This was the long awaited first singles meeting between the two. Although Kawada & Misawa are better than Kobashi, this was thought to be Vader's best matchup in All Japan because Kobashi has a huge reputation for having big matches with the gaijins that are better than they have the right to be.

There are several reasons Kobashi always worked so well with the gaijins. He had the largest heavyweight move set, which was often a big deal because the gaijins move sets were generally much smaller than the natives. He was the most athletic of the native heavyweights, so he made up for the gaijins lack of athleticism and took some of the nastiest bumps to make them look impressive (recall the bumps he took for Doc's backdrop). He was least afraid to take these bone crunching bumps, and never minded withstanding a ton of punishment to make his opponent look good (although his selling of it was another story). Unfortunately, by the time Kobashi met Vader, he was a different fighter than the guy we had an awesome match with Hansen in '93 and Williams in '94. His body had really filled out an his knees were shot, so although he was never afraid to lay it on the line for a big match, he no longer possessed the athletic ability to do bumps that rivaled Akiyama or even the older and similarly beat up Misawa. For the same reasons, he also had to greatly tighten his move set, shelving many of his flying moves in favor of more chops and lariats.

Vader wasn't exactly the guy who was tearing up UWF-I from '93-'95 either; he was 42-years-old now. It's hard enough for a top conditioned athlete to have great matches at this age, much less a guy that's always been considerably overweight. He was coming off a disastrous tenure in the World (talent) Wasting Federation where the brilliant wrestling mind, Vince McMahon, knew that everyone would rather see big talentless stiffs like Mark Henry & Kane than a guy that could actually wrestle and also possessed far more aura (before they removed it), personality, charisma, & intelligence. He knew that although Vader had gotten over every place he ever went, and usually headlined and became world champion, Vader was suddenly too fat to get over (as if Vince hadn't always pushed guys that were much heavier and far less talented from Bundy to Yokozuna). Vader was a monster that could actually be feared, but by the end of his WWF tenure he couldn't even be respected because he was regularly jobbing in a few minutes to no hopers like Blackjack Bradshaw. Vader was always a guy that took a lot of pride in his work, but they gave him every reason not to care, so sooner or later he didn't. His weight may not have changed much, but his stamina went to hell because he got used to working a couple minutes a night.

Gabe: This happens all too often. It's a shame that workers tend to expect less of themselves just because someone expects less of them. Vader was able to shake that off a little, but obviously he never went back to being as good as he once was. His work in NOAH right now is even more lackluster. If he got some of his stamina back then he would look a lot better in singles matches, but I suppose when you are that big it's much more difficult

Vanes: This is one of the biggest problems in US wrestling right now. Sure, you can find misuse of talent everywhere from New Japan to All Japan to GAEA to EMLL, but Vince McMahon and his crew of "creative writers" have turned US wrestling into such a mess. Not only is the talent misused, but also from a wrestling standpoint THE talent suffered so much from the environment. Their workrate, stamina, and ability to add psychology to a match decreased because, aside from the occasional "long" PPV match, all they did was one three-minute match per night. What happened to Vader was a blessing in disguise because he had the opportunity to go to a place where he would be respected, so respected that he won the Triple Crown within a few months. Meanwhile, other people like Eddy Guerrero, Dean Malenko, TAKA Michinoku, and to a lesser degree Chris Benoit are suffering from the same thing. Picture Eddy Guerrero: not one SINGLE good match in the 14-15 months he's been in the WWF. He's become a shell of his former self. Dean Malenko works in the hell called the "WWF undercard," where talented workers are wasted because they don't have an effective gimmick or a "cool" intro by Limp Bizkshit. I realized there's no hope when Kurt Angle and Benoit had the chance to put on a great match at Backlash, but they basically wasted it stalling and doing some sub-par mat sequences.

That match was a terrible idea in the first place because it's hard enough to get a 30-minute submission oriented match to work for fans who pay for that kind of thing. Even in RINGS, the guys had to be quite over and exceptionally talented. Well, Maeda might have been able to get away with it because he's Maeda, but otherwise there were only a few guys you'd even consider doing it with. The majority of WWF fans don't want to see submissions, much less a whole match focusing on them. Austin could probably get away with it, but Benoit & Angle aren't THAT over. That said, the match was pathetic even by Benoit's WWF standard.

