1/3 Tokyo Korakuen Hall 2,100 sellout
Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama defeated Akira Taue & Jun Izumida when Akiyama explodered Izumida at 14:57
Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama beat Mitsuharu Misawa & Tamon Honda when Omori axe bombered Honda at 15:36. Both No Fear and Taue are requested shots at the Kobashi & Akiyama's tag titles.
Kentaro Shiga won the annual (11 man) junior heavyweight battle royal, pinning Scorpio in just 5:25.
Steve Williams team lost to Hiroshi Hase & Johnny Smith, but it was George Hines that was pinned at 21:14 following Smith's reverse DDT.
Mike Burton pinned Masao Inoue at 12:28 with a hidari (left) body blow.

1/2 Tokyo Korakuen Hall 2,100 sellout
Steve Williams, making his first appearance in All Japan since the 5/2/99 Tokyo Dome, was pushed heavily. First, he teamed with George Hines to defeat Asia tag champs Tamon Honda & Masao Inoue at 14:29 when Williams used his famous backdrop on Inoue. Later, he won the annual (16-man) heavyweight battle royal by pinning Jun Izumida at 9:10 following the backdrop. If the plan is to keep booking Williams then I think this was a great move (his suckiness aside). In order to try to regain the heat he once had, he needed to come right in and kick ass. He did just that.Whether he can still get the job done remains to be seen, but Honda & Izumida don't really mean anything, so All Japan had nothing to lose.
Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama & Satoru Asako downed Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama & Yoshinobu Kanemaru when Asako used his SDA on Kanemaru at 24:23. It looks like Asako may be joining No Fear because he wore a No Fear t-shirt and shouted "No Fear!" with Omori & Takayama. Asako would be a good addition to this group because he's a good solid worker who lacks charisma, and he hasn't really had a role in a long time. Omori & Takayama aren't very good werstlers, but they have this goofy charisma that gets over with the fans. Asako is too small to have much of any upward mobility, but he could carry this team in 6-mans and the league would benefit from him being somewhat over because he could play a bigger role in the junior division and improve the quality of some of the mediocre and walk through tag matches that are making it hard to watch anything from All Japan other than their commercial tapes (since they don't put that crap on those). I thought he did a pretty good job of this when he was with Misawa's group, but with no role, popularity or credibility, he's just been toiling of late.

Normal companies expand when their business is doing well, All Japan expands when business is practically in the toilet. All Japan claims to have sold out like every show they've run at Tokyo Nippon Buokan (6 a year at 16,300) and Tokyo Korakuen Hall (2 to 3 per tour 2,100) for as long as anyone can remember (okay that is a stretch), but outside of Tokyo their business has wittled down to announced crowds of around 1,300-1,800. In light of this, the goal of the Misawa Revolution is to take the Tokyo based promotion and make it more of a national company. In order to do this, the incredibly stale promotion has to run more major matches than every before in spite of having less on the table than ever before. Since title matches actually matter in All Japan, Misawa has already announced title matches next year in Yokohama, Kagoshima, Kumamoto, Tokyo, and today Hokkaido. Not that All Japan hasn't had title matches in these places before, but the idea is they'll have had title matches in all these places before they have their first major one in Tokyo (if they thought Ogawa vs. Kikuchi for the junior title was a draw, they wouldn't have bothered having it at Tokyo Korakuen Hall on 1/22).

Misawa announced today that there would be a match for the Sankan Heavykyu Senshuken on the major 2/17/00 show at Hokkaido-ken Sports Center. He didn't say specifically who would be facing the winner of the 1/23 Vader vs. Akiyama title match. However, he said that the winner of the 1/17 Kawada vs. Kobashi and either Taue or Omori have a good chance of getting the title shots on the next tour, as they are still having the traditional Sankan Heavykyu Senshuken match as the main event of the final show on 2/27 at Tokyo Nippon Budokan. This means that the '00 Excite Series will be the first tour where the Sankan Heavykyu Senshuken was defended more than once since the '97 Giant Series.

