Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi & Mitsuharu Misawa

[7.0] "Holy Demon Army boss a significant portion of this one, so it's a shame Baba didn't see fit to give them another win to further boost their credentials. This is the least engaging of the three 60 minute draws from '95 AJPW. The initial 2-on-1 segment with Misawa wiped out on the floor is super dramatic, but the Taue beatdown and dead end Kobashi arm work both wear the crowd out and you get the first major signs that the magical heat these four have been able to generate over the previous five years is on the wane. There are a handful of effective title switch teases as the clock winds down, but the match fizzles out at the death ***1/2"

[8.0] "Expectations are super high with these four legends. This is, of course, very good, but not mandatory viewing. The long Kobashi arm heat segment at ~40 minutes was unnecessary. They had built the babyfaces getting smashed plenty by then. Also, the final stretch was lackluster."

[8.0] "A slight bit disappointing because the 4 Pillars had matches as great as this in far lesser time, plus they'd literally already had a 60-minute draw earlier that year, but it's still Misawa, Kobashi, Kawada, and Taue together, so this still ended up being great. The first half was definitely the more 'compelling' section of the match, even if the more traditionally 'exciting' stuff came in the final 1/4th. I loved the renewing of Misawa and Kawada's rivalry at the start. The way Misawa destroyed Kawada with that German suplex was awesome, and it did a great job teasing that Kawada might be down for quite a while, only for the story to flip 180 as then Misawa was KO'd outside for ages after taking Taue's Nodowa Otoshi off the apron. This made Kobashi the defiant and endearing babyface as he fired up in response. He admirably tried his best to fight 1-v-2 to avenge Misawa, but eventually Kawada and Taue's viciousness and numbers advantage proved too great. Kobashi would still get some excitingly defiant comebacks, but never anything substantial, as the champs just continued bullying the hell out of him and allowing him to show off his world-class babyface-selling. I LOVED when Misawa was finally back on the apron, only for Taue to once again go after him and this time DDT him on the unprotected floor. Great heat there as Kobashi's lifeline was heartlessly ripped away, but that DDT thankfully wasn't as devastating as the Nodowa Otoshi was, so Misawa managed to recover much quicker. There were so many great hope spots for Kobashi when it looked like he'd finally manage to tag Misawa in, only for them to constantly be thwarted. It therefore felt immensely satisfying to see Misawa finally come in for the hot tag and absolutely destroy both Kawada and Taue. The match sadly felt much more directionless in the 2nd half. Some engaging story elements came along, like Kobashi's arm and Kawada's leg both being targeted, but neither amounted to a consistent narrative. Instead, both teams just ended up trading control back and forth, with all 4 men taking turns playing the face-in-peril desperate to tag out before eventually bringing out some intermittent big bombs for the final 20 minutes (all of which were gloriously dangerous-looking). Without any single story being properly focussed upon, the match seemed to devolve into all 4 men more or less repeating the same spots and segments they'd already done, just with a few superficial alterations and some roles switched around. It became pretty obvious by the pacing at the 40-minute mark that this was going to a draw, and nothing they did as they got closer to the time limit managed to convince me nor the live crowd otherwise, which sucked a lot of excitement out. The match still managed to have great intensity, fantastic selling, intelligent tag-team strategies, and a true sense of struggle, so this was still a thoroughly great match. I still expect something better when going 60, though. ****"

[8.0] "The match peaked in the first half before the reset but the last half was still a good closing stretch. Kobashi was absolutely phenomenal from bell to bell with some impeccable selling and great offence. The Holy Demon Army took out Misawa with the Nodawa off the apron and left Kobashi on his own on the defensive for such a long time. He did a great job of credibly taking the fight to Taue (and Kawada, but this stretch was mostly Taue and Kobashi kicking ass) before ultimately getting overwhelmed. Misawa is pretty much on death's door during this time period too. It's basically 2 v 1 for a good chunk. The match lost me a bit during the reset with Misawa returning to the match and the pacing slowing down dramatically. But once it regained some flow, the quality came with it. Kawada opted to work on Kobashi? s arm, locking in some nifty wrist locks and various submissions. Great match in parts, but not totally connected together enough to be a classic. ****"

[10.0] "This was compelling wrestling. And it didn't even feel like a wrestling match, in that you never got the sense that they were stretching things out because they were going 60:00 or that they were building a match up to peak during the final five or ten minutes. It felt like an athletic contest that happened to go the distance."

[7.0] "Some excellent heel work from Taue & Kawada, much like the one from months prior, where Misawa and Kobashi basically had to play the same game to avoid getting screwed. Taue and Kawada tried to take Misawa out for a long stretch of time to single out Kobashi, but eventually Kobashi and Misawa flipped that around and took Kawada out for a while. My problem with the match was that it was way, way too long and they wound up treading the same ground until the time limit. I didn't know that it'd wind up a time limit draw, as I hadn't checked beforehand. Had I known that, I may have skipped the match entirely."