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US Indies & Japan: History |
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Second, someone asked about Tajiri. Tajiri primarily works for HUSTLE. HUSTLE is a company that tries to do 'Sports Entertainment,' where the HUSTLE army takes on the evil Monster Army. They've been known to use non-wrestlers (models, quasi-celebrities) in a wrestling capacity, wrestlers in a non-wrestling capacity, and craziness ensues such as Toshiaki Kawada singing and, once, singing in drag. They've had memorable storylines such as when the Great Muta made an appearance in a tag match (Muta and RG vs. Yinling and Tajiri), where Muta misted Yinling and she became pregnant with Muta's child (who turned out to be Akebono, former sumo wrestler). Yeah..... Now, onto to today's column... For today's column, I wanted to touch on a few things that you'll see often when searching for Japanese wrestling. But first, a somewhat brief history lesson. I am not an authority on wrestling from these eras, but I will tell you what I know. Pro Wrestling in Japan didn't really gain much popularity until the JWA which began in 1953. The biggest name of that era was Rikidozan. Rikidozan became a hero to people of post-war Japan by being put up against Americans and defeating them with his patented chop. His popularity at the time was beyond Hulk Hogan's and the Rock's, it was cultural. Rikidozan died in 1963, as the legend goes, he was stabbed by a member of the yakuza (Japanese mafia) at a night club and continued on with his evening. Rikidozan's two most well-known and talented students were Antonio Inoki and Giant Baba. Some time after the passing of Rikidozan, the JWA began a huge push for Giant Baba, which caused Antonio Inoki to leave the promotion and found his own promotion, New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Inoki found great success with New Japan and he set out to prove the superiority of pro wrestling. He did this by facing others who were masters of their craft (judo, karate, boxing, etc.). Inoki was the guy who face Muhammed Ali in the 'wrestler vs. boxer' match where Inoki kicked away at Ali's knees for 15 rounds. Inoki and others, namely Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Satoru Sayama (the first Tiger Mask), Tatsumi Fujinami, and Akira Maeda, began incorporating moves from those various disciplines into their wrestling (and several of those guys were already experts in those styles). That style became known as Strong Style, which laid the groundwork (pun not intended) for MMA. This was during the 80's. Also, during the 80's, several wrestlers left to form other promotions (those who left: Sayama, Fujiwara, Maeda, Takada, amongst others). The most well-known being the UWF, Newborn UWF, and UWFi. Those in the UWF and it's other incarnations took Strong Style further and created Shoot Style, which is to make it look as real as possible. You're not going to see too much rope-running, 450 splashes, and/or fake strikes. During the 1990's, the biggest names in New Japan were the Three Musketeers, Shinya Hashimoto, the Great Muta, and Masahiro Chono, with Hashimoto being seen as the flag-carrier for Strong Style. Giant Baba left the JWA a bit after Inoki did and formed his own promotion, All Japan Pro Wrestling. With All Japan, Baba focused more on having wrestling matches tell a story rather than looking as real as possible. This led to matches with intense drama and long finishing sequences. This became known as King's Road. During the 80's, the biggest names in AJPW were Giant Baba, Jumbo Tsurta, and Genichiro Tenryu (as far as I know). This style reached it's pinnacle during the 90's with the four men who would be known as the 'Four Heavenly Kings.' They are Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada, Kenta Kobashi, and Akira Taue. The matches between these four would be absolutely epic. Especially the storied rivalry between Misawa and Kawada, which dated back to their high school days. The match that just about everyone points to when talking about this style and those four is the tag match that had Misawa & Kobashi team against the Holy Demon Army (Kawada & Taue) that occured on June 5th, 1995. I can you, from watching it myself, that that match is truly unreal. You do yourself a disservice by not watching every minute of it. After the death of Giant Baba, Misawa took over as president of AJPW. Not liking the way Baba's widow wanted to run the company, Misawa left, taking the majority of the roster with him, and forming Pro Wrestling NOAH. Now, you know a bit of history of wrestling in Japan as well as two of the most important styles and you have a few more names to plug into youtube. Since I hopefully got most of the introductory material out of the way, I'm going to start giving my opinion on matches, shows (past and upcoming), and wrestlers. And I'm going to