Omori has never received a shot at this title. He faces Vader and Kobashi in a singles. A win over either would warrant a shot, but he's never beat these guys before so I have an incredibly hard time believing they'll pull the trigger here. Certainly he has no shot against Vader because that would seriously go against the order things happen in All Japan. More importantly, Vader has been dominating even Misawa so there's no way a guy that won exactly zero matches in last year's Champion Carnival is going to beat him before Misawa revenges two losses in a row and guys like Kobashi, Taue, and Kawada beat him Vader for the first time. They could have Omori beat Kobashi on 1/9 and then have Kobashi beat Kawada on 1/17. In this scenario, Omori would have proved worthy of the title shot, but Kobashi wouldn't be hurt much because he would almost immediately redeem himself with a major win over a guy he's rarely been able to beat. In this scenario, you are able to hold the first Kawada vs. Vader title match (or possible match if they decided to keep Vader out of the Carny and have the Carny winner face him at the Tokyo Dome) off until the Tokyo Dome. It won't hurt Kawada if he loses to Kobashi on 1/17 because it's his first match since August. You need more challengers if you plan to run two title matches a month, and this would add Omori to the mix. There are some huge problems though. First, Omori isn't very good at all, and has proven that he's not worthy of getting main event singles matches with his mediocre performances everytime he's in with the top guys. Second, no one in their right mind would believe that Omori had a snowballs chance in hell of winning the title from Vader, so would they really attend the 2/17 show just for the novelty of seeing any Sankan Heavykyu Senshuken match? Finally, Omori vs. Vader would be a disaster from the match quality standpoint. I mean, Akiyama couldn't do any better than good with Omori when they had the chance to go on last at the 9/4/99 Tokyo Nippon Budokan show (meaning they were supposed to have a great match but fell way short), and Vader couldn't do nearly as good a job of carrying Omori.

Taue would be easy to give the 2/17 title shot to because his singles match on the upcoming tour is against Takayama, who he'd beat either way.Of course, Takayama has very little credibility so that win doesn't mean much. However, Taue & Hansen beat Vader & Smith to advance to the finals of the tag league, so you do have an issue between Vader & Taue.

All Japan will be running their first card in the new Sapporo Hokkaido-ken Sports Center on 2/17/00. The promotion hasn't been to Sapporo since 6/4/99. When they went to Sapporo, they would always have the 2nd biggest show on the tour at Sapporo Nakajima Taiiku Center. However, that building which housed so many classic men's and women's matches over the years, was torn down. The new building, which is part of an indoor athletic facility that cost 22,300,000,000 yen (about $218,000,000), opens on 2/13. Misawa said on a talk show that he was going to arrange a Budokan level lineup for the show. The new building holds 10,000, about 3,500 more than the old building supposedly held when it was "full beyond capacity." AJ only drew 4,550 for the final card in the old building, which was headling by the special Kawada & Kobashi vs. Misawa & Taue match. The Sapporo show is still only the #2 show on the '00 Excite Series, as they have Tokyo Nippon Budokan booked on 2/27/00.

Someone was asking whether '00 Giant Series is going to draw due to the new/different matches. Obviously it's very important for AJ to improve upon the poor (for a major company) business, aside from Tokyo, that they did in 1999. However, that can't happen based on the way they are continuing to 1) roll out matches left and right for no logical reason and 2) book all the guys that have come from other promotions (meaning outsiders and guys like Hase, Kakihara, etc. that were already stars with other Japanese promotions prior to coming to All Japan) except Vader into oblivion. When you look at their lineups, you just have to shake your head. It's the same old problems 1) lack of continiuty 2) only a few guys with a meaningful "role" 3) the same old results 4) new things becoming old immediately because the same guys always win, killing off any potential business the new blood could do. In the end, business will not improve in the forseeable future because they more new things they try to do on each tour, the less new things are available in the future. Don't get me wrong, doing new things is good, but it has to open new doors that could have a pot of gold behind them rather than slam them in the faces of anyone that could potentially move into their small elite group.

