Toshiaki Kawada was born on December 8, 1963 in Tochigi, Japan. While still in high school, he was an amateur wrestler and became the national champion by defeating Keiichi Yamada (the future Jushin Liger) in the finals. Kawada was friends with Mitsuharu Misawa, who had attended the same high school and was part of the AJPW dojo. Misawa advised Kawada to try out for AJPW (instead of NJPW). Kawada ended up making his pro wrestling debut for AJPW on 10/4/82 against future tag team partner Hiromichi Fuyuki.

In November of 1985, Kawada was sent on a North American excursion to gain more experience. Kawada spent one month in San Antonio, Texas (where he wrestled in Texas All-Star Wrestling). Kawada & Fuyuki had a brief feud with Shawn Michaels & Paul Diamond over the Texas Tag Team Title. Kawada also spent five months in Calgary, Alberta, Canada (where he wrestled in Stu Hart’s Stampede Wrestling). Stampede booker Bruce Hart booked Kawada initially as Black Mephisto from Singapore before turning him into Kio Kawata from South Korea. In Alberta, Kawada had the opportunity to wrestle a variety of opponents that included notable wrestlers like Chris Benoit (future Pegasus Kid/Wild Pegasus), Robbie Stewart (Scottish wrestler Frank ‘Chic’ Cullen), Rick Patterson (future IWA Japan Leatherface), Canek (Mexican luchador who was LLI’s biggest star and was on a 2-week tour during the second half of May 1986), Owen Hart (Stu Hart’s youngest son and future legend) and others. The North American excursion came to an end after spending three months in Montreal, Quebec (where he wrestled for Lutte Internationale).

After a year of wrestling in North America, Kawada returned to Japan and had hirst first match back for AJPW in December of 1986. Kawada wouldn’t start to get featured in AJPW until the final four months of 1987, though. By this point, he was a very good worker. And as the months and years went on, Kawada’s push and reputation would slowly improve. In May of 1990, Kawada’s position in AJPW improved further as Genichiro Tenryu had left the league. In October of 1991, he would get his first Triple Crown Title shot (against Jumbo Tsuruta).

One of Kawada’s most legendary performances took place in late 1993 when he (and his tag team partner Akira Taue) took part in the World’s Strongest Determination Tag League. The storytelling and selling displayed by Kawada was incredible. Along with showing his ability to carry and guide workers, it had become clear that he was now certainly a truly great heavyweight wrestler. One of Kawada’s best in-ring feuds was his series of matches with American wrestler Steve Williams. The two had several memorable singles and tag team matches against one another, but the most notable one is the ‘94 Champion Carnival Final from 4/16/94.

Arguably Kawada’s most famous feud was with Misawa, and AJPW booker Giant Baba really milked the story he was telling as much as possible, as Baba ended up stretching out the story over a period of 16 years. The storytelling through not only the in-ring work and matches, but also certainly the results are a big part of AJPW’s greatness. This is why it’s very useful to know who scored a big win over whom over the years in AJPW in order to get the most pleasurable viewing experience. Another one of Kawada’s great rivals was Kenta Kobashi. In fact, Kawada, Kobashi, Misawa and Taue were considered the Four Pillars of AJPW due to all the great storylines that often resulted in great matches involving them.

Kawada has to be considered one of the best heavyweights of all time, because in all his excellent and great matches from the 90s, which are some of the very best heavyweight wrestling bouts ever, Kawada was very often the best performer of the match. His stiff work and his great selling made him a very memorable performer. Kawada’s career as a wrestler lasted from October 1982 until August 2010.

Please note that some of the comments in the reviews below could be considered ‘blasphemous’ by some. If you’re a highly rigid and/or sensitive person, please do not read the reviews below. If you’re okay with getting your learned beliefs challenged, please proceed further and enjoy the ride.

Without further ado, let’s have a look at some of Kawada’s most memorable and legendary matches…

AJPW 4/11/83 Hiroshima Prefectural Gym: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Mitsuo Momota 2:47 of 7:11. As we embark on our Dangerous K King’s Road trip, we have to start somewhere, and this is one of the earliest Toshiaki Kawada matches available. It was a very basic match, but the basic things they did were executed reasonably well. Mitsuo Momota is mostly known for being the son of Rikidozan, the father of puroresu. Other than that, Momota’s in ring career wasn’t really that interesting, and he was likely more notable for his behind the scenes work. Toshiaki Kawada’s counters during the matwork were done in a manner that showed that he cared about what he was doing. Kawada hit a couple of nicely-executed dropkicks, but he eventually lost after getting hit with a backdrop suplex. Mediocre match. *¾ 

AJPW 11/28/84 Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Tarzan Goto 12:20. Toshiaki Kawada had two years of experience as a pro wrestler at the time. Tarzan Goto had about eight months more experience than Kawada at the time. The hand-held footage is luckily quite good, especially considering this is from 1984. The work was quite basic. You have to understand that especially in those days in AJPW under Baba’s booking, there was quite a strict hierarchy, so the younger wrestlers really had to pay their dues, start at the bottom and work their way up the card. Also, there were no internet pages at the time, so that means that nobody was really expecting anything from young workers like these at the time. This was definitely not an exciting match, and it was your typical opening match on an old school puroresu show, which means it was just young undercard workers trying their best to slowly show improvement and prove themselves but without any real hope to be working their way up the card any time soon. While this meant that they weren’t really urgently trying to become exciting workers, this meant there was more time to focus more on the basic aspects of a pro wrestling match, including building a match and old school pro wrestling selling. Kawada spent quite a bit of time selling for Goto in this match, and Goto was the one mostly in control. Goto was mediocre, at times even okay-ish here, as you could say he was a reasonable hand who could work at least a mediocre to okay-ish match. Although he did eventually start showing more aggression later in his career, he never really seemed to progress too much beyond the quality level of work he was at in 1984. Apologies to hardcore FMW fans. Kawada, on the other hand, would obviously show immense improvement and progression in this decade and the early ‘90s. In this particular match from November ‘84, he showed potential, but he didn’t really stand out too much. He played his role as an undercard youngster well, and he didn’t mess up. What he did, he did well. That’s sometimes all that’s needed from a young up-and-coming worker. You could definitely say he was already an okay worker, though, as it looked like he was capable of having a better match if he wasn’t stuck in the opening match facing a mediocre worker with not much more experience. After a rather lacklustre twelve minutes, Goto, who was still a lot lighter than he would become later in his career, hit a splash off the top rope for the win. This was definitely not a good match, but it’s interesting for historical purposes. Both men would have quite different careers after this match. Goto would become a hardcore wrestler in FMW. And, despite losing to Goto on this night in November ‘84, Kawada would eventually become the greatest heavyweight in pro wrestling history. Now that we got a taste for Kawada’s humble beginnings, let’s continue following Kawada on his road from okayness to greatness. Mediocre match. *¾ 

AJPW 4/3/85 Yamagata Prefectural Gymnasium: Toshiaki Kawada & Tiger Mask II  vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi & Fumihiro Niikura 4:45 of 12:10. Tiger Mask II was Mitsuharu Misawa with the Tiger Mask gimmick. This second incarnation of the Tiger Mask gimmick wasn’t nearly as good nor as successful as the First Tiger Mask, who was portrayed by Satoru Sayama in NJPW during the early 1980s. Kawada moved around quickly and wrestled like a junior heavyweight, as he was able to have interesting fast-paced and exciting sequences with Kuniaki Kobayashi. Despite playing the role of Tiger Mask, Misawa was less quick and less spectacular than Kawada was. Kobayashi brought a lot of intensity to the match, as this was when he was still in his prime. Kobyashi ended up winning the match by pinning Kawada. Less than half the match was shown, but what was shown looked quite good with Kobayashi and Kawada standing out most. Decent match. **¾ 

AJPW 6/5/85 Nagoya Aichi-ken Taiikukan: Dynamite Kid & Davey Boy Smith vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Tiger Mask II 6:35 of 10:57. When you read these names, it may look like somewhat of a dream match on paper, but Toshiaki Kawada and Mitsuharu Misawa were still at the early stages of their respective careers, while the British Bulldogs’ very best days appeared to have been over, as they were getting more comfortable being in Stamford mode. This was still a fun and interesting match though, and actually one of the more memorable Bulldogs matches during this tour. Davey Boy tombstone piledrove Kawada on a ringside table. It was a Japanese table, which meant that it was a high-quality table that didn’t break. Dynamite pinned Kawada after a flying headbutt. This was fun for the novelty factor of having these four well-known names in one match. If you look past that fact, you’ll see it was just the Bulldogs beating two young workers up in a random match. Still, it was fun to watch at least once. Decent match. **¾ 

Stampede 1/10/86 Calgary, AB Victoria Pavilion: Black Mephisto vs. Chris Benoit 4:08 of 12:18. Toshiaki Kawada vs. Chris Benoit is an obvious dream match on paper. Just the fact that these two wrestled each other made me want to watch this match (and it probably would make any true pro wrestling collector want to seek out this match), even though I knew that it wouldn’t be an actual dream match in actuality. That being said, this was easily Benoit’s best televised match up until that point in his 7-week career. 18-year-old Chris Benoit from Edmonton, AB was still a rookie. Kawada was still a young Japanese worker who, in order to gain more experience, was sent by AJPW on a 1-month excursion to San Antonio, TX, a 5-month excursion to Calgary, AB (after which he would go on a 3-month excursion to Montreal, QC). Kawada worked in Calgary as a masked heel called Black Mephisto, and he was billed from Singapore. Stampede Wrestling booker Bruce Hart loved to bill wrestlers from unusual parts of the world, especially foreign wrestlers. Kawada screamed loudly to put over the fact he was a villainous foreigner. That fact alone shows that Kawada was able to adapt to North American wrestling. Kawada used the top rope to his benefit a few times during the parts he was on offense, which really helped this match become more spectacular than the usual North American match from 1986. Kawada was the best worker in Stampede at the time, as Benoit was still in the first few weeks of his career, and Owen Hart hadn’t made his official debut yet. This is probably the earliest Benoit match that is actually worth having a look at, and one that gives a pretty good indication of the potential he already had early in his career. This match against Kawada gave Benoit the opportunity to do some more advanced sequences instead of the usual basic stuff he had been doing with his previous opponents. By the way, if you’re curious about Benoit’s very first televised matches, I’d recommend seeking out his matches in Stampede from November and December 1985. Inspired by his idol Dynamite Kid, Benoit hit a tremendous flying knee drop off the top rope onto Kawada’s head! Benoit got a yellow card for that, but it was worth it. Makhan Singh (Mike Shaw) showed up at ringside to distract the referee, and this gives us an excuse to blame him for this dream match not living up to its potential. Also, this gave Kawada the chance to cheat to get the advantage. Kawada executed a crossface for the win. This was some of the most fun four minutes of 1986 Stampede Wrestling TV. Good match. ***

Stampede 1/31/86 Calgary, AB Victoria Pavilion: Black Mephisto vs. Robbie Stewart 7:10 of 14:11. Black Mephisto (Toshiaki Kawada) did the thing Shodai Tiger Mask used to do where he ran towards his opponent in the corner, backflipped off of his opponent’s shoulder and landed on his feet, which is truly a spectacular move to watch, and he followed it up with an armdrag. Kawada showed some of his mat wrestling skills by working over the left arm of Scottish wrestler Robbie Stewart (Frank ‘Chic’ Cullen). Cullen escaped the arm stretch, but Kawada countered into a hammerlock. Like the true talented British wrestler he was, Cullen hit an impressive tombstone piledriver. After some more good wrestling action, Makhan Singh (Mike Shaw) distracted the referee and tried to ruin another match, but his interference backfired as Cullen was able to pin Kawada via a rollup. Overall, the wrestling was good and we got to see half the match (which is more than we sometimes get from Stampede footage). Good match. ***¼ 

