William Bologna

Johnny Smith/George Hines/Gran Hamada vs. Steve Williams/Mike Rotundo/Gran Naniwa (AJPW 8/30/2002) It's two normal tag teams, except that each gets a little Michinoku Pro buddy. I felt bad for Naniwa - he doesn't walk down with his partners, and they're doing all the Triangle of Power stuff and leaving him out. But they all bump fists before the action starts, so then I was OK emotionally. Hamada and Naniwa start out with some of the lucha that makes you feel relieved, but it's more interesting to see how the other guys work with them. Rotundo blows the first thing he and Hamada try, but after that he's noticeably generous with the old-timer. Naniwa, who looks microscopic in this company, tells a little story in the ring about how he can't vertically suplex Johnny Smith. For his part, Smith does a nice job as a base for Naniwa's crab-based lucha shenanigans. Williams isn't doing much tonight, but he's trying to make it count by making very dramatic faces. He's also a terrifying shade of red. Hines is trying real hard to make something happen. He's still rubbing his head, and he's yelling a lot. Was he doing, like, a gaijin Muto thing? They were teaming a lot at this point. He dragon screws Doc twice (who bumps weirdly on both), then gives him a Shining Wizard. I have a pet peeve about matches where they telegraph the imminent finish by abruptly throwing dudes out of the ring and then following them, leaving the two legal men all by themselves. They do it real artlessly this time, and there's no question about what's going to happen since we're left with Naniwa and Hines. The latter rubs his head and cracks the crab with a Michinoku Driver. I didn't know he did that, but how often do we get to see George Hines hit a finishing move? Having the Michinoku guys in there was kind of fun. Johnny didn't get to do much.

Johnny Smith/Gran Naniwa/Ryuji Hijikata vs. Kaz Hayashi/Jimmy Yang/George Hines (AJPW 7/17/2002) It seems like they're all random teams these days. Scanning Cagematch, if he has a regular partner it's Hines, but he's on the other team here. Creative has nothing for Johnny. Let's run down the new guys: Gran Naniwa is a wrestling crab. His showing up is one of my favorite post-split All Japan things. He was the guy with the goofiest gimmick in a goofy promotion, and here he is walking sideways in what had recently been the tightest-ass wrestling promotion ever. I never realized that his epaulets are crab claws. Ryuji Hijikata is a forgettable kicky boy from BattleARTs. Kaz Hayashi was Shiryu in Michinoku Pro. He took off his mask, lost a lot in WCW, and then spent a quarter century following Muto around. I shouldn't be telling anyone about Jimmy Yang; I missed him almost completely. I wasn't watching death throes WCW, and I missed his WWF stints. George Hines isn't new, but I did want to mention that rubbing his head is good luck. His teammates do it, later he does it, and they win. Do you ever hear that "gaijin" is actually an insulting term? If so, the play-by-play announcer is basically a shock jock, because he's saying it every other sentence. Smith and Hines start off with a lengthy grappling sequence, the theme of which is that Smith can't get Hines off of him. There's some stuff here that should have been cool, but it doesn't work. Johnny Smith, I fear, is slowing down. He has less than a year left. So that's real slow, but then the other four guys come in and do a lot of things very fast. I wasn't all that impressed, but the fans are into it. By the time Kaz and Naniwa come in to do some Michinoku stuff, they're absolutely frothing. Eventually Hayashi, practically throbbing with fighting spirit from rubbing Hines' head, puts the crabman away with a Kaz Cutter.

Johnny Smith/Abdullah the Butcher/Kendo Kashin vs. Genichiro Tenryu/Arashi/Nobutaka Araya (AJPW 5/1/2002 Giant Baba Six Man Cup) Keiji Muto honors the memory of Giant Baba by firing up the random team generator and having a single elimination tournament. Kashin gets us started by calling out Arashi, who proceeds to throw him around without any effort or ability, so he runs over and tags in Smith as soon as he can. The crowd gets a kick out of this, and Tenryu walks all the way around the ring apron to yell at him. Johnny looks like he's setting up for Johnny Magic, but Arashi isn't interested and brings Araya in. They fill time very pleasantly. Just kinda grappling around. But then Abdullah comes in to excited noises, and business starts to pick up. He chops Araya in the chest and throat a bunch of times, and then Kashin comes and does his own Butcher chops. We're all excited to see Tenryu give Kashin his comeuppance, but Kendo punches him in the balls! And chokes him over the ropes with his leg! And armbars him! So what we wind up with is half of these guys having a real fun match with a lot of personality. Kashin's being a sneaky weasel dickhead, Abdullah's an out-of-control bloodthirsty madman, and Tenryu's all fired up to get back at them. But I guess the other three didn't get the memo, because they're just having a normal wrestling match. The Kendo/Butcher dynamic is a lot of fun, but I can't imagine a less suitable third man than friendly ol' Johnny Smith. Tenryu and Araya open up Abdullah just by hitting him in his forehead scars. Butcher accidentally throat-chops Kendo, chops everyone else, and gets rechopped by Tenryu. This all works because this crowd fully believes in Abdullah the Butcher. Everyone spills outside so Johnny and Araya can finish up, but something goes wrong here. They both seem like they're looking for something - Araya picks up Smith, who brushes him off and spreads himself over the second rope while they both wait for something that never happens. Johnny actually looks exasperated when Araya picks him up for the bodyslam. That exasperation turns to something else - possibly unconsciousness - when Araya moonsaults his knees into Johnny's face for the win. The rings boys come in to check on him, and I'm not sure Smith is selling. Anyway, three of these guys really delivered, and they did everything right to get some use out of 60 year old Abdullah the Butcher. Tenryu's team made it to the finals of this tournament, where - and you're not going to believe this - Muto won!

