gordi

I was wondering when somebody was gonna grab him. I wonder if there's anyone on your roster he might be able to form a tag team with down the line. Maybe someone who has spent some time in Europe, like Kojima has?

Thank you, gentlemen. I truly appreciate your kind words. Now... you are not going to believe this: Turns out my new boss, Wally, is a huge pro wrestling fan!!! Remember how when I was filling in the application, I couldn't decide whether or not to admit to being a huge puroresu nerd? There was that section about my interest in Japanese culture, and I wrote about sake tasting and sumo and Ghibli movies and I figured that would be enough; but then there was this other whole section on what I could tell my students about the connection between culture in my home country and culture in Japan. That's a really specific question, and there was a whole big space to fill in underneath it. I just went ahead and did a whole spiel on pro wrestling and samurai movies. I did this ridiculously elaborate comparison between Jumbo Tsuruta and Toshiro Mifune: How they took quintessential North American art forms and gave their own stamp to them, how they have ultimate intensity and how, at their best, they can just somehow give more than anyone else... I regretted having done that when I sent it in, but as it turns out, maybe that was what got me this plum job! F'n life, eh? Here's the story: I wore a shirt and tie on my first visit to the office, but Yamaguchi-san was all, "No! No! I want students to be comfortable. Happy! T-shirts is A-OK!" He yells pretty much all the time. Mostly in a happy or excited way so far... though he does seem to have a temper. As Japanese bosses go, he seems rather atypically casual. I totally see his point though. In my experience, most Japanese people had a ton of vocabulary and grammar pounded into their heads in high school. The job, teaching private lessons, is not so much to teach them (because they already have the knowledge in there). It's really to give them an opportunity to practice conversation and it helps a lot if you can create a comfortable environment where they are not afraid of making mistakes or accidentally offending their teacher. I'm all for dressing casually. I think a teacher wearing a tie can be a bit intimidating, make them feel like it's work or school, where mistakes aren't tolerated. Then they just clam up, give short answers, look at their papers all the time. ANYway, as it happens I had a t-shirt in my gym bag; That faded old Victoria Pavilion Stampede Wrestling shirt. I changed into it. Whan Yamaguchi-san saw that, he flipped out. Usually his pronunciation is pretty good, but when he saw that shirt he was all, "Bu-rate-oh Hah-toh! Mistah Hito! Shi-choo Hah-tooohhh!! Die-no-might-oh KEED-OOOOHHH!!!" And, like, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me. It was mental. I managed not to bust out laughing, but it took some serious force of will. "You know Rance-oo? Rance-oo? Oh ho ho! Rance really gonna love you! Soo-tam-pee-doh! Baddo Nyoozu! Bee-ah belly shaya croppa!" Then he goes into his office, comes right back out, and gives me this: "Michinoku Puroresu! Berry good-oh! Fast! Funny!" Making elaborate hand motions indicating, I suppose, people flying around in the ring. "You know? You like?" Like I said, usually he speaks straight-up good English, but he was just so worked up about it. He took me around the office, yelling about my t-shirt to his mostly confused staff. The receptionist gave me the prettiest smile, though. Oh, man! Life in Morioka is great so far. We went through the magazine, writing out the names of the wrestlers and some moves and stuff. That was my first private lesson in Morioka: Wearing a Stampede shirt and talking wrestling with a crazy fan. Seriously: Can you believe it?

haha, awesome!

Cheers. And... I guess All Japan and New Japan (and UWFi and FMW) can fight over who gets Satoshi "Joe-Joe Lee" Kojima, whom I am cutting to make room for Black Buffalo. (I think he'll keep the name for now, it can be a heel thing, supporting another city's team).

MY mistake, as well! KeiICHI Yamada is Liger. KeiSUKE Yamada is one of my Osaka Pro drinking buddies (which is why it would be kind of a dick move/I would be all butt-hurt if somebody else snagged him after I requested he be added): The man who would be Black Buffalo actually had a dark match on the IWA Death Match Tourney card (twenty years ago last week): Keisuke Yamada & Keizo Matsuda defeated Yoshihiro Tajiri & Taisuke Tagami via pinfall (11:44) It was while researching Tajiri that I found out my old drinking buddy (although he himself doesn't imbibe) was already active in '95. I am genuinely curious if SirEdger or LowBlowPodcast were trying to steal him from me, or if they were after the guy I want to cut to make room for him. Also, if I do get him, I maybe need to figure out a different gimmick for him, since Black Buffalo is pretty Osaka-specific (Orix Buffaloes Baseball Team).

EDIT: I need to calm down about this.

Are you sure? I requested Keichi Yamada be added to the Free Agent list more than 24 hrs after I picked up Terry Boy. I'm pretty sure AJPW and NJPW were waiting for me to pick up Ymamada and cut one of my guys. What am I missing here?

