Super Generation Army (Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi) (c) vs “Dr. Death” Steve Williams & Johnny Ace
AJPW World Tag Team Championship
03/04/1995
Nippon Budokan, Tokyo, Japan
(reviewed 05/06/2024) Big famous match and unfortunately our last with Steve Williams for a while. See, upon arriving in Japan for the Champion Carnival tournament later this month, Doc was caught carrying some unspecified amount of marijuana by customs officials at Narita Airport, Japan’s largest international hub. This “Narita Nightmare,” as AJPW superfan John D. Williams dubs it, results in Doc being banned from the country for a full year. Being that this wasn’t his first offense (back in 1988 Doc was arrested in Detroit for the attempted smuggling of more pot along with cocaine, steroids, mushrooms, and barbiturates as he was heading over for a tour with NJPW) and that fellow wrestlers and even the likes of Paul McCartney have been briefly jailed for bringing marijuana to Japan—with the former Beatle not returning to the country for ten years—it’s safe to say Williams got off light. By all accounts it was Giant Baba’s political connections that saved him from rotting in a jail cell or being barred from Japan permanently. In his posthumous autobiography Williams describes Baba as something of a father figure for him, having helped him through his divorce here in early 1995 and refusing to let him return to AJPW until he got off heavy drugs. Once this year-long ban runs out Doc will continue on as a major player in AJPW and remain with the company through the NOAH split, though he’ll never really regain the relevance he had here as Baba shifts even further into focusing on the Four Pillars.
Anywho this match is real weird and largely pretty bad. At a hair over 36 minutes it’s both the longest gaikokujin tag of this era as well as the longest non-SGA/HDA tag of the decade. That’s not a crazy length or anything but it drags out the usual gaikokujin formula in an unnatural way, which isn’t helped by the fact that it’s handled by the underwhelming Johnny Ace and a man who doesn’t exactly seem to be in his right mind. Doc is rather manic in a way that, in light of the turmoil in his personal life at this time and subsequent arrest, is more than a little concerning and casts a pall across the whole match. Even beyond that their time-killing measures here are so odd. Early on we see several rounds of clumsy fisticuffs, all four men trading shots in ways that don’t come naturally to them and result in repeated standoffs that are nowhere near as exciting as those in their last meeting. If anything they’re flat as a board. The execution is one thing but the volume is what’s really baffling, as the first seven or eight minutes of the match are just the same ineffective spot over and over, killing Budokan stone dead in a way I don’t think I’ve ever heard before. I guess it’s meant to inject some drama in what otherwise seems like a foregone conclusion; Doc and Ace have lost their last two title matches against these guys and, to put it diplomatically, Baba’s booking rarely suggests that the third time’s the charm for repeat losers.
Once they start Doin’ Movez things pick up but do not improve. The more action-packed portion of this match is as unfocused and formless as any I’ve ever seen from this supposed golden era of AJPW, highlighted by a flubbed avalanche belly to belly suplex that Kobashi nearly breaks his neck taking and doesn’t quite know how to sell afterward. That’s part of the problem, that this thing is full of sequences and reversals which are too clever by half and look like botches as often as not, but generally I think the issue is a distinct lack of direction. There are no control segments here. All four men are together in the ring for basically half the match, a frustrating trend we’ve seen more and more in the SGA/HDA title matches and which feels even worse with opponents who are less familiar with one another. Four guys fumbling around through half-baked highspots would be bad enough already but them doing so without the pendular structure of momentum swinging back and forth or the fidelity afforded by their mutual familiarity means it’s bordering on outright awful.
This match also suffers from another recurring problem in these Misawa & Kobashi tags wherein they keep babyfacing their heel opponents, which is even weirder here with a pair of foreigners. It doesn’t seem to be entirely their fault: early on Ace is vacillating between the aggressiveness he’s always shown in matches against his old partner Kobashi and a sort of pensive determination against Misawa that I have to imagine is Baba trying to turn him face again. No one seems quite sure how to get there, resulting in some early awkwardness that isn’t helped by Doc bellowing for a tag out on the apron, but Budokan eventually breaks out in song for their beloved himbo so I guess it worked out in the end. What feels much worse is Kobashi again targeting someone’s leg, as Doc spends the last few minutes of this match nursing his knee and hobbling around the ring thanks to a few Fuchi-esque dropkicks from the champion. Getting people to appreciate the affable energy of Johnny Ace is one thing but Doc is simply not as sympathetic as, say, Stan Hansen and feels poorly cast in the role of wounded warrior. Either way it once again makes Kobashi look like an utter psycho as he fires precision strikes at this man’s knee whenever he looks to gain the advantage. Bounty Gate’s gonna cost Jonathan Vilma a hall of fame spot but I gotta hear about how wholesome and inspiring this asshole is for years and years in spite of what he actually does to people in these matches. Shit’s baffling. At least when Misawa grabs at the man’s bad leg I can blame it on his inhuman instincts, the shark blood flowing through his veins. (“Lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes.”) As Misawa drags Doc to the depths by his injured limb Kobashi wins with another top rope legdrop to the back of his former partner’s head. Guess that’s where friendship with these guys gets you in the end.
Brock Hates Wrestling 