AJPW 6/11/87 Toshiaki Kawada vs. Masanobu Kurisu. Okay match. **¼ 

AJPW 8/21/87 Sendai Miyagi-ken Sports Center: Toshiaki Kawada & Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Samson Fuyuki & Jumbo Tsuruta & The Great Kabuki 7:40. This was originally going to be Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & The Great Kabuki, but Kabuki spewed green mist in Tenryu’s eyes. Kawada stepped in to help Tenryu’s team. Fuyuki then joined Tsuruta’s team to make it a trios match. This short trios match served more as an angle to hype Tenryu vs. Tsuruta. The action was good, but this 7-minute match felt a bit too hectic and rushed. Decent match. **¾  

AJPW 9/15/87 Tokyo Korakuen Hall, World Junior Heavyweight Title: Masa Fuchi vs. Toshiaki Kawada 15:11. This was around the time Toshiaki Kawada started being utilized by AJPW, as this was his first singles title shot in Japan, and he had recently joined Genichiro Tenryu’s Revolution stable. There was a great display of struggle during the early matwork portion of the match. The wily veteran Masa Fuchi tried to make young up-and-coming star Kawada suffer as much as possible. Kawada showed a lot of fighting spirit, and didn’t give up trying to fight back. Kawada was particularly successful when he started getting off his feet. For instance, he hit a nice spinning kick that he followed up with a pescado. The crowd started getting behind young Kawada, and a “Ka-wa-da!” chant started. Kawada came close to pinning Fuchi when a German suplex was executed. Kawada kept pushing for a win, as he hit a tremendous dropkick off the top rope for another near fall. This match made it clear that by this time in 1987, Kawada was significantly more mature as a worker than in years prior, as he gave a really strong performance here. The near falls stretch was gaining more steam until the lame finish. Samson Fuyuki randomly came to Kawada’s aid, and started attacking Fuchi out of nowhere. I believe this is the origin of the Kawada & Fuyuki tag team. Kawada may or may not have lost the match by count out if Fuyuki wouldn’t have interfered for the DQ finish. Either way, while a non-clean win is for the most part a disappointing finish, it’s interesting to see that Giant Baba didn’t want Kawada to lose cleanly here, as Baba probably realized the tremendous potential Kawada had. Other than the disappointing finish, this was quite an interesting match, and probably Kawada’s best match of his career so far. Very good match. ***½   

AJPW 10/3/87 Toshiaki Kawada & Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Tiger Mask II & Jumbo Tsuruta & Giant Baba 6:25 of 16:08. I believe this was the first televised battle between Toshiaki Kawada and Mitsuharu Misawa (Tiger Mask II). Kawada executed a nice handspring elbow and a nice German suplex on Misawa. There was some pretty interesting and fun trios action in this match. Tenryu was particularly vicious. Misawa took quite a beating, and took it well. Misawa still ended up winning the match for his team, as he was able to hit Kawada with a dropkick off the top rope, and then pin Kawada via a German suplex. Everyone worked well (especially Tenryu’s team), and the action was good, but with ten minutes of footage missing, it’s hard to say exactly how good this really was. Good match. ***

AJPW 1/23/88 Matsumoto City General Gym: Toshiaki Kawada & Genichiro Tenryu vs. Tiger Mask II & Yoshiaki Yatsu 15:32. The match was pretty basic during the early stages. The work was good, but for the first several minutes, they kinda made the viewer long for something more interesting to happen. It was mostly just typical wear down and beat down type stuff. Kawada spent a lot of time selling. Towards the end of the match, Tenryu showed a lot of energy, and his work during the final minutes arguably made him the worker of the match. Misawa leaped onto Tenryu from the apron to the floor, which sent both over the guardrail onto the announce table. A brawl on the floor broke out. Decent match. **¾

AJPW 4/21/88 Tokyo Korakuen Hall, Asia Tag Title: Toshiaki Kawada & Samson Fuyuki vs. Takashi Ishikawa & Mighty Inoue 19:24. Takashi Ishikawa and Mighty Inoue were definitely taking this match seriously, as they were trying to be as relentless as they possibly could. Samson Fuyuki gave quite a dramatic selling performance during this onslaught. When Kawada was tagged in, he showed a lot of energy. However, the wily veteran team of Ishikawa & Inoue were just constantly thinking one step ahead of their opponents. The final minutes featured lots of exciting back-and-forth action before the screwy finish. Very good match. ***½  

AJPW 7/19/88 Tokyo Korakuen Hall Asia Tag Title: Toshiaki Kawada & Samson Fuyuki vs. Shinichi Nakano & Shunji Takano 15:44. Toshiaki Kawada & Samson Fuyuki showed a lot of energy from the start. Their energy really was the driving force of this match. Their opponents deserve credit for playing their role well. Shunji Takano (George ‘Cobra’ Takano’s brother) was definitely the weak link of the match, despite him trying his best. That being said, Takano’s work in this match was arguably one of his best performances ever. Shinichi Nakano was quite solid and carried his team well, and he continued to show he was such an underrated talent. It seems that with every match, Kawada became smarter in terms of doing the right thing at the right time, while his tag team partner Fuyuki was mostly just an uncontrollable bundle of energy. This match was slightly more exciting than the match Kawada & Fuyuki had on 4/21/88 vs. Takashi Ishikawa & Mighty Inoue, because this match vs. Nakano & Takano had more back-and-forth action and had more exciting moves and drama. Very good match. ***¾ 

AJPW 12/10/88 Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center, Real World Tag League: Toshiaki Kawada & Genichiro Tenryu vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu 21:06. Genichiro Tenryu started things off by chopping Jumbo Tsuruta even before the bell started, just to let Tsuruta know that he was ready to beat Tsuruta. Tenryu, Tsuruta and Yoshiaki Yatsu did the big heavyweight stuff. Toshiaki Kawada was the smallest guy in the match, but he showed enough intensity and skill to make it plausible that he could give the big guys a run for their money here. Tsuruta’s execution was really good in this particular match, as he was way more intense and tenacious than usual. Tenryu was even more impressive than Tsuruta, though, as Tenryu showed even more energy and arguably was executing his moves better overall. What made this match one of the best matches in AJPW of 1988 was that everything was done in a rougher way, and not too much in an overly cooperative way (at least for pro wrestling standards). Tenryu and Tsuruta came across as the two big stars, which was exactly the way they were being booked. However, Kawada really showed his potential to eventually join the ranks of the AJPW main eventers through his display of determination. Yatsu was the weak link of the match, and was just kinda there. He didn’t do anything wrong, but he didn’t really impress either. He was perfect for the role of Tsuruta's stooge. Tenryu and Tsuruta continued to show their dislike for each other, and this was the central theme of the match, as their rivalry was the central theme of AJPW at the time. Towards the end of the match, Kawada started doing a couple of crazy high flying moves, which made him stand out during the final minutes. However, overall, it feels like Tenryu was arguably the worker of the match. This was a really well-worked heavyweight tag team match. Very good match. ***¾  

AJPW 12/16/88 Real World Tag League: Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy 21:02.  This was arguably the biggest match in Toshiaki Kawada’s career up until that point in his career. They all made a really good effort to try to keep things going as much as possible. Kawada and Terry Gordy stood out the most for their efforts. Stan Hansen tried, but was always somewhat of a limited worker. He was able to make up for it by showing flashes of viciousness at times. The stoic Genichiro Tenryu didn’t really stand out, but was quite alright overall. Very good match. ***¾ 

AJPW 2/23/89 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: World Tag Title Match: Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada. Everyone’s selling was good. The match could have used some more excitement, though. It kinda felt like they were just hanging out on a Thursday afternoon. Towards the end, Yoshiaki Yatsu was showing more fire while working over Toshiaki Kawada. At this point, Kawada was the fourth ranked guy in the match, in terms of push. This is why he ended up selling the majority of the match. Jumbo Tsuruta was kinda going through the motions. Genichiro Tenryu didn’t do much in this particular match. Once Kawada made the expected comeback in the match, he worked some good sequences with Yatsu. Tenryu woke up and did a sunset flip off the ropes, which was unexpected but very cool. Good match. ***¼    

AJPW 5/24/89 Sakata Kenritsu Taiikukan: Danny Kroffat & Doug Furnas & Danny Spivey vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada & Samson Fuyuki 16:06. Danny Kroffat (Phil Lafon) was discovered by the British Bulldogs (Dynamite Kid & Davey Boy Smith) when Lafon worked at a Gold's Gym in Western Canada, to which he had relocated for his interest in bodybuilding and powerlifting. The Bulldogs brought Lafon up to the Dungeon in Calgary (in the basement of the Hart House), where he was stretched by Stu Hart, but he was mainly trained by Mr. Hito. Lafon was never good at promos, and he was more interested in the in-ring aspect of wrestling, so naturally he became drawn to Japanese pro wrestling. In Stampede Wrestling, he wrestled under the name Phil Lafleur. When he wrestled in Quebec, he was given the name Dan Kroffat, because his English was better than his French. Rick Martel came up with the name Dan Kroffat because he knew that there was a Dan Kroffat in Western Canada who was a pretty big name in Stampede Wrestling. He had a tour for All Japan Pro Wrestling in October ‘88 during which promoter Giant Baba paired him with Doug Furnas. Baba was impressed enough with Lafon that he allowed Lafon to come back for many tours. In total, Lafon would end up touring Japan over 55 times in his career. The work in this 5/24/89 trios match certainly was quite good, but it felt like it was merely a warm-up for the great 6/5/89 tag match. Good match. ***¼ 

AJPW 6/5/89 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, All Asia Tag Team Title: Toshiaki Kawada & Samson Fuyuki vs. Danny Kroffat & Doug Furnas 19:35. All four performers gave a great performance. Danny Kroffat (Phil Lafon) and Toshiaki Kawada gave a particularly heated performance, and in the story, they even had to be separated because they were going at each other too wildly. Lafon and Kawada certainly told the story well, and that’s a big part of why this match was such a success. They accomplished this not only through their display of intensity, but also through their understanding of when to hold back and sell. The action was quite exciting and intense. The drama, storytelling and athleticism were all of top-notch quality. The execution being superb also solidified this match as a true MOTYC. If you’re going to watch one of the Footloose vs. Can-Am Express matches, make sure it’s this one! At the time this match took place, it was the greatest tag team match to have ever taken place on Japanese soil. Great match. ****¾ 

AJPW 8/19/89 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Danny Kroffat & Doug Furnas vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Samson Fuyuki 13:18. This match took place 2 and-a-half months after their 6/5/89 match. This 8/19/89 wasn’t quite on that level, though. It didn’t quite have the same energy and big-match feel. The work was certainly good, but it felt like just another match in comparison to their 6/5/89 match. Good match. ***¼  

AJPW 9/2/89 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Asia Tag Title Match: Danny Kroffat & Doug Furnas vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Samson Fuyuki 19:56. Not much of interest happened. There was a lot of selling and lying around. It definitely wasn’t a bad match, though. It’s just that there was almost zero urgency. This definitely felt like their weakest match in the series. Decent match. **¾  