start with some match reviews: AJPW - November 1989 - All-Asia Tag Team Titles - Doug Furnas and Dan Kroffat (champions) vs. Kenta Kobashi and Joe Malenko This was Kobashi's first shot at any title in All Japan. He's teamed up with Joe Malenko, Dean's brother who is a better mat wrestler than Dean. They’re facing Doug Furnas and Dan Kroffat (also known as Phil LaFon) and they are the greatest tag team you've never heard of, the Can-Am Express. Yes, this match is old, but it's one of my favorites. The Can-Ams and Kobashi had many, many encounters (peaking in 1992), but this match laid the foundation for those amazing matches later on. Since you probably won’t be able to find this match anywhere (I found it by sheer dumb luck), I’m going to provide a match summary. There's a lot going on in this match as Kroffat and Malenko don't like each other, Kroffat and Kobashi don't like each other, and Furnas is just looking to out-power the both of them. When Malenko proves his technical prowess over Furnas, Kroffat does the same to Kobashi in a game of who can one-up the other. Kroffat even uses the Cattle Mutilation (Bryan Danielson was 8 years old at this time). Then the two teams start really going at it, trying to expose and exploit any kind of weakness that they can. The Can-Am double teams start taking their toll on the Kobashi/Malenko duo. Kobashi almost steals the victory after nailing a missle dropkick, but the Can-Ams make him pay nailing him with a top rope leg drop and body splash. Kobashi perserveres (a running theme in his career) and gets the tag to Malenko. Malenko and Kobashi hit a couple of double teams of their own, like a dropkick to german suplex. Both teams are even and it only took one simple mistake by Kobashi to let the Can-Ams hit a jumping dropkick-powerbomb combination for the win. NJPW - July 6, 2007 - IWGP Championship - Yuji Nagata (champion) vs. Togi Makabe Makabe is leader of NJPW's heel faction, GBH. Nagata has established himself that the top man of NJPW and was the IWGP champion at that time. During the weeks before this match, Makabe had be continually insulting Nagata in interviews. Nagata doesn't take too kindly to being insulted. It’s a classic heel-face match with loads and loads of brutality. This is one of my favorite matches from last year and a career-making performance by Makabe. IWA: Mid-South - September 2006 - Ted Petty Invitational - Claudio Castagnoli vs. 'Lightning' Mike Quackenbush This was a second round match of the TPI, which is an annual tournament featuring the best talent on the US indies. This was my favorite match of the tournament. Claudio has his best matches against smaller wrestlers in which he can act as a base for them. Quack and Claudio go absolutely wild here. Hot from the word go. Claudio starts working on Quack's known weakness, his back. Which plays to Claudio's favor, as Claudio's finisher, the Ricola Bomb, targets the back. Quack is using his speed trying to keep Claudio off balance. The finish is just spectacular. This is just pure and absolute fun. Go find it. Now. And I'm going to end this column by asking you to search 'Madoka Ranhei' on Youtube and enjoy. Views: 410 
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Comment # 1
Nice article again. Hope to see a review of those great Dynamite kid vs Tiger Mask matches I've just watched thanks to a wise piece of adviece somebody gave me
Posted by Rodrigo "Crippler" Munoz on Thursday, July 24, 2008
Comment # 2
Nice one, keep them comming, after watching some of the vids and reading up on japan and indies it gives you a new appreciation for the business
Posted by Alucard on Thursday, July 24, 2008
Comment # 3
A real good read :)
One question thou, what was the Japan company that had all the talent swapping with the WCW?
Posted by Sammy_D on Thursday, July 24, 2008
Comment # 4
Thank you for a good read!
People, if you consider yourself a fan of wrestling, search some of those names mentioned in the arcticle above in youtube. You probably won't like everything but there exists great wrestling that you have never even heard about. Do yourself a favor and look it up while waiting for next challeng in TWG.
Requests: Highlights of ROH and IWA:MS, an article on Memphis, profiles of prominent Japanese wrestlers past and present, great gaijin wrestlers, your favourite matches
Keep up the good work.
Posted by The Alistaja on Thursday, July 24, 2008
Comment # 5
along with mr. indy's, the best reading. congrats
Posted by wolfmask on Thursday, July 24, 2008
Comment # 6
Good article. I think too many people are unaware of the better caliber or wrestling you get from Japanese Federations, which is a real shame considering how much Vince waters down the WWE.
Posted by Black Mathias on Friday, July 25, 2008
Comment # 7
GO YANKES
Posted by rabmaliv on Friday, July 25, 2008
Comment # 8
i agree that was great
Posted by cazzly on Tuesday, July 29, 2008
