gordi

I think "on Morrissey" is kind of an unusual context for "Keiji Mutoh"

There are a TON of old matches that I re-watch every year or two. I simply can't imagine living the rest of my life and never again enjoying 6/9/95, Andre vs Hansen, The I Quit Cage Match, Bret vs Austin, Bret vs Owen, IYH Canadian Stampede, Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs The Can-Am Express, Bryan vs Morishima, Rey vs Eddie, Liger vs Sano, Jumbo vs Tenryu, Baba vs Race, 12/16/88, Hokuto & Kandori vs. Kong & Nakano, 12/16/96 (M-Pro), Billyken vs Togo, The Cibernetico that El Felino won, Steamboat vs Savage, War Games, Funk vs Flair, CM Punk vs Samoa Joe, The Destroyer vs Baba, Dump vs Chiggy, Ohtani vs Liger, Bryan vs KENTA, The '92 Rumble, Han vs Tamura... Hell, I can't imagine never again watching Goldberg vs The Giant, Hulk Hogan vs Nikolia Volkoff, Midnight Express vs. The James Boys, or some random John Tenta match that I liked... If it's only about footage, then option number 2 by a f'n landslide. If you are including live wrestling, then it's almost a dumb question. I refuse to give up the option to go to more live shows. Devil can go straight back to Hell, in that case.

That's from Kuuga's Osaka Pro Godbye party. Somebody brought Dom Pérignon. That's from the time Kuuga, Kenji, myself, and one other guy tried to finish of an entire cask of sake. We got more than halfway there. Sometimes, at Cooger's drinking parties, I meet other pro wrestlers. At this party, I met a very nice Joshi Pro Westler from Osaka named Kana And some horrible pro wrestling bad guys. BOOOOO!!!

I'm not sure exactly what I did (if anything) to "earn" membership in the "People Cooger Doesn't Have To Wear His Mask Around" club. Most of the times we've gone drinking have been either: Pro wrestling parties (so, a mix of friends, family, and fans) or situations that combine drinking with promotion (so the wrestlers are all in character), or to places that put up posters and do other advertising or sponsorship in exchange for wrestlers coming there (and again they want them in character). The first night he took his mask off while I was there was at A-Toys, a wrestling and MMA bar in Osaka run by the fighter Tetsuo Kondo. It was a Dotonbori Pro Wrestling drinking party, and a pot luck dinner. People started drifting out around 10, but I stuck around because we were watching WrestleMania II on the TV. Around 11, with only a few people there, Kuuga removed his mask to wipe off some sweat... and just left it off. Ebessan (the third one) was also there. He wrestles under his real name, Osamu Suganuma these days. He's also a great guy to drink with, warm-hearted and funny. The atmosphere at most of these drinking events is just amazing: It's very much an "If you are Cooger's friend, then you are also my friend" kind of situation. It's been like that since my first time drinking with him, eight years ago, at an Osaka Pro fan party. Back then my Japanese was pretty bad, and it can't have been easy to let me know where and when and how to get there and so on... but Kuuga has always gone out of his way to communicate carefully and make sure I understand, and even arrange to have someone meet me at a landmark close to the party...

that should be awesome. I've been playing the PC version since it came out on early release and it is great. Reportedly, the Management of the Ring mode is going to be made available as DLC this month. I'll definitely get that. If the NJPW mode is made available for PC I'd consider paying more for that, too.

I wonder if Terry Taylor and Sam Houton might also team up in the future... Either way (face or heel) that's a great promo from Taylor and a good story developing between him and Houston.

Nope, another thing in the works since I picked them up. Liked their various heel runs in places like Mid-South and Memphis and wanted to bring that here. Also wanted a heel unit to act as a foil for the Sunshine Boys and the Rougeaus. Glad to hear it, and that does seem like a role they will excell in.

Definitely going to,be a great Main Event. Also Barrabas being all spiteful and petty is just the right kind of hilarious heeling.

Looks like yet another event I would have had to trade tapes for back in 1985... This world's version of Gordi would be spending all the money from his part time job on blank VHS tapes and stamps.

I sincerely hope you aren't turning The Guerreros to appease that nitwit who complained about you having too many "ethnic faces," That being said, I guess they will be every bit as effective in the bad guy role as they were as good guys.