AJPW 10/20/89, Asia Tag Title: Danny Kroffat & Doug Furnas vs. Samson Fuyuki & Toshiaki Kawada. Kawada kicked Kroffat hard. An enraged Kroffat threw a row of chairs around. Can-Am then beat up Fuyuki. Can-Am beat Kawada up in the ring. This wasn’t as good as 6/5/89, but this was probably the second-best Can-Am vs. Footloose match. There was plenty of heated action that made it have the feel of an exciting rivalry. Very good match. ***½  

AJPW 3/2/90 Nagoya Tsuyuhashi Sports Center, Asia Tag Title: Toshiaki Kawada & Samson Fuyuki vs. Doug Furnas & Danny Kroffat. Toshiaki Kawada and Danny Kroffat really did a great job of putting over the heated rivalry between the two. Their respective tag team partners, Samson Fuyuki and Doug Furnas, realized that you gotta keep ‘em separated. Things started to calm down when Fuyuki and Furnas wrestled each other. Furnas showed his amazing athletic ability. There was some tagging in and out, but the match gradually started to lose steam. There were some cool moments here and there, but for the most part, it was just all kinda meandering. Eventually, Kawada threw some good kicks, showed more intensity and hit a powerful flying dropkick. The match ended when Kroffat pinned Fuyuki with a cool-looking sunset flip pinning combination after leaping off the second ropes. Good match. ***¼  

AJPW 9/30/90: Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada 45:00. Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Mitsuharu Misawa was the main rivalry in AJPW at the time. There was a lot of heat whenever those two displayed their intensity against one another. Toshiaki Kawada was upgraded to being Misawa’s #2 and now had the iconic black and yellow tights. His days of being Samson Fuyuki’s Footloose tag team partner were now over. What this match accomplished very well was to really put over the rivalry between these factions. A lot of hard-hitting and intense action was executed in a manner that made it easy for the viewer to get drawn into the action. They all wrestled like it mattered. Akira Taue was bleeding from the forehead. The main issue with the match is its length. The middle portion of the match could have easily been kept shorter, since it was mostly just them trying to stay in control and the urgency was dialed down for a bit. Luckily, there were still plenty of memorable moments during the middle portion. For instance, Kawada started hitting Tsuruta with a flurry of elbows until Tsuruta showed Kawada who was #1 in AJPW at the time (at least in terms of the pecking order). The execution of the moves was great all the way throughout. The way they hit and the way they sold made it all somewhat believable, for pro wrestling standards. Misawa had enough of standing on the apron, and made it known to Kawada that he wanted in. Misawa beat up Tsuruta for a bit. Misawa’s offense looked a lot less convincing than that of the others. In fact, Misawa was probably the least performer of the four in this particular match, since even Taue showed more fire than Misawa did. Kawada was the best performer in the match, as he was the one carrying his team. Tsuruta took a cool bump off the apron onto the guardrail when Misawa hit him with an elbow. The match continued, and ended up lasting a long time, but the storytelling was certainly great in this match. After they had lost most of the momentum they had built up and were struggling to keep things going, they all of a sudden started showing urgency again during the final few minutes, since the ring announcer was letting them know the time limit was about to expire. However, it was too late, as in the end, they went to a 45-minute time limit draw. The match probably would have been at least a quarter or a half star better if it was a 25-minute match instead of a 45-minute one. Good match. ***¼    

AJPW 10/19/90: Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue & Masa Fuchi vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada & Kenta Kobashi 25:25. Mitsuharu Misawa executed some graceful-looking offense. Jumbo Tsuruta hit a couple of stiff elbow smashes to Misawa to slow him down. Masa Fuchi’s offense looked quite weak compared to everyone else’s hard-hitting offense. After some intense first few minutes, the match started slowing down, and Toshiaki Kawada spent some time selling for Tsuruta’s team. Then it was Taue’s turn to sell for Misawa’s team. The match started losing momentum with nobody really showing any long-lasting urgency. We did get a bunch of interesting bits and pieces, though. Fuchi hit Kobashi with a chair, and Kobashi was in trouble, which led to the crowd starting a “Ko-ba-shi!”chant. Taue hit an interesting tope suicida that was done in a manner that made it clear he only did it to take the opponent out, not to show off. During the final few minutes, everyone decided to show more enthusiasm again. Tsuruta hit an awesome-looking backdrop suplex for the win. This definitely was a match worth watching, but it seems that, just like with the overly long 9/30/90 match, this match was simply a bit too long. You’d think that with two added participants and 20 minutes less to worry about they’d have a better match than on 9/30/90, but this was not the case. This match felt merely like a relatively unimportant chapter in the story of the Tsuruta vs. Misawa feud. Good match. ***¼   

AJPW 12/7/90 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, ’90 Sekai Saikyo Tag Decision League Match: Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada 22:54. Toshiaki Kawada showed tons of fire when he started kicking Taue’s leg over and over. Jumbo Tsuruta came in and took Kawada down to show him who’s the man in All Japan. Mitsuharu Misawa showed some spectacular offense on Tsuruta. Kawada spent some time selling for his opponents while Misawa stood on the apron. Kawada applied a scorpion deathlock. Tsuruta came to save Taue, but Kawada knocked Tsuruta to the floor. Misawa then hit Tsuruta with an elbow. At some point in the match, Taue hit one of his awesome no-nonsense tope suicidas. Once again, this group of workers were able to tell a great in-ring story. The final minutes were definitely quite exciting. Kawada pinned Taue to win the match. Very good match. ***¾ 

AJPW 1/15/91 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Akira Taue. The match started off with Akira Taue attacking Toshiaki Kawada right away. After beating Kawada up for a bit, Taue launched himself with a tope suicida and then proceeded to clothesline Kawada over the guardrail. Taue was clearly mad. Kawada wasn’t a happy camper either, and he hit Taue over the head with a chair. Taue juiced, and his face was turning into a crimson mask. They would continue to beat the crap out of each other. Taue picked Kawada up and dropped his knee on a ringside table. Jumbo Tsuruta was watching from the entrance area, and he had a smirk on his face, as he was clearly enjoying the beating Taue was giving Kawada. When they returned to the ring, there was a vicious slap exchange. Taue was determined to destroy Kawada. However, Kawada hit Taue to the back of the head with an enzuilariat. It’s hard to imagine these two would end up becoming one of the best tag teams in pro wrestling history when you see how heated this battle was. This was a really fun match. The only downside was that Kawada won kinda out of nowhere after Taue had just been dishing out so much punishment. Excellent match. **** 

AJPW 4/20/91 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada & Kenta Kobashi vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue & Masa Fuchi 51:32. Akira Taue was still mad at Toshiaki Kawada and slapped him off the apron right away. Taue then hit a lariat to knock Kawada off the apron again. It really feels like Taue showed a lot more aggression during these years of 1990 and 1991, and he was a lot calmer when he teamed with Kawada in later years. Kawada spent a big part of the match selling for Taue and Jumbo Tsuruta. After a lengthy Kawada selling segment, Kobashi was tagged in, and did a bunch of moves. Mitsuharu Misawa then was tagged in. When he was back in, Kawada tried to make Taue submit. After some exciting minutes, it was now time for a lengthy Taue selling segment. Kobashi hit a plancha off the top to the floor. Kobashi spent some time selling for Masa Fuchi. In spite of his overselling being a bit comical, Tsuruta was arguably the worker of the match, as he brought a lot of intensity, and felt like he was a main driving force. Taue also deserves credit for bringing a lot of intensity to the match. Fuchi was the weakest performer of the match. Misawa’s team members showed some cool offense whenever they were on offense, but none of them truly stood out in this particular match. Though it should be mentioned that Kobashi got quite a lot of sympathy from the crowd during his selling segment, and he executed an impressive-looking moonsault near the finish. In the end, Misawa pinned Taue to win the match for his team. The main issue with the match was obviously the length. 51 minutes is just way too long. If it would have been shorter, perhaps the exciting segments would be even more exciting, since they wouldn’t be constantly interrupted by extensive selling segments. Very good match. ***½  

AJPW 7/11/91 Miyakonojo City Gymnasium: Rick Rude & Steve Williams & Terry Gordy vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi 21:13. This was Rick Rude’s first tour of Japan, and it was his only tour for AJPW. The work was definitely good but not exceptional, and not quite on the level of a highly recommended match. So, it was basically just another good match. The commentator went totally nuts towards the end, though. ***¼ 

AJPW 9/4/91 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, World Tag Title: Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue 26:34. This wasn’t very good. The offense and selling looked a bit contrived and not very well executed. The selling in general was quite exaggerated and overly artistic, as if they were in a theater play instead of a fight, and they were moving very slowly. There was no urgency, which revealed they were going to have a long match again, or at least that they were not in any hurry to beat anyone anytime soon. Other than that, it was kinda fun to watch. Kawada sold Tsuruta’s submission attempts quite well. Misawa hit a nice flying elbow smash on Taue. Tsuruta vs. Misawa probably had the most intense action, and this was still the main feud in AJPW at the time. Kawada would occasionally also show some good intensity. The match got a bit more exciting towards the end when they were finally warmed up, and the grogginess they were showing at the start had seemingly worn off. The storytelling in the match and the storytelling in AJPW overall is great, though. In a somewhat shocking result, Misawa made Tsuruta submit. Decent match. **¾    

AJPW 10/24/91 Yokohama Bunka Taiikukan, Triple Crown Heavyweight Title Match: Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Toshiaki Kawada 19:05. A lot of good acting and storytelling by both. Great commentating by the commentator, really enhancing the drama. Kawada gave a good effort, but Tsuruta ended up retaining his title. Good match. *** 

AJPW 12/6/91 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, '91 Sekai Saikyo Tag Kettei Leaguesen: Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Terry Gordy & Steve Williams 25:24. The World Tag Team Title had been vacated by Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada prior to the tournament. This gave the already prestigious tournament even more prestige, as the winner would indeed be the undisputed World Tag Team Champions. You could tell from the way they wrestled that this match really was a big deal. The American team kept putting pressure on the Japanese team. Kawada whiffed a spin kick, and I like that Gordy didn’t really sell it. The match became increasingly more dramatic with lots of intense near falls and lots of urgency in general. Excellent match. **** 

AJPW 1/24/92: Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada & Kenta Kobashi vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue & Masa Fuchi 44:23. The first portion of the match featured a lot of artistic selling and artistic wrestling psychology. Of course, this match went over 40 minutes! This is way too long. Nobody was in a rush, and everyone had a very methodical approach to this match. Things finally started picking up around the 35th minute. It wasn’t a bad match, but it definitely wasn’t anything that should be recommended. Decent match. **¾ 

AJPW 2/22/92: Toshiaki Kawada & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Doug Furnas & Danny Kroffat 14:12. Can-Am Express were quite relentless in their beatdown of Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, who did a great job of being the underdog. Toshiaki Kawada was relentless in his comeback to even things out. Excellent match. **** 

