the ring floor   and attempts a powerbomb, but Misawa counters  quickly and ends up hitting a Tiger Driver on   the floor, in the match’s first big move. Misawa  brings him back in, gets a near fall and applies  

A rear naked choke which Kawada just about manages  to escape – however, it takes a toll. Misawa aims   to punish Kawada further in the corner, but  he defends with boots, hits a running kick,   and then answers an elbow with a Ganmengiri  – his first serious offence of the match.

Kawada punishes Misawa in the corner and  takes him to the apron, but almost falls   foul of a Tiger Driver attempt – however  he answers Misawa’s attempt at a dive with   an elbow. Kawada takes Misawa all the way  to the entrance ramp and after a struggle,  

Hits a Ganmengiri followed by a Powerbomb. It’s  conceivable that Misawa could be counted out,   but Kawada has no wish to take a win like this –  he sends Misawa back to the ring. The pair put on  

A serious exchange of elbows, one where Kawada  almost seems to be on par with Misawa until the   master’s hits send him staggering – however,  he counters a roaring elbow with a kick to   knock Misawa down. A snap suplex is followed  by a Stretch Plum to try and wear Misawa out,  

But it still doesn’t get it done, and this is soon  followed by a big suplex exchange – both getting   some nasty ones in. Again, it’s Kawada who’s able  to block and use a bicycle kick, and this is soon   followed with another Ganmengiri – at this  stage, Kawada is once again in the ascendancy.

We reach another moment that we’ve been at before  – Kawada hits the most powerful moves he’s got,   but it’s never quite enough. The Dangerous DDT  and the Soul Powerbomb both get some exciting   near falls, but it’s clear that Dangerous K’s  going to have to do something else…and naturally,  

He does – he pulls out the Kawada Driver, for only  the third time ever. Again, the shock of the move   is enough to utterly send the crowd wild and to  make them think it’s going to be enough – and  

Again, Misawa manages to get his shoulder up.  Kawada raises Misawa up for another Powerbomb that   might well have finished it, but Misawa is able  to rana out of it at the crucial moment. The two   have a rather desperate exchange, both swinging at  air for desperate strikes – it almost seems like a  

Botch, but I tend to think it’s by design.  Finally however, a big elbow from Misawa connects. Misawa goes for the Emerald Flowsion, but Kawada  is able to temporarily evade it twice – however,   several vicious elbows are enough for Misawa to  lock it in and send Kawada crashing…once again,  

Kawada’s not beaten yet. Now it’s Misawa’s turn to  deploy his best weapon – he hits a Tiger Suplex,   and follows it up by hooking Kawada’s arms and  hitting the Tiger Driver ‘91…and even though it’s   not necessarily the best one he’s ever hit, it’s  still amazing for Kawada to kick out. Both have  

Thrown the best moves they have at each other,  and this match is still going…finally, it comes   down to strikes and spirit. Misawa hits his elbow  combination, finishing with the roaring elbow,   but amazingly Kawada kicks out at 1. Kawada  tries to bring Misawa down with his kicks,  

But ultimately the elbows come pouring in – a  running elbow results in another near fall. Kawada   is as defiant as possible – elbow after brutal  elbow lands, and yet he still comes forward,   wanting more and more, refusing to be beaten.  Several more elbows and a running elbow, however,  

Finally causes Kawada to simply slump to  the floor. Misawa falls on top of him,   and the referee counts 3. It is,  well and truly now, all over. There is a show of respect after the match between  the two great warriors, something that wasn’t  

Always the case even after their greatest bouts.  Kawada does get on the mic to thank the crowd,   and afterwards he said that he wished that years  of politicking and petty rivalry hadn’t robbed   them of the chance to do more together. It’s  not necessarily a full reconciliation as such,  

But it’s certainly a cooling off  – and in the case of this feud,   it is a final ending. Perhaps not necessarily  the one a lot of people wanted – many did think   that Kawada should have won this dream match,  and that Misawa didn’t really *need* to win a  

