Mitsuharu Misawa vs Stan Hansen
Champion Carnival 1993 Match
taped 03/30/1993, aired 04/11/1993
Toyama City Gymnasium, Toyama, Japan
(reviewed 04/22/2024) Hey you know how last year three Hansen/Misawa matches felt like way too many? Well guess what, this year we get no less than four. FOUR. Giant Baba rot in hell you wrinkly old bitch. This is not the worst match of that tetralogy but neither is it one of the better bouts, a tiresome charade once again based around endless headlocks and bad selling. Misawa’s the one doing both, sitting on his ass with an arm wrapped round Hansen’s head for the first half of the match. It’s less of a strategy to contain the wild American and more a way to kill time; as illustrated by him flooring Hansen with another big elbow right off the bat and instantly taking control again whenever the dude briefly slips free of a headlock, Misawa can eat Hansen’s lunch whenever he wants. He chooses to be this boring. Eventually the foreigner breaks free and goes after Misawa’s bum knee, his spirited swings of a chair a godsend against such a lifeless opponent.
Misawa sells this legwork better than other limb-based strategies we’ve seen levied against him in the past but it’s impossible to say it has any real impact on him; man just shakes his boot occasionally once he regains control, doing a bit of stanky leg between all his old moves like nothing ever happened. You’d think that iconic dive feint—in which he springs over the ropes to land hard on the apron before leaping off again for a flying elbow—would be a perfect opportunity to illustrate what this legendary gaikokujin did to him, maybe even allow Hansen to take over again, but no. It hardly even slows him down. This indifferent approach might seem baffling until you consider the ego involved, that of a self-admitted spoiled child who thought himself too good for everyday work and wanted to make his name fighting “because he was born a man”. A telling quote from such a reserved figure. It’s not important that Misawa is able to overcome hardships but rather that he act like he never had any hardships to begin with. Handed everything from the start of his career, he can’t afford the vulnerability of anyone or anything affecting him for even a moment.
Hansen does what he can—or rather what he’s allowed to do—but even a win would feel insignificant in light of the inevitable swinging back around before long. He drops Misawa on his head but it hardly matters, the champ popping right back up for another knockout elbow and a pair of frog splashes. Wrenching at Misawa’s eyes Hansen wins a brief reprieve, the sort of thing Misawa can’t not sell, and a Western Lariat a minute later wins him the match. But will this fleeting victory add up to anything in the end? Won’t this dead-eyed husk of a man just act like it never happened and beat him again? Will this win have left an impression on anyone, anywhere?
Brock Hates Wrestling 