AJPW 5/22/92 Hokkaido Sapporo Nakajima Taiiku Center: Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada & Kenta Kobashi vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue & Masa Fuchi 36:36. Jumbo Tsuruta’s team did a good job of beating Mitsuharu Misawa up. The crowd started booing Tsuruta’s team whenever they did some triple-teaming and/or used the ropes to their advantage to give Misawa a rough time and/or did some general heelish stuff. Masa Fuchi barely had to do anything to get heel heat. Him just walking and stomping got him heel heat. Tsuruta and Kenta Kobashi were probably the most over with the crowd, though, in terms of heel heat and babyface heat respectively. Eventually, Misawa’s team decided that turnabout is fair play, and the crowd agreed. It was kind of a fun match to watch, but it was just a bit long, and there were several segments in which nothing noteworthy happened. Everytime the heels kept breaking up holds, and whenever they tied up their opponents in the corner, it slowed down the match more and more. As usual, the storytelling was really good, though. Kobashi was arguably the worker of the match due to his spirited comebacks. The Tsuruta vs. Misawa interactions during the finishing stretch had a lot of excellent drama. Kawada gave a very good performance, but he didn’t really stand out in this particular match. The match ended when Kawada made Taue submit while the other two members of Kawada’s team also had the other two members of Taue’s team stuck in a submission hold. Good match. ***¼  

AJPW 10/21/92 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Triple Crown Title: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada 29:52. When they say wrestling is an art, it’s true, but perhaps some wrestlers are taking this art aspect a bit too far. For example, Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada have taken the AJPW ‘King’s Road’ style to the next level, and are basically the two main drama students in Giant Baba’s masterclass of selling. The moves they do are all well-executed, but it’s the overdramatic selling that drags the match down. The first move was a backdrop suplex by Kawada. That was a promising start. Things got less interesting pretty quickly, though. Kawada started working over Misawa’s arm. They both stopped showing urgency and seemingly used these long not-so-urgent parts as relaxing breaks and waited till it was time to do something in a more intense manner. After some intense moments of elbows and kicks, they went back to relaxed holds and pretentious grappling. The match gradually kept losing more steam. Execution was generally quite good, but the match had large portions of lifelessness. The match lacked urgency, and Misawa rarely felt that fighting back was a necessity. After Kawada had been on offense forever, Misawa finally had enough and fought back. The final minutes had quite a lot of crowd heat. Misawa eventually won and retained the title. Decent match. **¾ 

AJPW 11/27/92 Sapporo Nakajima Taiiku Center, World's Strongest Tag Decision League Match: Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Giant Baba & Kenta Kobashi 27:23. Giant Baba did reasonably well for himself, considering his limitations as an old giant. Kenta Kobashi was the worker of the match, because he showed the most excitement and enthusiasm. Toshiaki Kawada and Mitsuharu Misawa failed to really impress, and barely showed any desire to win this match. Once in a while, there were some cool-looking spots, but it was generally an uneventful and slow match. Baba and Kobashi showed great teamwork, unlike Kawada & Misawa, who barely acknowledged each other’s existence. Misawa did a lot of overselling for Baba. The way Kawada pinned Kobashi looked really cool, as he was trying with all his might to score the pinfall win, throwing his own legs into the air in order to place all his weight on top of Kobashi’s shoulders. Good match. ***

AJPW 2/28/93 Toshiaki Kawada vs. Stan Hansen 24:02. Just like everyone else that show, they tried to impress Dynamite Kid, who was sitting at ringside. Toshiaki Kawada kicked Stan Hansen pretty hard. Later in the match, Hansen even hit a tope suicida between the bottom two ropes. The match had its moments. However, overall, it was just not always very fascinating. It was a mid paced match that relied a lot on selling. To be fair, these two were hitting each other hard enough to warrant a lot of the selling. Hansen won after an enzuilariato. Very good match. ***½   

AJPW 3/27/93 Kyoto Prefectural Gymnasium, Champion Carnival: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada 22:00. It seems like they really started excelling at working against one another. The execution was really good. When they hit each other, they hit each other real good. And, they would occasionally try to escape an upcoming move, especially whenever they would sense it would be a move that could possibly be a fatal one. Mitsuharu Misawa hit a really cool tope suicida. We didn’t get too much overdramatic selling, and the mid-paced work was enjoyable enough. All in all, this match was worlds better and a lot more fun to watch than their rather dull and weak match from October 1992. Very good match. ***¾   

AJPW 4/12/93 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukan, Champion Carnival Match: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Akira Taue. In spite of no longer being as energetic as he was in 1990 and 1991, Akira Taue tried hard. After dropkicking Toshiaki Kawada off the apron, Taue hit a tope suicida. Once Kawada made it back into the ring, Taue took his sweet time, and occasionally did some rule breaking, which was kinda disappointing after he started the match off in a better way. Kawada seemed completely fine with this slower pace, in spite of a fan yelling his name loudly in order to try to get him to show signs of life. To be fair, this was a full hand-held version (in high video quality), as the match was intended to only be shown on TV in highlight form. Of course, that doesn’t mean that we should be generous with the rating all of a sudden. If a match is dull, a match is dull. This match also suffers from being too long. There are long periods of time of them just lying around or standing around, occasionally kicking each other like broken men no longer able to continue that are forced to continue by a sadistic referee who refuses to stop the match in spite of the wrestlers barely showing any signs of having enough energy left to walk back to the locker room. That being said, it wasn’t a bad match or anything, just a rather dull one. Decent match. **¾ 

AJPW 4/14/93 Nagoya Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, Champion Carnival: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi 10:26 of 23:44. Less than half the match was shown, but it looked like a good match. It was an interesting battle between Toshiaki Kawada’s logic and Kenta Kobashi’s excitement. The finish looked pretty cool. Good match. ***¼ 

AJPW 5/14/93 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue showed great teamwork here. They teamed together several times in 1990 when they were still buddies with Mitsuharu Misawa. However, this was the first time that they started teaming together after leaving Misawa’s side. The execution in this match was quite good. The downside of the match was that it took until the final minutes before the match started reaching a high quality. Good match. ***¼ 

AJPW 6/1/93 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, AJPW World Tag Team Title: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Kenta Kobashi & Mitsuharu Misawa 29:12. There was a huge reaction when Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada were tagged in to off against each other, as this was the #1 rivalry in AJPW at the time and the rivalry everything booked in this company was built around. The match had plenty of moments of intensity. When Kawada had Kenta Kobashi stuck in the Stretch Plum, Akira Taue knocked Misawa off the apron, which caused Misawa to fall into the guardrail and knock a monitor over. At nearly 30 minutes long, the match was probably a bit longer than it needed to be, but considering the length, they did quite a good job of keeping things relatively interesting for the most part. Towards the end of the match, the match started overstaying its welcome. The urgency was gone, and they would be more okay with the other chopping them as much as they pleased. Towards the end, unless you’re a die-hard fan of these guys, it’s easy to just wish for the match to be over, as the match kept losing steam more and more. Kawada pinned Kobashi to retain the title. Very good match. ***½ 

AJPW 6/3/93 Sendai Miyagi Sports Center: Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa 21:26. They didn’t do anything beyond expectation. They also didn’t really take advantage of this being a trios match, as they wrestled it like it was just another tag match (they didn’t take advantage of the two extra people being there). Decent match. **¾  

AJWP 7/2/93 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Mitsuhara Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Yoshinari Ogawa 25:36. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada featured some hard-hitting action. Jun Akiyama hit a plancha to the floor. Good match. ***

AJPW 7/29/93 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Triple Crown Title: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada 25:53. Mitsuharu Misawa’s comedy was unintentionally funny, as he was struggling real badly even with the most calmly and least-urgently executed moves by a Toshiaki Kawada who was clearly in no hurry at all. Misawa did Kawada a favor by pretending to not be able to be anywhere other than standing or lying exactly in a spot where Kawada could continue to do some stuff to him. Misawa got mad when Kawada didn’t return the favor, and started hitting him with elbows. These guys did relatively pedestrian wrestling moves and pretended they were in the middle of an intense war. There were definitely some cool moves and cool sequences here and there, but the slow pace and lack of urgency kinda made this long match fall flat. Misawa won via a tiger suplex. Good match. ***

AJPW 10/23/93 Tokyo: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi 29:37. They tried way too hard. They were way too desperate. The match starts off with some dramatic stuff to show they’re evenly matched. Then they go to the mat for a bit. When they get back to their feet, Toshiaki Kawada is in control and throws some nice kicks. Then they chop each other over and over. They hit each other with some more hard-hitting moves. The execution was quite good throughout the match. The selling was okay. There was probably a bit too much reliance on drama. I think Kawada secretly wished he was a soap opera star (of course, this wish came true when he joined HUSTLE). One could say that it’s about how you do something and not so much about what you do, but while this may often be true, sometimes the pendulum swings too far into the other direction. The repetitiveness not only made this match a predecessor of some of the so-called epics we see in modern-day wrestling with the strike exchanges and overacting, but it also was a factor in making it harder to get drawn into the match. The speed was okay-ish. They could have shown some more urgency. The best part about the match was the crowd reaction. The crowd reacted perfectly to everything, and this actually made the match more interesting than it actually was. The main problem of the match was the length, as it was too long. The final minutes were quite exciting with lots of big suplexes and other big moves. Kawada certainly suplexed the starch out of Kobashi. In the end, the overkill just was unnecessary. It would have been nicer to have watched an actual match with a story that made sense. The early stuff that masqueraded as build-up towards an illusory future ended up not having much of a purpose other than killing time. There was no rhyme or reason to anything they did at all. This isn’t something new in pro wrestling, of course, but it’s yet another reason why this match didn’t work as well as it could have. Don’t get me wrong, this was definitely GOOD! However, this wasn’t exactly great. Good match. ***¼   

AJPW 12/1/93 Nagoya, World's Strongest Tag Determination League Match: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Steve Williams & Big Bubba 18:03 shown. The Americans injured Toshiaki Kawada’s left knee. Kawada did an amazing job selling the knee, and he did a great job carrying his team. Akira Taue was easily the weakest performer of the match. Steve Williams & Big Bubba showed great teamwork and showed a lot of determination in this World’s Strongest Tag Determintaion League match. Excellent storytelling. Very good match. ***¾   

AJPW 12/3/93 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, World's Strongest Tag Determination League Final, World Tag Team Title Decision Match: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Kenta Kobashi & Mitsuharu Misawa 23:34. Thanks to Giant Baba’s great booking of this really enjoyable tag team tournament, it was a meeting of the ‘four pillars’ in the final. In fact, this was one of the most famous matches involving the four pillars of AJPW. This was the first time these two teams met in the tag final, after Kawada & Taue defended the tag titles against Misawa & Kobashi on 6/1/93. It was also an important match, as it not only decided who would win the tournament, but also who would be the undisputed World Tag Team Champions. This match is a great example of Kawada's realistic selling (of his knee, which was injured in his match against Steve Williams & Big Bubba two days earlier). The match and tournament culminated in Kobashi getting his first pin over Kawada. Execution was great from start to finish. Even Akira Taue, the weakest performer in the match, understood he had to really bring his A game here. What they did well here was to keep the action going early on, and they weren’t already selling in large amounts early on. This made the match exciting, and it made the selling later on in the match feel more meaningful. As soon as Kawada showed signs of his injured left knee hurting again, Kobashi went after the knee like a hungry shark and viciously attacked it. The storytelling and drama in this match were amazing. At the time of this match, it was arguably the greatest heavyweight match to have ever taken place. All-time great match. *****