JWA at the Tokyo Dome - January 4th, 1986 Main Event: JWA Champion Tenryu and Ric Flair vs Jumbo Tsuruta and Ricky Steamboat JWA Japanese Championship Title Match: Tatsumi Fujnami (Champion) vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara Stan Hansen, Terry Gordy, and Phil Hickerson vs Giant Baba, Yoshiaki Yatsu, and Big John Nord JWA Tag Team Championship Match: Power Rush (Champions) vs The High Flyers ***BREAK*** JWA Middleweight Championship Match: Tiger Mask (Champion) vs Kuniaki Kobayashi Crusher Jerry Blackwell, Baby Bull Leon White, and Big Danny Spivey vs The Machines Footloose and Masa Fuchi vs Mitsuharu Misawa, Gran Hamada, and Hiro Hase "Thunder" Yamada vs Owen Hart ***BREAK*** Mil Mascaras, Dos Caras, and El Canek vs Hashimoto, Mutoh, and Chono Ashura Hara vs Anoaro Atisanoe "Carpenter" Teranishi and "Samurai" Koshinaka vs The Mighty Animals Black Tiger and Kensuke vs "Esperanza" Takada and Masakatsu Funaki Ueda and Goto vs Burning Demons Note; If you have sent me a wrestler for the 4th and I have foolishly left him off of this card, or if I have included someone that you haven't sent, or if you are unhappy with how I am booking your guy... please let me know here or on pm ASAP Also, if you think any of this looks awesome, feel free to let me know, too.

Looking forward to it! That is pretty funny. Oh hell yeah! Who do you think would win in a fight: King Tonga, Meng, or Haku?

Expecting Roddy Piper to pop up. Also, more Austin, more Owen, A particular IYH match... more Perfect, a particular Bulldog match... Maybe Benoit?? The Piper and Austin WrestleMania matches and the IYH Team Austin vs Team Bret match would be my top 3, With the Owen WrestleMania match and the "other" Austin match rounding out my top 5. I'm pretty sure your list will be different at the top, though. I'm wondering if any Hart Foundation matches made the top 25.

It was his birthday yesterday. I met him years ago, at a Vancouver All Star Wrestling event... then a couple of years after that I moved to Japan and met him again, and he remembered me from Vancouver. We've been drinking buddies for eight years now. He's a great guy, a great wrestler (in my opinion, one of the absolute best veteran indie wrestlers in the world) and a true friend. Hopefully I'll have some Kuuga-related drinking and wrestling stories to tell in the new year. Here are a few pictures from the past 8 years: This is the bar where about 40 of Kuuga's friends had our year-end party. It was three hours of all you can eat Chinese food, and all-you-can-drink. Good times. This is from the karaoke party in late October. I am pleased to be one of the group of people around whom Kuuga feels comfortable removing his mask. We were drinking buddies for seven years before I saw his face. Eating kushikatsu in Osaka's exotic Shinsekai area, shortly after my birthday. At the rooftop BBQ in Namba Parks this summer I'll post more later.

Definitely come her if you get the chance. I love it so much that my third trip to Japan was a permanent move

That makes perfect sense. I don't want to disrupt your thread, but out of curiosity: Have you ever been to Japan? I live in Nara City (also in Kansai) and Kobe and Osaka are both places I love to visit.

It's a minor point, but Kobe and Osaka are entirely separate cities in different prefectures. Kobe's waterfront is located on Osaka Bay, but in fact Kobe City is in Hyōgo Prefecture.

Black Bart calling the Rougeaus "the Cousteaus" is hilarious.

Doc turns to the dark side! Yikes. Didn't see that coming. Imagine facing off against Doc and Barbarian with Warlord and Akbar in their corner.

Thanks, brother. It's great to be back. Don't get me wrong: It's not that I don't want to do a ton of research, it's that I don't have as much time to devote to this project as I did last year. I love learning about wrestlers that are new to me. I'll definitely take a look at Invader #3. I mainly know him from that Infamous match vs Manny Fernandez that was on that old "bloodiest matches" VHS comp back in the tape-trading days. "In real life" #3 did a full tour with All Japan in the summer of '86, mostly teaming with Super Medico or Hiro Saito on the mid-card. It would be really helpful if more promoters could do what you have done here: Recommend a worker (Invader #3), some specific matches (the scaffold match with Chicky, some matches vs Eric Embry) and what I should be scouting for (world class junior). Embry's another guy I don't yet know much about. Also: After you told me about how Kensuke was used in PR, I can't stop imagining him in, like, karate pants with a big red belt, doing exaggerated HI-YAAAAH poses after every chop. It's killing me.

