5-Star Match Reviews: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Akira Taue – AJPW Champion Carnival 1995

Few wrestlers better define the term ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ than Akira Taue. At first glance he didn’t look like much: a lanky Giant Baba copycat that moved slowly and lacked power behind his moves. And yet this unimposing man is part of the most fabled quartet in modern Japanese history (The Four Pillars of Heaven) and one half of the most successful tag team in AJPW history.

At the same time, the man does have his critics: ask almost any diehard puro enthusiast to rank the Four Pillars and it’s almost guaranteed that Taue would be at the bottom. Some would even replace him with Jun Akiyama under the argument that Akiyama was a far more credible wrestler while Taue benefited from being in the right place at the right time.

I don’t see things that way; Taue is a much more impressive wrestler than most people give him credit for. He was a master at all the little things that most people don’t care about and while he wasn’t a big moves sort of guy he was a clever and crafty wrestler not unlike peak heel Ric Flair or Eddy Guerrero.

And what better example of Taue’s greatness to look at than the best singles match of his career?

The story

The 1995 Champion Carnival started what some fans have called the Taue Miracle Run. During this tournament he experienced immense success, beating everyone else aside from a loss to Stan Hansen and a 30-minute draw with Misawa. He racked up huge wins and started performing much better as a singles guy than ever before. Part of that came from the move he debuted during the tournament: the Cliff Nodowa, a chokeslam from the apron to the floor. Though it wasn’t a finisher, it was so powerful that it might as well have been one because no-one could make a comeback.

This made Tauea favorite to win the tournament but not the favorite because Misawa was still in it. But Misawa wasn’t running on all cylinders because early in the tournament Kawada broke his orbital bone with an errant kick. Despite doctors urging him to address this injury either by stopping the match or dropping out of the tournament, Misawa did neither and continued wrestling anyway, possibly to avoid another Ace of Glass narrative from emerging (a story for another day).

With Misawa wrestling with an obvious injury, the story and psychology going into the finals took a dramatic turn. Misawa was no longer the odds-on favorite and Taue actually stood a shot at winning the tournament. And if he could knock Misawa off his perch and disrupt Misawa’s momentum so soon after Misawa’s recent Triple Crown victory, then maybe Taue, the lanky and unimposing Giant Baba lookalike, could actually win the big one.

The match

This took place on April 15, 1995.

The bell rings and the crowd is exceptionally loud, even by 1990s AJPW standards. Taue knocks Misawa down with a shoulder tackle and goes for his trademark snake eyes. Misawa blocks it and goes for an elbow and Taue blocks. They exchange strikes in the corner and Taue reverses an Irish whip from Misawa. Misawa blocks Taue’s charge with an elbow and tries a diving dropkick, but Taue blocks that as well. Misawa blocks a Taue kick, Taue blocks a Misawa elbow and teases the chokeslam, but Misawa escapes. He charges with a flying clothesline but Taue dodges and plants Misawa face-first in the ring canvas. Misawa leaves the ring to recover, but seconds later Taue dives through the ropes like some kind of sumo cruiserweight.

Back in the ring, Taue lands a trio of short-range clotheslines for the first two-count of the match as the crowd chants Misawa’s name now. Taue teases the chokeslam again but Misawa avoids it by reaching the ropes. Taue whips Misawa and goes for a big boot but Misawa dodges both that and a clothesline and lands his diving spinning lariat. Misawa goes for a facelock (an early finisher of his) but Taue immediately gets out of by thumbing Misawa’s eye, then reverses the facelock onto Misawa.

Misawa reaches the ropes with his foot so Taue drags him back and reapplies a facelock. He rubs his forearm right in Misawa’s face, putting more pressure on Misawa’s eye. Misawa escapes the hold but Taue maintains control with a throat-first snake eyes onto the top rope. Taue repeats that move a second time as the crowd starts booing him at the five-minute mark.

Taue applies a dragon sleeper on Misawa in the middle of the ring and makes sure to wrap his arm not around the neck but over the eyes. After releasing it, Taue goes for a vertical suplex but Misawa lands on his feet and attempts a German suplex. Taue blocks that and lands a DDT for a two-count. Taue goes for a powerbomb but Misawa reverses into a frankensteiner for two. Then Taue tries to predict Misawa’s next action and raises his foot for a kick but Misawa stays on the ropes. And as soon as Taue’s foot is on the ground, he charges with a huge elbow smash.