AJPW 1/29/94 Kenta Kobashi & Mitsuharu Misawa & Giant Baba vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Masa Fuchi 39:02. Due to the length of the match, this started off quite slow and quite lackluster. Giant Baba started reaching a point in his career where he was going to be too much of a detracting factor. This was arguably the last match involving Baba that was somewhat worth watching. Masa Fuchi was just kinda thrown in there to make it a trios match, and he used to be involved in several big trios matches back when Jumbo Tsuruta was still the man. Eight weeks prior to this trios match, the ‘four pillars of heaven’ worked an all-time classic tag league final. This trios match wasn’t nearly as good, of course, but it was still interesting enough to have a look at. When Baba didn’t like something that was happening, he would just enter the ring and make it stop. One thing he couldn’t do was add more energy to the match, since he himself was running out of energy. The lifelessness and the grueling length of the match made this not only torture for the wrestlers involved, but it was a huge chore for the audience to sit through. Toshiaki Kawada’s team was so calm in their approach that Mitsuharu Misawa almost seemed to fall asleep while selling the polite attempts at offense from the opposition. Even Kenta Kobashi was lacking energy on this day. The man famous for fighting Dr. Death tooth and nail wasn’t feeling it here and was barely capable of fighting off Masa Fuchi. Since they had been wrestling in slow-motion from the start, they had a rough time trying to speed things up for the final minutes. The very final move of the match looked cool, though, as Kobashi hit his moonsault on Fuchi to win the match via pinfall. Decent match. **¾  

AJPW 4/11/94 Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Champion Carnival: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Mitsuharu Misawa 30:00. They clearly were in no rush. They took their sweet time. And every move they did got sold like it stopped them from moving for another few minutes. Mitsuharu Misawa seemed to be incapable of competing, as he spent the majority of the first half of the match lying on the canvas. To nobody’s surprise, they went to a 30-minute time limit draw. Toshiaki Kawada did some random things, toying around with the lifeless Misawa. 10 minutes into the match, Misawa woke up and looked annoyed at Kawada, as if he was mad at him for waking him up from his nap. Misawa did some moves and Kawada was excited that the match had finally started after he had a 10-minute warm-up session on his own. About 18 or 19 minutes into the match, Misawa once again got mad at Kawada for being annoying and disturbing his nap. Around the 20-minute mark, Misawa hit a tope suicida into a flying elbow in the hopes to stop Kawada from bothering him. For good measure, Misawa hit a flying elbow smash off the top rope. Misawa rubbed his eyes and decided to just wake up fully and stop napping. Now it was Kawada who took the opportunity to take a short nap. It should be no surprise that this never turned into a good match. Sure, there were some well-executed moves here and there. But, considering these are supposedly all-time great legends, this was certainly an embarrassment of a match. It just completely lacked energy. If someone saw this match as their first time being exposed to pro wrestling, they’d probably never bother watching again. It was just completely lifeless. They clearly had no interest in even pretending they were going for anything other than a 30-minute draw. Credit to Kawada for at least doing something. Credit to Misawa for preserving whatever little energy he had in him that day and teaching us the importance of getting some good sleep. Decent match. **½  

AJPW 4/16/94 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Champion Carnival Final: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Steve Williams 25:48. Steve Williams was a great opponent for Toshiaki Kawada, because he would just stand there and laugh in his face whenever he hit him with a chop. This encouraged Kawada to hit even harder than he already did, and this set the tone of the match being a fight till the end. It also meant that the blows Williams did go down for felt even more important. Williams was a dominating force in this match, dictating the pace. This was a huge contrast to Kawada’s match with Mitsuharu Misawa just five days earlier, a match in which even the softest blow got sold like it was potentially going to be the end of the tour for someone. This Champion Carnival Final was truly a hard-fought battle between two of the toughest heavyweights around. This was the second-best match to take place in Tokyo that day behind Wild Pegasus vs. The Great Sasuke, and it was a darn good match nonetheless. This is definitely a top-notch heavyweight bout. Great match. ****¾    

AJPW 5/21/94 Nakajima Sports Center, World Tag Team Title: Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue 40:25. To their credit, they managed to keep the action quite well. However, it’s just a really long match. They could have easily cut 15 minutes, and still have a great match. The middle portion just had too much of a filler vibe, since it was just obviously there because the match was so long. Toshiaki Kawada and Akira Taue were beating the crap out of Kenta Kobashi while Mitsuharu Misawa was relaxing on the apron. Once Misawa makes the hot tag, he’s well-rested enough to contribute sufficiently. Taue has generally been an inconsistent worker, but this was definitely a night where he was having a really good night. Kawada was great in his role as leader of his team. His selling was top-notch, and he made Misawa look like a million bucks. In the story of the match, Kobashi was having a bit of a rough night, as he spent a large portion of his time selling. Towards the end of the match, the match just simply gets to the point where it just is enough and it just needs to end. Excellent match. ****¼    

AJPW 6/3/94 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Triple Crown Heavyweight Title: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada 35:50. They mainly focused on really selling each move like it was the end. While this is certainly an interesting concept, letting this go on for 35 minutes is a bit much. The crowd and commentator loved this display of dramatic theater and were really into it. However, a match shouldn’t be considered a great one merely based on great commentary and great crowd reaction. A bit more urgency and liveliness in the ring would have been nice. Mitsuharu Misawa played his role well, but Toshiaki Kawada was the one carrying this match. Misawa mainly focused on selling and occasionally reacting. Kawada was working the drama performance of his dreams. Kawada started overdoing the dramatic facials a bit too much at some point. Apart from all this exaggerated and overdramatic showmanship, it was a match that featured some well-executed moves. This was a match worth recommending, but it’s definitely not the best heavyweight singles match of the year. Still, credit to both men for finally having an excellent singles match against each other after their disastrous disappointments from 10/21/92 and 4/11/94. By the way, their 3/27/93 match was really good and worthy of a recommendation as well. Excellent match. ****¼   

AJPW 10/22/94 Tokyo Nippon Budokan: Triple Crown Heavyweight Title Match: Steve Williams vs. Toshiaki Kawada 37:58. Once again, just like on 9/3/94 against Kenta Kobashi, Steve Williams defended the most prestigious heavyweight wrestling title in a long match. This time, it was against the man he lost the great ‘94 Champion Carnival Final to on 4/16/94. The story in this 10/22/94 match was Williams hurt his left knee. Toshiaki Kawada didn’t waste any time working over the knee, as he was all over it like a hungry shark. Williams, being the tough champion that he is, kept going on while visibly having issues with his left knee. At one point, in one of the most spectacular spots of the match, Williams managed to lift Kawada over his head and throw him halfway across the ring on top of the ropes. This match between Williams and Kawada was overall more impressive than Williams vs. Kobashi, because this bout vs. Kawada was more interesting from start to finish due to the storytelling and there being more consistent activity. Both men did a great job selling each other’s moves. This was arguably the second-best heavyweight match of 1994. Excellent match. ****¼ 

AJPW 1/19/95 Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Triple Crown Title: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi 60:00. I suppose it’s not their fault they’re booked in a 60-minute match, which is obviously way too long, especially for a singles match. They obviously started really slowly, as they had way too much time on their hands, and they had to preserve their energy. Because of this, whenever there was something happening, it felt important. But, it kinda goes without saying that the main issue of this match was the length, as there was, especially early on, little urgency and lots of long periods of selling. In the first 35 minutes of the match, there was maybe 5 minutes of action stretched out to 35 minutes. Things slowly started picking up at the 35-minute mark. So there was really no point in this match being 60 minutes other than to brag about the fact this went 60 minutes, and was therefore by default a classic of epic proportions. The first 45 minutes were merely average, and nothing was really accomplished in those 45 minutes. You could easily start watching at the 45-minute mark without having missed anything significant. The final 15 minutes of the match were decent. The final minute was pretty good, as Kobashi was trying everything in his power to not be on the receiving-end of a last-minute defeat. Mediocre match. *¾    

AJPW 1/24/95 Yamagata City Gymnasium, World Tag Team Title: Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue 60:00. As much as Giant Baba deserves all the respect in the world, as he was the founder of this great league and one of the best bookers ever, one has to question Giant Baba’s wisdom to book yet another big 60-minute match just five days after a rather underwhelming 60-minute draw between two of the participants in this match (Toshiaki Kawada and Kenta Kobashi). Luckily, this match started off with more liveliness in the first 5 minutes than in the entire 60 minutes of the 1/19/95 match. This match obviously had the advantage of being a tag match, so it wasn’t the same two guys having to stretch things out for 60 minutes. Here in this tag match, we got some good action from the start. One of the good things about that is that we got to see some action, and another good thing about it was that it wasn’t too obvious from the start that this was going to be a 60-minute match. It seemed like this was going to be maybe like a 40-minute match or so. However, it wasn’t quite on the level of their famous 5/21/94 match, which felt more important, worthwhile and satisfying. About halfway through this 1/24/95 match, things started meandering, and they were just more obviously killing time. This match probably would have been better if it was 40 instead of 60 minutes. Just like in the 1/19/95 match, it was Kobashi who was struggling, and just getting beat up for the most part. About 42-minutes into the match, Kawada was having a powerbomb party and powerbombed Kobashi and then Misawa. Very good match. ***¾    

Shukan Puroresu Bridge of Dreams 4/2/95 Tokyo Dome: Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Stan Hansen vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Johnny Ace 30:00. This event was organized by Weekly Pro Wrestling Magazine and featured one match each from several leagues. Stan Hansen was the Triple Crown Champion at the time, as Toshiaki Kawada had lost the Triple Crown Title to Hansen on 3/4/95. Kawada’s team worked together very well. Kenta Kobashi and Johnny Ace worked the majority of the match. Kobashi did his best Ricky Morton impression. Mitsuharu Misawa hit a tope suicida. Ace almost pinned Kobashi after a moonsault. Other than Ace, it felt like everyone in this match didn’t go all out. They simply did just enough to give the audience a taste of what All Japan Pro-Wrestling was all about. Good match. ***¼ 

AJPW 4/8/95 Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Champion Carnival: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Akira Taue 23:51. Arguably the best heavyweight tag team ever was battling it out in singles action. In spite of being tag team partners, they didn’t take it easy on each other. Toshiaki Kawada did a very good job of laying this very stiff match out, as usual. And Akira Taue played his role well. Very good match. ***¾  

AJPW 6/9/95 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, World Tag Team Title: Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue 42:37. This is one of the most famous tag team matches involving the ‘four pillars’ of AJPW. It is mainly notable for the first dramatic climax of Kawada's lengthy chase, finally scoring the pin on Misawa more than 2.5 years into the feud. It’s quite a long match, but the storytelling and the concluding minutes supposedly make it all worthwhile. The reason this is not 5 stars is that it feels like it’s a chore watching this match. The work is a bit too contrived and pretentious and artistic for it to be considered 5 stars. Too much acting. They don’t do anything that makes the viewer think they actually care, which in turn means the viewer won’t have any real reason to care about what they’re doing. They’re not really sure about what story they want to tell in this match other than the actual finish, which is all that really matters, and doesn’t warrant 40+-minutes of lacklustre wrestling as an excuse to reach the finish line that didn’t feel like something anyone was truly fighting for. This is not 5-star pro wrestling. This seems to be when wrestlers started catering to what people think 5-star pro wrestling is. Make sure you have enough coffee at home before watching this match. The lack of urgency displayed in a lot of the big AJPW bouts involving members of the Four Pillars appears to be a sort of agreed upon ‘unwritten rule’ that makes it plausible for them going into the match with the idea that they’ll do their Four Pillar style match, which is likely going to last a long time and involves all the usual Four Pillar tropes. The ‘legendary’ status of this match seems to rely a lot on these four guys going 42 minutes, thus forcing them to pace themselves, which instantly seems to indicate a classic for many. Perhaps we’ve all been way too conditioned to believe the 60-minute NWA World Title matches we either grew up on or heard about were the most legendary matches in pro wrestling history. A lot of the shitty overly long and boring ‘epics’ of the modern era copied what these guys were doing in this match. Please note that I’m not one of the biggest fans of the AJPW product, so perhaps my ratings should be taken with a grain of salt (or you could simply add a star and a half or so). That being said, I’m not here to be a people-pleaser (but I’m also not here to be purposely be a contrarian or anything), and I still believe these reviews and ratings will be helpful for those finding out which matches should be watched first (and then you can always decide for yourself what you want to watch next). Excellent match. ****   

