gordi

Poor Yuji Nagata! In this Universe, does he ever have the UWFi feud? Does he ever develop the semi-shooty stiff kicky style that eventually got him over? I guess it's up to you and elliot.

If this had really happened in 1995, imagine how much attention FMW would have drawn in the tape-trading community!

October 7th is my birthday. That'll be a nice present for me.

Kobayashi, Smiley, and Tajiri vs. Dos Caras, Lance, and Biff Now that it had been pointed out to me, I could pretty easily see how they were working this match as a contrast to what was coming in the main event. Presumably, the main was going to involve a ton of high spots and a big finishing sequence, so instead of that these guys worked a lot of simple basic strikes, some technical mat stuff, and a bunch of character work. I could see how, maybe, if we'd put Kaz and Funaki vs. TAKA and Togo on right ahead of the main, it might have detracted from it rather than allowing it to stand out. It really impressed me to see how these guys can adjust their style based on what role they are playing on the card. There was a fair bit of talk in the ring before Samurai, Delfin, and Koshinaka vs. Sasuke, Ohtani, and Kyoko got underway. Presumably, it was mostly hype to set up the tournament in Akita. The match built slowly to a kind of frenzied climax, with everyone hitting their finishers only for their teammates to save them from the pin... except it was always Kyoko saving Ohtani and Sasuke. They never quite seemed to have each other's backs. Koshinaka, Samurai and Delfin, however, kept working together and in the end it was that combination of factors that allowed the technicos to get the win. Koshinaka and Kyoko brawled out into the crowd and out of the arena. A miscommunication led to a collision between Ohtani and Sasuke. Samurai caught the stunned Sasuke with a DDT. Delfin grabbed the distracted Ohtani from behind and hit the Delfin Special. Sasuke got up in time to maybe break up the pin, but... he did nothing. Samurai and Delfin celebrated together in the ring. Ohtani and Sasuke left without even looking at each other. So, maybe Gedo and Jado didn't completely write off my suggestion after all. After the show, the former sumo wrestler pulled out two small wooden casks of sake, and busted the tops open with a wooden hammer. His female companion passed out little souvenir sake cups and the big man filled them up with a bamboo scoop. It was delicious. I drank a little too much. Lance, who had passed on the sake, ended up driving me back to Morioka. On the way, we listened to that Sense Field CD I burned off of you. It's hard to say if he liked it or not.

