Tsuruta-gun (Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue) (c) vs Super Generation Army (Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi)
AJPW World Tag Team Championship
06/05/1992
Nippon Budokan, Tokyo, Japan
(reviewed 04/16/2024) A match of first and lasts: this is the final time in Jumbo Tsuruta’s illustrious career that he headlined a Nippon Budokan show as well as the first of Kenta Kobashi’s many main events in this building. Unfortunately the match does not live up to either accomplishment. The Super Generation Army vs Tsuruta-gun feud is at a weird place in summer ‘92 and not just because it’s basically already over. The storied AJPW hierarchy was pretty well set a year or two ago but by now these guys are close enough in rank that, with one exception, these matchups see them all cutting each other off quickly and tagging in and out for brief stretches, ensuring that you never get to sit with anything for long. Instead of the frenetic pace of their earlier matches or the gradual swings in momentum that will define the Four Pillars era, here the pace falls into a strange, stilted middle ground. That issue is only exacerbated by the fact that they don’t commit to anything. Kobashi gets his knee worked over (taking a big whoopsie onto the guard rail this time instead of a table, how novel!) but it’s just to kill time, never factoring in once Mitsuharu Misawa breaks up a hold and drags Akira Taue over to their corner. (Oh you expected a Misawa partner to get something done on their own?) The challengers likewise target Taue’s leg, doing more to it than the champs ever did to Kobashi, but it also fails to go much of anywhere. Even a fairly long control segment on Misawa centered around another sleeper just fizzles out in the end when the guy decides it’s his time to do some signature moves. Nothing sticks around long enough to get you invested. I really like the brief angle toward the end—Kobashi goes to tag out after a missed moonsault leaves him spent but Jumbo rams Kobashi into Misawa, sending the latter flying to the floor—but it’s also undercut by not lasting nearly so long as similar spots in the past. Less than a minute later Misawa wanders back in the ring to throw some weak forearms and unenthusiastically break up pins until Jumbo nabs him in a headlock long enough for Taue to hit his chokeslam. Truly bizarre to see a match so lacking in dedication to anything. Incredibly disappointing for one of the last big matches of Jumbo Tsuruta’s career.
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