AJPW 6/30/95 Tokyo: Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Satoru Asako vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Tamon Honda. Everyone worked hard and was motivated. It’s not often you get to see Tamon Honda take part in a match this good. This was basically just non-stop action that was well-executed for the most part. Excellent match. ****

AJPW 10/15/95 Nagoya, World Tag Team Title: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi. This is a very long match, so it was quite slow early on, since they had to wrestle for so long. Akira Taue chokeslammed Mitsuharu Misawa off the apron. Misawa sold it really well, as it took him 13 minutes to make it back into the ring. The storytelling and selling was tremendous all the way through. Considering they had to wrestle for an hour, they did a better job than in their 1/24/95 match, which was also a 60-minute match. This one was better mainly due to superior storytelling and timing, which helped give the match more of a cohesive and sensible feeling. The length is definitely what kept this match from truly being a great one, though, as it just felt like it dragged on for too long. A bit more liveliness would have been beneficial, but then again, it’s hard to demand it from wrestlers who have to work a 60-minute match. Excellent match. **** 

AJPW 10/25/95 Tokyo Nippon Budokan: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Gary Albright. The commentator did a great job of being dramatic. Toshiaki Kawada did a great job of carrying Gary Albright. It was a bit too obvious of a carry-job for this to be truly great, though. Albright didn’t bring much to the table and totally let Kawada do whatever Kawada pleased. Kawada clearly enjoyed being a dramatic actor here in this one-man show. Very good match. ***¾ 

AJPW 12/9/95 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, '95 Sekai Saikyo Tag Kettei League Yushoketteisen: Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue 27:00. The Four Pillars meet again. The Holy Demon Army, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue, were quite relentless in the beating they were giving their opponents here. Kobashi’s left arm was clearly a target, and the team of Kawada & Taue showed no mercy working it over in an aggressive manner. Since this was ‘only’ 27 minutes long (which is quite short for these four), the pace wasn’t quite as slow as in their longer matches. This was also more of a no-nonsense match, in which the wrestlers were simply out there to get the job done, which they did a very good job of getting across. The main issue with this match, however, is that Kawada & Taue were perhaps a bit too dominant. A bit more of a back-and-forth match would have been nice. Once they finally had taken Kawada out, it didn’t take Kobashi and Misawa too long to beat Taue. Excellent match. ****¼   

AJPW 3/2/96 Tokyo Nippon Budokan: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama. Jun Akiyama had been working his way up since his debut in September 1992. Here we finally see him try to show the world that he belongs in there with the Pillars of AJPW. Toshiaki Kawada invited Akiyama to fight back harder. Kawada found the perfect balance of giving and taking when he was in there with Akiyama, in a great attempt to help Akiyama grow as an in-ring performer. The work was very good throughout, but nothing about this match stood out other than seeing Akiyama instead of Mitsuharu Misawa team with Kobashi. Akiyama seemed eager to prove himself, but he was clearly in need of Kawada’s assistance. Of course, being the generous and humble fighter that he is, Kawada did an excellent job making Akiyama look like a future star. Akiyama tried hard, but it was Taue who delivered the finishing blow to pin Akiyama. Excellent match. ****

AJPW 3/31/96 Nagoya Aichi Prefectural Gym, Champion Carnival: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Akira Taue. Toshiaki Kawada wanted to show he was the leader of the Holy Demon Army, but Akira Taue has proven in the past that he is capable of pinning his tag team partner. Kawada put over Taue as a legitimate threat without making himself look like a weakling. Taue showed the confidence of a man who was capable of walking away with victory, but he didn’t show the eagerness and hunger he had shown when he faced Kawada in the past. It was a bit of a calculated bout, as it lacked the pure energy that made their singles match from 1991 (for example) so memorable. Of course, the length of this match, and the result of the match (a 30-minute draw) didn’t help. While this wasn’t as good as their ‘91 and ‘95 matches, it was a bit better than their ‘93 match. Good match. *** 

AJPW 4/20/96 Tokyo Nippon Budokan: Kenta Kobashi & Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Johnny Ace & Gary Albright. They could have shown a bit more speed and urgency, especially since it was a trios match. They clearly approached this match with the idea it was just a random trios match for TV, and not really a major main event type of match. Of course, Gary Albright being in the match pretty much confirms the fact this wasn’t a major match. Things started picking up in the second half of the match. Kenta Kobashi and Johnny Ace worked well against each other, as usual. Toshiaki Kawada doing a whole bunch of Kawada kicks to Kobashi’s head enraged Kobashi. Albright getting the pin of Kobashi felt unnecessary, but whatever. Good match. ***¼ 

AJPW 5/23/96 Sapporo Nakajima Taiiku Center, World Tag Title Match: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama. Giant Baba is one of the greatest bookers of all time, perhaps THE greatest (if it isn’t Paul Heyman). However, one thing he could have done to make his booking quality even more perfect, is the fact that it would have been useful to let someone win via submission a little more often than once in a blue moon. Because of the fact that submissions had become meaningless, no one reacted to Toshiaki Kawada’s rendition of Plum Mariko’s Stretch Plum. The fans have learned, in spite of AJPW supposedly being more realistic than most regular pro wrestling, there’s no way there’s going to be a submission win this early in what is likely going to be a long title match, and it's very unlikely there will be a submission victory at any point. Kawada’s kicks got huge reactions, though, thankfully, as everyone knows Kawada’s kicks are always awesome and usually quite effective. The work in this match was good, often very good. However, it all felt too calculated, and too much like a practice match as opposed to a World Title match. Mitsuharu Misawa did a good job selling. Akira Taue did a good job backing Kawada up. Akiyama wasn’t taking anything away from the quality, but his performance feels like a weaker version of what Kenta Kobashi would have done in his place. Obviously, Akiyama is still a relatively new addition to these big title bouts, so he actually did a good job overall. Kawada was the director of this movie, but it was a flick that could have used a bit more action and less filler dialogue. The end result was memorable, as Akiyama scored the big pinfall victory over Kawada to win the tag titles. Akiyama was delighted. It took the fans a minute to realize this had really happened, and Misawa had a look on his face that said “why is everyone so surprised?” Very good match. ***¾ 

AJPW 5/24/96 Sapporo: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi 19:41. After a high kick by Toshiaki Kawada, Kenta Kobashi went down. Kawada got the two count, but the ref counted to three. The ref then quickly made it clear he noticed Kobashi went for a rope break prior to the count of three. Perhaps this was an attempt to give the fans the impression that things happening early in the match were going to be meaningful. The fans seemed more confused and skeptical than impressed, though. Kobashi was still wobbly and drowsy from Kawada’s kick early in the match, so Kawada just kept beating Kobashi. Kawada let Kobashi fight back once in a while to keep things interesting. Kawada did some overdramatic selling for Kobashi’s strikes. Kobashi hit a nicely-executed released tiger suplex that saw Kawada take a cool-looking bump. The tide kept turning, which kept this match interesting. Neither man could really get a real upper hand in this bout, and things could go either way at any time. The main issue of this match was Kawada’s overreliance on giving a dramatic performance, which didn’t necessarily help either participant. Other than being overly artistic, this match was really good. What especially stood out was that there was a bit more urgency and action than expected. This was the best singles match these two had against each other up until that point in time. It was kind of a Kawada one-man show with Kobashi simply going along with whatever Kawada wanted, and Kawada wasn’t very subtle about it (about as subtle as when Shawn Michaels wrestled for two people in WWF). That being said, it was an interesting match that had a bit of a different ending than expected, as it was less than 20 minutes long and had no finishing stretch. Along with the interesting tease at the start, this end result definitely went in against the grain of a lot of the usual AJPW tropes and expectations (perhaps because it wasn’t a title or tournament match). Excellent match. **** 

AJPW 7/9/96 Kanazawa, World Tag Team Title: Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue. Mitsuharu Misawa didn’t seem to be too concerned about the outcome and practically relied on simply surviving, as he was on the receiving-end of the Holy Demon Army’s assault. This match lacked energy and enthusiasm from the wrestlers and the crowd. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue had fun beating up Misawa, who didn’t seem too bothered resisting anything. Akiyama occasionally tried to help Misawa, but Kawada would put him in his place pretty quickly, even as to show everyone that the result of their 5/23/96 meeting was simply a fluke. This 7/9/96 match was even more laid-back than their previous World Tag Team Title bout. Perhaps a hot summer’s day could be the explanation for everyone's drowsiness. When Misawa woke up from his nap, he hit a nice elbow suicida. The final minutes were a bit more lively, but by that point, it was too late to really get invested in what was going on. Good match. ***¼ 

AJPW 10/18/96 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Triple Crown Title: Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada 60:00. This was way better than their previous 60-minute match from 1/19/95 in which they did next to nothing. They certainly did lots of things here, but 60 minutes is way too long. It was hard to get invested as a viewer, because the workers were struggling to make things captivating. This caused the match to feel quite repetitive. As they were just mindlessly throwing bombs over and over, to the point of overkill, wrestling like there’s no tomorrow. That would be a good idea for a 20-minute match perhaps, but not for a 60-minute match. Clearly no one in attendance cared about their well-being at all, because they would have thrown the towel in if they did. The workers were clearly struggling to come up with things to do, and this only became more of a nagging issue as the match went on and on and on. It was almost as if they dropped each other on the head one time too many and didn’t know what they were doing anymore. Especially towards the end of the match, they were staggering around like zombies, yet they were still hitting each other with head-dropping and skull-breaking moves, like men who were already drunk still wanting to drink more and more until they passed out or got kicked out. It felt like they were devaluing all the big moves that would normally feel huge and important, not caring about any future matches at all. It was like they were trapped in a lost world of brutality. It was surprising to see this sort of approach after their well-crafted Kawada masterpiece from 5/24/96, which was pretty much the opposite of this match in every way possible. You’d think that Kawada would have taken the opportunity to craft out something masterfully with so much time to work with. Perhaps working 60-minute matches simply isn’t their thing (and it’s hard to blame them, since really no match should go over 30 minutes). However, in spite of this 10/18/96 match not being a match worth recommending, they were working hard and doing things. The moves were all well executed, which was definitely a plus. And it was nice they were doing some big moves about halfway through to give the illusion that this was going to end around the 35-minute mark or so (but unfortunately, this wasn’t the case). Decent match. **¾  

AJPW 11/29/96 Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center, World's Strongest Tag League Match: Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue. They would face each other again in the final of the tournament exactly seven days later, and this match felt more like a warm-up version. This was AJPW by the numbers. It was a bit overly deliberate, which isn’t a rare thing in AJPW, of course. They kinda did their usual things, but they were all well executed and helped build things very slowly to the next chapter of the story. Very good match. ***½ 

