Jun Akiyama vs Mitsuharu Misawa
Champion Carnival 1998 Finals
04/18/1998
Nippon Budokan, Tokyo, Japan
(reviewed 05/26/2024) Last time around I lamented that Mitsuharu Misawa just couldn’t keep up with his much younger opponent. This time he does a much better job of it, in large part because he isn’t asked to do it for long. Whether he’s furiously trying to cut Jun Akiyama off from going after his injured knee or kicking off the apron to avoid an Exploder on the floor, Misawa actually brings the heat in the fast-paced first third of this match like we haven’t seen him do in some time. Things slow down quite a bit when Akiyama circles back to the broken patella Misawa’s either already suffering or suffers in this match, which includes a reappearance of the big whoopsie kneecrusher of yore. That’s not a problem though, being that 1. Akiyama’s matwork and submission stylings are better than that of most of the AJPW roster and 2. Misawa benefits quite a bit from working most of the match on his back foot. It helps him conserve energy for the finishing stretch and, as with a certain tag match a few years back and the memorable nose and orbital bone matches before that, most people are far more sympathetic in selling a real injury than in any other scenario. Helps too that this match is so short. At a breezy 22 minutes it’s only a minute shy of that January title match but feels quite a bit faster, less bogged down in Misawa’s offense, which is thankfully also vastly improved here. His elbow shots toward the end are mean as hell, convincing cutoffs befitting of a surly veteran asserting that it’s still his era. Misawa never achieves half of what Jumbo Tsuruta did at the end of his own career, especially with how he handles this opponent in particular, but squint and you can see some vague outline of that “Perfect Ace” appearing in emerald for once. Wish that guy showed up more often.
Brock Hates Wrestling 