Hiroshi Hase is about to have another door slammed in his face. Why is Hase wrestling Misawa now when there is no build to this match at all. In 1997, we were talking about how they'd be having these classic matches over the Sankan Heavykyu Title at Budokan. Now it's in the middle of the tour at a mid sized arena, and to be honest I don't even care about seeing the match. I mean, I'll always love Misawa & Hase as wrestlers (how I wish it was Hase and not Misawa as AJ booker), but I have no reason to care about this match because I know that Hase doesn't have a prayer. There just isn't going to be any drama. The match might have heat, but not anywhere near as much as it should. That seems to be the one thing Misawa is good at though, killing other people's heat. If a guy is over when he comes in, or somehow gets over like the awkward Omori & Takayama team that had a growing cult following until Misawa went back to Omori must lose every league match mode, Misawa will find a way to quickly kill them off. The formula is simple, job them left and right .Job them in all their big matches. Have them do every big move in their arsenal and then get pinned a couple moves into the stars comeback. Anyway, I just feel cheated because this should be one of those match of the decade kind of things given that this is the first meeting between the best worker heavyweight from NJ against the big match best worker heavyweight from All Japan (Kobashi would be the best worker on a consistent basis, and actually was better overall than Misawa at the time Hase was the best overall in NJ). Even though Hase never achieved the level of success as the NJ 3 musketeers, this should be every bit the match for hardcores that Hashimoto vs. Kawada would be (or perhaps would have been since NJ has killed off a lot of Hashimoto's aura). Now, who knows if it will even draw 5,000 fans. If Hase actually beats Misawa, they could then try to put the pieces back together and do something with him, but it would be unheard of for something like that to happen. Instead, this will be his one match every 6 months that is supposed to mean something but really doesn't because we know what the score is by now. This is the last new Hase match, so after he loses this one, just as he lost to Kobashi, then Akiyama, then Kawada, then Taue, he can fade off into the sunset and be known as the heavyweight that arguably had more natural ability than any of his peers, but was so unselfish that he wound up getting left out of their elite group.

I apologize for the two screw ups I had in the initial lineups. One day and I've already shot my credibility.:) I guessed AJ's website over Nikkan Sports on the Hase/Hashi situation since I still cannot fathom how Hase could be ranked lower than Jun friggin' Izumida. Either way, it's a stupid matchup because when have we ever seen Izumida & either Hase or Hashi beat anyone? I could see where certain teams could just up and challenge for a title, but Izumida is just a jobber. Speaking of which, why is Kikuchi back in the title picture? Isn't he a comedy wrestler these days that is more notable for making bizarre facial expressions than anything else he does in the ring? It's not like there aren't a number of small guys in this promotion that are young and should be up and coming. I'm not even going to get into the ridiculous of Kakihara still being a #3, but I don't want him in the junior division because that makes him even more meaningless. If Shiga or Kanemaru, for instance, could actually beat Ogawa then that would be a step toward actually doing something with them since Ogawa is a #2. I know they are small, but when all of your young talent is undersized, you have no choice but to try to get over that. Why not focus on Shiga & Kanemaru, guys who have ability but totally lack credibility, instead of a broken down guy that's been doing mostly comedy for the past two years? Kikuchi in 1992 was awesome, but he not longer has the ability and suddenly a title shot to someone from they comedy match is a bad precedent to set. It would be one thing if it were Baba (obviously he'd have to be alive) in a gimmick to draw nostalgic fans for one last big match, but this is Kikuchi we are talking about. Actually, my use of focus is very inaccurate. I shouldn't give Misawa so much credit, as this booking looks more like he pulled juniors names out of a hat. I mean, the focus that they are putting on Kikuchi is such that the vast majority of his matches on the tour aren't even listed.

I just don't see any signs that this promotion is thinking about the future. Why else would you announce a team was breaking at some point in 2000? This has to be the stupidest thing possible. If you are going to break them up, fine, do it when you let people know about it. The problem is they have the titles, so you can't. The solution is don't announce their breakup until they've lost the titles. The problem is they don't have any challengers, so losing the title in the foreseeable future doesn't make sense after they dominated the tag scene for the past year and a half. The only reason to have them lose is that they are lame ducks and that would allow you to go through with your ill concocted plan. Vader & Smith challenging does make sense in that they drew with Kobashi & Akiyama in the league portion of the tag league and were one win away from the finals, but they haven't given Smith enough of a push to warrant him holding the titles. At this point, I don't think Smith is incapable because they've narrowed their options down so much that he almost makes sense, but who have they let him pin in singles or tag? They could have let him pin Hansen, who isn't even booked on the tour. I know in a way that would be sacrilegious, but once again Hansen is seemingly out of the picture as soon as he reentered. This only does one thing, makes the push he got in the tag league useless. Again, if they want to use Hansen, I don't really support it, but at least it would be justifiable based on what they did in the past tour. They would have been better off with any number of teams in the finals, even Omori & Takayama, who were at least on the rise. Instead, those two look to be lambs ready for the slaughter again on this tour because it would be hard to imagine Omori being given a singles win over Kobashi or Vader. Also, Takayama isn't going to beat Akiyama or Taue. AJ booking always comes down to only six guys being allowed to win a big matches. That is actually more than most leagues use, but AJ doesn't really have any angles and are currently unable to tell any stories because they are unable to think ahead, and are too spot oriented to take the time to lay something out that will make the spots meaningful. At this point, they seem incapable of thinking beyond "making the fans in the building that night happy," but they should figure out that there are less and less fans in the building for a reason. Anyway, Smith isn't one of those six guys that can win a big match, but it's very possible that he could be along for the ride with Vader because who would take the titles if they don't? Kawada & Taue, perhaps, could win them. If Hansen was pinned in the finals, then you could have had a story where Taue lost because his partner wasn't up to the task (surely true as far as their performances went). Thus, when his regular partner comes back, it's only logical that they'd present a tougher challenge. Now it's like Hansen was in the finals two years in a row, but we can't have him for a champ, a new Kobashi or Akiyama team can't win the title from themselves, they won't just vacate the titles, we already saw Misawa & Ogawa and we really don't want to see Ogawa again, and no one else but Vader can win a big match.