AJPW 12/6/96 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, World's Strongest Tag League Final: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama 31:37. This is one of the many memorable and high-quality tag team matches in AJPW history. That being said, it lacked urgency, which was understandable after a long and grueling tag tournament tour, but this is something that is the case with most of the big AJPW matches anyway. It’s truly one of these King’s Road Epics. Another one of the usual AJPW tropes that we can see in this match is that it was a long and drawn out match, which, especially after seeing it happen time and time again, becomes a stale aspect of these big matches. The wrestlers themselves are gradually less enthusiastic and excited after doing AJPW by the numbers all the time. Even with a new face thrown in in the form of Jun Akiyama, it feels like these AJPW main matches have run its course. The story itself is great, as is Giant Baba’s booking in general. The story, while drawn out very slowly and in an uninspired manner, is told very well in the form of a battle filled with excellent wrestling. Very good match. ***¾   

AJPW 3/30/97 Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, Champion Carnival: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada 30:00. They had a really good match on 3/27/93 during that year’s Champion Carnival, and they had an excellent Triple Crown Title match on 6/3/94. Other than that, their singles meetings had been disappointing. Luckily, this 3/30/97 match started off in quite an attention-grabbing way, as there was a lot of inspired back-and-forth action. This was a good thing, because Champion Carnival tournament matches have a 30-minute time limit, and matches involving the pillars of AJPW had a tendency to go quite long. So this urgency early on helped put over the idea that maybe this wasn’t going to be a another time limit draw, and it also made things more interesting than they otherwise would have been. The back-and-forth aspect started slowing down a bit, as Mitsuharu Misawa started being in control a bit, with Toshiaki Kawada acting flustered and defenseless. About ten minutes before the finish, they decided to just start throwing each other around and beating the crap out of each other, since they no longer had the patience to go through the whole AJPW-by-the-numbers stuff (and because time was running out). That definitely helped bring back the excitement into the match and kept this match from falling into the same tropey traps as their 10/21/92 and 4/11/94 misfires. The final minutes were quite dramatic, as they tried their best to keept things within the time limit. Both men did a great job of showing desperation during these final minutes. In the end, it’s just too hard for these wrestlers to get the job done within 30 minutes, not only because they’d often been in longer matches, but also because they were both two of the main heavyweights that were tough to beat. Excellent match. ****¼  

AJPW 4/19/97 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Champion Carnival Final Match 2 of 3: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Mitsuharu Misawa 6:09. Mitsuharu Misawa had literally just gotten back to his feet after a grueling match against Kenta Kobashi. A fresh Toshiaki Kawada knew that Misawa was ripe for the picking. Misawa gave a valiant effort, trying his best to survive and counter Kawada’s sadistic attack, which included dropping Misawa on his head. However, it didn’t take too long for Kawada to score the pinfall win. The storytelling in these matches was tremendous. Not only the story told through the wrestlers in the ring, but also the story told through the booking. Giant Baba loves looong-term booking. This is only the first time that Kawada scored a pinfall win over Misawa in a singles match. However, it had just come after Misawa had faced one of the toughest heavyweight opponents available. Therefore, fans had to wait once again in anticipation to find out when Kawada would finally be able to pin Misawa in a singles match on a day that Misawa wasn’t already beaten up prior to the match even starting. Kawada’s facial expression after he just pinned Misawa was perfect, as it told the story without having to say a word. Very good match. ***½ 

AJPW 4/19/97 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Champion Carnival Final Match 3 of 3: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi 21:27. Both men had been in a hard-hitting match not too long before this match. Kawada had just literally beaten Mitsuharu Misawa (in the second final). Kenta Kobashi had had a little bit of time to rest after his match against Misawa (which was the first final). This was the third and final final of the night and tournament. This match was going to hopefully give us more answers than questions. It started off in an awesome way, as Kawada hit a high kick to Kobashi’s head and Kobashi still managed to hit a huge lariat before going down himself. Kawada was smart enough to roll to the floor to make sure he wasn’t completely vulnerable in the ring. The match continued at a rather slow pace with lots of selling, but this was exactly how it should have been, since the story being told needed that. We still got to see several moments of excitement, mainly in the form of big moves and near falls. After a koppo kick followed up with a high kick to the head, Kawada managed to cradle Kobashi for the pinfall win. Kawada had won the battle and won Champion Carnival. What was so cool about this three-way final is that we got something different from this league and these workers. We got to see something that didn’t fit in the usual category of AJPW pillars by the numbers. We saw elements of it, but with a different set and setting. It was a captivating conclusion to this tremendous story. Very good match. ***½ 

AJPW 5/27/97 Sapporo Taiiku Center, World Tag Title: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace 11:50 of 28:40. In spite of Johnny Ace having got his long manes cut, he still had plenty of strength. He worked hard in this tag team title match, and once again proved that he’s one of the few gaijin that could hang in there with the pillars in big tag team matches. Ace and his tag team partner Kenta Kobashi had been rivals in the past, but here they proved to be a strong and cohesive unit. The Holy Demon Army, Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue, arguably the greatest tag team in pro wrestling history, were showing confidence and dominance in a large portion of the part that was shown on TV. Ace came close to victory when he hit a flying lariat off the top rope on Taue. During the final minutes, there was a lot of good-quality action, including several near falls. There was truly a lot of excitement in the air, as it looked like a title change was certainly a possibility. And, indeed, after a lariat by Kobashi on Taue, we got new champions! The Holy Demon Army’s 130-day title reign had come to an end. Very good match. ***½   

AJPW 6/6/97 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Triple Crown Heavyweight Title: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada 31:22. This is arguably the best Misawa vs. Kawada match, as they really go all out and take the violence up a few notches. This hard-hitting match is even better than their more famous and more worshiped 6/3/94 match. This match from ‘97 was more of a hard-fought match, and it seemed Misawa was more up to the task of fighting back, leading to a more logical, enjoyable and satisfying match than the 6/3/94 one, which was basically the Kawada show as opposed to an actual all-time great wrestling contest. After years of being rivals, it truly feels this match is the ultimate peak of their feud. Kawada’s selling at the finish is great. ****¾ 

AJPW 11/23/97 Sendai Miyagi Prefectural Sports Center, World’s Strongest Determination Tag League: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki 18:05. What an interesting and unusual match-up. Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki represented the independent leagues. They also were a lot lighter than their opponents. This made them the ultimate underdogs. The fans were totally behind the underdogs here. Jinsei Shinzaki tried to go for his rope walk routine, but both Akira Taue and Toshiaki Kawada blocked it. Hayabusa and Shinzaki brought something new and refreshing to the AJPW ring, as their style was quite unique and different. This match was way more fun than it ‘should’ have been. However, The Holy Demon Army led by Kawada did a great job carrying the outsiders to a great match. Also, Hayabusa and Shinzaki gave the performance of a lifetime, as they respected the holy pillars they were facing. Hayabusa and Shinzaki hitting all their moves perfectly and the fans enjoying it certainly added a lot to the great atmosphere of this match. Shinzaki eventually managed to do his rope walk. Kawada and Taue deserve credit for allowing this match to be so great and for allowing the great chemistry to flow, but one also has to applaud Hayabusa & Shinzaki for their great effort. Kawada pinned Shinzaki with his amazing powerbomb. Great match. ****½   

AJPW 3/29/98 Nagoya Aichi-ken Taiikukan, Champion Carnival League Bout: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada 30:00. This wasn’t their best match, but it also wasn’t their worst match. So it’s really up to you if you want to watch every Misawa vs. Kawada match or not. Very good match. ***½ 

AJPW 5/1/98 Tokyo Dome, Triple Crown Title: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada. Going into this match, these two had been having Triple Crown Title matches against each other since October 1992, but Toshiaki Kawada had never pinned Mitsuharu Misawa in a singles title match by this point. Misawa’s elbow suicida looked amazing and got a big reaction. Misawa was starting to become pretty broken down physically by this point in his career, and it’s one of the factors in this match not reaching the heights of their best matches from the past. As a matter of fact, Misawa would have to take a few months off to heal. Very good match. ***½ 

AJPW 6/12/98 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Triple Crown Heavyweight Title: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi 33:49. This is the best singles match between the of the best heavyweights ever. This hard-hitting, no-nonsense match is one of the best heavyweight matches ever. You definitely won’t see any punches pulled here. The only downside of the match is that it’s just a little bit too long, especially considering the brutal stiffness. Great match. ****¾  

AJPW 9/11/98 Tokyo Nippon Budokan: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Masahito Kakihara 6:52. This was a fun quasi-shoot-style match. Toshiaki Kawada was willing to do some shoot-style, but he eventually brought it back to more of an AJPW-style match. The way Kawada does AJPW-style wrestling is about as realistic as regular puroresu can get, though, so this absolutely flowed well and worked well with what Masahito Kakihara wanted to show. This is one of the best matches under seven minutes. Excellent match. ****¼ 

AJPW 10/11/98 Nagoya, World Tag Team Title: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama 29:51. Jun Akiyama was being switched from being Mitsuharu Misawa’s tag team partner to being Kenta Kobashi’s tag team partner around this time. Toshiaki Kawada and Kobashi picked up where they left off on 6/12/98 with the stiff chops. The storytelling in this match was good, but they told the story very slowly. So slowly that it was hard to stay focused on the match, especially since they didn’t really go the extra mile to keep things really interesting. Kobashi, and especially Kawada, were definitely the ones who kept things at least somewhat moving. Kawada’s selling was exceptionally great. The work was very good, but it felt like they were kinda going through the motions, with the exception of Kawada and sometimes Kobashi, who would occasionally still be able to reach the intensity levels of their 6/12/98 match. In general, however, it felt like this match was lacking some fire. Kawada pinned Akiyama in what was possibly the best AJPW tag team match of the year. Around this time, Mitsuharu Misawa had taken over the book from Giant Baba, with exception of the Triple Crown Title matches. Very good match. ***½  

AJPW 1/7/99 Kochi-ken Min Taiikukan, World Tag Team Title: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama 17:38 of 25:58. The dark production quality resembled the days of darkness that were about to follow in the world of professional wrestling. The work was certainly very good, as they really put their ability to persevere on display here. That being said, this certainly wasn’t one of the best tag team matches in the company’s history. The result was a memorable one, however, as Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama became the new tag team champions of the world. Very good match. ***½ 

AJPW 1/22/99 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan, Triple Crown Heavyweight Title: Mitsuharu Misawa vs.  Toshiaki Kawada 24:15. This was the last match Giant Baba ever watched. The match put a smile on his face. Baba had been ill for over a year, but he had kept it quiet because of him not wanting people to be worried about him. Baba died nine days later at the age of 61. Baba was known by many as the most honest wrestling promoter in history. For some people, Baba’s death was symbolic of the death of (Japanese) pro wrestling in general. This match was certainly a beautiful gift for their mentor Baba. Kawada and Misawa gave a super effort. The selling they displayed was top-notch, and they hit each other in their patented hard-hitting style. Kawada and Misawa are two of the masters of pro wrestling psychology, and they put that on display here. The pace was perfect here, as they built things up very nicely to a big conclusion, yet they managed to keep the action going and managed to keep the workrate quite high. To win this huge match and the most prestigious heavyweight title in pro wrestling history, Kawada hit Misawa so hard that Kawada injured himself in the process and had to vacate the title soon after winning it. The moves during the final three minutes looked totally sick, including the disturbing ganso bomb, which was more deadly than intended due to Kawada struggling with his freshly broken arm. It’s amazing these two were able to walk after this match. Great match. ****¾  

