The Beautiful Thing: Great Matches 1994-1998

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1994:

1) June 3: Triple Crown Champion Mitsuhara Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada: A lot of people consider this to be the single greatest one on one Professional Wrestling match of all time. I’ve only met a couple of people who’ve seen it who don’t rank it in their top ten or twenty. Certainly, it epitomizes the great, hard- hitting main events that All Japan were putting on in the mid 1980s.

2) April 16: Wild Pegasus vs. Great Sasuke in the finals of the Super J Cup: Thanks to the Hard Knocks DVD set, even wrestling fans who don’t obsessively trade tapes of Japanese matches have the opportunity to see what all of the fuss is about. The ’94 J-Cup is, for many people, the tape that opened the door to the world of Puroresu, and Benoit’s performance in the tournament cemented his reputation as one of the greats ten years before he won the WWE championship.

3) November 6: El Hijo Del Santo & Octagon vs. “Love Machine” Art Barr & Eddy Guerrero in a best two out of three falls mask vs. hair match: This is another match that is getting great exposure on a WWE DVD set. It’s quite a different style of mach, with six total pinfalls and a crowd that gets heated up to the point of insanity before the whole thing is over.

1995:

1) August 20: Cactus Jack defeats Terry Funk to win the IWA King of the Death Matches tournaments at Kawasaki Stadium in Japan: Probably more people have read about this match in Foley’s book than have ever seen it. The match is very slow and violent, and more disturbingly fascinating than thrilling. I wouldn’t count it as either the greatest or the goriest Death Match I’ve ever seen, but it is quite a spectacle.

2) December 8: Lance Storm vs. Chris Jericho in Japan’s WAR promotion:
the Thrillseekers rank among my favourite tag teams of all time, at least in part because both Jericho and Storm are Canadian. Both of them pulled out all of the stops for this match. Presumably working together for so long had allowed them to develop split-second timing and a very high level of trust, as they both take some pretty hair-raising risks.

3) June 9: AJPW tag team champions Mitsuhara Misawa & Kenta Kobashi lose the titles to Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue:
A lot of people consider this to be the greatest tag team match of all time. Mike Campbell wrote what I consider the definitive article about this match, you can read it here.

1996:

1) May 27: During the first two-hour Monday NITRO broadcast, Scott Hall emerges from the audience to declare war on WCW: This was the start of one of the most effective angles of all time. It’s hard to remember now just how shocking this moment truly was at the time, and it’s difficult to imagine another moment anything like this happening in North America any time soon.

2) October 10: Taka Michinoku, Shoichi Funaki, Dick Togo, Shiryu, & Men’s Teioh vs. Gran Naniwa, Super Delfin, Tiger Mask IV, Yakushiji, & Gran Hamada: This may have been the best match in the history of Michinoku Pro, and it is one of the most entertaining wrestling matches of all time.

3) September 22: HBK vs. Mankind at IYH Mind Games: Both Michaels and Mankind take some hellacious bumps, and not even the ridiculous overbooking was able to spoil this one. People talk about the Two Big Bumps HITC match from KOTR ’98, but I think Mind Games was Foley’s best match for WWE.

1997:

1) March 23: Hart vs. Austin at WM XIII: This was easily one of the very best men’s singles matches ever contested in North America. Both the action and the story telling were superb, and this match was one of the very few to successfully pull off a double turn.

2) July 6: Team Canada beats Team USA at IYH Canadian Stampede: This match had some of the craziest crowd heat of all time.Every move made by Team Canada (Bret, Owen, Pillman, Neidhart, & Davey-Boy) was met with raucous approval. Team USA (Austin, Shamrock, Goldust, and the LOD) were booed out of the building.

3) January 20, April 19, & October 21: Kobashi vs. Misawa: If you want to force me to choose just one, I’d take January’s Triple Crown match over the 30 Minute draw from the Champions Carnival in April or the October match from the All Japan 25th Anniversary Show that the Japanese fans voted their match of the year.

1998:

1) May 1: Kawada finally beats Misawa for the Triple Crown: There is an awful lot of All Japan on this list, isn’t there? The reason is that during this time AJPW were legitimately putting on one five star main event classic after another. This particular match had been building since Kawada and Tiger Mask II were tag partners in 1990.

2) October 31:Triple Crown Champion Kenta Kobashi vs. Mitsuhara Misawa: This is probably my favourite All Japan match, as both men pull out all of their craziest moves and take all of their biggest bumps. I can’t imagine the wrestling fan who wouldn’t be impressed by this match.

3) May 31: Steve Austin vs. Dude Love from Over the Edge: I think that Mind Games was Foley’s best WWE match, but over The Edge is probably my favourite. I loved the whole story that built up to the match, and the match itself more than lived up to the hype. For once the changing stips added to the entertainment instead of spoilijng it, and even Vince and the stooges played their parts very well.


Steve and Mick in happier times

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