Akira Taue, Kenta Kobashi & Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Jumbo Tsuruta, Masanobu Fuchi & The Great Kabuki (AJPW, Super Power Series - Day 10, 5/26/1990)

The speed with which All Japan got the ball rolling on Mitsuharu Misawa as company ace is honestly startling. Only three nights after being unmasked, Misawa won the All Asia Tag Team Title with Kobashi. Nine days later came this match, the fourth since Misawa's coming-out to pit him and his shifting tag teams against the forces of Jumbo Tsuruta, laying the building blocks for Misawa's ascension over the aging face of the promotion. This match starts relatively tame, with only a few early highlights like Taue holding Fuchi in place for a missile dropkick from Kobashi.

But the entire match takes a sharp turn when Jumbo tags in and goes to work on Kobashi, culminating in a running hip check that lays out the younger wrestler and which Jumbo bumps off of to retain speed and quickly dump both Taue and Misawa off the apron, visibly infuriating the rising face. Misawa eventually ends up in the ring with Kabuki, dumping him with a dropkick before executing one of his fake-out suicide dives and showing off his acrobatics by rolling the ropes and doing a reverse kip-up handspring just to preen as the crowd whistles and cheers. It's a small but revealing display of showmanship that manages to show his fierce determination in a seeming moment of light-heartedness, proving that he is spry, limber and quick-thinking, and he is ready to beat down these older guys.

Then, Misawa and Kabuki back toward Jumbo's corner, and the old ace makes the mistake of reaching in to grab Misawa to save his partner. Misawa stops in his tracks and looks back at Jumbo with a brief, perfect look of utter disdain, and then he swiftly, dispassionately smashes the man's face in with an elbow. Jumbo sells this like a shotgun blast to the face, falling off the apron and lying on th ground for so long that the crowd begins to completely ignore Kobashi and Fuchi working each other over to stand and crane over to the side to check on him. When he gets back up, he does not wait for a tag, storming the ring, crossing it in what seems like a single step and getting into a nasty pull-apart with Misawa, the kind where both men go for any punch or strike they can as they immediately collapse into a tangle of limbs. It takes all four of the other men in the match to successfully get the two apart, and still they lunge for each other after seemingly calming down.

The heat for this is wild, and both the key players sell their asses off even when not hitting each other. Watch how Jumbo, after being pulled off of Misawa, goes back to nursing the cheek the other man plowed with his elbow, wearing a look less of pain than lingering astonishment. Misawa, meanwhile, looks like a stone-cold killer, his face blank as his body tingles for more fighting. In the span of a few minutes, these two have the crowd rabid for a singles match.

Not to be outdone, everyone else fits his role perfectly. You can see the seeds of Kobashi still being planted, the underdog babyface who never gives up but also gets beaten like a rented mule. I especially liked one exchange where Jumbo beat the poor kid half to death, at one point hitting Kobashi so hard that the guy bounces into the ropes, then comes back and hits a desperate strike out of sheer inertia which succeeds only in making the ace madder. Kobashi, like Misawa, has speed, but the old-timers have resilience, and Jumbo in particular sells fatigue from keeping up with them while also enduring all of their individual and combined attacks. Taue has the least to do here, but even he gets some great stuff in, making several saves and generally working smarter than his two more impassioned teammates.

In fact, Taue has maybe my single favorite moment of psychology in this masterclass, wherein he heads into the ring to save Kobashi from Jumbo's cloverleaf. Placing himself directly in front of the legend, Taue pauses for just a second before, emboldened by Misawa's earlier offense, he proceeds to strike Jumbo in the face with a kind of shocked abandon, as if his hands were on autopilot and he cannot believe that he could be doing such a thing to Jumbo Tsuruta. Watching this match, it's infuriating to think of how frequently WWE puts together random tags with its singles talent just to fill time. Nearly every single person in this trios match comes out with a stronger sense of identity

This is the start of All Japan's '90s, missing only Kawada in how deftly it continued, elaborated upon, and created storylines that would propel the promotion to its peak in the coming years.