AJPW 6/4/99 Sapporo Nakajima Taiiku Center: Mitsuharu Misawa & Akira Taue vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Kenta Kobashi. This was an interesting parejas increibles match involving the Four Pillars of AJPW. It was a rare opportunity to see Toshiaki Kawada and Akira Taue face off against each other in a tag team match, as it was the first time since 9/15/97 that this happened. What was the occasion? This match was a farewell to the Nakajima Sports Center. It was a good match, and it was fun to see the Pillars mixed up for this parejas increibles match, but it certainly isn’t a match that will be remembered as one of the best Pillars matches. They kinda did their usual thing but without any special amount of intensity behind it. It really felt more like a friendly contest that was held for fun (relatively speaking). Good match. ***¼ 

AJPW 7/23/99 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Sankan (triple crown) Heavykyu Senshukenjiai: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada 21:58. What’s interesting about the Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada matches from the dying days of AJPW as we knew it is that they were less pretentious than the more famous ones from ‘92-’94 especially. Back in ‘92-’94, these guys were trying to impress people with their dramatic theatrics, pretending to have great all-time classics. Here in 1999, these guys were about to fall apart physically for real, and that made these matches so much more effective, as what they were trying to sell, felt real. In spite of them being more broken down than earlier in the decade, they still worked the match in a similar way, in terms of build up and lay out. Their psychology was top notch, just like before. The main difference was, it was more brutal-looking than earlier in the decade. This wasn’t quite as great as their classic 1/22/99 match, the final match the late, great Giant Baba ever watched, but it was still a match that should be considered one of their best matches. Great match. ****½ 

AJPW 2/17/00 Sapporo Hokkaido-ken Sogo Taiiku Center: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Vader 13:44. Toshiaki Kawada was really taking it to Vader from the start. Striking him as much and effectively as possible, while avoiding Vader’s strike attempts. Kawada’s selling for Vader when they are on the floor is awesome. When Vader headbutted Kawada, Kawada fell backwards right into a couple of rows of fans. Near the finish, Kawada hit Vader with effective-looking strikes. However, Vader’s mass and power proved to be too much for Kawada, as Vader took Kawada out with a big lariat. Very good match. ***¾  

AJPW 7/1/00 Tokyo Differ Ariake: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Masa Fuchi 22:48. Kawada and Fuchi were the only two AJPW natives that stayed with the company when Mitsuharu Misawa took everyone else with him to Pro Wrestling NOAH after having a series of disagreements with Giant Baba’s widow, Motoko Baba, about the direction of the company, as Motoko wanted to keep doing things the old-fashioned way. This battle between the two loyal veterans was worked at a relatively slow pace, but the stiffness was what made the match. Kawada beat the crap out of Fuchi, who was wincing in pain. Fuchi was completely defenseless, not knowing how to block or avoid Kawada’s relentless onslaught. Occasionally, Fuchi was able to do something back and he tried to hit as hard as he could, but Kawada would always have a big reply. Kawada wasn’t in any real rush to beat his opponent, because he seemed to enjoy dishing out the punishment to his old victim. Good match. ***¼  

NJPW 10/9/00 Tokyo Dome: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kensuke Sasaki 19:38. This was Toshiaki Kawada’s first match at a NJPW show. He represented AJPW. In this match, Kawada and Kensuke Sasaski hit each other very hard. Good match. *** 

AJPW 10/28/00 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Triple Crown Heavyweight Title Tournament Final: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Genichiru Tenryu 26:28. It was a slow match that was all about taking punishment and inviting the opponent to hit back harder. Two veterans giving each other an old-fashioned beating and showing each other what they had left to give. Good match. ***¼ 

AJPW 1/14/02: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Hiroshi Hase 13:06. This wasn’t quite as good as hoped for. Kawada pinned Hase after a somewhat underwhelming contest. Good match. ***¼ 

AJPW 7/18/04 Tokyo Ryugoku Kokugikan, Triple Crown Heavyweight Title: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Takao Omori 22:36. They were constantly doing stuff, so that was beneficial. Toshiaki Kawada really did a great job adding an extra layer of storytelling by doing some of his typically great selling. Takao Omori has come a long way and showed that he was capable of being in a memorable Triple Crown Heavyweight Title match. Of course, it helped a lot that Kawada did a fantastic job guiding Omori through the match. Excellent match. ****

AJPW 9/3/04 Yokohama Bunka Gymn, Triple Crown Heavyweight Title: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Osamu Nishimura. In a decade that was all about copying, seeing someone being different was refreshing. Osamu Nishimura had the guts to do an old school ‘70s-inspired wrestling style, while everyone around him was stuck doing the same old sterile crap. Now, this particular title reign of Kawada’s in which he carried the world was quite interesting, as he was basically fed all kinds of random opponents and made the most out of it. He had previously guided Takao Omori to an excellent match on 7/18/04. Here he was facing another somewhat random opponent in Nishimura. Kawada, being the master that he is, realized that the best approach against this time traveling opponent visiting from the past was an old school title match approach, which meant that there was going to be a lot of struggling on display. Furthermore, everything had a purpose or meaning to it, and the idea of wasting time was out of the question. This wasn’t the most exciting match, but it was nice to see something different in an uninspiring decade like this. Very good match. ***½   

NJPW 11/3/04 Tokyo Ryogoku Kokugikan: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Katsuyori Shibata 7:06. This match was part of Masa Chono's 20th anniversary show, which took place at the famous Sumo Hall. AJPW legend Kawada worked three matches in NJPW that year, and this was one of them. Kawada gave a great performance and carried this match really well. The way Kawada sold in this match really put Shibata over as someone who mattered. Kawada taking Shibata seriously also made Shibata look like someone the fans shouldn't take lightly. Shibata really seemed fired up here and happy to try his best. 2004 really seemed to be a year Shibata improved quite a bit and he gave a solid performance here. By the way, performances like this one really confirm Kawada's heavyweight GOAT status for me. No matter whether Kawada works a match that lasts 6 or 60 minutes, he'll make sure to get the most out of the match. This was only a 7-minute match, but it was a very good match. ***½ 

NOAH 7/18/05 Tokyo Dome: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Mitsuharu Misawa 27:04. These two legendary rivals meet again! For the first time since the AJPW split. This was a lot like their July ‘99 match, but the main difference is that Mitsuharu Misawa was even more broken down in 2005, way more broken down. Misawa probably shouldn’t have been in matches like this anymore by this point, but he was so passionate that he wanted to give the fans what they wanted, especially since there was a lack of new talent to take over in this decade of darkness. Very good match. ***½ 

AJPW 4/8/08 Tokyo Korakuen Hall, Champion Carnival: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi. Hiroshi Tanahashi’s hair looked cool, but his in-ring work was rather pedestrian. Toshiaki Kawada did a very good job of making sure this turned out to be a quality match, though, as Kawada showed he still had it in him. Good match. ***¼ 

Zero1 10/14/09 Tokyo Korakuen Hall, Zero1 World Heavyweight Title: Masato Tanaka vs. Toshiaki Kawada 14:20. This was a battle between two supreme professionals. That being said, Kawada’s performance here was definitely a step down from his work in previous years, and this was clearly during the final stages of his career. Masato Tanaka lacked a display of energy and simply went along with Kawada’s pretentious theatrics. Good match. *** 

1983: Okay

1984: Decent

1985: Good

1986: Good

1987: Very Good

1988: Very Good

1989: Excellent

1990: Excellent

1991: Excellent

1992: Excellent

1993: Great

1994: Great

1995: Great

1996: Great

1997: Great

1998: Great

1999: Great

2000: Excellent

2001: Excellent

2002: Excellent

2003: Excellent

2004: Excellent

2005: Excellent

2006: Excellent

2007: Excellent

2008: Excellent

2009: Very Good

2010: Very Good

After having watched over 100 matches of ‘Dangerous K’ Toshiaki Kawada’s career, it’s safe to say that he was a great heavyweight wrestler. Depending on your definition of heavyweight, Kawada is arguably one of the top 3 greatest heavyweight pro wrestlers ever.

During the last four months of 1987, Kawada really got to show his improvement, as he slowly would start to get featured a bit more. Prior to that point, he didn’t quite get a good chance to shine, but he had consistently shown flashes of excellence. By 1989, he was an excellent worker after having had the opportunity to shine in the ‘88 World’s Strongest Determination Tag League. 1993 was a memorable year for Kawada, but it was in particular his tremendous performance in the ‘93 Tag League that cemented him as a truly great heavyweight wrestler. 

Kawada’s most memorable opponents were Kenta Kobashi, Mitsuharu Misawa and Steve Williams. Kawada was involved in some of the greatest matches of the 1990s…

AJPW 6/5/89 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, All Asia Tag Team Title: Toshiaki Kawada & Samson Fuyuki vs. Danny Kroffat & Doug Furnas 19:35. ****¾ 

AJPW 1/15/91 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Akira Taue. ****

AJPW 12/6/91 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, '91 Sekai Saikyo Tag Kettei Leaguesen: Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Terry Gordy & Steve Williams 25:24. ****

AJPW 2/22/92: Toshiaki Kawada & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Doug Furnas & Danny Kroffat 14:12. ****

AJPW 12/3/93 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, World's Strongest Tag Determination League Final, World Tag Team Title Decision Match: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Kenta Kobashi & Mitsuharu Misawa 23:34. *****

AJPW 4/16/94 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Champion Carnival Final: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Steve Williams 25:48. ****¾

AJPW 5/21/94 Nakajima Sports Center, World Tag Team Title: Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue 40:25. ****¼ 

AJPW 6/3/94 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Triple Crown Heavyweight Title: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada 35:50. ****¼ 

AJPW 10/22/94 Tokyo Nippon Budokan: Triple Crown Heavyweight Title Match: Steve Williams vs. Toshiaki Kawada 37:58. ****¼ 

AJPW 6/9/95 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, World Tag Team Title: Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue 42:37. ****

AJPW 6/30/95 Tokyo: Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Satoru Asako vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Tamon Honda. ****

AJPW 10/15/95 Nagoya, World Tag Team Title: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi. ****

AJPW 12/9/95 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, '95 Sekai Saikyo Tag Kettei League Yushoketteisen: Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue 27:00. ****¼ 

AJPW 3/2/96 Tokyo Nippon Budokan: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama. ****

AJPW 5/24/96 Sapporo: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi 19:41. ****

AJPW 3/30/97 Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, Champion Carnival: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada 30:00. ****¼ 

AJPW 6/6/97 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Triple Crown Heavyweight Title: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada 31:22. ****¾

AJPW 11/23/97 Sendai Miyagi Prefectural Sports Center, World’s Strongest Determination Tag League: Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs. Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki 18:05. ****½ 

AJPW 6/12/98 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Triple Crown Heavyweight Title: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi 33:49. ****¾ 

AJPW 9/11/98 Tokyo Nippon Budokan: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Masahito Kakihara 6:52. ****¼

AJPW 1/22/99 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan, Triple Crown Heavyweight Title: Mitsuharu Misawa vs.  Toshiaki Kawada 24:15. ****¾ 

AJPW 7/23/99 Tokyo Nippon Budokan, Sankan (triple crown) Heavykyu Senshukenjiai: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada 21:58. ****½

AJPW 7/18/04 Tokyo Ryugoku Kokugikan, Triple Crown Heavyweight Title: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Takao Omori 22:36. ****

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