Johnny Smith/Masanobu Fuchi/Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Stan Hansen/Steve Williams/Wolf Hawkfield (AJPW 10/28/2000) Fujiwara keeps making saves when they aren't necessary. I don't think it's in the spirit of teamwork; I think he just likes kicking people who aren't looking. This winds up being the story of the match (at least the little of it that we see). We finish with a clash of former partners. Johnny makes Hawkfield look about as good as it's possible to make him look. I like to think he worked just a little harder to help out his old running buddy before beating him with the British Fall, which the play-by-play guy forgot the name of. This match is also chopped into a wrestling forcemeat. Fujiwara and Hansen never get in. Update: I already did this one! It was over five years ago (good lord!), so I hope I can be forgiven. Rather than trying to say anything about five minutes of disjointed highlights, the wiser 2020 me turned into a paean to Stan Hansen since it was his last match.

YouTube is now host to a five hour compilation of Johnny Smith in post-split All Japan. You can imagine my excitement when I stumbled onto it! And while I am grateful that it's there, my enthusiasm has been tempered. 1. An All Japan Pro Wrestling match with Johnny Smith it in June 2000 is a whole different experience than an All Japan Pro Wrestling match with Johnny Smith it in July 2000. I miss Akiyama. I miss Hase. 2. I've already covered a lot of this. Johnny and Mossman winning the tag titles, the phantasmagoria that was the 2000 tag league, the New Japan invasion, etc. 3. A lot of this stuff is hard to watch. Not in terms of match quality (well, not solely in terms of match quality), but because it's all chopped up so finely that you don't get much out of it. I'm assuming this is a result of All Japan losing their network time slot. Or maybe their video editor jumped ship along with Kenta Kobashi and Masao Inoue. Case in point: Johnny Smith/Jinsei Shizaki vs. Shigeo Okumura/Yoshiaki Fujiwara (AJPW 7/1/2000) This is halfway through the very first All Japan show after everyone left, and the absence of that editor is keenly felt. We don't even see Johnny or Fujiwara tag in. Shinzaki does most of his cool stuff to Okumura and gets the submission with his straight jacket camel clutch thing. The referee is Wally Yamaguchi, most famous for trying and failing to cut off a man's dick.

Patriot/Johnny Smith vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW 5/25/1992) Let's dip back in time for a minute. Good crowd. They're a lot more impressed with the Patriot than I am. I will say (I will repeat, in fact) that the Stars and Stripes/Union Jack combination that Smith and Patriot have on their asses cannot be topped. This match marks the second time in this thread that the PBP guy called Johnny Smith Johnny Ace and then corrected himself. Johnny does some hot stuff to Misawa - a Fisherman's Suplex and a beautiful German - but goes down to the Tiger Driver, prompting the fans to go nuts and chant Misawa. Per a Google-translated YouTube comment, "This huge cheering in the semi-final. It's impossible to do this in the current All Japan tournament, even in a Triple Crown match. I hope this huge cheering will return someday." Brother, ain't that the truth.