Rating: ****1/2

Tiger Mask II & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Samson Fuyuki & Yoshiaki Yatsu (AJPW, Super Power Series Day 1, 5/14/90)

This is the match that famously set All Japan on its course for the 1990s, quickly thrusting Mitsuharu Misawa into the spotlight to cover for Genichiro Tenryu's abrupt departure. The foundational moment of Tiger Mask instructing his partner to remove his mask and reveal the company's next ace is so seismic in wrestling history that it completely overshadows how awkwardly it was inserted into this meaningless, dull match. Some early spots are just mistimed, like an intriguing moment where Kawada is forced over to the ropes by Tiger Mask, who does not tag his partner out but instead lets him fight, only then change his mind and calmly tag in with to no reaction. Both Kawada and Misawa take their licks from Fuyuki and Yatsu, though the larger wrestlers lack the momentum to really ground and separate either man.

The actual moment of Misawa's unmasking is, in context, totally random. Irritated by being stalled out by his opponents, Tiger Mask starts stomping Yatsu's head and calls for Kawada to unmask him for no discernible reason. The mask has not been attacked by the other men, not tattered or warped to block Misawa's eyesight. Looking back, Misawa clearly unmasks solely to be seen as Misawa, and in fairness the sudden, visceral roar from the crowd, who begin loudly chanting his name. If Misawa had just gone on a killing spree at that moment, this match would have ruled. Instead, this only marks the halfway point of the match, which gradually slides back down to its repetitious, monotonous pace until Misawa scores a perfunctory pin with a bridging suplex. If you want the story of Misawa (and, by extension, All Japan), do yourself a favor and just stick to the clip of his unmasking and skip ahead to his better matches, which would come literally within days.

Rating: *3/4

Kuniaki Kobayashi vs. Tiger Mask II (AJPW, Genkitoh! Exciting Series Day 14, 3/9/1985)

This was the first Mitsuharu Misawa match to net a five-star rating from Dave Meltzer, and it even won the Wrestling Observer Match of the Year in 1985. It starts at top gear with both men spilling outside, rolling back in and nailing a series of whips and dropkicks that culminates in a tombstone piledriver from Kobayashi barely at the two-minute mark. Barely pausing to tease a cover, the two men then launch into yet more offense, with Tiger Mask taking control with a powerbomb before the balance largely settles at 50/50. The styles of the wrestlers are swiftly delineated, with Kobayashi getting in close for brutal strikes as Mask attempts to go for acrobatic and flying moves.

This is great stuff, but the match hits a snag when Kobayashi sits in his holds for interminable lengths of time, slowing down the pace to a crawl. Worse, there's no payoff to these handful of extended holds, as Misawa eventually powers out and immediately speeds back up to 100mph and keeps hitting his moves without the slightest show of weakness. The match recovers in the closing stretch, when both men amp back up to their original speed, then past it, hitting power move after power move. One sequence sees Tiger Mask nail a dropkick that Kobayashi takes a huge bump for, stumbling outside in a daze, only to sidestep a suicide dive that Misawa absorbs by landing on his feet. Later, Tiger ducks a dive of his own, only to take advantage of the miss to roll back into the room and launch himself onto Kobayashi. The finale, of Misawa suplexing Kobayashi over the ropes and getting dragged outside along with his opponent until the two brawl to a no-contest, is neat but confusing, and it's another knock on a match that just lacks the enduring heat of Misawa's later work.

Rating: ***1/2

Daniel Bryan vs. Chris Jericho (WWE, NXT, 2/23/2010)

NXT is such a different beast today that the notion of Bryan Danielson kicking off the first episode of the show with Chris Jericho sounds like a mini-dream match in the making. Instead, his debut as Daniel Bryan is notable for basically laying out the arc of his first few years with the company. He comes out to healthy applause and cuts a promo on his assigned pro mentor, The Miz, and Michael Cole's commentary abruptly switches from a matter-of-fact listing of Bryan's accomplishments into a sudden, overwhelming and complete burial of everything that Bryan did on the independent scene for a decade. The Miz comes out and accuses Bryan of having no charisma even as his ostensible protégé immediately wins the crowd over with some taunts about Miz's fake career trajectory. The dichotomy of Bryan's immediate rapport with the audience clashes violently with both the commentary's disrespect and the on-screen talent's dismissal in an eerie forecast of things to come.

