Just a thought here

[Guest Black Tiger]

All Japan's head drop era got started around the time that Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, and Taue, started being main eventers.

 

Is it possible that the four of them could have got just as over, and been just as big of draws, and still had great matches without the head drops.

 

The only one of the four who wasn't big on the head drops was Taue, he was more of stiff kicks and Nodowa Otoshi. He also is looked at as the weakest of them.

 

Jumbo getting sick also rushed Taue, Kawada, and Kobashi into AJPW's ME scene so Misawa would have a partner and challengers. Had Jumbo not gotten sick, would AJPW still have gone into the head drop era?

 

I will freely admit my ignorance to a lot of AJPW information, so any help would be appreciated.

[Guest wolverine]

All Japan's head drop era got started around the time that Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, and Taue, started being main eventers.

 

Not true. They had been main eventing for years before headdropping was in full swing.

 

They didn't have any confidence in elevating new wrestlers, so they kept going back to the same matches over and over again. Fans were bored with them, so heat rapidly diminished. The headdropping spots were basically used to draw pops at that point.

[Guest MrRant]

What exactly is meant by this head dropping? Like a powerbomb with more force to the head area or what?

 

Forgive me for interrupting but I am a simple man and do not possess a Puro degree nor am I completely Puro inclinded. Please continue with the wonderful headdropping lecture.

[Guest RickyChosyu]

It's always been my understanding that the head-dropping craze started in '97 via Misawa/Kobashi and rapidly degenerated after that. Considering Miwawa had been main-eventing since '90, and Kawada/Kobashi since '92, that's a considerable amount of time before head-dropping even became an issue, I would say.

 

Head-dropping was just what it sounds like. They did lots of suplexes and general high-impact moves that saw the recipiant land on his dome. They would bust out ridiculous amounts of these manuvers, and the crowd would pop for them. They hurt the match quality in general, as it became an absurd case of "who can kick out of the most head-drops."

[Guest wolverine]

What exactly is meant by this head dropping?

 

It is when one wrestler drops another wrestler on their head. How they went about doing it is another story.

[Guest MrRant]

I just wanted to clarify that they were going out of their was to purposley(sp) do moves that would drop someone on their head. Thanks for the clearing up!

[Guest Black Tiger]

I haven't seen lots of AJ (I'm working on getting more) but it seems to me that when Misawa used the Tiger Driver '91 to win 6/3/94 that the head drop era was started.

 

I consider 1993 to be the year when the big four "made it". In 1990-1991, it was always in matches involving Tsuruta, the top guy in All Japan. 1992, was more of the same untill Misawa won the Triple Crown, then it was only Misawa who was seen as a big time player, after splitting up Misawa and Kawada and throwing in Taue and Kobashi that they were all seen as bona fide super stars, that's just my opinion.

 

Also, while I'm thinking about All Japan, if Tenryu had never left to form SWS, would the Four Lords of Heaven ever have become big time players?

[Guest RickyChosyu]

There had been moments of head-dropping since Williams started using the Murder Backdrop as a finisher and probably before that, too. But, when you refer to the head-dropping in AJPW, it's assumed you're talking about the stuff that got way out of hand and supplied the only crowd heat the matches could get. That didn't start until '97-98, as there was a long period from '92 up until then where the big four were not only carrying the promotion, but getting big heat for the matches by telling brilliant stories, not just dropping each other on their heads (although you could make a case for Kobashi getting out of hand with it before '97).

 

And Tenryu was never the ace of AJPW, and so with or without him, a new one would have to be created to replace jumbo, so I think the answer is yes.

[Guest Black Tiger]

Look no further than Kobashi vs. Williams on 9/3/94 to see Kobashi take it out of hand with his taking three of the Backdrops in a row.

 

Tenryu wasn't the ace of AJPW, but he was the natural rival of Jumbo, if he didn't leave then Misawa wouldn't have been used to feud with Jumbo, which pretty much MADE his career.

 

Of course Misawa was under the mask teaming with Jumbo, and Kawada was a partner of Tenryu so you can argue that they would have made it anyways.

[Guest RickyChosyu]

Kobashi took it out of hand a few times, but that wasn nothing compared to the later farses that saw them completely neglect selling as a concept and no sell as many head-bumps as possible. Like I said, they were still getting heat and interest for telling compelling storylines durring '93-97, which is a substantial amount of time and negates any blame of the head-dropping falling solely on the big four. Like wolverine said, they did the head-dropping to make the old matches seem new (even if they could have easilly done some submision stuff to freshen it up as an alternative while saving their skulls in the process).

 

Feuding with Jumbo made Misawa's career, but he was likely to become a top native at some point, with or without Tenryu around.

