Kobashi or Kawada....

[Guest Dynamite Kido]

Well, I am only talking about currently. I just wanted to see what you guys thought. It's pretty evident that obviously Kawada is better as far as all time goes, but I personally haven't seen any new Kawada (I hate new All Japan).......and I have seen tons of Kobashi.

 

So who's better NOW?

[Guest krazykat72]

Personally, I've always enjoyed Kobashi more. He's more spectacular and does a better job getting me emotionally involved in matches. Kawada's more fundamentally sound and I love his work, but I just don;t make the connection to him that I do to Kenta. It's pretty much how I feel about Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. (with Bret as Kawada and HBK as Kobashi).

As for right now, the only recent Kawada matches I've seen were him vs. Otani last September (good match, not great) and him vs. Ogawa from December (ok, great heat, but nothing special) whereas I've seen almost all the major Kobashi matches of the last 18 months or so. Kawada doesn't have the talented opponents (Akiyama, Nagata, Takayama) Kobashi does, so it's hard to really judge him as "worse" than Kenta is now, but seeing how much I've enjoyed Kobashi lately, I don't know if Kawada could be doing much better in the same spot. Hope that made sense.

 

-Paul Jacobi-

[Guest fanofcoils]

Who are the new Kobashi and Kawada now?

[Guest krazykat72]

There is no new Kobashi or Kawada. That's part of the problem in Japan. They're having lots of difficulties creating young stars (similar to a certain company over here). I love NOAH, but I fear for it in a few years when Misawa and Kobashi are too broken down to even go anymore.

 

-Paul Jacobi-

[SinToxic 0]

Kawada is one of those few timeless tiredless wrestlers who look almost as good as they did in their prime. While i enjoy Kenta (who is younger than Kawada) he just looks bloated and out of focus most of the time.

 

To see Kawada still perform great even with the new wave of shitstyle gaijins just shows how much better he actually is.

[Guest Salacious Crumb]

Kobashi easily but it's not saying much. Kawada matches are just big kickfests anymore.

[Guest Dynamite Kido]

Kobashi easily but it's not saying much. Kawada matches are just big kickfests anymore.

From what I heard though....many people say Kawada because he has been able to pull some fairly decent stuff out of terrible opponents.......I don't know though......I haven't seen the matches.

[Guest NiTR0]

Well this debate is kind of hard because the two have different opponents. Kawada doesn't have the quality of workers working with him that Kobahsi has. Foley? WTF. Anyway, I'd say Kobashi, but then again, I don't think Kawada has been given a 'great' opponent. His match with Hashimoto weren't all that either. Long stretches of boring.

[Guest Dynamite Kido]

Well this debate is kind of hard because the two have different opponents. Kawada doesn't have the quality of workers working with him that Kobahsi has. Foley? WTF. Anyway, I'd say Kobashi, but then again, I don't think Kawada has been given a 'great' opponent. His match with Hashimoto weren't all that either. Long stretches of boring.

I know it's a hard debate, I thought it would strike up some good convo......but apparently people could careless. I was mainly looking for a person that has seen all of their stuff between the two to get their gauge on who was better.

[Guest Black Tiger]

2004 hasn't been a banner year for either one of them. Kobashi's matches are full of his usual goofy selling and throwing out the head drops, although I would like to see his match vs Taue, that was earlier today.

 

Kawada's have mostly been kick fests, where he'll sell the hell out of his knee, and then forget it later on. The best Kawada match I've seen so far is his Hashimoto title defense, which featured a nice story with some good selling from both of them. Best Kobashi match would have been his Takayama title defense. I didn't like it quite as much as others have, but it definitely had its good points about it.

[Austin3164life 0]

Kobashi has had an awesome year, so I'll easily say Kenta is better as of right now, though Kawada/Hashimoto was good. Kawada has been getting crap all year (Mick Foley anyone?). Kobashi/Akiyama stands as my MOTY, and will be until I see something that tops it. I'm also interested in seeing Kobashi/Taue, but Taue's really dropped off, and I don't like hearing Taue marks saying he's better than Kobashi right now.