Jun Akiyama vs Takao Omori-AJPW 26.3.2000.

The infamous seven second match! But this being All Japan nothing is ever as simple as it may seem. Omori attacks Akiyama before the bell, which he actually evades, and hits a big knee knocking Omori down! He then goes for the Exploder, Omori evades it, does an awesome ref shove, blindsights Akiyama with an Axe Bomber and THEN the bell rings, and Omori hits a quick back of the head/regular Axe Bomber combo for the win. Hard to slap a rating on it, but it was an efficient and exciting way of getting someone over, and almost certainly the best executed one in such a short match.

Mitsuharu Misawa vs Jun Akiyama-AJPW 27.2.2000.

After a rewatch this is a serious best All Japan match ever candidate for me. For example I'd easily have it over the 9.6.1995. tag and Jumbo/Tenryu 1989.


It was structured and worked pretty much flawlessly. Miasawa's early dominance was something to behold-I'm not one to praise the sheer speed one moves at, but watching Misawa go is magical. Akiyama couldn't touch him. I LOVE the overhead camera and here it significantly added to my viewing experience-you could FEEL Akiyama's frustration as Misawa was mauling him with elbows in the corner. Akiyama's first opening came off a Misawa crossbody he countered by smashing his head into the mat. Misawa sells the neck and thus sets the narrative for the match and we go into the first Misawa FIP segment. Misawa's neck selling is absolutely sublime-he walked the line of clueing in everyone he was hurt and not going overboard about as perfectly as one could. Akiyama's attacks are all vicious and directed towards the neck. There's no wasted movement in this match. Not ONE move that doesn't make sense in the context and that doesn't advance their narrative. It's not there. I watched this match many years ago but was uncertain how to rate it, I wasn't certain how to feel about Akiyama's heat segment in particular. This time I think it's pretty clear it was crucial for the match to work as well as it did. If Akiyama just hits a million DDTs and Neckbreakers or whatever when he gets Misawa in the ring the match doesn't work to the extent it did. It gave the crowd a little break, allowed Akiyama to continue his limbwork and gave Misawa a way to make a believable comeback. Misawa's offence is of course breathtaking-and Akiyama Dropkicking him off the top rope was about as perfect of a way to transition into Misawa's second FIP segment as there was. It's something about Akiyama's character I've talked about before-he won't overwhelm others in strike exchanges and dick measuring contests (at least not Misawa/Kobashi/Kawada). He has to think up gameplans and bide his time and take advantage of every opportunity he can. Akiyama's neckwork in the first Misawa FIP section was pretty brutal on its own but it escalates even further here culminating with the disgusting Gotch Style Tombstone that Misawa reacts to with an all time great sell. Of course-since this is a big Misawa match-his comeback comes into play eventually. And boy is it awesome here. He busts out an awesome corner kick neither me nor the commentator ever remember seeing and just stiffs Akiyama on everything he does, including a nose breaking knee drop. There is struggle over all the big moves as there should be-but Misawa is just unstoppable here. And Akiyama starts feeling like an underdog yet again despite putting Misawa through so much. Until.......until one of the best sequences I remember seeing in wrestling-EVER. If you think there's no room for no selling in pro wrestling you're flat out wrong, and I'm not talking about it in something minor either. This match is a perfect example how special no-selling can be when done right. When Misawa blasts Akiyama with that Rolling Elbow you're 100% convinced Akiyama he's done-but then he just wills himself to throw himself at Misawa and hits him with an Exploder and by god you won'tever see a man running portray frustration and aggression like it did here. And then Misawa gets back up. Because of course he does. Maybe Akiyama can't win after all. An elbo-no? Another quick Exploder? Maybe he can do it after all! And then Misawa tries to get up, and I think ok, this is just getting absurd, is he superhuman or what? And they both fall down. I get he watched All Japan when he was a teenager but I wish Sekimoto and his friends wached this sequence over and over again and thought about why it worked. It's about as powerful of a momentum shift as there is. *****

Vader vs Jun Akiyama-AJPW 23.1.2000.

I think the biggest problem of the match was its length and how it was structured. It was too long to be worked as a sprint but with how these two were in 2000 it was unlikely they were gong to have a classic structure. So you end up with them meeting in the middle, and Akiyama really takes it to Vader in the beginning, almost shockingly so, completely dominating that portion of the match. And with how Akiyama was positioned it makes sense that they'd showcase him like that, but as Akiyama was doing German Suplexes in the first minutes of the match you can't scale back, and Vader had to get his heat back after Akiyama's shine. So you get a long Vader control segment with a lot of offence but not a lot of urgency, the crowd can clearly tell there's no way they're gonna go the finish and that's after you've had Vader Chokeslam Akiyama on a table and Powerbomb him on the floor. There was really nowhere left for them to go-with what they chose this was probably as well as they could've done, but they made a grave mistake and you could tell that by the crowd reactions. Vader's and Akiyama's offence as well as some of the ideas they came up like Akiyama getting a Dropkick in but Vader quickly cutting him off with an Elbow Drop since Akiyama was still laying, the build to the Exploder, Vader adapting the Chokeslam cover after Akiyama countered that with an Armbar etc. were enough to make it very good, but it didn't manage to go beyond that. ***1/2

Minoru Tanaka vs Naoki Sano-Battlarts 30.1.2000.

