Mitsuharu Misawa & Stan Hansen vs Akira Taue & Kenta Kobashi
10/22/1994
Nippon Budokan, Tokyo, Japan
(reviewed 05/05/2024) Neat little parejas increibles dream tag with Toshiaki Kawada and Steve Williams busy in the main event. The team configurations make for a pretty obvious outcome but the fact that it’s ideal pairings (Misawa vs Taue, Hansen vs Kobashi) and fresh matchups (Partners collide for the first time in a year and a half! Big meaty men slapping meat!) ensures that it’s a fun enough outing. Helps that these four clearly relish a fresh match, going at it with renewed enthusiasm early on: Hansen’s surlier than we’ve seen all year and Kobashi goes as far as using the weapon of the enemy, hitting a backdrop driver on Misawa. The ace is unsurprisingly the weak link here, effortlessly reversing a vertical suplex attempt to abruptly end a control segment and allow the younger duo to isolate Hansen instead, which likewise doesn’t last. While the status of the two ex-champions prevents this from ever getting too dramatic their tag team temperament is novel and exciting in much the same way Hansen’s dream team with Giant Baba is and will continue to be. Akira Taue cutting off Misawa’s dive feint only for Hansen to come barreling out of the ring with a torpedo tope instead is awesome, the sort of eye-opening offense I haven’t seen out of All Japan in so long. Hansen even dives in the way of a Kobashi lariat to save his newfound partner, the old gunslinger making another sympathetic feint with an understated grace that Kobashi himself will never really achieve. Wish they paired these two together more than a handful of times over the next few months—only one of which makes tape—because they do real well together in these limited minutes.
Brock Hates Wrestling 