Super Generation Army (Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama) & Maunakea Mossman vs Triangle of Power (“Dr. Death” Steve Williams, Gary Albright, & The Lacrosse)
09/27/1997
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
(reviewed 05/21/2024) A weirdly flat match that I mostly enjoyed anyway. Triangle of Power really lean on certain aspects of their work we don’t see them use a whole lot here in AJPW, in such a deliberate way that it almost feels like they’re actively trying to be as boring as possible. Unfortunately for them I quite like watching Gary Albright and Steve Williams roll around and apply holds. Doc also hits a frankly insane amount of punches as if he’s been watching his Memphis tapes and it’s a ton of fun to see him throw up the triangle hand signal in between landing a few rights, the sort of headassery AJPW desperately needs. On the babyface side I quite liked Maunakea Mossman working from underneath, showing a better understanding of the Steamboat Rule than basically anyone else on the roster. Hasn’t been since Toshiaki Kawada’s days in Super Generation Army that someone has gone out of their way to try fighting two guys in the enemy corner and it stands out in a big way in an otherwise sleepy tag. All through the last year or so of AJPW mid-tour tags there’s been this strange recurring spot where someone uses a dragon screw legwhip as a cutoff—usually on Mitsuharu Misawa or Jun Akiyama—but doesn’t follow up on it at all, resulting in a few seconds of half-assed leg selling before it gets tossed aside. Here it actually goes somewhere, at least for a short while, as Lacrosse drapes Misawa’s leg over the guard rail for a submission and Doc likewise smashes the man’s knee against the corner post. Misawa unsurprisingly brushes it off before long, resulting in one of the coldest hot tags of this review series, but at least he winds up eating a backdrop driver when he tries helping his young partners against the big Americans. Albright hits a repeating German suplex on Mossman for the win.
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