Match like this one. It could have perhaps opened  the door for Kawada to make more trips to NOAH,   but this didn’t really happen – indeed, it  wasn’t too long before word spread that Kawada’s   post-match promo was unplanned and had annoyed  both the backroom and Nippon TV, thus making  

People wonder fi relations had turned icy again  just as soon as they seemed to thaw. Kawada would   not return to NOAH for over four years, and that  would be under thoroughly different circumstances. Still, this match…well, it did deliver –  despite having to follow one of the greatest  

Matches of all-time and despite the state of  both participants. There are a few ways of   approaching it – it can certainly be seen as a  greatest hits of sorts, a One Night Only reunion   where Misawa and Kawada played all of the hits  people loved, but I think there’s a little more  

Here. It feels more like a fight between two old  gunslingers who know each other inside and out of   course – there’s been plenty of those, and this  one has the advantage of a huge state. It is,   I think, more of a positive showing for  Kawada than Misawa – I do think that in  

A lot of ways he carries this one, and he  was still arguably amongst the world’s best,   in a way that Misawa perhaps wasn’t in 2005  simply due to wear and tear. There’s a very   different feeling here to the matches that  took place between the two in their prime,  

And even if the action here can be a bit sloppier  at times? That doesn’t necessarily impact the   general quality and entertainment – this is still  a great match that still has a few new layers   to add on a storied rivalry. While I too think  that Kawada should have won this final contest,  

It’s still – most importantly – a way to give  this truly great rivalry a definitive end,   one that it absolutely deserved. Perhaps the  only other way it could have been better is   if it had been Misawa and Kawada’s final match,  full stop – they could have justifiably hung up  

Their boots after this one, although neither  did. Indeed, one of them really couldn’t. In many ways, July 18th 2005 was the last truly  important match of Kawada’s career – certainly   nothing else would come close to this level,  but in many ways the man who a lot of people  

Would consider to be one of the most serious and  intense people to ever enter the ring decided   to settle down a little. He’d spend more time  in HUSTLE, where there weren’t really serious   matches – here he more often than not played  the straight man to the zany comedy antics,  

Occasionally loosening up for a little dance  and a singsong. While HUSTLE fell by the wayside   following the Dream Stage Yakuza scandal, it’s  not like he was short of work – he was still a big   star in All Japan of course, and was happy to take  various bookings in promotions like New Japan,  

ZERO-ONE Max, Real Japan, Kaientai Dojo…all  sorts. While he didn’t totally down tools,   the Kawada of the late 2000’s was more of a  risk-averse wrestler, not necessarily firing   on all the gears he had done in the earlier  days, being a bit more careful about his  

Body – while there’s not necessarily a treasure  trove of amazing matches from this time period,   it’s not like Kawada isn’t still fun  to watch when he’s doing his schtick. Misawa, of course, was basically  unable to not go all out – indeed,  

As we’ve covered in a previous video, he had  to install himself back at the very top of NOAH   as the company struggled during the serious  downturn in Puroresu as a whole in the late   2000’s. With a shortage of stars and a failure  to get all that many new faces truly over to  

The point where they could carry the company,  he had no other options…these were, indeed,   problems that felt depressingly familiar, troubles  all too similar to the ones that All Japan had   in the late ‘90s. Misawa had to continue to  fire on all cylinders, as much as possible,  

Even though his body was breaking down more and  more because of it. And…well, on June 13th 2009,   in Hiroshima, he paid the ultimate price.  Mitsuharu Misawa suffered a fatal injury   in a match where he was teaming with Go Shiozaki  against Akitoshi Saito and Bison Smith, following  

A backdrop from Saito that, quite simply, was  the straw that broke the camel’s back. He was   only 46 years old and while he had achieved such  a phenomenal amount in his career, the nature of   his death made people wonder if it was all worth  it. For many wrestlers, particularly those who’d  

Worked with Misawa for so long, his tragic passing  put them face to face with their own mortality. It wasn’t just Misawa’s contemporaries who felt  that mortality on the event of his passing, nor   was that feeling non-existent before the fateful  date. In many ways, it was something that Misawa  