Finally, the parejas increibles bit is nice every once in a while on a special" occasion, but why are we seeing it on the 17th? I can understand doing something for the fan day, the last card in Sapporo Nakajima, and/or Baba memorial card, but what exactly is the point of Misawa & Akiyama vs. Vader & Taue? It's just another new match that's being given away for seemingly no reason at a time when there are almost no new matches left for Misawa to give away. Furthermore, isn't the idea of this match supposed to be to put the enemies together? If so, Vader should be with Akiyama since they are opposing each other in the big title matches on the tour? Not that Misawa & Akiyama are friends these days or Vader & Taue ever were, but aside from Misawa and Vader getting left out of the tag final, there isn't much of an issue that would make you want to see this match from a storyline standpoint. If they wanted to simply have a great match, they'd be better off putting Misawa & Akiyama on opposite teams so one of them could almost always be in the ring. When are we going to see some build to the matches so they can become meaningful again? The best we get is Akiyama getting the pin in the tag final leading to him getting a shot at the singles titles, since he already has the tag titles. That isn't even that good, and what about everyone else in the promotion?

I've been thinking about the AJ lineups a little more. I don't really see their point in bringing Steve Williams back. He was washed when he left in 1998 (actually, he was washed up in 1997), and his skills have only eroded more since then. He has name value, but they aren't using him in any important matches, so it's basically a waste of their money. You could say that they want to see what he has left, but they already knew he was bad when he left, and it's not like he's gotten any younger. If they are considering using Williams for a meaningful role later in the year, they need to put him over big the whole tour. There isn't anyone in the league he can't pin in that he's beaten them all before. I don't really want to see this, but he had lost his heat a year before he less, and unless they try to reintroduce him as a mean ass kicker, he isn't going to get it back anytime soon. If they aren't going to use him in a meaningful role in the future, they need to put the other gaijins over him so they can prove they are above him and he isn't worthy of his old spot. Williams is generally with George Hines, who means nothing and will do most of the jobs. There are opportunities to put Johnny Smith, Johnny Ace, and/or Mike Burton over Willams, but only Burton has a singles match against him. Burton is the guy that knocked Williams out in the infamous Brawl For It All, so he could get a quick knockout win and it would be huge for him (the fans know about the Brawl For It All, but it's different seeing Burton do it again in their rings on national tv). Burton is even worse than Williams, but he is a lot younger. They have been giving him a pretty big push in tag even though his team with Ace isn't good, but he really hasn't done anything in singles. If he knocks Williams out again, Burton could potentially play a meaningful role in the Champion Carnival (but since it's his first, he'll probably do nothing either way). To get the most out of Burton over Williams, they would need to have Williams team win most of their matches early in the tour, and have Williams partner(s) be the one to get pinned when they lose.

The use of Hiroshi Hase is just ridiculous. I mean, two days after he has his first singles match with Misawa, he's the #2 guy in an Asia Tag match? And behind Jun Izumida. It's a disgrace that Hase would be devalued so much that he's challenging for those meaningless tag titles, but it will be five times as disgraceful if he can't even win them. The fact that Hase is challenging for the Asia Tag after the Misawa match should clue people in that he has no change against Misawa, not that anyone at this point should have thought otherwise.