[Guest Lear's Fool]

Doc had done 3 in a row in their 8/93 match as well. So 9/94 isn't a starting point.

 

And the Tiger Driver '91 is named so because of when it debuted.

 

And the first big "power bomb" in Japan was one that dropped Tenryu on his neck and shoulders...in '89.

 

The phrase exists because the main eventers, more often than not, stopped putting on smart matches. After a while, the sense of the match at hand became subordinate to the notion that, "well, I kicked out of this move during this match 6 months ago, so I can't ever be pinned by it at all, or you have to do it 3 or 4 times in a row to make it effective, even if I've been getting killed all match long anyway." Misawa was probably the worst transgressor by virtue of the fact that he let everyone get over on him by dumping him on his neck over and over, even though Misawa was ultimately going to win the match. The clearest examples are probably the 6/97 Misawa/Kawada, 1/98 Misawa/Akiyama, and the 98 & 99 Misawa/Kobashi matches. There isn't any real performing going on in those matches, not like these guys are capable of - instead, they just run through their entire repertoires or kill each other over and over with the same thing before Misawa says, "Well, that's enough," and wins the match.

[Guest XdojimeX]

Jumbo popularized the high angle backdrop in the early 90's before Williams did. A more dangerous variation on the Choshyu/Saito form.

[Guest PlatypusFool]

The TD ' 91 at the end of 6/3/94 was a really meaningful use of the move, it finished the story of that match perfectly, and it's one of the many reasons it's remembered so fondly. Kawada kicked out of everything Misawa used EXCEPT the head-dropping move, making the head-drops seem devestating. The problem was when this whole backstory was destroyed by things like Misawa taking 5 or 6 half-nelson suplexes from Kobashi, and landing right on his noggin each time, during the same match, then coming back and winning effortlessly without selling them nearly enough. The difference is clear.

[Guest DragonflyKid]

From watching the Misawa/Kobashi series alone the evolution of the style was evident. Some would completely dismiss the head-dropping and I agree it was excessive and the non-selling absurd at times but there was some psychology to it. The same guys kept facing each other as was already mentioned, to both make it seem fresh and to point out how it would take an increasing amount of punishment to put your opponent away they kept upping the high-impact moves.

 

I never thought they completely did away with psychology or pacing, those things did diminish and were replaced with head-dropping, eye-pleasing spots but the heavy head-dropping style had substance too. It's just not a style for all people, some people can tolerate it and enjoy it while others hate it. There's only so far the same set of guys can work smartly after facing each other consistently for ten years and make it interesting.

 

The match quality in the late 90's did go down but that wasn't just because of the head-dropping, it was because the guys were aging and broken down(Which the head-dropping didn't help.), new main-event guys weren't being pushed besides Akiyama and used ample head-drops because Misawa couldn't do what Jumbo did.

 

The head-drops themselves aren't the problem, the head-drops are just a consequence of larger problems.

[Guest Black Tiger]

Back in the late 1990's when head dropping was in full swing, Misawa would take all the head drops, do some of his own that would get kicked out of, then finish the match with the elbow. It seems like something was missing when Kobashi has the fighting spirit to kick out of a Tiger Driver '91, an elevated German suplex, and a backdrop, before he's finished off by a simple elbow.

[Guest BionicRedneck]

I hate the elbow finish alot of the time.

 

I mean, Misawa must throw a hundred elbows a match.

[Guest PlatypusFool]

Relating to RollingChop's last post, I do actually really enjoy head-dropping era matches like Misawa / Kobashi '99.

 

I know the psych is nowhere near as strong, but there is still a good build, and the moves are great to watch, even if they aren't sold particularly well. I think anyone can enjoy them, as long as they don't think too much about the potential goodness that is being missed and see the matches for what they are - a deeper level of spot fest.

[Guest wolverine]

For you folks who enjoy these types of matches, let me ask this - what are your AJPW collections from 1990-1993 like? Just curious, because I doubt people with a wide variety of footage from this era would think so highly of this stuff.

[Guest PlatypusFool]

You're right Wolverine, my collection from that era isn't very large at all, but I have still seen enough from it to be able to seperate the two. I think as long as you view the two era's as seperate, and enjoy them for what they are, you can still gleam enjoyment from both types of match. Or at least I can.

 

Those of you who only enjoy the early 90's AJPW, and not the head-dropping era, what sort of rating would you give Misawa / Kobashi '99? I've seen a lot of people who heavily pimp the early 90's stuff still give this match ***1/2, which remains a very good rating, despite the head-dropping.

[Guest wolverine]

I rated 10/98 ***1/2 and 6/99 ***3/4. Technically "good" but way below my standards for AJPW main events.

