|
|
Yoshinari Ogawa & Naomichi
Marufuji vs. Jun Akiyama & Yoshinobu Kanemaru From All Japan Hour #81 7/31/99 '99 Summer Action Series Taped 7/4/99 Tokyo Korakuen Hall (2,100 sellout) |
|
|
This was the best match on the show because the effort was there, particularly from the young guys who worked most of the match. Akiyama can be as good as he wants to be, and today he not only stepped up and did some strong work, he even instilled a little story between him and Marufuji. As basic as this story was, it worked quite well because the match was structured properly. Marufuji really never did any damage to Jun, but he made Jun not only notice him, but become obsessed with giving him a beat down. Even though he looked like a chicken early, he showed enough guts later on that it was okay. Marufuji is a great athlete that is really "too small" to make it to the top of this promotion based on the old standards, but he will develop into a spectacular worker. They'll probably eventually have to push him hard because he'll be much better than Ogawa and by that time who else with ability will be left? Marufuji was showing off his flying early. After Kanemaru moved away a second time so Marufuji couldn't suicida him, Marufuji decided that as long as he may as well hit someone as long as he was using this energy, so he jumped off the middle rope rope into Akiyama, who was standing on the ring apron. Akiyama immediately jumped into the ring to kick Marufuji's ass, but Marufuji ran to the hills. Kanemaru had Marufuji in an arm bar and Akiyama was looking to tag in so he could put a beating on the punk, but Marufuji dropkicked him them arm dragged Kanemaru on the way down. Akiyama chased after Marufuji again, but Marufuji is too fast for him to catch up to. When Akiyama tagged in, Marufuji thought about it for a second then wisely tagged Ogawa. When Akiyama finally got his hands on Marufuji, the kid got the expected punking. Marufuji and Kanemaru are still kind of green, but they are exciting to watch because their speed and athleticism allows them to try some pretty cool things. Kanemaru is developing a bit of a mean streak since he's been teaming with Akiyama so often. He used less of his flying here, and concentrated more on roughing Kanemaru up when he was on offense during the body of the match. He can use his athleticism to add to this though. For instance, he tied Marufuji up in the tree of woe then gave him a ganmen dropkick (dropkick to the face). What was cool about this was he jumped really high instead of sliding like everyone else does. Due to jumping early, he came down in time to get Marufuji in the face. Marufuji finally stood up to Akiyama. He didn't really do any damage to him, but he used his athleticism to avoid Akiyama's attempts to hurt him, so it was basically a wash. Considering how overmatched he was, that's about all he could hope for. This is the kind of issue that it's good to leave open anyway. Ogawa didn't really do much of anything during the first 12 minutes, but when Marufuji tagged him her Ogawa came in all fired up and did probably the best wrestling in the match. Marufuji came back in and did his best flying moves until Kanemaru got his feet up for the frog splash. This allowed Kanemaru to come back and eventually pin Marufuji with his sazancross splash, which is the 2 Cold Scorpio diving body press where you rotate your body 180 degrees while you are in the air (so when you land your head is facing the corner you jumped from). 15:38
|
|