Akiyama & Vader being involved in both major title matches on the tour is where you can try to trick people. If Vader & Smith win the tag titles, people would be lead to believe that Akiyama will win the heavyweight titles. I really don't think it makes sense to take the tag titles off Kobashi & Akiyama at this point though. If the committment is to the "future," these are the guys they have to go with. It's okay to keep showing that they are too good for the other teams, that's a reason the team is going to have to be split up sometime this year. If Akiyama is going to win the title on this tour, I'd rather see him pin Vader in the tag title match and then pin him in the world title match. The combination of both should put him over the top. If Akiyama isn't winning the titles, I would have him pin Vader to keep the tag titles. One pin over Vader, even in tag, would still be progress. I would go with this for now, and give him the big push winning the carny to set up a title shot at June Budokan. After Vader retains the belts against Kawada at the Tokyo Dome, which is really the only match they have that could headline such a building because it's Vader's only new match, Akiyama would win them from Vader. Given the lack of success the other natives have had against Vader, Akiyama's win would probably mean more in 6 months than it would now. I really can't think of any reason that Akiyama needs to win the Sankan Heavykyu Senshuken on this tour. Although day to day business is in the toilet, Vader still has some big houses left in him and it's not like there aren't a lot of things that can still be done with Jun before he wins the Sankan titles. Winning the tag league, keeping the tag titles, winning the Carny, and then beating Vader in June would do more for him than winning the title now would. That is one monster push. On the other hand, if he wins the titles on this tour, I still can't see him headlining the Tokyo Dome, so you'd wind up with one of those stupid situations where the guy wins the titles in the biggest match of his life, but can't go on to defend them successfully even one time.

All Japan announced the main matches on their 2000 Shinshun Giant Series tour, which features the return of Toshiaki Kawada on 1/17. Here are the main matches:
1/2 Tokyo Korakuen Hall for FIGHTING TV SAMURAI! has the annual heavyweight battle royal. This match always sucks because 7 guys just flop on one for the pin.
1/3 Tokyo Korakuen Hall has the junior heavyweight battle royal. See above.
1/6 Kochi-ken Min Taiikukan has Misawa & Ogawa & Kakihara vs. Vader & Steve Williams & Mossman
1/9 Fukuoka Kokusai Center for NTV is a big show headlined by the first Misawa vs. Hase singles match. Many people were dying to see this match when Hase joined the promotion in 1997, but they've killed him off so badly by having him lose every major singles match he's been in. It's possible that they'll have an excellent match, even though Hase won't be in top shape because he's just starting back with the promotion since the diet is on break, but I don't think anyone will believe that Hase can win. Also on this show is Kobashi vs. Omori, Akiyama vs. Takayama, and Vader & Smith vs. Williams & George Hines.
1/10 Kumamoto Shi Sogo Taiikukan has Kobashi & Akiyama defending the Sekai Tag Senshuken against Vader & Smith. I'm glad Vader & Smith are getting the first shot because they were the team that got left out of the tag final. It wouldn't have made sense for Taue & Hansen to get the first shot because they lost in the final and that match was only a month ago. However, I would give them a shot at the winner of this match on the next tour because you don't want finishing in 2nd place to be meaningless.
1/11 Kagoshima Arena has Honda & Inoue defending the Asia Tag Senshuken against Izumida & Hase.I'm sure this will be a classic.:)
1/16 Ishikawa Komatsu Dome has Misawa & Ogawa & Hase vs. Vader & Smith & Scorpio. This would have been a killer match if it happened 5-6 years ago when everyone was in their prime and Misawa & co. were able to fire up for every TV match. It could still be very good, but it's not a TV taping so they aren't likely to pull out all the stops.
1/17 Osaka Furitsu Taiikukaikan for NTV is a big show headlined by Toshiaki Kawada Futsuki Jiai (comeback match) against Kobashi. The semifinal is Misawa & Akiyama reforming their tag team for one night against the new team of Vader & Taue. In spite of the awful new Williams vs. Burton match, the top two matches should insure that this will be the best TV of the month.
1/22 Tokyo Korakuen Hall for FIGHTING TV SAMURAI! has Ogawa defending the Sekai Junior Heavykyu Senshuken against his old rival Kikuchi. This could be good, but I can't imagine it being any better than that.
1/23 Kanagawa Yokohama Bunka Taiikukan for NTV is the final show of the tour headlined by a potentially great match where Vader defends the Sankan Heavykyu Senshuken against Akiyama. I think Akiyama needs to get the title this year so the promotion can actually move forward, but Vader needs to keep the title at least until the Tokyo Dome, where he should have his first ever match against Dangerous K. The other matches are Kawada & Taue vs. Omori & Takayama and Misawa & Ogawa vs. Williams & Scorpio.