What JWA can do for you: I gave up playing Madden Mobile (which I really enjoyed) to make time to get back into this project. I missed this too much. I enjoy how it lets me use my imagination and I enjoy working with the other promoters in this project. If you've got guys you wanna send to Japan to get experience or guys you wanna send out of the territory to cool them off or whatever, I wanna make it happen. I'll do what I can to work with you and I'll always try to make everybody look good and strong over here even if they have to take a loss. That being said, it's likely I wont' have as much time to do research (e.g. Last year I literally watched hours of footage in January and February to prepare to write up the NJPW Tag Tournament, and I enjoyed every minute of it... but I am a whole lot busier with work and family these days so I likely won't be able to do that again). Also when I am pressed by time I might have to do shorter match write-ups which may (at times) fail to do full justice to the guys you send over here. I am sorry, in advance... but I'll always do the best I can. If you wanna use anyone on my roster, just ask. I am always going to be open to that, but I will generally need my big names (Tenryu, Jumbo, Sayama, Fujiwara, Choshu and so on) to be back in Japan for the biggest shows each month. What you can do for JWA: We'll always wanna have outside participation in our big cards: January, April, July, and October 4th and our tour-ending shows on the 24th of every other month. We'd like to have a few big names come over for our Tournament running October 14th through 24th, and for the big January 4th Dome Shows we wanna pull out all the stops. I know it's short notice but if you wanna send someone over for the January 4th Dome Show this year, I'll make room for them and use them well There are certain categories of guys that we will ALWAYS want to book: Guys who were stars in Japan in the 1980s in "real life" So, guys like Hogan, Andre, Flair, Funk, Gordy, Williams, The Road Warriors, Adrian Adonis... Big Hoss wrestlers who can work a Japanese style to go over a midcard guy or to lose a close one to Tenryu in the Main Event. Guys like Bigelow, Spivey, Blackwell, Nord, Kokina, Duggan, Reed, Sting, Haku, Barbarian, OMG, Bossman... we can never get enough of big gaijin monster in the JWA. Technical Wizards. Guys like Martel, Steamboat, DiBiase, Henning... to match up with wrestlers like Fujinami and Fujiwara, and to help develop young guys like Hiro Hase and Masakatsu Funaki. Talented young guys like Benoit and Owen... to match up on the under-card with our young guys like Yamada (the future Liger), Mutoh, and Misawa. Established Tag Teams like the Bulldogs, Harts, Rougeaus, Fantastics, Fabulous Ones, Brainbusters... to help develop our tag division. Of course, I'll do my best with whoever you wanna send over, but I have found in the past that there are certain guys that it's harder to book in Japan because I very rarely use promos and all the emphasis is on in-ring action. So, no offense to anyone, and the following absolutely includes some of my FAVOURITE wrestlers, but please understand that it can be harder for me to book guys whose main deal is that they have a very impressive look such as Lord Humongous or Ted Arcidi and guys whose appeal is based as much on their mic work and character as on their wrestling, like Micheal Hayes, Roddy Piper, or Honkey Tonk Man. Not that I don't love those guys or that I'll refuse to use them if it helps you out... just that it's harder to fit them into the JWA booking style. Anyway, I am glad to be back and I look forward to working with you all.

January: 4th - Tokyo Dome Show. 14th, 24th - Trios Tournament (Guests:Terry Gordy, from WCCW, whole tour. Ric Flair from MACW, 4th. Ricky Steamboat, Big John Nord, Leon White, Danny Spivey, Crusher Blackwell, and the High Flyers, from the AWA, 4th. Owen Hart, from WCCW, 4th. Stan Hansen, 4th. Mil Mascaras, 4th) February: 4th - Tour Opener, 14th - TV Taping, 24th Big Tour-Ending Show (Guests Mick Foley and John Nord, from the AWA, 4th only, British Bullies, from AWA, 4th and 24th. The Fantastics, from Lutte, 14th and 24th. Ron Simmons, from the UWF via AWA, 14th. Stan Hansen, 24th. Mil Mascaras, 24th) March: 4th - Tour Opener, 14th - TV Taping, 24th Big Tour-Ending Show (Guests Bruiser Brody and Abdullah the Butcher, 24th only. Patera, Blackwell, and Spivey, from AWA, 4th and 24th. Mick Foley and John Nord, from the AWA, 4th only, Ron Simmons, from the UWF via AWA, 14th. Bam Bam Bigelow, from WWC, 4th, 14th, and 24th). April: 4th - Big Osaka Show. 14th, 24th Middleweight Tag Tournament, Young Lions Showcase (good time to send over rookies or juniors) (Guests: Bam Bam Bigelow, from WWC, 4th only. Hogan, Andre, OMG. and Bossman, from the WWF, 4th only. Middleweight Tag Tournament Guest Participants: Invader #2 & #3, from WWC. Young Lions Showcase Participants: Sting, from the WWF, Chris Benoit and Chris Candido, from Lutte. Hot Property (Billy Travis and Joe Savoldi), and Spike Huber, from MACW. Owen Hart from WWC, Pillman, Scorpio, Wellington, and Blackman, from the AWA,14th and 24th). May: 4th - Tour Opener, 14th - TV Taping, 24th Big Tour-Ending Show (Guests: Rick Martel, NWA Champion, from Lutte, 24th only. Bam Bam Bigelow ,The Sheepherders, from WWC, 4th, 14th, and 24th. Hulk Hogan, from the WWF, 4th and 14th. Andre, OMG, and Bossman, from the WWF, whole tour, Death Sentence (Maxx Payne and Jeff Gaylord) from the AWA, whole tour). June: 4th - Tour Opener, 14th - TV Taping, 24th Big Tour-Ending Show (Guests: Hogan, Andre, OMG. Bossman, Bulldogs, from the WWF, whole tour. Steiner Brothers, from MACW, whole tour). July: 4th, 14th, 24th: JWA Faction Wars August: 4th - Tour Opener, 14th - TV Taping, 24th Big Tour-Ending Show September: 4th - Tour Opener, 14th - TV Taping, 24th Big Tour-Ending Show October: 4th: Tokyo Sumo Hall Show. 14th through 24th: Singles Tournament November: 4th - Tour Opener, 14th - TV Taping, 24th Big Tour-Ending Show December: 4th - Tour Opener, 14th - TV Taping, 24th Big Tour-Ending Show January 4th, 1987: Tokyo Dome Show

