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Steiner posted...

Steiner's Match Recommendation (Week 3)
Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Jumbo Tsuruta, Masanobu Fuchi & Akira Taue
All Japan Pro Wrestling, April 20 1991
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaO3Y1RXofo

I'll start by noting: this match is kind of long. The video is 53 minutes. In my own watchthrough of AJPW in 91, I saw the time on this 6 man tag and strongly considered skipping it. I forgot all about that a few minutes in - forget about how you feel about long wrestling matches in 2020, this is a perfect hour long drama, where each interaction between different pairs of competitors is their own story. I've been excited to recommend this match since I came up with the concept and I'm gonna have to watch it again to be able to discuss it properly here as it's probably about a year since I saw it, but boy am I excited at that prospect. Hope you all enjoy this as much as I did!

Well, I can confirm that the second half of this match is good. <_<

While I can name a few 45+ minute matches I loved, I'm one of the first people to tell you that it's generally best to cap matches at around 35. They often lose the crowd, have repeated sequences, or are purely self-masturbatory (some of Chris Hero's long matches, that damn Triple H/HBK HiaC match that I thought would never end). This was not any of those. These guys made the most of their time and, by the end, I don't feel like there was any real waste to this match. Nobody is grabbing a headlock and laying on the mat for two minutes here.

I'm kind of at a loss as to where to begin here. I'll say that I didn't find the beginning to be very special. Felt like a typical AJPW tag opener other than Taue slapping Kawada so hard he took a bit of a nap on the outside (about the only negative I have to this match are the shots of Kawada selling being knocked off the apron). As I'm settling into this being your standard good six-man from AJPW, Kawada takes to the ring and gets into a ****ing fight with Taue. From then on, they have my undivided attention. Kawada's striking is so good and he works a good chunk of this match trading off between Taue and Tsuruta. I was happy seeing that Jumbo has his fans on the board when following the Greatest Wrestler Ever topic and this is another classic performance from him. He's totally keeping up with his younger opponents and it feels like he's still the same Jumbo I saw from a match in '83 I watched not too long ago (for. . . reasons that we might get to for this series). I did notice that Fuchi was largely a nonentity for the first half of this six-man, but he becomes a bigger presence in the second half with some tremendous heel work.

Misawa, to me, is the perfect embodiment of what most expect of a traditional Japanese wrestler. Crisp, athletic, and so stoic. He doesn't really emote much in this match but that kind of makes it more meaningful when you see him huff in frustration or breathing hard as he really works a hold. It also helps that he's got the ultra charismatic Kobashi on his team. If you love Tanahashi, go out and find more young Kobashi. Different styles of work but both are masters of playing fiery babyface.

Perhaps the biggest compliment I can give this match is that it ended exactly when it needed to. Like I said before, there's no wasted motion in this match and every sequence, every pairing felt significant. They managed to go 53 minutes and still perfectly hit the peak for the ending. Excellent match and I'm happy I found the time to watch it.