Very interesting match, particularly because the weird shooty junior style it's worked in doesn't exist anymore. The first half of so had the kind of unique matwork you could only see in Battlarts, where they'd work the counters and the flow of it like it was a lucha match but use holds that were either straight out of RINGS or a 1978 Fujinami match. That portion of the match was a little disappointing, since there wasn't really much struggle out urgence in it. A lot of ideas of used here could've turned out great, but it did feel a little exhibitiony. Maybe it's the fact that the 2/3 falls lucha structure allowed something like Atlantis-Panther to essentially work a 20 minute match where holds don't lose meaning because there's never a portion of the match in where they're doing matwork that couldn't lead to a finish, maybe it's that some of the shooty holds here weren't fit for this type of use. Maybe they could've just executed it better. As it was I don't think it's much different than the million other mmatches where the opening is slower and means less and then the second half is bigger and more exciting, and the matwork at least kept my attention. They did work an exciting fiishing stretch-getting the most out of simple cradles, building up Tanaka's Armbar and milking every properly locked in hold as much as they could without slowing the match down and keeping the pace they established. ***1/4

Daisuke Ikeda vs Mitsuya Nagai-Battlarts 30.1.2000.

You'd think I'd be the biggest supporter of a Battlarts match but I was slightly disappointed by this, I like Nagai as I do pretty much every RINGS alumni but he is more of a guy Volk Han had a great match with than a great Volk Han opponent and him dominating Ikeda so much was not exactly the ideal way to lay this out. I didn't really buy into his submissions (neither did the crowd), his knee strikes looked weak and he seemed lost at times (like when clearly evaded an Ikeda high kick but sold it like it hit clear and when he awkwardly pushed Ikeda around the ring and hit him with a weak throw). His kicks were fine but he lacked the presence to really make the most out of the structure, he hit some nice spots like the Powerbomb>Leglock combo and chanelling Maeda and Sayama but nothing that would really make me think more of him as a worker or a potential star. Maybe the "Nagai was ahead on points" narrative would have connected to me if Battlarts actualy had a point system . It's a little harder to react that way when I've seen Ikeda come back from some downright insane beatings, this was not one of them. ***1/4

Yuki Ishikawa vs Takeshi Ono-Battlarts 18.6.2000.

Ono was just unreal here. He's wearing gloves, but MMA type ones and not the boxing ones I'm used to seeing him wear, but he throws all the boxing combinations you loved his 2010 run for as well as all the junior flash submissions you could think of. It was like watching a combination of 2010 Ono and the world's greatest Ikuto Hidaka, a really remarkable performance. Of course Ishikawa is no slouch either, his stiffness and high level matwork added to the match as much as you'd expect but this was more of an Ono showcase. There was no wasted motion, the match pretty much started with a nearfall in Ishikawa catching an Ono takedown attempt into a Guillotine, and from there on it was just non stop smashmouth action. Ono hit a quick head kick combo to pay him back and then dramatically threw himself on the floor to recuperate which was a great spot, melodrama isn't exactly the first thing associated with Battlarts but in a small dose it can work great. ****1/4

Jushin Liger vs Koji Kanemoto-NJPW 4.1.2000.

I would probably Liger a lot more if his work connected with me in a way that made me perceive it as more violent. I'm a completely unapologetic lover of Battlarts over the top stiffness, but I love Kanemoto matches just as much, and he doesn't take any shots that make you question the safety of his work, but still resonate as badass and violent. The Liger I want to see sometimes crawls through when he's faced with young lions, working opposite Sano or on an JIP against Kengo Kimura from 1996 where, I have no godly idea why he decided to so thoroughly beat the shit out of Kimura but boy did he ever.

This is usually a match up that one would associate with overblown junior wrestling, lots of highspots and nearfalls and all that but the moments where they worked it evenly really made it seem like they could've had a great brawl. As for what it was, Liger had some nice moments of violence in the beginning, but for a match where 95% of his move-set was made of slaps he didn't really give an impression he had mastered slaps as much as you'd get from say chops in a Kobashi match. Asking how stiff should something be worked may be a slippery slop but the violence of most of Liger's offence didn't quite live up to what you'd ideally want out a match structured like this, especially when he *did* lay his shots in at times, making the contrast that much more obvious. Kinda like how Lesnar shoot slapping Reigns at Wrestlemania was a great moment but only made him throwing worked slaps a minute after that much more eye rolling. A fun little match nonetheless. **3/4