Misawa starts firing back with hard kicks and elbows, but can’t capitalize right away because his eye’s causing him problems. Despite that, Misawa still lands another elbow smash and big kick to send Taue out of the ring. Elbow suicida by Misawa!

Misawa lands a diving elbow splash in the ring for a two-count. He hits several stiff elbow smashes and tries the Tiger Driver but Taue blocks the latter. Taue reaches the ropes, so Misawa answers with even more elbow smashes, one of which makes Taue’s head snap back like he just suffered whiplash. The ref forces Misawa away to check to see if Taue’s still conscious. Misawa drags Taue away from the ropes and pins, but Taue kicks out at 2.8.

Taue escapes to ringside and Misawa gets some precious recovery time for his eye. A spinning back suplex on Taue gets Misawa a two-count. He teases the Tiger Suplex but Taue reaches the ropes. Misawa lands more elbows, but this time Taue answers by raking Misawa’s eyes. This sequence happens a second time, and Taue follows that by rubbing his boot in Misawa’s face. Still not done, Taue drops Misawa face (and therefore eye)-first into the turnbuckle, which makes the usually-stoic Misawa sell the pain in his eye like he’s been blinded.

Taue lands a dropkick that sends Misawa out of the ring. He whips Misawa into the steel barricade but Misawa fires back with an elbow strike. Misawa tries to return to the ring but Taue cuts him off. Then Taue lands a backdrop suplex from the apron to the floor. Everyone’s going nuts, chanting for Misawa. Taue drags Misawa to the apron and teases a Cliff Nodowa apron chokeslam. But Misawa blocks and resists as much as he can. Taue tries and tries, but Misawa escapes with another elbow and makes it into the ring to safely.

In the ring, Misawa goes for a kick and Taue grabs the leg, so Misawa hits an enzuigiri with the free leg. He follows with a standing senton and a frog splash for a two-count. Misawa lands more elbows and goes for a rolling elbow, but Taue ducks that last one and goes for a back suplex. But wait, Misawa lands on his feet. Bridging German suplex. The referee counts one, two, no, Taue kicks out.

Misawa lands a Tiger Driver for a close two-count and still seems to be having trouble keeping his left eye open. The crowd’s firmly split between Misawa and Taue, despite Taue’s constant underhandedness. Taue blocks another Tiger Driver so Misawa attempts a vertical suplex but Taue reverse that sending Misawa over his head. Misawa lands feet-first on the apron but Taue responds by chopping him in the eye again. Sensing an opening, Taue catches up to Misawa and lands the Cliff Nodowa.

It takes Taue forever to drag Misawa back into the ring. Taue goes for a pin and makes sure to hold both of Misawa’s arms, but Misawa reaches the rope with his free foot. Taue uses all of his strength to pull Misawa up to his feet, but Misawa lands one more elbow smash to escape the ring again to recover.

We’re at the twenty-minute mark as Taue lands a German suplex for a two-count. Taue teases a chokeslam but Misawa reaches the ropes again, so Taue DDTs him. Followed by a leg drop for good measure. Taue signals the end and plants Misawa with the Dynamic Bomb! The referee counts one, two, thr—no, Misawa kicks out at 2.9.

Misawa can barely stand as he hits some desperation elbow smashes to keep Taue at bay. He manages to drop Taue with a rolling elbow and escapes to recover once more. He’s still reeling from that apron chokeslam from earlier. Again Taue drags Misawa back into the ring, and this time he attempts a chokeslam from the top turnbuckle. He lifts Misawa up, but Misawa reverses it into an arm drag in mid-air. A running elbow smash drops Taue once again.

Misawa teases the Tiger Driver again but Taue powers out. Taue teases another chokeslam but ends up tossing Misawa into the corner instead. Misawa blocks a kick, Taue ducks another elbow smash and teases a suplex, Misawa escapes with elbows, and hits another massive rolling elbow. Misawa pins but Taue kicks out yet again.