Vanes: The problem is, while the "marks" (I don't like that term, we're all marks) are trained to expect nothing, someone who should know better misleads the "smarks." I remember Meltzer once saying, "this was top notch matwork, only second to Kosaka, Tamura, & Nagata" about some sequence in a Benoit vs. Angle match. Well, if people believe ridiculous things like that, I don't know what will happen.

It used to be that the people who hadn't watched much wrestling would throw out these ridiculously high ratings for matches, but now you can't tell their ratings from the sheet writers.

Vanes: I have no problem with newbies rating high; I just consider their ratings meaningless. It's not stubbornness or elitism, just that I only look forward to informed opinions. Their uninformed opinions are certainly welcome, but I don't take them seriously.

I find it interesting to see what stands out about the Japanese stuff to people who have only seen American stuff. Obviously I'm not going to put any stock in Benoit vs. Jericho from the J Cup being ***** because it was better than some of their supposedly great WWF matches.

Vanes: When Meltzer, considered by many the "be all-end all" of wrestling journalism, sells out to such a pathetic product just because his audience is mainly US wrestling fans it's a joke. I mean, when he started, he was pretty much the only game in town and the audience was largely the same US wrestling fans (wrestling was much different back then, well, except the WWF), he tried to "promote" alternatives to it and embraced Lucha, puroresu, MMA anyway.

You are talking about much later. When he started the circus was still supposed to be family entertainment back then and there were only like three leagues in Japan.

Vanes: Now that the quality of the product and interest in it is down, he deludes himself that a few highspots, some brawling, and a shitty finish involving the slut of the week can make a good match. I hope it's really a case of him just selling out to the masses to sell his product (which would be okay financially speaking) because I REALLY feel bad for him if he REALLY thinks what he's writing nowadays.

The most ridiculous thing is how people were saying this year's Wrestle Mania was as good as the Dream Slams. It's not even that there wasn't one match in the same stratosphere with Hokuto vs. Kandori or Yamada & Toyota vs. Kansai & Ozaki, but if you want to be generous there wasn't even a match that was as good as the 5th best match on either of those shows. Now, I'm not saying you should judge the quality of a show by the quality of the best match, but you certainly can't compare a show where more than half the matches are at least excellent to one where the majority are no better than mediocre.

Vanes: I can tell you EVERY Zenjo Satellite show from 2001 was better than Wrestlemania. Even the overrated, stale, & badly booked GAEA produces matches on G-Panic that smoke the WWF matches on PPV. People try to defend the WWF saying we should only consider their PPV matches, and if other Japanese promotions had as much TV as WWF their quality would decrease. This is only true for companies like New Japan with huge rosters and lots of bad workers. I still bet that any of those New Japan shows on BS Asahi, Samurai, ESPN-I or whatever beat the weekly WWF product and in at least 70% of the cases the PPV product.

It wouldn't make much difference if the Japanese leagues were on TV more because they don't have "creative geniuses" slaving away to think of new "entertainment." The difference between a major show and a house show in Japan is basically that the wrestlers don't work quite as hard. They still wrestle though. The WWF fans don't want to use TV because most of the matches are really short and/or have some silly ending so one can't rate them too high. They want to use the PPV's because that's the only time you get to see a card where everyone tries to wrestle. If their television product weren't bullshit to begin with, they wouldn't have to create some silly excuse.

Vanes: The quality of companies like Zenjo, ARSION (whose product is ruined by editing much more than bad booking), Toryumon, & Michinoku Pro, who only have TV only once a month, would only INCREASE by adding another show. Saying that the companies in Japan are better because they have less TV is just another way of saying that with the exception of a few overrated PPV matches, the WWF product is a load of crap 95% of the time.

Most of the Japanese promotions would be better with more TV because that would give them some much-needed additional revenue. The main reason Michinoku of 2001 is a shell of Michinoku from '96-97 is that most of the guys went elsewhere for more money. Michinoku vs. WWF isn't even close to the Montreal Expos trying to compete with the New York Yankees, but Michinoku's in ring product still always smokes WWF's even with essentially all their best guys having been in WWF at one time or another.

Vanes: The fact people don't understand is Dave has to sell newsletters. His audience was "smarter" in '94-95 because the sport wasn't as popular so only people really interested in the product would buy his newsletter. Now every Johnny-come-lately, who began watching the WWF in the Stone Cold era buys newsletters, goes to his site, etc. He's now writing for those "masses," but instead of being alienated by that sudden change in perspective, some of the old audience welcomes Meltzer's idea that the WWF is now "THAT good," that it's better than many Japanese promotions. When even the "smarts" believe that, it's difficult to take criticism from any of those people seriously

The big difference between now and '94-'95 is that Meltzer rarely brags about the foreign stuff.