So, Inoki and Maeda have left, there has been some re-shuffling of the factions, we've got four main titles at the moment, and we will be running a reduced and less ambitious schedule in 1986. JWA Heavyweight Champion: Genichiro Tenryu JWA Tag Team Champions: Power Rush (Riki Choshu and Rusher Kimura) JWA Japanese Champion: Tatsumi Fujinami JWA Middleweight Champion: Tiger Mask Sayama We are going to run three big shows a month and for simplicity's sake they will be on the 4th, 14th, and 24th of each month. That will hopefully make it very easy to keep track of talent exchanges. Four times a year (January, April, July, and October) we will run a major card on the 4th, followed by a tournament that plays out on the 14th and 24th or from the 14th through 24th. In the remaining 8 months, the biggest cards will be the tour-ending shows, on the 24th. Tour-opening shows, on the 4th and generally in smaller cities, will feature title defenses against mid-card and somewhat lesser-known wrestlers, or title holders in multi-man tag matches. The show on the 14th will be a TV taping to build up to the big card on the 24th. The shows on the 14th may occasionally feature promos or vignettes but every other show will be match write-ups only. It can be assumed that JWA runs house shows on other dates, but those will generally not be written up.

Baba's Corporation (J-Mex): Giant Baba Jumbo Tsuruta Yoshiaki Yatsu Isamu "Carpenter' Teranishi Shiro Koshinaka Mitsuharu Misawa Hiro Hase (rookie) Dos Caras El Canek Gran Hamada Tenryu's Gang: Genichiro Tenryu (World Heavyweight Champion) Ashura Hara Mighty Inoue Animal Hamaguchi Masa Fuchi Toshiaki Kawada Samson Fuyuki Super Strong Machine Strong Machine #2 (George "The Cobra" Takano with a new gimmick) Strong Machine #3 (Shunji Takano with a new gimmick) Choshu's Army: Riki Choshu (Tag Champ) Rusher Kimura (Tag Champ) Umanosuke Ueda Tatsutoshi Goto Anoaro Atisanoe Sivi Afi Kensuke Sasaki (rookie) Black Tiger (Rollerball Rocco) Kuniaki Kobayashi Phil Hickerson Fujinami's Family Tatsumi Fujinami (Japanese Champion) Yoshiaki Fujiwara Kengo Kimura Shinya Hashimoto Keiji Mutoh Masa Chono Keiji "Thunder" Yamada Masakatsu "Flying" Funaki Nobuhiko "Esperanza" Takada Tiger Mask (Sayama) (Middleweight Champion) The JWA factions are intended to be loose affiliations. Members of a particular faction can and occasionally will fight members of the same faction. Members of a particular faction can and occasionally will team with members of a different faction. In general, however, Members of a given faction will usually team up together, and fight against members of other factions. JWA Office Staff: President and Founder: Shohei Baba Vice President: Motoko Baba Managing Director: Hisashi Shinma Head Booker: gordi Head Trainer: Kotetsu Yamamoto Referees: Joe Higuchi, Kyohei Wada, Red Shoes Unno, Verne Siebert Ring Announcer: Hidekazu Tanaka TV: Asahi TV World Pro Wrestling (ワールド・プロレスリング) TV Commentary Team: Ichiro Furutachi, Takashi Yamada