I got to book another show! Wally has me teaching Jado and Gedo now, and for our second lesson he had us book a card for the show in Daisen one week out from the big Title Tournament show in Akita. Daisen's a smaller city in Akita Province that more or less borders on Akita City, so obviously he wanted us to put something together to hype up the big show on the 25th. The card for the 25th is already set: 1) Kyoko Inoue vs. Shiro Koshinaka - Tournament Alternate match 2) El Samurai vs. Super Delfin - Tournament round 1 match 3) The Great Sasuke vs. Shinjiro Ohtani - Tournament round 1 match 4) TAKA Michinoku, Dick Togo, Jado and Gedo vs. Gran Naniwa, Sho Funaki, Shiryu, and Yakushiji - 8-man tag match *break* 5) Kuniyaki Kobayashi, Norman Smiley, and Yoshihiro Tajiri vs. Lance Storm, Masaaki Mochizuki, and Dos Caras - 6-man tag match 6) Tournament Finals Match, winner to be declared the first-ever Tohoku Region Welterweight Champion We looked over the card. Gedo pointed out that the match before the break is generally booked to be a very exciting semi-main-event type of match to send the crowd into intermission hyped up, and that there are usually only two matches after the break. The idea is apparently that the second-to-last match would provide some sort of contrast to the main event without overshadowing it or burning out the crowd for what was coming up. Most of the time, Gedo and Jado kind of struggle with English. When talking about wrestling or drinking, however, they are damned near fluent. I though it was odd that Samurai and Delfin (usually booked as technicos) and Sasuke and Ohtani (usually booked as rudos) were facing off in the first round. I wondered if maybe we should build up some heat between them. Jado laughed off my suggestion. "They are fighting for title belt," he explained, "It is enough reason. Don't need to hate." That being said, we decided to go with a six-person tag as the Main, featuring all of the participants in the Title Tournament. Then we booked a fast-moving tag match featuring some of the younger guys as the barn-burner before the break. Gedo and Jado volunteered to pull curtain-jerking duty in another tag, but wanted to book it as a showcase for their heeling. Finally, we filled out the card with two more six-man tags, one fast and entertaining, the other hard-hitting and technical. It took longer than you might think to work it all out, but it was fun. The next day we took an early train to Daisen. The guys slept on the train, but I have never been able to do that. After the ring was set up, a few of us headed out for a sake brewery tour. I understood less than half of what was being said, but it was still pretty interesting. There was a large guy in the tour group who apparently used to be a sumo wrestler. I watch sumo, but I didn't recognize him. Jado gave him some free passes to the show, but he didn't seem all that excited to get them. Maybe that was just his poker face, though. He offered to buy us some drinks, but the guys had to work that evening so we sadly had to turn him down. Miracle Man and Kato Kung Lee vs. Jado and Gedo True to their word, my new students heeled it up like crazy in this one. Miracle, in particular, just sold and bumped for them all over the arena. The sumo guy was there, ringside, accompanied by a much younger woman. He was laughing his gigantic ass off at Jado and Gedo's antics. Gran Naniwa, Terry Boy, and Yakushiji vs. Mochizuki, Orihara, and Black Buffalo Another showcase match, this one allowing Terry Boy and Yakushiji to show what they can do on offense for a change. Terry Boy got to show us why he got that name, throwing some Terry Funk type punches and getting the win with a spinning toe hold on Mochizuki. Naniwa was a little unhappy with being in the second match on the card, and barely tagged in. "He is young," explained Wally. We booked Kaz and Funaki vs. TAKA and Togo as the pre-break match with the hope that they'd really heat up the crowd. They absolutely came through. They just chained so much stuff together: Fast, crisp, and smooth but somehow without it seeming too co-operative or slick. There's an almost psychic level of connection when some of these guys are in the ring together, something like how a great point guard just knows where his teammates are on the court without even looking. Does that make sense? I felt privileged to see this match up close. During the break, the boys came out from the back (everyone not involved in the main event) and took pictures with the sumo guy and some of the other fans.

The Women's Title match and the War Games were both genuinely exciting to read. the ending of the show was pretty much perfect. The production gaffes and malapropisms and particularly your version of Heenan were all on point and really funny. Excellent work.

Yep. I'm not feeling short-changed by your work on this, in any way.

It's SO true about Ebessan matches! There were in-jokes and references galore in Osaka Pro house shows and even though I live in Nara and hang out with Oska Pro maniacs in Osaka all the time, there were so many of those jokes and references that it took me months or even years to truly get. I could still enjoy the matches, though. I'd laugh because I was happy and often drunk and my friends were laughing and the atmosphere was joyful... that is only somewhat different from laughing because I actually get the actual jokes. Bit pressed for time now, could go on and on about it... Here's my best example: More than once online, in discussing Misawa, I have seen people dock him points because he's "not expressive enough" or something similar. Most likely, we've all seen that. Even with my limited experience with Japanese life (8 years and counting) that is, to me, an obvious and very clear example of someone just not "getting what the wink means." Those folks are completely missing the point of Misawa's character and I'm sure in large part it's because they lack the cultural perspective (and possibly the imagination) to "get it." Hopefully, my meaning there is clear enough, but I would be more than happy to expand on that at great length if anyone wants me to.

That would be awesome.

The reason you don't see this is most likely that you still have the kind of perspective where you believe that "GOTNW's opinion" is the most important thing. I have never met you, but: Based on your posts here and on puroresu.tv I really get the feeling that your mind is strong, but your perspective is very narrow. You should deliberately move yourself out of your comfort zone. You seem to be a legitimately intelligent guy, I think experiencing another culture would broaden your perspective significantly.