[Guest XdojimeX]

"It seems like something was missing when Kobashi has the fighting spirit to kick out of a Tiger Driver '91, an elevated German suplex, and a backdrop, before he's finished off by a simple elbow."

 

I don't know if people are thinking in linear terms of American psychology that always keeps them from understanding this but there's nothing wrong with the internal logic here. It's simple accumilative build. Say what you want about Misawa's elbows but they we're protected enough to be bought as a final blow by All Japan audiences. The KO of Hansen for the TC pretty much made the Elbow for life. There wasn't any inconsistency there.

 

He could over do them in the building portions of a match but I'm a big fan of credible looking strikes in my wrestling so it never bothered me too much.

 

"The head-drops themselves aren't the problem, the head-drops are just a consequence of larger problems."

 

Eh, either or. You're just getting into semantics at that point. Lack of new blood, injuries/age, stagnent booking, overkill of dangerous moves all added to the spiral of All Japan. In the end the matches still devolved with the focus the workers took.

[Guest DragonflyKid]

Posted on Oct 13 2002, 09:28 AM

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For you folks who enjoy these types of matches, let me ask this - what are your AJPW collections from 1990-1993 like? Just curious, because I doubt people with a wide variety of footage from this era would think so highly of this stuff.

 

I actually have a decent amount of tv blocks from the early 90's including most of '93 and most of the matches considered musts, I can acknowledge that that stuff is superior I just don't believe all the late 90's stuff involving head-dropping is worthless.

 

BionicRedneck Posted on Oct 13 2002, 09:01 AM

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I hate the elbow finish alot of the time.

 

I mean, Misawa must throw a hundred elbows a match.  

 

 

Misawa throws alot of elbows in his matches but only the Rolling Elbow and Running Elbow Smash are credible finishers and he usually can't hit them early in a match. It's all about adjusting to the style, once you adapt you can enjoy all the near-falls the psychology of the accumulative affect produces. Instead of the WWE style of relying on a single finisher to put a guy away puro guys use strikes and many high-impact moves. Matches in the WWE can have several two-counts per match without having any true near-falls because matches only end after a wrestler hits their known finisher so most two-counts cannot be taken seriously.

 

Posted on Oct 13 2002, 10:28 AM

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I rated 10/98 ***1/2 and 6/99 ***3/4. Technically "good" but way below my standards for AJPW main events.

 

I enjoyed both matches, I probably have as hard a time believing someone can rate them so low as much as you probably find it hard to believe someone can think they're both ****1/2+ as I do.

[Guest BionicRedneck]

Misawa throws alot of elbows in his matches but only the Rolling Elbow and Running Elbow Smash are credible finishers and he usually can't hit them early in a match. It's all about adjusting to the style, once you adapt you can enjoy all the near-falls the psychology of the accumulative affect produces. Instead of the WWE style of relying on a single finisher to put a guy away puro guys use strikes and many high-impact moves. Matches in the WWE can have several two-counts per match without having any true near-falls because matches only end after a wrestler hits their known finisher so most two-counts cannot be taken seriously.

 

Yeah, I know. I love the AJPW style (before the crazy headropping craze). I don't enjoy 500 headrops getting kicked out of, but an elbow going over.

 

Particularly when sometimes it doesn't even make sense.

[Guest wolverine]

I never said the stuff was worthless - it's just an acute devolution of a product that was once great. Rewarding these poorly constructed matches with high ratings only bastardizes the stuff that truly deserves praise.

 

When something is infinitely 'superior' to something else, I like making that word actually mean something. And these ratings are how I go about doing it.

[Guest DragonflyKid]

Posted on Oct 13 2002, 01:22 PM

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I never said the stuff was worthless - it's just an acute devolution of a product that was once great. Rewarding these poorly constructed matches with high ratings only bastardizes the stuff that truly deserves praise.

 

When something is infinitely 'superior' to something else, I like making that word actually mean something. And these ratings are how I go about doing it.

 

I meant superior concerning the style moreso than the actual big matches themselves. The early 90's tv blocks blow away the late 90's tv blocks in quality consistently but I don't feel the great early 90's matches blow away the late 90's big matches. There were alot less of great matches in the late 90's but the '97 matches between Kobashi and Misawa were as good as the great early-to-mid 90's matches. The '98 and '99 matches suffered more from a lack of ground-breaking moreso than relying on head-drops even though I still thought both were great.

[Guest Coffin Surfer]

Back in the late 1990's when head dropping was in full swing, Misawa would take all the head drops, do some of his own that would get kicked out of, then finish the match with the elbow. It seems like something was missing when Kobashi has the fighting spirit to kick out of a Tiger Driver '91, an elevated German suplex, and a backdrop, before he's finished off by a simple elbow.