Vanes: He would have to start watching any puroresu other than NJ & NOAH first .)

In the old days, when Dave would pimp some puroresu or Lucha match, even the forgotten joshi puroresu match, you'd have a bunch of people running to the video store or working out a purchase or trade immediately. All the match of the year votes for Atlantis vs. Villano III show that much of his audience is still open to trying something different if he gives it his seal of approval. The thing is, since then how much other good Lucha has he lead the people who liked that Atlantis vs. Villano to?

Vanes: I haven't seen, for example, anybody call Dave on his show and ask him if he really believes that Austin-Benoit match was as good as NJ juniors or Zenjo golden age stuff he rated ****3/4?

It's true even when you look at older American stuff. For instance, the "****3/4" Bret vs. Owen from Wrestle Mania X smokes any supposedly great Rock, Undertaker, or Hardy match from the current boom period. The inflation of the ratings is a big problem. The older matches of the same rating should be worse, if anything, because theoretically the product constantly evolves. In '95, when he gave a match **** that made it something for a must see for me. Now a **** match doesn't even get me interested unless it's someone I'm a big fan of or a wrestler/promotion he doesn't rate too highly.

Vanes: Meltzer's ratings don't interest me anymore because they're so inconsistent. I mean, one time you're left with a "Kawada/Fuchi vs. Nagata/Iizuka *****" that actually translated into an excellent **** match, but another time you get a ****3/4 Raw match that probably is **1/2 if you're generous. Either you're using different ratings for different products, which is ridiculous, or you don't know what you're talking about. I mean, I know Scott Keith gives ***** to anything that includes at least two Canadians and a few decent sequences, but at least he's consistent in overrating everything that moves in a WWF ring. With Meltzer, I don't know what the hell I'm watching.

Sometimes my rating will still be similar to his, but I used to usually be within 1/4* of his rating for a foreign and 1/2* for an American match (aside from his favorites like Flair, Michaels, and WWF Foley). Then it went to 1/2* foreign and 3/4* American. Now with the American stuff, it's almost never even within *.

Vanes: If he rates something under ***1/2, it's usually within * range of what I'll give it. When it comes to ratings higher than ***1/2, there have been occasions with **+ differences, and that all goes back to his inconsistency.

Vanes: I foolishly believed these so called great WWF matches would be good, but they ended up being disappointing or just plain bad. Even the so-called "best match in WWF TV history" was a good **1/2-ish match ruined by the usual 2-minute bullshit routine. Vince McMahon's goal is pretty simple, train the marks to expect nothing, get "suspect" approval from people who have to shill his product to sell something, and alienate "smarts" (I'd rather call them "serious fans") so much that they'll start fighting over little things like a WWF match's rating. Divide et impera, even bad publicity is always good publicity, it's nothing new.

I doubt McMahon is overly worried, if he even pays attention to, what sheet writers are saying about WWF.

Vanes: I don't think he cares at all, there's Jim Ross and other people that will refer that to him.

I also doubt he cares whether people like you or I are here complaining that the TLC matches are even more preposterous than Sabu vs. Van Dam at their wildest, and certainly not as "good." He definitely likes people to talk about WWF, which is why he regularly gives people something "controversial" to discuss.

Vanes: He's generating interest in involving people who hate the product because they watch it to be able to comment on it. It's like an indirect promotion: hire good workers, try to lure a small but faithful community of people interested in wrestling over fake tits or overacting bullshit and then show them the finger. Some of those people "cross over" and actually start believing the bullshit that he shows on TV thinking it's good stuff. Some other just keep watching because they want to be able to explain why it sucks. As for me, I just ask a few friends whose opinion I trust to tell me when it's worth watching Raw or Smackdown and tape the PPV's, I can live happily without all the rest of the shit.

Vanes: There's no respect or will to put over technical wrestling. There's no interest in educating the fans (that eat, drink and breathe everything McMahon feeds them since they're blindsided and brainwashed) on appreciating good wrestling instead of punch-kick fests or highspot driven stunt shows.

