I recently watched another match from my favorite wrestling feud of all time, and thought I'd write a little bit about it. The feud is Toshiaki Kawada vs. Mitsuharu Misawa, and I'm trying to fill in the gaps in my collection lately, so maybe I'll make this a little series, writing something about each match after I see it. The match on tap for this evening is their match from the round robin Champion Carnival of 1995, dated April 6th. This is, as far as I can tell, their first singles encounter since their classic Triple Crown match on June 3rd of the previous year, although they did cross paths in some tag team action in between. The 1994 match had been the closest Kawada had come during his then 19-month-old quest to pin Misawa. Kawada defeated Steve Williams to win the 1994 Carnival on the 16th of April, using a spinning chop to the head to break a waistlock and hit a rolling koppo kick, leaving Williams vulnerable for Kawada's third powerbomb of the match, which earned the three count. Kawada used an almost identical sequence to try to put Misawa away less than two months later, but Misawa managed to roll out of the ring after absorbing the koppo kick, thus avoiding the third powerbomb long enough to come back and take Kawada out emphatically with the Tiger Driver '91.

Now, the 1995 Carnival match, which is still the one I'm attempting to review here, in case my rambling on previous matches has confused you, is certainly most famous for what happens in the opening minute. That being, Kawada breaking Misawa's orbital bone with a high kick. Now, that would probably be pretty infamous even if they decided to stop the match right there to, you know, let Misawa get his broken face checked out. Instead, after a brief respite, they go on with the plan and wrestle another twenty-nine minutes. And as you might expect, they do slow down the pace a bit from what it normally would be, with some chinlocks and various other restholds to allow Misawa to gather himself. But first, before they get to the resting, Misawa decides, as his first offensive maneuver after getting his face kicked in, to knock Kawada from the ring and hit a slingshot tope, basically face-first into Kawada. Then the two of them return to the ring and take it to the mat for a bit.

After keeping it on the mat for a few minutes, they basically get back to wrestling the way they always do. Misawa's execution is occasionally less than crisp, and there's perhaps one spot in the entire 30 minute match that I could call "blown", but overall he does a remarkable job of keeping it together despite the injury. Kawada seems to come at Misawa with a two-pronged attack. There's the old reliable powerbomb, and he works over Misawa's midsection throughout the match, along with his normal head-and-neck-intensive offense, to set up that. But he also puts a lot of stock in his dangerous backdrop suplex, seemingly not by design, but based on how successful it is for him early in the match. He attempts it as one of his first offensive maneuvers, and Misawa scrambles like mad to escape, acting like he'd rather be anywhere but in position to take that move, putting over its danger in the eyes of the fans and perhaps in the mind of Kawada himself. Kawada goes to it again early in the match and is able to hit it, and Misawa is able to escape defeat only by the grace of proximity to the ropes. The tried and true powerbomb is still Kawada's biggest weapon, as evidenced by repeated attacks to the midsection; stopping Misawa's flying offense with kicks to the stomach and back, even using a double stomp. But the threat of the dangerous backdrop is always there.

For his part, Misawa, in between withstanding Kawada's assault, which includes the usual assortment of kicks to the face, seems intent on putting Kawada away with the Tiger Suplex. He goes for it repeatedly throughout the match, only to have Kawada block it or escape. When he finally does hit it, as the clock ticks toward the end of the thiry minute time limit, it provides the best nearfall of the match, with Kawada just barely getting his shoulder off the canvas before the count of three. Misawa, undeterred, goes almost immediately for the even deadlier Tiger Suplex '85, but Kawada is able to escape as time ticks away and frantically try to hit the dangerous backdrop again to put Misawa away. The first attempt at the end of the match is prevented in mid-air by a Misawa cross body, but Kawada quickly gets up and tries it again. The time limit expires with his arms wrapped around Misawa's waist, unable to hit the backdrop that might have given him his first victory over his rival.

So, it's Misawa and Kawada and it's another excellent match. Who'd've guessed it? Obviously, Misawa's broken orbital bone hampered his ability to work somewhat and slowed the pace of the match down early, but it really was remarkable how little it hurt the match. And while a broken bone is never something you want to have happen in a match, the injury wasn't serious enough to prevent Misawa from working any dates (in fact, he wound up winning the tournament nine days later.) And in the end, Misawa's broken orbital bone became just another layer in the story of Misawa/Kawada, just as Kawada's injured knee had been 16 months years earlier. The Champion Carnival final would see Kawada's tag team partner Akira Taue brutalize Misawa's face, turning the snake eyes into a legitimately nasty offensive maneuver in the process. And two months later, in the greatest wrestling match I've ever seen, when Kawada & Taue finally wrestled the World Tag Team Titles from Misawa & Kenta Kobashi, when Kawada finally completed his near three year quest to pin Misawa's shoulders to the canvas, what was the first interaction in the match between Misawa and Kawada? Why it was Kawada's boot meeting Misawa's face as he stood on the apron, of course. This match from the Champion Carnival tournament of 1995 may not be the best match Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada ever werestled against each other, but it is certainly an essential chapter of their story.  ¶ joe | 1:34 AM |