I'm happy with you handling it, and I'm happy to send whomever you want. It's possible one or more of my guys would "demand" that they get to at least the second round or not job to certain participants. I imagine Sasuke, Delfin, and perhaps Naniwa would be the "difficult" ones.

Excellent pro wrestlers. Great guys. Loving these write-ups, by the way.

And then at one point Murahama just kind of dropped off the map. It was a thing: I'd ask people "whatever happened to Murahama?" and they'd dismiss it and/or quickly change the subject. Real unsolved mystery for me. Any excuse to post one of these: She had potential all right. We used to hang snacks around Kuishinbo's neck, in return for which he'd give us a chocolate. Ebessan would bless us (Ebisu is the god of good luck in business) and we'd drop coins in his wooden box. I think "Misawa vs. Kobashi of Comedy Wrestling" is exactly right.

I think gordi and I ultimately think some very similar things here Yep. I have a habit of throwing out ideas that connect to my reply in such a way that it seems like I'm arguing against whomever I'm replying to... but in fact we do largely agree. My disagreement with you is on one or two kind of specific points, I think. Looking forward to reading your reply.

Lovely job. I think the right guys won without it being too predictable, and you have set stuff up nicely for the future.

I agree.

...taste by its nature, as I've stressed, depends on writing off certain things. You cannot say something is good without also suggesting a certain other thing is bad. That is simply false. Taste is absolutely not a zero sum game. The idea of an all-accepting universal palette is completely and fundamentally at odds with the process of making value judgements. You cannot do both. We might be able to like foods of all five tastes, but very few of us would like all foods. Nobody - - NOBODY - - in this thread has suggested that the answer is to simply like or even accept everything. What's being argued, and what it seems to me you have yet to address, is that it is absolutely possible to enjoy a wide variety of different things: Music, food pro wrestling, and so on. To decide I like one type of pro wrestling in no way necessitates that I dislike other types of pro wrestling, even if those other types of pro wrestling are wildly different from the type I have decided I like. That's a frankly ridiculous idea. And, to clarify: To like various types of pro wrestling in no way means that I therefore have to accept everything. That's also frankly ridiculous. There's good lucha and bad lucha, good southern style and bad southern style, good indy and bad indy, good shoot style and bad shoot style. Surely everyone understands this. So, why not choose to seek out "good wrestling" whatever form it may take. Surely that's better than pre-determining what is good and then judging based on how well those pre-determinations are met. Taste is defined by discernment, literally speaking "the ability to judge well". I think that "applying a limited standard and judging based on how well that standard is adhered to" is absolutely not "judging well." Paula Kael had a wonderful essay where she took to task those critics who analyzed and judged every film - regardless of its intent and regardless of other virtues or failings - on how well it addressed issues of social justice. Those critics were relentlessly applying a limited standard. They were not judging well. Things need to be judged on their own merits. A broad perspective is most helpful in trying to do so. Here is what is not helpful in doing so: Artificial guidelines of what should be considered good, with the idea that all else must be considered bad. And so, in the end, I agree that there cannot be a universal standard... or at least, there should not be.

Looking forward to your review of the Osaka J-Cup! I think anyone who deliberately watched the Dying Years of WCW and Early TNA and found stuff to love even there... such a person has definitively proven their love for pro wrestling. Perhaps, he has gone too far in doing so. Weirdly, I agree with the OP in that I also think there can never be a universal standard, but I disagree with the OP's reasoning as to why. I can't imagine anyone trying to make such an argument about, say, food: Can one who loves cheeseburgers also love pizza? If he loves cheeseburgers and pizza, can he also love sushi? If he loves sushi, must he choose between inexpensive sushi and expensive sushi? In the world of sushi lovers, can one truly be said to love both tuna and red snapper/sea bream? It seems ridiculous. Of course the same person can like wildly different things. My five-year-old loves shrimp sushi and umeboshi and matcha popsicles and curry rice. She'll dance to Mozart or AKB or Prokofiev or the Ika Ika Sushi Sushi song. She digs toy unboxing videos and プリンセスプリキュア and Panda Go Panda and Hajimete no Otsukai. She is over Anpanman and Shimajiro... but will tolerate her younger sister watching them. She hasn't had time to develop multiple heads or to relativize her values. She is completely guileless (even more than our two year old) and true to herself. She hasn't yet learned any other way to be. It seems to me the natural state is to like lots of different things. Allowing our tastes to become etiolated is what seems to me unnatural.

