5-Star Match Reviews: Misawa vs. Kawada “6-3-94” – 30th Anniversary Review

“6-3-94”.

Many pro-wrestling fans consider this to be the greatest professional wrestling match of all time, or at least of modern times. It has maintained that reputation for over three full decades. Words like “legendary” and “mythical” have been used to describe this match, as though it was some kind of fabled piece of artwork that demands immediate respect even after so much change and passing of time in the pro-wrestling business. The tape-trading community once came to a consensus and labeled this as the greatest wrestling match of all time. It was such an intense, physical, brutal and emotional match that, for a time, it was believed to be the first widely-recognized six-star match on the Meltzer five-star scale, a fact that Meltzer debunked in early 2023.

After three decades of well-earned fame and reverence, this is still an iconic match and an undeniable piece of pro-wrestling history…though it has since lost its luster compared to other matches of its time.

The Story

On the surface this looked like just another title match between champion and challenger. But under the surface was an intense, bitter, and personal rivalry that had been going on for years with multiple twists and peaks. Many fans saw Kawada as the better wrestler but Misawa was All Japan’s biggest star. Jealousy and a degree of personal antagonism caused Kawada to turn on his former best friend so that he could escape his senior’s shadow. Twice before during this same reign Kawada had tried to dethrone Misawa and twice before he failed. Amplifying his desperate situation was that he was now without any gold, having lost the tag titles three weeks earlier. For Kawada, this was something of his last stand. If he ever hoped to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his archrival he needed to win here, no matter the cost.

“I know that every time I fight, my body gets more and more tattered, but I can’t stop chasing him, and I’m going to keep chasing him. I’ve been chasing Misawa for 15 years…” Toshiaki Kawada

The audience understood this story, as most of them were regular viewers that followed AJPW’s tours and were familiar with Kawada’s story. Yet despite his turn on Misawa being seen as a betrayal, he was given a hero’s welcome here. The 16,300 fans in Budokan Hall on this night were white-hot, even by 1990s AJPW standards. They reacted to actions big and small with deafening cheers and stomped their feet in unison. They were right to react this way: Misawa and Kawada brought their A-game and had their best singles match to date here.

The Match

This took place on June 3, 1994, with Misawa’s Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship on the line.

The crowd is molten as Kawada gets a clean break on the ropes and hits some chops against the ropes. Misawa reverses an Irish whip but Kawada ducks a spinkick. Kawada boots Misawa’s face but Misawa tanks it and charges to the ropes, only to hit a sick leg lariat. Kawada goes for a suplex but Misawa lands behind him. Kawada tries a sleeper but Misawa counters into a back suplex which sends the crowd and commentators into a frenzy.

After a reprieve we get some technical wrestling with Kawada working Misawa’s left arm. He applies lots of pressure to it but then Misawa does his front flip into an elbow and drops Kawada hard. A dropkick sends Kawada to the floor. Misawa charges for an elbow suicida, sees Kawada move, and flips back into the ring. He follows with a through-the-ropes dropkick and goes for an attack from the apron but then Kawada hits first with an elbow strike of his own, dropping Misawa like a sack of bricks.

Misawa shoots Kawada into the barricade but Kawada bounces back with a clothesline. In the ring Kawada works over Misawa’s neck with different strikes and grounded submission holds. Then he switches to a half crab and stands on Misawa’s head with one foot. At some point during all of this Misawa’s ear starts bleeding; it’s later learned this is from a busted ear drum which is an excruciatingly painful feeling. Still Misawa soldiers on despite the constant peppering of kicks from Kawada.

Kawada applies a sleeper body bodyscissors but Misawa makes it to the ropes so Kawada continues kicking him. Big mistake. Misawa answers with kicks to Kawada’s bad left knee and then gets revenge with a half crab of his own until Kawada escapes by kicking Misawa’s face with his free leg. Undeterred, Misawa continues to work the leg and starts blocking when Kawada tries more kicks. Kawada tries kicking back but collapses under the weight of his own body. Misawa works the leg some more and continues to brush off each time Kawada kicks his head so Kawada crawls over to the ropes for a break.

Misawa lands more body kicks and now the crowd chants for Kawada. Kawada follows with some desperation elbows to create some space. Misawa tries a suplex but Kawada counters with an armbar, only for Misawa to wrestle into an Irish whip and connect with a spinkick. Misawa tries a Tiger Driver but Kawada rushes him into a corner. Kawada follows with more stiff strikes, a turnbuckle smash, and a jump kick to Misawa’s face. He tries another turnbuckle smash but this time Misawa blocks and hits an elbow. Misawa tries another dropkick off the ropes but this time Kawada holds onto the ropes and hits a big boot to regain control.

Misawa hits back with an elbow but Kawada drops him with a gamengiri kick for a two-count. Misawa escapes a Folding Powerbomb attempt so Kawada dropkicks the back of his head. Kawada follows with a second-rope kneedrop and chops barrages to the side of Misawa’s neck, all for another near-fall. Misawa blocks another powerbomb so Kawada kicks him hard. Misawa lands a sudden double-leg and a petty-looking kick to the head to escape Kawada’s control. He follows with an elbow barrage and an enzuigiri. Kawada blocks both a Tiger Driver and a Tiger suplex. Another strike exchange ends with Misawa blocking a gamengiri. Misawa follows with a dropkick and a successful Tiger Driver for a two-count. He follows with a frog splash for a two-count and applies a facelock. Kawada gets a ropebreak so Misawa goes to the top rope for a diving elbow…only to eat a gamengiri in midair.

