(Almost) 5-Star Match Reviews: Vader vs. Jun Akiyama – AJPW New Year Giant Series 2000

As I work my way through my Jumbo Tsuruta books to get those reviews going I figured I’d pivot for a moment to a match that kinda involves Tsuruta in spirit by way of Jun Akiyama. Though much smaller than Jumbo, Akiyama shared many similarities with him. He was an amateur wrestling standout, loved suplexes, wrestled in a smooth and aesthetically-pleasing way, and had the jumping knee bat as one of his trademark moves. To this day Akiyama is one of my favorite wrestlers who put on incredible matches over the course of his career despite never quite reaching the same level as the legendary Four Heavenly Kings. But how would Akiyama handle a wrestler as unstoppable and rehabilitated as Big Van Vader?

The Story

Vader’s career turnaround between 1998 and 2000 is something truly special. He went from being a self-described “big fat piece of shit” to Triple Crown Champion in very short order. He came to AJPW fulltime in November ’98 as Stan Hansen’s tag partner for that year’s tag league tournament and made it to the finals before losing to the team of Akiyama and Kenta Kobashi. A month or so later he wrestled Kobashi in a singles match and just mauled him, giving us a taste of that classic Vader monstrosity that made him famous in the first place. Two months later he won the vacant Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship. Then he won the Champion Carnival tournament in April, beating everyone besides Misawa. Then he headlined AJPW’s second Tokyo Dome show and although he lost the Triple Crown to Misawa at that event he regained it a few months later. What Kobashi failed to do in 40 minutes in June ’99 and Kawada failed to do in 20, Vader did in just over ten. He was such a monster threat all through 1999 and AJPW needed him to maintain that aura in 2000. And so a new challenger emerged for the January tour. Though Akiyama had never won the world title, he had shown continuous and gradual improvement year-over-year. Would 2000 be his year, or would the monster crush him like he did everyone else around him?

The Match

This took place on January 23, 2000. It was rated ****1/4 out of five by the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer.

This is for Vader’s Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship.

The bell rings and Akiyama rushes Vader and drops him with a forearm. Vader fights back but Akiyama continues hitting forearms and corner stomps. Vader fights him off and dodges a dropkick attempt to his knee. They lock-up again and Vader lands stiff shots to the head. Vader attempts a short-range lariat. Akiyama ducks and lands a German suplex (read: Vader launches himself for a German suplex). The crowd pops bigtime. Akiyama dropkicks the knee and follows with a second German followed by another forearm for two. Vader bails to ringside so Akiyama lands a Tsuruta jumping knee from the apron. Vader answers with an elbow and smashes Akiyama into hard surfaces at ringside…that is until Akiyama reverses this situation on Vader. He launches Vader into the barricade and charges but Vader knocks him down with a body block. This allows Vader to chokeslam Akiyama onto a ringside announce table (Japanese tables do not break) and then Vader follows up with a powerbomb onto the ringside mats.

Vader teases bringing in a chair but referee Kyohei Wada bravely stops him, leading to a “Kyohei” chant. Back in the ring, Vader carries a near-dead Akiyama into a corner and unleashes stiff palm strikes. Vader follows with two Vaderbomb splashes for a near-fall. That’s followed by two short-range lariats and a back suplex for another two-count as Akiyama gets a ropebreak. Vader locks in an armbar but Akiyama reaches the ropes once more so Vader lands a body block and a splash for another near-fall. Vader follows with a sleeper/facelock and setup another Vaderbomb but this time Akiyama gets his knees up. Akiyama lands another dropkick to the knee but Vader absorbs it and lands an elbow drop for two. Vader sends Akiyama into a corner and charges but Akiyama dodges and lands a back suplex out of nowhere.

Vader blocks an Exploder suplex but Akiyama ducks a lariat, dropkicks the knee, and lands a dragon screw leg whip. Akiyama follows with a diving dropkick to the knee and applies a leglock. Vader gets a ropebreak so Akiyama attacks the knee through the ropes until he charges and runs into another body block. Vader goes for a moonsault but Akiyama cuts him off while he’s on the second rope and powerbombs him out of the corner. One, two, Vader kicks out. Diving Tsuruta jumping knee. Then Akiyama lands the Exploder suplex. Two-count. Akiyama lands another jumping knee and a second Exploder. Two-count. Akiyama goes back to the top rope. He dives…and Vader catches him with some kind of slam/toss out of the air for two. Slight misconnection there. Vader with a powerbomb for two. Vader follows with a high-angle chokeslam. One, two – Akiyama reverses this into a cross armbreaker. Vader gets a ropebreak. Akiyama starts working the arm with over-the-shoulder armbreakers. Vader counters with an across-the-ring German suplex for two. Then Vader demolishes Akiyama with a MASSIVE chokeslam to get the three-count to retain his title.

Winner and STILL AJPW Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion after 16:13: Vader

You can watch the full match here.

Review

This was a fun match. Vader looked every bit the terrifying monster here as he did during his 1990s prime and he showed his power as he crushed Akiyama at every turn. Despite Akiyama wrestling strategically and showcasing his own power he was no match for Vader. No amount of technique, mat game, tenacity, or reversal prowess could match Vader’s overwhelming power. Though it wasn’t the deepest or most intense AJPW match it didn’t need to be. The whole point of this match was to further emphasize Vader’s status as a dominant monster ahead of Kobashi’s match against him the following month (which, unfortunately would end up being seriously underwhelming by Kobashi standards). And it worked: Vader soaked up hits like a planet and seemed to have little trouble shutting Akiyama down whenever the challenger looked to be gaining ground. Despite some promising near-falls and the start of two possible alternate routes to victory by way of legwork and armwork, Vader brushed off Akiyama’s efforts and ragdolled him.

Yes, technically Vader no-sold much of Akiyama’s offense this wasn’t an egregious display that hurt the match. In this case, Vader hitting back so quickly further underscored how powerful he was. Akiyama hit him with everything he had yet all Vader had to do was get close and land a handful of big power moves. It’s the same reason that Brock Lesnar became such a monster in his latest run: no matter how hard his opponent hit him he would just brush them off and hit his big moves with an ugly force that showed that he was still in complete control.

Final Rating: ****1/2

Despite many people talking shit about Mitsuharu Misawa’s booking during from 1998-2000, Vader’s rehabilitation is definitely one of his success stories. Vader was given free rein to be the monster he was once before and by pairing him with a plucky rising star the two were able to tell an exciting story. It was the tried-and-tested David vs. Goliath framework but in this one Goliath won, though not without a monumental effort from his challenger. Though the idea of Akiyama beating Vader was a hard sell at first since the only person in AJPW to have pinned him was Misawa and Akiyama still hadn’t beaten him, for a brief moment in time Akiyama had us all believing. He brought the fight to Vader and fearlessly got up close to a monster that he could barely take off his feet. Even if Akiyama lost here he still put on one hell of a performance that helped setup his non-title singles match with Misawa a month later (which is a truly outstanding contest if you haven’t seen it yet).

For an under-twenty-minute throwaway placeholder title match this is much better than anticipated which, in some ways, is what makes pre-NOAH Exodus All Japan so much fun to watch even all these years later.

As always, thanks for reading.