I don't really see any kind of cognitive dissonance in being able to honestly enjoy widely varied types of pro wrestling. I sincerely love a crazy variety of classical music. I sincerely love a whole lot of jazz. I sincerely love mid-90s indy rock. Within the category of Classical Music, I can absolutely enjoy Beethoven, Bach, Hildegard of Bingen, Charles Ives, John Adams, Prokofiev, Dvorak, Ligeti, Mahler, and Tchaikovsky. That's easily as much variety as watching some 80s Lucha, some Shoot Style, some Osaka Pro, and some ROH., If there is sufficient time, I can listen to all of the above, and maybe throw in some Built to Spill and Archers of Loaf and Louis Armstrong and Charles Mingus all in the space of a single week and I'm pretty sure I'm just wearing my Gordi head that whole time. I think about and process Morton Gould differently from how I think about and process Haydn, to a certain extent... but it's still based on the same mind-set, the same perspective, the same personality. I don't have to change my head. Within just the category of "Beethoven" I can listen to Piano Sonatas, Symphonies, Violin Sonatas, Piano Concerti, String Quartets, Masses, Overtures, and more; from his early, late, and middle periods; in major and minor keys... I can sincerely love all of it (or in the case of a bad performance, dislike it) and all without a head replacement. It took some time and effort to get here. Well worth it, in my opinion. I think maybe opinions re the thing: If we are more in love with the "correctness" of own opinions about pro wrestling than we are with pro wrestling itself, it may seem wrong or dissonant to be able to sincerely like Ebessan vs. Kuishinbo Kamen, Misawa vs. Kawada, and Yuki Ishikawa and Daisuke Ikeda vs. Hanzo Nakajima and Naohiro Hoshikawa from an obscure '95 Michinoku Pro show... even though all three are technically examples of one particular sub-set of pro wrestling ("puroresu"). I think that if we love pro wrestling more than we love our own opinions, it's not at all difficult or jarring to be able to enjoy it in all of it's many shades and colours. Might take some time and effort to get there. Well worth it, in my opinion. Trouble is, it's no fun debating things based on how much we enjoy them. Imposing some kind of artificial framework maybe makes debate easier and more enjoyable... but then it can lead to feeling a kind of cognitive dissonance when we enjoy something that doesn't fit our framework. That's why we have to choose: Do we love pro wrestling or do we love having opinions about pro wrestling? If we love both, then which one do we love more. If we honestly love pro wrestling more... might be time to ditch the framework, or at least loosen it considerably.

Yokozuna and Sid! Awesome heel combo.

If you hadn't pointed out you were skimping on match descriptions, I don't think I would have noticed. You managed to get a lot across just from the announcing and promos.

Yep. Just the right way to use them, and Brawler, too. Very nice job on the early-DVDVR style as well!

Thank you, gentlemen,

Thanks, SirEdger! Meibutsu culture (special local food culture) is maybe my favourite aspect of life in Japan. Almost any city, town, region, or island you might visit in Japan is "famous" for one particular food or another. My wife is right into meibutsu, and so are many of my students. and friends. If I am going to, say, Nagoya, then various students might recommend Sekai no Yamachan tebasaki (a kind of dry spicy chicken wing, my students know that chicken wings are one food from Canada I miss over here) or Yabaton misokatsu (pork cutlet in miso sauce, because my students know I love rich-tasting food) or a tiny restaurant on the peninsula south of the city where they serve huge deep-fried shrimp (that particular recommendation was from a student who lived in Nagoya for several years). It gives me something to look forward to, wherever I'm going in Japan. Now I go to Nagoya at least once a year, to feast on tebasaki and misokatsu. I can get those dishes in Osaka, but it's not quite the same. I pretty much had to include some version of that in writing about North East Japan. I'm really glad to know that at least one person is enjoying it.