But when Jericho himself comes out, it's obvious that he at least knows of and respects Bryan, and the two get into a sweet match that makes the most out of their insultingly brief six minutes. Nonetheless, what might otherwise have been just the first step of WWE's squash of Bryan instead turns into a fun little sprint in which Jericho gives up a great deal of offense to the new signee. Bryan works surprisingly sloppy here and there, including a tope suicida that is headed straight for Botchamania until a quick-thinking Y2J manages to catch Bryan just well enough to pass off Dragon's crash and burn into the announce table as Jericho's own counter. Elsewhere, the two submission wrestlers work some fine reversals and holds, legitimizing Bryan's mat game to the extent that Jericho must switch gears and hit a Codebreaker to sufficiently rattle Bryan to lock in a Liontamer for the tap. Even factoring in the mistakes, this was good, solid ring work with healthy heat, which only makes the consistent commentary burial all the more dissonant. Still, as a demonstration of both Bryan's ability and the kind of crap he'd have to endure for years, a fitting intro the wrestler.

Match Rating: **1/2

QT Marshall (c) vs. Bryan Danielson (IWA-PR, Summer Attitude, 7/17/2010)

One of Bryan's matches in-between being cut from NXT and WWE bringing him back on-board, this was for Marshall's IWA Puerto Rico championship. Despite this top billing, the match is largely underwhelming, taking a solid foundation of Marshall's heavy, undisciplined strikes forcing Danielson on the defensive and robbing him of his chain wrestling skills. But the David vs. Goliath narrative is thwarted by Marshall's minuscule size advantage, to say nothing of Danielson never showing an ounce of fear against Marshall's assault. The work is crisp enough, but that's the least it could be given how little they do. The match threatens to gain some steam when Danielson does his surfboard fake-out into a knee stomp, only for the feed to go to commercial. Things resume with some slams from Marshall that Danielson eventually counters into a small-package for 2 before working his way to an eventual comeback with some clotheslines and a missile dropkick. Marshall gets too cocky and taunts Danielson with the title, only to get his dumb ass caught in a Yes lock for the tap. A weird, flat match for Danielson's IWA-PR debut, especially given that he won the belt his first night.

Match Rating: **

Bryan Danielson vs. Low Ki (ECWA, Super 8, 2/24/2001)

It's wild that this is the first time Bryan Danielson and Low Ki squared off against each other. From the outset, their chemistry is rock solid, with both men mixing stiff chops and strikes with the occasional high spot, such as an early Tidal Krush from Ki that sends Danielson reeling, or Danielson countering an Irish whip by flipping Ki onto the apron before kicking him down and hitting a tope. The selling by both men is great even before they take the real fight to each other, their weariness putting over their previous matches in the Super 8 tournament and adding heat even to the early exchanges by stressing how much every hit hurt. But things really get interesting when Dragon goes after Ki's leg, including an absolutely sick-looking hold where Danielson wrenches the poor guy's foot all the way up and over his head.

It's utterly, bewilderingly breathtaking how good these men were here. Not "good for their age" or "good for an indie" but good enough to steal a major promotion PPV. There's one spot alone in which Danielson catches a Tidal Krush and converts it fluidly into a bridging dragon suplex that is just divine. It's obvious that Danielson is a future star, but I came away most impressed with Low Ki, who comes off as both resilient and a quick thinker, capped off by a great spot in which he manages to hop up the turnbuckles with his one good foot to set up a phoenix splash. Ki takes the trophy home with a brutal dragon clutch that he wrenches so deeply that you think he might rip Danielson in half. This is all terrific stuff, but the most rewarding aspect of the match is the chance to see, almost in real time, independent wrestling change and evolve, laying the seeds for the careers of both men and the scene that developed around them and a handful of other emerging talents. It's hugely important, but even setting that aside, this is the kind of match you hope to be able to put together after years in the business, not two years out of training school.

Match Rating: ****1/2