I agree totally that Vince has no interest, which is why you have to wonder when they occasionally try something doomed to fail like this. I'm glad they occasionally do something I might like, but I was shocked that it was so bad. I mean, I didn't expect the match to work for the crowd, but if they had a great match or even a good one I could have cared less. The thing is Benoit & Angle seemed to have no concept of how they wanted to go about doing the match. There was one section where Angle started working over the knee so I thought it might turn into something, but after a few minutes it was forgotten about. Otherwise, there weren't many points where you could say one thing led to the next. It meandered along and was just all over the place. The finishes were lame. At one point, Angle was regrouping or something outside the ring then he just walked back in and puts Benoit in a hizajujigatame for the win. The match had no direction whatsoever, didn't build, etc. It was ** at best.

Vanes: Oh, the quality wasn't the problem. They stalled for long periods, resolving this "submission match" in a few meaningless exchanges and that was it. If they tried to structure such a difficult match, went full matwork for 20+ minutes without caring about the crowd and eventually failed, no big deal, but they didn't even try. They promised the moon and delivered the MIR, or something like that.

Vanes: People like Vader, who take pride in working hard and always give a good performance, will not only be wasted in the WWF, but also their ability could take a turn for the worse if they keep working in the WWF environment where hypocrisy is running high. They prohibit wrestlers from doing moves that risk vertebra compression, yet they let Edge and Christian risk their necks jumping off a ladder. The risks they take are so much greater than taking a piledriver or DDT. In WWF, either you are a good "entertainer" or you do crazy stunts. Otherwise, you'll be wasted so much your ability will probably go to hell. Vader was lucky enough to escape without harm (relatively), but will the same happen for Guerrero, Benoit and Co. if one day they decide to leave the WWF? I doubt it

I agree that the ban is ridiculous. It's one thing to try to make wrestling safe, but that's obviously not the case when they keep presenting their Totally Ludicrous Crap and also have somebody falling "50 feet" every month. I realize they jump onto a gimmicked area, but what happens if you fall "50 feet" and somehow misses that area?

Vanes: I thought they learned with Owen, but now at least they overhype instead of doing crazy things like that.

They save it for the actual match now, but the league is no less dangerous today than it was when Owen was alive because American wrestling has become so stunt oriented.

Vanes: I think Jeff Hardy is made of rubber, so no problem anyway.

As far as the environment goes, the guys with talent are often ruined because they have no reason to show it. The majority of WWF fans don't care whether the match builds or makes any sense, they just want to see the trademark moves and/or some stunts. The idea that you'll be rewarded for working hard is just that, an idea. Sure, occasionally you have guys like Bret Hart & Shawn Michaels who are around long enough that they get a shot, but let's be honest, as good as they were, the reason they had their run on top is they were eventually in the right place at the right time. If McMahon and co. didn't finally get called on having a wrestling company that looked more like a steroid factory, they would always have been too small to be main eventers. It's true that a few talented guys like Benoit & Jericho could eventually become main eventers, but for every one of them there's 20 TAKA's who know they have no spot and no real upward mobility so they have no reason to try. It's sad when you see a guy who still has excellent matches in front of 200 walk through a match in front of 20,000, yet if the 200 are Michinoku fans then they appreciate the quality more than the 20,000 would. Sure, out of the 20,000 there are probably 200 that do care about the quality, but the general consensus among those 20,000 is still that he's a jabronie whereas the general consensus among the 200 is still that he rocks. While we are lucky that TAKA can still have an excellent match, it's no consolation when he'd easily be top 5 in the world right now had he stayed in Japan.

Vanes: I don't know if TAKA is happy. I'm sure financially he is, but he'd be happy in NJ too. I think he just said to hell with it and enjoyed the money, like most of those guys. Since the business in the US has gone to hell, might as well secure a position and work a few house shows. Hell, I'd do the same thing.

It's not the guys that delivered the goods before they came to the WWF that I'm worried about though. I mean, life will go on without another Guerrero-Malenko classic, but now that there's no place in the US other than WWF for wrestlers to earn a living, every native is stuck learning the shit. Where is the next Malenko going to come from when today's young guys are going to be emulating Rocks rather than Flairs; when the idea will be to try to catch fire by doing the people's headbutt and the people's ear lobe wiggle? The indies are mainly all stunts and repetitiveness because that's what works in WWF and the few foreign companies with money are hardly taking any new Americans that weren't highly successful in shoots and/or an amateur combat sport.

Vanes: There will always be some "anti-conformist" who watches tapes from Japan and wants to learn It's hard because even in Japan they get the wrong guys like Scott Hall, Gary Steele (????!?), and the inexperienced guys from UPW. People like Mike Modest will never get a chance in the WWF, and probably not even in Japan because Hashimoto, Mrs. Baba and co. aren't exactly bringing in the best talent from the US (see, RVD. WHY?)