I actually love the ending the 1/97 Misawa/Kobashi match. Kobashi was finished after he took the Tiger Driver 91, but Misawa was too exhausted to cover quick enough and hold him down, allowing Kobashi to wiggle the arm up. A brain dead Kobashi than starts to fight back with his most primitive and reliable weapon "the lariat", but just like Misawa's elbows in the 9/90 Jumbo match, and Kawada's kicks in 6/3/94 they no longer had their knock out power.

 

Misawa finishes him with the Tiger Suplex 85, but this time he wants to make sure Kobashi won't kick out again so he doesn't bridge for the pin. Misawa opts to fall back on his most reliable weapon "the elbow" to make sure Kobashi won't get back up. The elbow wasn't the finish, it was just Misawa playing it safe since he didn't have the strength to suplex Kobashi on his head again.

 

My problem with the match is that the actual match doesn't start into like 20 minutes in. The begining of the match is just them eating clock with the arm and body work that went absolutely nowhere and barely furthered the match.

[Guest wolverine]

I wasn't taking about the 1997 Misawa-Kobashi matches at all. I had 1/97 at *****, 4/97 at ****1/2 and 10/97 at ****3/4. These three matches stack up very nicely against the best of the early 90's stuff in my book. But the matches I have big problems with is starting with 10/98 onward.

 

Not only is the structure poor, but due to other mitigating factors, the actual quality of the wrestling had greatly diminshed. I don't believe these matches hold a candle to even the run-of-the-mill 6-man tags from 1990-1992, let alone the top flight singles matches like Jumbo-Misawa or Hansen-Kobashi.

[Guest Coffin Surfer]

Posted on Oct 13 2002, 01:22 PM

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I never said the stuff was worthless - it's just an acute devolution of a product that was once great. Rewarding these poorly constructed matches with high ratings only bastardizes the stuff that truly deserves praise.

 

When something is infinitely 'superior' to something else, I like making that word actually mean something. And these ratings are how I go about doing it.

 

I meant superior concerning the style moreso than the actual big matches themselves. The early 90's tv blocks blow away the late 90's tv blocks in quality consistently but I don't feel the great early 90's matches blow away the late 90's big matches. There were alot less of great matches in the late 90's but the '97 matches between Kobashi and Misawa were as good as the great early-to-mid 90's matches. The '98 and '99 matches suffered more from a lack of ground-breaking moreso than relying on head-drops even though I still thought both were great.

I disagree I would take the average-good matches of 93 like Kawada/Jun over any of the so called great main event matches of the 97 and up.

[Guest Coffin Surfer]

I wasn't taking about the 1997 Misawa-Kobashi matches at all.  I had 1/97 at *****, 4/97 at ****1/2 and 10/97 at ****3/4.  These three matches stack up very nicely against the best of the early 90's stuff in my book.  But the matches I have big problems with is starting with 10/98 onward.  

 

Not only is the structure poor, but due to other mitigating factors, the actual quality of the wrestling had greatly diminshed.  I don't believe these matches hold a candle to even the run-of-the-mill 6-man tags from 1990-1992, let alone the top flight singles matches like Jumbo-Misawa or Hansen-Kobashi.

that post was in resonpse to Bionic Redneck's post about not liking the end of the 97 match. It was a little a late. Oh, and I do feel the 97 Misawa/Kobashi matches are in the same boat as the early 90s matches.

[Guest DragonflyKid]

I agree the wrestling and psychology diminished and was replaced by sheer brutality. It's like an old school match that doesn't feature state of the art moves but can deliver all the drama in the world with stiffness, psychology, pacing, selling and so forth. War used to be fought with strategy because the weapons were basic, later on instead of a reliance mostly on strategy they rely on high-powered, precision weapons to get the job done. Strategy or psychology is still needed but on a lower scale because the offense is that much more intense. It's evolution to some and a devolution to others.

 

I can see the devolution opinion, I just see at it being inferior in certain areas which are important while superior in other areas.

 

The evolution part can only go so far, at some point there is no where else to go. The old school early 90's style of psychology will eventually prevail again because the head-dropping style was a consequence of a need to continue topping things over and over until things got impossible to top.

 

As long as a new crop of guys come along and aren't forced for whatever reason to resort to the head-dropping then a healthy mix of psychology and state of the art moves can be had.

 

I haven't seen any NOAH but I hear they have done or still do excessive head-dropping which I find disconcerting. Guys like Takayama and Omori and the younger guys shouldn't have to take part in that because it was Kawada/Kobashi and Misawa who had to find ways to top themselves. The younger guys should focus on the mental aspects of wrestling moreso than doing dangerous stuff as much as possible.

 

Hopefully I've made at least some sense.