Throughout his roughly quarter century long career Akira Taue has been given the honor of having fourteen 5 star matches according to Dave Meltzer. Yet, only one of these matches was in a singles effort.
Aside from having an amazing pace and expert execution, this match also had a great atmosphere to it. This was the finals of the AJPW Champion’s Carnival, a tournament that had existed since 1973. On top of this along with the two performers involved, Mitsuhara Misawa and Akira Taue, the other two members of AJPW’s “Big Four,” Kenta Kobashi and Toshiaki Kawada also participated.
Taue starts things off with a powerful shoulder block that sends Misawa down. He quickly gets Misawa out of the ring then dives through the ropes onto him. Only outside for a brief bit Misawa breaks away from Taue’s control by hitting a flying shoulder block before the two trade submissions.
Taue stays in control until Misawa reverses a powerbomb and gets a two count. Soon, it is a reversal of a scene from earlier with Misawa diving through the ropes onto Taue!
Inside Misawa gets a two count then nearly knocks Taue out with a spinning punch for another two count. Taue gets revenge and hits some impressive looking moves including a dropkick and a belly-to-back suplex from the ring apron to the outside.
On the inside Misawa goes up top for a variation of the frog splash and hits a German suplex and tiger driver for two. Taue chokeslams Misawa from the apron to the floor and a sympathy chant breaks out for Misawa. Taue’s attack continues with little offense from Misawa until Misawa reverses a chokeslam attempt from the ropes and comes back with a series of punches and elbows.
Misawa hits a tiger suplex and a tiger driver, but only gets two. Misawa then hits another tiger suplex, but again comes up short. Finally, a third tiger suplex does the trick and a new Champion’s Carnival winner is crowned!
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