Had felt himself very deeply, even in some of his  most famous moments, such as the Tiger Suplex off   the ramp against Kobashi – and as his body wore  down, those feelings only increased. For those in   NOAH, it was a terrible tragedy, one which people  responded to in different ways, but ultimately  

With a unifying spirit to keep going, to pay the  best tribute by continuing on in a way that was   loyal to the house that Misawa built without being  a direct imitation of it – this is the ethos that   has allowed NOAH to persevere still, through  both strong times and some very rough patches,  

In the 12 years since his death. In a Line News  article from 2019, thankfully translated into   English by Hi5ame, NOAH’s wrestlers talk about  this certain loyalty has largely kept together a   strong core – a group of seasoned veterans to go  along with their burgeoning younger generation,  

One that still includes the likes of company  ace Naomichi Marufuji, NOAH’s “first-born”,   Kotaro Suzuki, and Akitoshi Saito…for Saito,  that feeling of mortality was naturally strong,   dealing with a horrible thought of feeling  blame for what was a total accident. But  

Misawa’s own feelings of mortality manifested  themselves in another way, in a letter that he   had written in 2007 and passed to a close  friend, in the event of anything happening   to him in the ring. It read “You trusted me, and  applied your technique with all of your strength,  

And I couldn’t respond to it. It was a  betrayal of trust. I am sorry. Still,   I want you to continue wrestling. It may  be painful, but I want you to continue.” On   receiving this letter, Saito found his motivation  to continue, and it has never left his side.

For all the friction that there had been between  them over the years, the death of Misawa was   something that Toshiaki Kawada felt incredibly  deeply. Again, all the silly politicking,   the rivalry, the striving to be on top, even  the times when their dislike of each other  

Had resulted in them coming to blows…it just  didn’t matter anymore, nor should it. And so,   Kawada would go back to NOAH again, as a way of  paying tribute to the man who was his main rival,   but was also once his dear friend. The Holy  Demon Army of Kawada and Akira Taue reunited  

For one night only at the “Mitsuharu Misawa,  Always In Our Hearts” NOAH tribute show,   defeating the team of Jun Akiyama and KENTA.  In the next year, Kawada would make several   more appearances for NOAH, taking on both  old rivals and new opponents – his way of  

Helping the company out, perhaps, and perhaps  something that he felt he owed to Misawa. 2010, however, would be Kawada’s last in-ring  year – oddly, that was something he only really   knew himself. He took part in a special match on  an August 15th New Japan G1 Climax card featuring  

Several other legends – the team of Kawada,  Tenryu and Tiger Mask IV defeated Riki Choshu,   Super Strong Machine and AKIRA. And…well, that was  that. Toshiaki Kawada took no further bookings. He   never officially retired as such, deciding that he  did not want to have the big retirement ceremony  

And show that a wrestler such as him would have  certainly been able to have – he simply chose to   step away without fanfare. In 2020, while again  not confirming his retirement, he said that the   death of Mitsuharu Misawa essentially killed  his passion for wrestling, and that he had no  

Desire to continue wrestling without him being  around. In his words, with Misawa – his senior,   his senpai – gone, he had no-one to chase after.  He was sure to make appearances at the retirement   ceremonies for the two other surviving pillars  – he would be there for both Kenta Kobashi  

And Akira Taue’s final bows, to celebrate  legacies and glittering careers. To this day,   it appears that the trio remain in touch  with each other while still remaining in   touch with wrestling – being interviewed  together, occasionally promoting cards and  

So on. They remember the good times and the bad,  and they certainly remember Misawa…in the end,   there’s not much in the way of words  that can sum up the legacy of these men,   and the legacy of this great rivalry that defined  a decade – but perhaps a picture can, one taken at  

Akira Taue’s retirement ceremony, the last of the  Pillars to retire, in December 2013. For all that   happened in that period, for all the contests,  the stardom, struggles, the fallouts, and indeed  

For all the tragedy…the Four Pillars of Heaven  will always be together.