Misawa blocks another powerbomb so Kawada hits another stiff forearm. He repeats this spot but this time Misawa blocks and punches Kawada’s mouth. This infuriates Kawada and he unloads with a massive barrage of strikes. Kawada out-strikes Misawa and hits another big boot followed by a running lariat. Then Kawada follows with a sick Dangerous Backdrop and a Folding Powerbomb. One, two, Misawa kicks out. Two more gamengiris and a release German send Misawa to the floor. Misawa gets critical recovery time from this, enough to kick out of Kawada’s next Folding Powerbomb finisher. Kawada tries that move again but Misawa gets to the ropes so he pulls Kawada off and locks in the Stretch Plum. Twice. At this point the crowd is chanting more ambiguously, split between both wrestlers. Misawa appears to be out of energy so Kawada covers him. One, two, and – no, only 2.9.

Misawa hits another elbow but Kawada hits back with another high kick. Misawa gets a few more strikes in, including a spinning elbow to the back of his head. Misawa hits a huge release German followed by a bridging Tiger suplex for two. Misawa attempts another German but Kawada fights free and hits an abisengiri rolling kick. A second abisengiri sends Misawa to the floor and we get this awesome visual of both guys staring daggers at each other, the space between them amplified by the clever camera shots. Another strike exchange ensues in the ring. Kawada blocks a rolling elbow and lands head-butts. He gets Misawa into a corner and kicks as hard as he can. Misawa hulks up AJPW-style and lands another elbow smash followed by a rolling elbow. But he’s not done. He lands another barrage of elbows and another rolling elbow smash. Kawada blocks another Tiger Driver and rushes Misawa into a corner. He lands another desperation kick to the calf and tries another abisengiri but this time Misawa blocks it. Misawa follows with a running elbow smash and a Tiger Driver ’91 to plant Kawada on his head for the three-count.

Winner and STILL AJPW Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion after 35:50: Mitsuharu Misawa

Review

For many wrestling fans and for many wrestlers, this was their introduction into the fabled King’s Road style. Longtime wrestling industry veterans have praised this match for many reasons, from Rocky Romero for its simplicity to Eddie Kingston for its realism and atmosphere. The standing exchanges they had were so stiff, so intense, that it’s no wonder that an entire generation of wrestlers all around the world started copying them hoping to get the same results and reactions. Even how the match was shot elevated the storytelling at play here. As Joseph Montecillo noted, “when they’re not directly engaged in action, the camera puts so much emphasis on both men as individuals. It highlights now isolated they’ve become from each other. It helps give weight to the distance between them since splitting off as partners.”

Misawa and Kawada lived up to expectations here not by pushing the envelope but by telling a believable and compelling story with the few tools they had. Everything was built on the psychology of wearing each other down with what both men knew had worked before and building from there to an appropriate level. When Kawada started running out of viable options after hitting Misawa with everything he had, he got desperate. Misawa sensed this, adapted to Kawada’s more urgent offense, and was able to land some critical moves at the right moments to push ahead. The wrestling was high-risk at times, though not overly or excessively so. The head spikes, though still present, weren’t the be-all-and-end-all here but were punctuations that both men used to accentuate their respective leads. The end result was a match that felt like as much like the conclusion to a blood feud as a competitive war for a coveted prize.

It did have its flaws, though: Kawada ignored Misawa’s busted eardrum, failed to take out Misawa’s right arm to weaken his elbow strikes as so many other had done before and would do after, and didn’t accomplish that much while on the mat. He hit incredibly hard, as was his style, but he didn’t really wrestle with a surefire strategy beyond targeting Misawa’s neck. All the moves he did made sense and told the desired story, yet once Misawa kicked out of a second Folding Powerbomb and survived the Stretch Plum he was done. He had no ace up his sleeve, no new strategy to test, and no real counter for everything Misawa still had left. Despite the crowd behind as much behind him as they were behind Misawa, there was no sense Kawada could turn the match around once Misawa hit that one elbow and followed it with a barrage of suplexes. It turned from “could Kawada win?” to “how long before Misawa puts Kawada away?”

Final Rating: *****

While I can’t deny that this is still a match worthy of *****, it’s on the lower end of that threshold with many other 5-Star matches surpassing it. The match dragged quite a bit during the matwork segments and there was a bit of a lack of follow-up on Misawa’s ear injury that, given the style, should’ve been exploited. But in terms of seeing a cohesive, intense, and brutal match in that was amplified by a molten crowd, few come close to this one.

That said, this is still a must-watch match for any pro-wrestling fan out there, both for entertainment and historic purposes. Those looking to be entertained will most likely enjoy the hard-hitting action, raucous crowd, and overall sense of personal hostility between these two friends-turned-enemies. And those looking at things from a historic lens will appreciate that this match has had perhaps more of an impact on an entire generation of indy wrestlers who, in turn, have since gone on to become dominant stars in the two biggest companies in North America.

Though few wrestlers openly talk about taking inspiration from All Japan as much as they do past legends from WWE or WCW, one need only take a cursory glance at what moves are popular and what moves are used so frequently throughout today’s wrestling to see Misawa and Kawada’s legacies living on in the sport.

Thanks for reading.