Misawa lands another German suplex at the twenty-five-minute mark followed by another Tiger Driver for a 2.8-count. He elbows Taue again, but Taue rakes the eyes big time, getting an enormous reaction out of the crowd. Taue goes for the eye again, but this time Misawa’s had enough and throws him aside.. Another elbow smash and a bridging Tiger Suplex. Taue still kicks out. This is absolutely crazy. Misawa gets up and lands another picture-perfect bridging Tiger suplex. The referee counts one, two, three! There’s the match!

Winner of the 1995 AJPW Champion Carnival after 27:03: Mitsuharu Misawa

Review

This was and still is an outstanding match. It was a rare mix of King’s Road and classical southern-style wrestling. There was a clear face/heel divide here with Taue both getting booed for his antics and cheered for his tenacity and other efforts. The crowd was on fire from start to finish. The match still had stiff strikes and big bombs in equal measure so anyone wanting to see two dudes pummel each other without holding back more than got their money’s worth. But that’s not what made this match so special; this is a match worth seeing because Misawa and Taue did something that isn’t seen all that often: wrestlers exploiting known injuries instead of ignoring them.

It took only a few minutes before Taue built his strategy around targeting Misawa’s injured eye socket. This was incredibly smart on Taue’s part but it was also unforgivable in the eyes of the audience. They wanted a clean, purely professional contest to determine the best of the best and Taue decided to cheat. But Taue wasn’t going after Misawa’s eye just to get heat; he did so because it was the only way he could keep the playing field level. Misawa’s tendency to overcome the odds and fire back was standard practice in All Japan and given his catalogue of insane matches filled with brutal landings, Misawa was seen as being made of iron.

So while Taue attacking Misawa’s eye made him come across as underhanded, it also made for a refreshingly compelling Misawa singles match. Misawa rarely lost clean and almost never took the fall in tag matches. Taue blinding him and shattering his usual stoicism allowed him to land all of his biggest and most complicated moves, including the Cliff Nodowa that had propelled him into this tournament finals match. With all of these factors working against Misawa, it felt like, for a moment, the ace would actually lose and Taue would have won deservingly, if not begrudgingly so. As a result, all the near-falls towards the end, all the tense counter moments, all the big exchanges, felt far more exciting than they would’ve been if Misawa wasn’t injured.

And just to make sure the audience knew that Taue’s craftiness was actually working, he broke his trademark stoicism and sold like rarely before. He was defensive and less interested in locking up as he dealt with his eye. He kept creating space instead of shrinking it. He kept winking and checking his eye whenever he had the chance. His knockout rolling elbow was done to give him breathing room as it was to simply hurt Taue. Misawa spent minutes on end wrestling with only one eye open. Misawa, who was always guarded and in control, could barely defend himself as he dealt with the unshakeable sense of pain in his eye.

With Misawa’s guard broken, Taue was able to land his biggest moves with much less resistance or risk of reversal than normal. Unable to split his attention between his eye and attacking, Misawa was left with no choice but to roll out of the ring several times to buy time. Taue might’ve been clever but he wasn’t all that strong so rolling a 250-pound corpse into the ring proved exhausting. In fact, the only way Misawa was able to turn things around here was because of his ring awareness and his ability to escape being pinned. He made ring positioning and ring awareness – something most people forget about when having big matches – into a deciding factor in the match’s direction. Few people can make something like that work, but these guys did.

Final Rating: *****

This is one of those bona-fide classic matches that are easy to follow and enjoy both with context and without it. Without understanding the background this comes across as an exciting singles match with a clear good guy and bad guy wrestling in front of a rabid crowd. Once you peel back the curtain to understand things more the match gets even better. The small details are like Easter eggs rather than required knowledge. It may not be the flashiest or fastest of matches but it’s one of the most cohesive and compelling story-driven matches ever seen from a company that didn’t really do stories in the first place.

Considering Eddie Guerrero was doing this very same angle in house show matches with The Undertaker prior to his death, it’s clear that the idea works. And while there’s no televised evidence of Eddie and ‘Taker working this story their way, we have the next best thing in Misawa and Taue showing everyone how that kind of storytelling is done.

Thanks for reading.