...and then, the card: They opened with a ten-man Battle Royal! Koshinaka, Terry Boy, Tajiri, Kato Kung Lee, Miracle Man, Gedo, Jado, Biff, Mochizuku, and Orihara. Early in the match, Biff and Kosh brawled out of the ring - but not over the top rope - and into the crowd. Tajiri and Mochizuku brawled out, too, but they went over the rope and were both eliminated. Gedo, Jado, and Orihara teamed up to eliminate Kung Lee and Miracle, leaving Terry Boy in there alone to take a beating. He manged to trick Gedo and Jado into charging him, but he ducked and then he and Orihara were left to put on a bit of a show. Just as it looked like Orihara was going to win the Battle Royal, Biff and Kosh brawled back into the ring. Orihara threw Terry boy out, Kosh disposed of Biff, Orihara (unaware) started celebrating... only to take a flying hip attack that sent him sprawling out of the ring, leaving Koshinaka to soak up the cheers of the crowd. It was almost exactly what Wally and I had talked about at our lesson. Naniwa and Smiley vs. Ohtani and Kyoko The story of this one was that early in the match, Smiley and Kyoko got caught up in kind of a "compromising position" and after that Norman kept trying to make it happen again while Kyoko acted all shy and embarrassed... only for them to get caught up in a different "compromising position" after which Kyoko was the one pursuing Norman. It got a couple of laughs out of the crowd, but by far the biggest pop was when Kyoko got Naniwa in the Giant Swing. Crowd went crazy for that spot. Delfin, Kobayashi, and Funaki vs. Dos Caras, Lance Storm, and Black Buffalo As Wally predicted, the crowd just ate up the long display of technical wrestling between Caras and Kobayashi. After two light-hearted matches, some more serious wrestling came as a nice change of pace. There was also a good brief heat segment between Caras and Delfin where Caras waved Delfin's torn-up mask (from the Morioka card) in his face. Despite his rudo behavior, the crowd still popped when Funaki got caught in the Caras Clutch for the one, two, threeee! There was a short break, where somebody was selling pears. For whatever reason, they called them "La France." I had two, they were sweet and juicy. El Samurai, Yakushiji, and Kaz Hayashi vs. Sasuke, TAKA, and Togo Again, as Wally predicted, the crowd were rabid for the two masked men. Dueling chants rang out from the opening bell. When they finally faced off, the small crowd went ballistic. After that, though, they ceded the stage to Togo and Kaz, then TAKA and Yakushiji. The latter two put on an incredible show, flying in and out of the ring and all over the hall. I know I am biased, because it's my local indy, but I really think those two are among the best young workers in the world right now. Yakushiji's bumping and selling are as good as anyone I have ever seen. In the end TAKA did the job, tapping out to Samurai's Chicken Wing Head Scissors combo after about 20 straight minutes of non-stop action. Wally seemed uncharacteristically rushed as we did our clean-up. He kept checking his watch and urging everybody to move quickly. We rolled out of there a little before 10. One of Wally's staff took over the panel truck and Wally and I took somebody's compact car. We drove in a convoy to the edge of town. Wrestlers, staff, a few fans. We ended up at a cherry farm. Wally, Sasuke, and I collected 2000 yen from each person then we filed in to a big open area where a very old couple greeted everybody with hugs and deep bows. A section of the orchard was all lit up, and we were set free to pick and eat as much as we could handle. There was a huge wooden bowl of cherries for anyone who didn't want to pick their own, and endless soft-serve cherry ice cream. Some of the guys even had special masks with mouth spaces cut out, I guess for just this kind of situation. It was almost midnight when we left Yamagata, and it's really late and I'm really tired now... but I wanted to get this down wile it was still fresh in my mind.