In this recap of my King’s Road Journey I skim through the rest of 1991, the final year of Jumbo being the top guy in the company.
Jumbo Vs Kobashi 24/5/91 - JIP for the last 10 minutes of the match. From the
looks of things, it was probably a great match where Jumbo throughout gave
Kobashi enough shine to carry on getting over with these crowds. A blast to
watch, and hopefully the full version of their 92 match is right up my street.
Misawa Vs Terry Gordy 1/6/91 - GREAT match, it must be the best Gordy singles
match I've seen. The blood probably helps, but this was a fun heavyweight bomb
throwing match. I'm not sure this facelock from Misawa is really doing it for
me, I know it gives him another weapon and dynamic to his matches but I find it
slows the matches down too much and isn't too believable.
Jumbo Vs Williams 20/7/91 - Another triple crown match, and eh it's the least
impressive match I've seen so far since I've been watching early 90s AJPW. This
didn't have the magic of William's performance against Kobashi from 93 for
example.
Hansen Vs Kobashi 4/9/91
- rewatched this after first seeing it a couple of years ago to still see if
it's my MOTY from AJPW with the context of seeing the other great matches of
that year. It holds firm, I love this pariing and the finish of Kobashi ducking
one lariat just to be hit with a discus one seconds later still pops me as much
as it did the first time I saw it.
Misawa/Kawada/Kikuchi Vs Jumbo/Fuchi/Taue 15/10/91 - What the fuck did Fuchi
say in his promo because this match exploded into a wild start after his mic
time. Felt like the old guard (and
Taue) had had enough of these young guns trying to take their spot and so there
was a lot of aggression in this one. I loved the story of Misawa's nose injury,
he sold it amazingly well and then Jumbo booping on the nose got a huge
reaction to keep the spark in their year plus rivalry - nose selling is
something we don't see a lot of these days. As the match wears on it's all
about Kawada being built up ahead of his Triple Crown shot against Jumbo.
Jumbo Vs Kawada 24/10/91 - I'm not just on some biased Jumbo high here am I,
Jumbo was excellent in this match right? If you're gonna have a match with a
bunch of headlocks and grounding strategies, doesn't half help to add some good
facial selling and Jumbo's facials are tremendous I'm quickly realising. Jumbo
is very giving in how much of the match he gives to Kawada even if Kawada
doesn't have many moments where it looks like he can win, he never quite lands
a killer blow. I'd have this a step below the Jumbo/Misawa matches because
naturally there were more nearfalls and a sense of Jumbo really can get beat in
that match, but I have it above the Hansen and Williams title matches in
Jumbo's 1991 run. Wouldn't mind more of this in my modern wrestling though, you
don't always have to go all out with 30 minute matches and excessive finisher
countouts to put on a captivating title match; sometimes playing off a
hierarchy on the roster and experience vs youth can be a captivating story all
the same.
Misawa and Kawada Vs Jumbo and Taue 29/11/91- This was great, and one of the
best examples of working a draw but not telegraph it's coming because I was
shocked when the bell rang that we were at 30 minutes already, this was breezy.
Moving on from an October six man where Misawa has a possible broken nose,
Misawa in November comes into this with a bruised eye and that because a focus
of Jumbo and Taue's attacks. Loving these body part stories that aren't just
working over an arm or leg. Jumbo fantastic again.
Misawa and Kawada Vs Gordy and Williams 6/12/91- This was the finals of the
1991 tag league. I thought this was just
ok, I can't say the pairing of Gordy and Williams did a lot for me and I only
got excited towards the end. I feel like that's a team that suits shorter
matches, not 25 minutes as we got here.
That's probably going to be it for my 1991 viewing:
MATCH OF THE YEAR
1) Hansen Vs Kobashi 4/9/91
2) Jumbo Vs Kawada 24/10/91
3) Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi Vs Jumbo, Fuchi and Taue 20/4/91
WRESTLER OF THE YEAR
1) Jumbo (the glue in all the six man tags, especially for his team, and his
singles matches deliver)
2) Kawada (he's in pretty much every six man that bangs, the Taue feud carries
my interest in the company in the first few months of the year, is great in his
triple crown match, and him and Misawa look like the best team in the tag
league)
3) Misawa (He has the Gordy singles match on top of his great Jumbo match too,
and then all the tags)
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