AJPW - 2/27/2000 - Jun Akiyama vs Mitsuharu Misawa

AJPW - 2/27/2000 - Jun Akiyama vs Mitsuharu Misawa

Jun Akiyama beat Mitsuharu Misawa at 23:40 with the wrist-clutch exploder as seen above. Good match. Jun was on the ball here showing as much fire as I've seen him show and being innovative with working Misawa's neck. He controlled the early portion before they slowed it down with matwork. Misawa then took control and no sold for a bit before they went to the finishing stretch and Akiyama got the win. Misawa had some good facials but he really stopped selling his neck near the end, which hurt this. They spent all match working on it, including a nasty side tombstone but he just stopped selling. That took me out of it a bit and definitely knocks the rating down. I also thought they could have did a little more with the finishing stretch and shouldn't have had Misawa no sell an exploder. Rating: ****