vs Andre the Giant & Giant Baba (11/20/1990)
This is Taue and Jumbo's first real time in the ring with Andre. Jumbo was in a battle royal in 1974, but this is real virgin territory for Taue. This is fine. You get all of the Andre stuff you'd expect, Baba does everything he needs to do to make Andre's moments meaningful, Jumbo plays his part, but fiery underdog Taue slapping the shit out of Andre is the highlight of this match. That isn't the highlight of a great match, but it certainly makes this one worth watching.
vs Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW 9/4/1991)
There's a lot to like here. I would say that over the course of these matches, Taue has stood out more to me than Jumbo, and he's fine here, but Jumbo is great, in particular, the exchanges with Kawada are great. The shame of this match is that the Kawada/Jumbo sections aren't the main trust of the match. The main conflict is Jumbo and Misawa, which is fine, but it doesn't really pop here. Misawa wins with a bad chinlock, which is a bit of a bummer.
vs Dynamite Kid & Johnny Smith (11/16/1991)
Something I struggle to enjoy is a match where you know the other side has no chance of winning. I can enjoy it on a certain level. I don't think it's bad, but if I don't see any real chance of one side winning, then I just don't have much interest. This is one of those matches. Smith and Dynamite, especially in 1991, are not pinning either Taue or Jumbo, they are not going to submit one of those guys, they won't get enough offense to win by countout. They get some shine here; they are on top for most of the match. The vast majority of Taue and Jumbo's offense takes place in the last minute or so, when they actually start giving a shit.
vs Stan Hansen/Joel Deaton (All Japan 1/19/1992)
We're brawling from the start, with Hansen taking it to Taue, before Taue shows some fire and turns the tables. For about 2 minutes, I thought Joel Deaton might actually be pretty good. It didn't last, and he quickly went back down to 'Stan's friend' in my assessment, but he had flashes here. Interestingly, there is very few Hansen/Jumbo interactions in the opening part of this match. Their interaction is limited almost entirely to Jumbo hitting a backdrop driver and Deaton breaking up the pin attempt after. Taue is impressive here. He takes a lot of offense, carries most of the match for his team, and looks good doing both. He ties up Hansen so that Jumbo can take care of Deaton and their team gets the win.
vs Steve Williams/Terry Gordy (All Japan 9/6/1992)
This is a rock fight. A lot of punches, big moves, and not a lot else. That's not a bad thing; it's exactly what you'd want from this combination of guys. The bomb throwing is pretty even through the first half of it, with it happening in pretty much every permutation. Things devolve a bit, and the action moves to outside for a bit, and after that, when things head back in the ring with Taue and Williams, Doc hits a backdrop driver, and Taue is pretty much a non-factor from that point. Jumbo tags in and puts up a valiant effort, but he can't fight Doc and Gordy by himself, and eventually Gordy hits the signature powerbowb for the win.
Verdict
This team wasn't around for very long, about two years. They were good, I don't know how much they feel like a team, they feel like Jumbo and a partner to me, but you can't really argue with the matches. I would say, up to this point, these are the best 5 matches we've seen, by a pretty wide margin, I just don't know how much a team these two guys are.
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