Takao Omori and Jun Akiyama vs The Fantastics – AJPW
All Asia Tag Team Title Match
01/29/1995
The All Asia Tag Titles are the oldest titles that still exist in Japanese wrestling today. With that, there comes an element of history and kudos for winning them, even if the AJPW World Tag Team Titles have long since usurped them as the most important tag championships under the All Japan banner. For many newer stars with a bright future ahead of them, an All Asia Tag Title reign was often the starting point before moving on to bigger and better things.
Having been All Asia Tag Champions five times, Doug Furnas and Dan Kroffat decided that their focus needed to be on the World Tag Team Titles, a title that they had never won (and would never win). Vacating the titles left them up for grabs in a title tournament which would eventually see the team of the Fantastics take on Takao Omori and Jun Akiyama to give all four men a shot at their first titles under the AJPW banner.
The Fantastics’ continued booking in All Japan felt strange in hindsight. Long since out of the mainstream limelight in America, Rogers and Fulton spent eight years touring AJPW on and off. During this time, they had crossed paths with Akiyama and Omori with different partners; Akiyama often victorious, Omori less so. Most importantly heading into this final was the fact that The Fantastics had won the only contest between the two teams a mere twenty two days earlier.
Several hard living years had left Fulton and Rogers not looking quite like the blowjob babyfaces they had once been. There may have been a little more timber around the trunk, but they still were more than capable of mixing it with the fresh faced ‘home’ team. This point was emphasised in the opening minutes as both teams struggled to maintain control for any sustained period of time, with Rogers landing a top rope sunset flip for a nearfall an initial highlight.
Both Fulton and Rogers were more than happy to trade strikes with their Japanese counterparts, and their years of experience saw Akiyama in particular dumped to the canvas with some quick double team strike combinations, including an Irish whip into a diving tackle off the top by Rogers. Fulton attempted to bring the heeling at times, punching and raking at the face of Akiyama at ringside to admittedly limited response.
With a double dropkick off of the second rope leaving him grounded for a nearfall, it became all about Akiyama fighting his way back to his corner to make the tag. The Fantastics’ technical offense was supplemented with jumping forearms off the apron to Akiyama’s throat and head first smashes into the barricade to finally elicit the first chants for Akiyama. Twice, Omori would be forced to come into the ring and break up dragon sleeper attempts, but Akiyama showed little sign of breaking out of the Fantastics’ corner of the ring.
After rolling into a back suplex to splash Fulton, Akiyama was finally able to make the tag. Initially, Omori was the proverbial house on fire, but the experience of The Fantastics saw Akiyama dispatched to ringside with a double dropkick before Omori was dumped throat first onto the top rope. An assisted senton off the top rope on Omori forced Akiyama to break the pin at two, whilst Omori only just kicked out of a Rocket Launcher.
The Fantastics were not the only men who could fly. Shortly after Rogers missed a moonsault, a back suplex/elbowdrop combination would get a nearfall, as would a modified slam into a second Omori elbowdrop. Tellingly, it would be Akiyama’s exploder suplex that finally ended the contest; Fulton unable to kick out as Omori held Rogers’ leg at ringside.
A match that built to a satisfying conclusion, as much due to the subtle increase in heel shenanigans by the Fantastics as anything which highlighted tag team nous honed over many years. As for Omori and Akiyama, the team would go over a thousand days as champion; over three hundred days more than the next longest reign. Both men went on to win many more titles, but this was the one that set them on the path to greatness.