The gaijin slots tend to go to guys that were already with the company at some point or a friend of someone currently in the company. It's a waste because most of these guys don't help the league in any way, but it's not surprising.

Expectations are a funny thing. This match was something of a disappointment, but that's because we dreamed about it all these years and by the time it took place the performers were no longer in condition to live up to our ideal match. Do I think this match could have been better? Of course, but not exceptionally so. There are a lot of factors that could lead to their future matches being better. They would now be familiar with each other and Vader's stamina would improve as he'd been in Japan longer (he'd had maybe 20 matches since returning, but most of them were tags and this was definitely his first singles test). They would also be fighting in a bigger arena and with more at stake. I don't think they held anything back here, but in All Japan the title match is almost always better than the special singles match because they know how to translate higher stakes into higher drama.

The appearance of Vader brought back something that had almost disappeared from All Japan, a buzz. While no intelligent person would say that All Japan was no longer delivering excellent matches, no one can deny that the prospect of seeing new potentially great matchups is more exciting than seeing the same great matchup for the 20th time. Although there were some cheers as the ominous music of Vader began to play, this was obviously going to be Kobashi's crowd.

What I liked about the pre match was the stare down. Vader stepped in the ring and walked right over to Kobashi, but Kobashi wasn't going to back down. He took a step forward to show that he wasn't afraid of Vader and was prepared to stand his ground. There was no need for a pre match brawl; it was all about building anticipation. The menacing staredown told us everything we needed to know, that they wanted each other as badly as we wanted to see them go at it.

Realizing who Kobashi is today, it's not surprising that he had his most success when he pounded on Vader with various strikes. Early on, Vader fell in the corner from Kobashi's barrage of punches. Vader couldn't see well because his mask got all out of place, so he tossed it off.

Gabe: Since there's not a whole lot that you can do to an opponent as big as Vader (wrestling-wise), it's a good thing that Kobashi uses a lot of strikes. That's why UWF-I was a great place for Vader

One big flaw of the match was that they didn't establish Vader. I realize the match wasn't particularly long and Kobashi was doing the job, but so much of the drama was removed by Kobashi being able to handle the monster from the get go. Kobashi's comebacks could have been so hot if Vader had run over him for the first 8 minutes, but that would have made too much sense.

Vader regrouped outside the ring at 3:30, then began mounting his comeback with a cheap shot to Kobashi's injured head. To build heat for this match and shock the crowd (since AJ has been a bladeless promotion), Vader destroyed Kobashi during the heavyweight battle royal on 1/2, bloodying him badly over his left eye. Kobashi wore something of a headband with a wad of gauze over the cut as protection. This wasn't a match where one guy hit the same part every time, but when Vader was in need he'd go back to this spot.

Vader did his biggest damage during one segment on the outside. He gave Kobashi a high angle powerbomb on the floor then bent a chair with a hard shot to Kobashi's head. Although this was intended to damage the injured area, Kobashi apparently bit himself on impact because he was spitting blood.

Kobashi dusted off a few of his flying moves like the pescado. Unfortunately, his missile kick was embarrassingly low trajectory. The crowd went silent when the saw this, perhaps in realization of why Kobashi hardly flies anymore.

Both men like to win with the moonsault, but only use it on special occasions. As both were going to use it today, the match should have been built around this move more. Vader rolled out of the way of Kobashi's 1st moonsault and kicked out of his 2nd. That exhausted the moonsault for Kobashi, but seemed to set up Vader winning with his when he went to it after hitting Kobashi in the area above the eye. Kobashi kicked out at 2 9/10th though, which did wind up making the match a little better because there hadn't exactly been a ton of great near falls up to this point. The only really big bump Kobashi took in this match followed a released German suplex after Vader squashed Kobashi in the corner with his attack. This was hardly one of Kobashi's legendary bumps, but I'm not going to complain that he was sane for once. Vader followed with two reverse splashes and his Big Van crush off the middle rope for the win. Some woman screamed really loudly as soon as Vader jumped on the finisher because her hero was about to be pancaked.

The psychology could have been better, but the match was very well executed. Certainly it was stiff and high impact. Unfortunately, Vader's moonsault was the only near fall that was highly credible, which played a big part in the heat being somewhat disappointing. There's a lot of room for improvement, but it's nice to see a fat guy in All Japan that doesn't butcher the match.

Special thanks to: Gabe Bautista & Vanes Naldi

16:59