12/3 Tokyo Nippon Budokan 16,300 sellout:
Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama beat Akira Taue & Stan Hansen to win the '99 Sekai Saikyo Tag League for the second straight year when Akiyama pinned Taue at 20:15 following the exploders, including a version known as exploder '98 that he used for the third time. Having Akiyama score the pin was the right move, but jobbing Taue makes no sense unless Hansen is finally going to be used for some meaningful matches in 2000. As always, the show drew an announced 16,300 to Tokyo Nippon Budokan.

AJ is running the Giant Baba Isshuki (first anniversary of death) Tsuito (memorial) Kogyo (entertainment industry) show on 1/31/00 at Tokyo Korakuen Hall. The main event is Misawa & Kobashi & Akiyama reforming their trio to face Hansen & Taue & Omori. Also, Kawada is coming back to kick the hell out of Jun Izumida.

12/2 Gunma Oda Shi Min Taiikukan 1,800:
Kobashi & Akiyama beat Albright & Hawkfield in a league match when Kobashi lariated Wolf in 3:49. Hey, What happened to the drama? It's bad enough that Gary's team only got 1 win in the tag league, but at least they could have given Kobashi's team a little scare. The final league match saw Taue & Hansen beat Vader & Smith to advance to the tag league final when Taue pinned Smith in 12:34 following his nodowa otoshi. Here we go again, moving backwards instead of forwards. Hansen was in the final last year, and did nothing meaningful for the next year. There's no reason to believe 2000 will be any different. If this tournament showed anything, it's that you need two big stars to make it to the top. With Ogawa, Smith, and Burton seemingly forced to play big roles in 2000, the league should have shown that one of these guys was capable of making it to the next level. Instead, it showed that Hansen is still good enough to succeed in the tournaments, which would be fine if it was going to lead to programs that could make money and result in him elevating younger guys. However, we know he'll draw no money because he won't get any meaningful matches, and he won't put anyone over because he's never pushed or depushed, he's just protected the one or two series a year that they try to use him. Anyway, the tag final tomorrow at Budokan is Kobashi & Akiyama beating Taue & Hansen, most likely when Hansen does one of his couple jobs of the year. The thing is, we know that Kobashi & Akiyama can beat Hansen because they have done so in the past, in fact they did so in last year's final. Thus, they really aren't elevated by doing so.

Sekai Saikyo Tag update:

Misawa & Ogawa have 9 points with one match against Ace & Burton on 12/1 remaining
Taue & Hansen have 9 points with a match against Vader & Smith on 12/2 remaining
Vader & Smith have 9 points with a match against Taue & Hansen on 12/2 remaining
Ace & Burton have 7 points with a match against Misawa & Ogawa on 12/1 remaining
Kobashi & Akiyama have 8 points with one match against Albright & Wolf on 12/2 remaining
Everyone else is eliminated

There would have to be playoffs at Budokan in order to get Kobashi & Akiyama vs. Misawa & Ogawa as the final. Kobashi & Akiyama will win their match, so that gives them 10. Misawa & Ogawa would have to win to get 11 or draw to get 10. If Misawa & Ogawa draw, then Vader & Smith vs. Taue & Hansen would also have to be a draw, so either all 4 would finish with 10 or you'd have Misawa with 11 and the other three with 10. It now looks more likely that Ace & Burton will beat Misawa & Ogawa to elimate them, and then Kobashi & Akiyama will face the winner of Vader & Smith vs. Taue & Hansen in the final. This tournament has actually been well booked so far, as it's coming right down to the wire. The problem is no one was elevated but Smith, and he was only elevated because he's with Vader. Smith deserves to be in the final. Misawa's is still in the title hunt despite having a partner with no credibility, so there's no reason that Vader can't win with a no credibility partner as well. Smith is far better than Ogawa, and also weighs more so there's no reason he can't at least be pushed in tag at this point. AJ needs to go with more of these one major star and one good wrestler without much credibility pairs, that way some of the midcarders can be more meaningful. This is why it was a mistake to have Hansen with Taue. They had the perfect opportunity to rescue a younger wrestler so the company could move forward, but no. Still, if Smith makes it to the finals, I'll be happy. Personally, I'd have him score the pin tomorrow. That's the only way he has a chance of being taken seriously. Otherwise, everyone will know that he'll be the one doing the job in the final. Well, everyone will know that anyway, but if he can pin Taue or Hansen, it might at least cast a bit of doubt into the fan's minds.