I feel mild sympathy for LowBlowPodcast's disappointment... so... If former IWA Japan under-carder Keisuke Yamada could be added to the free agents list, I will add him, and drop a guy who might look much better on LowBlow or SerEdger's roster.

Yoshihiro Akiyama is, I believe, a Korean-Japanese mixed martial artist also known as Sexyama. "NO FEAR" Takayama was one of the original saves for UWFi. That's why he wasn't drafted: He was saved right off the bat.

Might it be worth considering placing (for example) a one-rookie, one free-agent limit for the first, say, ten hours or even 24 hours? It would serve two purposes: 1) gives everyone a chance/prevents right-time-right-place guys (like me) from snapping up everyone good, and 2) it limits the chances/temptation for someone to turn over a huge chunk of their roster in mid-stream.

Nice touch, there!

To me, that is one hell of a good job of imagining how the WON would have reacted to that card in 1995. It's cool how everyone is taking somewhat different approaches to this.

Kurosawa! I forgot all about that!

Almost certainly, they were thinking "Gaman shimashou!" (basically: "we will endure the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity")

Oh, man. The last night of that tournament. That travel schedule is just hellish, though. Gunma to Kochi to Nara ito Shimane in 5 days? That's gonna be almost as hard on the boys as the matches. Glad to see my home prefecture of Nara and my mother in law's home prefecture of Kochi getting some live pro wrestling. The crowds in Kochi should be fun to work in front of. Lots of hard-drinking fishermen.

After seeing that poster, I was like, I might go if there's nothing good on TV... After reading this, it would take a really good episode of X Files or Batman: TAS to keep me away. If you can sell me on the Beverly Bros the way you have sold me on Darsow, even the allure of fresh 1995 television won't be enough to keep my money in my pocket.

All singles matches. Interesting! Hawk vs. Nakanishi should be well over with the crowd in Osaka.

Well... I don't wanna spoil too much, but at some point someone is probably gonna threaten to "choppy choppy" something.

I arrived in Morioka City two days ago. Finally got my internet today, so I can start writing again. It took 2.5 hours to get here from Tokyo on the bullet train. Get this: The Tokyo to Morioka shinkansen is called the "Hayabusa" How awesome is that? I'm gonna miss all the pro wrestling in Tokyo, but apparently the local promotion here is pretty good. You remember the '94 Super J Cup, right? The one Benoit won? Do you remember how great that was? Well, a whole bunch of the guys from that show work up here now. El Samurai, Gedo, Delfin, TAKA... and The Great Sasuke is the owner of the promotion! Rumour is he might even be bringing Ohtani up here, too. So, I mean, it's not like I'll have a dozen different shows to choose from every week... but that's a whole lot better than nothing, right? Also, the weather is just way nicer up here (in the summer, anyway). It was about 25 today in the middle of the afternoon, not much hotter than my home town ... and by the way, Morioka, Iwate, Japan and Victoria, BC, Canada are sister cities. Maybe that's why I got the job offer... ...anyway, I think the heat and humidity would have killed me if I had to spend another summer in Tokyo. It's pretty "countryside" here. Not a lot of tourist attractions. The zoo is hilarious. You seriously would not believe the slide in the children's play area there. And check out this photo of an actual sign from the Morioka Zoo: so, yeah, the zoo is crazy... and so is my new boss: Mr. Yamaguchi: His name is Yusuke, but he wants me to call him Wally. Whatever, as long as he pays the bills, you know? Like I said, he's crazy... in a good way, I hope. He has the weirdest laugh and he seems to have a bit of a temper. On the other hand, he got me a kicking apartment, and it seems like i'm gonna have a pretty light workload for now: A few private lessons (including twice a week with Wally himself), two-hour lessons twice a month at a special-needs school, business English on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and some group lessons in the afternoon, mostly for elderly students. And for that I'm gonna get paid more than I made at the school in Tokyo. It looks like I am gonna live like a king here... hopefully I can find something to do with my spare time and money. The apartment is not far from "Cinema Street" which is the closest thing Morioka has to a night life district. There are a couple of really nice sake bars there, and some karaoke bars, and Wally seems to be a very well-known character in that area. He kept introducing me as his "Yojimbo" which the old boys in the bar found pretty funny. Anyway, gotta go. I'll write more soon, let you know how the first week is going.

RD Reynolds, too!

That is glorious, dexstar.

I wanna see Hogan vs. Choshu! And... I hope the qualifying match involves Kensuke and Nakanishi.

War Games! Yeah!!

Michinoku Pro drops Mascara Magica, adds MEN's Teioh

I'm done, too.