Vader/Johnny Smith vs Steve Williams/George Hines (AJPW 1/9/2000) We get a minute and a half of this: Vader holds Williams for Johnny to dropkick him, but Doc moves and Smith hits Vader. Then Vader goes for a clothesline, but Williams ducks and it's Vader Time for Johnny. Hines comes in only to get booted and backdropped by his own partner. Vader and Williams then hit each other a couple times and raise each other's arms and shake hands. The match is a no contest. What an angle! Except it's really not. This happened on January 9. On January 10, Williams and Hines were once again on the same team, like it never happened. Even more egregiously, 1/10 also sees... Vader/Johnny Smith vs Kenta Kobashi/Jun Akiyama (AJPW World Tag Team Title 1/10/2000) They really didn't think about these things, did they? Is Misawa actually the worst booker of all time? Anyway, in the 1999 tag league they put Vader and Smith together. They finished in a three-way tie third, their hopes dashed on the last day when Akira Taue chokeslammed Johnny right out of the running. Third place, however, is good enough for a shot at the winners and current tag champs, BURNING! Incidentally, I didn't like that they put Kobashi and Akiyama together (I still don't!). I know they're buddies and all, but Jun should have been striking out on his own at this point. Put him with Mossman or Kakihara or something. Let him be the senior partner. We join in progress with Vader, who is looking very slow these days, getting beaten on. Misawa is on color commentary, and he's very chatty. Johnny tags in and gets to be a house afire for a minute. He's got a pretty good lariat. He's taller than he looks (if that makes any sense), so he's not always in the position of lariating upwards, which ruins Kawada's. They get heat on Akiyama, which is the right choice; he's so good at getting Johnny Magicked. They almost finish him off, but he reverses a British Fall attempt into a Northern Lights Suplex and makes good his escape. Soon, he discovers that you can't put Johnny away with just an Exploder anymore. But you can put him away with two. Champs retain. Everyone was working hard in there, and they were noticeably laying it in. Johnny takes a couple jumping knees, and he's really leaving his head out there. So I appreciate the effort, but this wasn't great. It was fine, it didn't hurt to watch or anything. Getting back to that dumbass angle attempt, Williams and Vader did wind up teaming pretty much right after this. They beat BURNING!!!! for the titles in their very next defense, in fact.

Johnny Smith/Maunakea Mossman vs Masao Inoue/Tamon Honda (AJPW All Asia Tag Title Tournament 10/9/1999) The throne is empty. Team No Fear held the storied All Asia Tag Team Titles, but, overcome by hubris, they challenged Misawa and Ogawa for the bigger (literally) tag titles. The Untouchables won; No Fear didn't get what they wanted and lost what they had. Then Misawa vacated them a day later. It's inconsequential, but I always found this sequence of events strange and indicative of a slipshod approach to booking. It really seems like they didn't think about these things more than a couple weeks ahead of time. They ran a little bitty round robin tournament to fill the vacancy, and I wish more of it made tape. In addition to the finalists, Daisuke Ikeda/Masahito Kakihara, Jun Izumida/Satoru Asako, and Jinsei Shinzaki/Kentaro Shiga were in it. Seems like that would have been fun. The match features a lot of double teams, assisted by the fact that the referee is just not keeping order in there. Honda flings Smith stomach-first onto Inoue's knee, and Johnny sells the hell out of it. Honda's about to be bodyslammed but Inoue pushes him into a pinning predicament. Mossman can't get Inoue up for a Northern Lights suplex until Johnny pops Inoue in the head. Inoue doesn't seem to be good at much. He's doing a strongman thing, and he looks like Manabu Nakanishi shrunk. Honda, with whom I'm not usually impressed, does some stuff this time. He hits Mossman with a German whose sloppiness only makes it look better. There are a couple other big moves, but he always goes right back to his cruddy headbutts. The finish comes when Mini-Nakanishi gets Mossman in a torture rack. Johnny strolls in and kicks him in the gut. That doesn't work, so he does it again. And then one more time, while the ref just stands there watching. Finally, Honda ejects Smith, the rack is reapplied, and Mossman just can't take anymore of Nakanishito's awesome power. This was better than the sum of its parts. I have no use for three of the guys in this match, but they delivered here, and they had the crowd going. I'm developing a theory about the All Asia belts. It's a midcard title (except when Misawa gives it himself and then decides it's beneath him) - not the best workers, not the most popular guys. But when those little belts are on the line, it seems like the dudes work harder and the crowds pop louder. Remember Smith/Hawkfield vs. the Headhunters? Should have sucked, but it ruled. Remember when Hayabusa and Shinzaki had them? And then this. There aren't as many examples as I'd like, because they just didn't put All Asia title matches on TV very often. They only barely put this one on - we get under 8 minutes of a 26 minute match. So anyway, congratulations to the victors. They hold onto these things all the way until the split, whereupon the titles once again sit vacant, this time for over a year. They really didn't give a damn about these belts!

Johnny Smith/Masanobu Fuchi/Tamon Honda vs Gedo/Koji Nakagawa/Yukihiro Kanemura (AJPW 5/2/99) How do you make a Tokyo Dome show special? The main event tonight is Misawa vs. Kawada. Sure, neat, but we've seen it more than once at Budokan. One thing All Japan liked to do in this situation is bring in dirtbag indy guys for Johnny Smith to beat. Last year he and Hawkfield went over Gedo and Jado (nifty match). Now Gedo's back, and he brought some friends: Team No Respect is in the building. Yukihiro/Kintaro/W*ING Kanemura is the Kodo Fuyuki of wrestling: A real sleazy greaseball who changes his first name every so often. Nakagawa's the guy who dressed like Bret Hart. He never made an impression on me. Johnny Smith Heat Check: He remains popular. He gets a big pop just for tagging in, and the play-by-play man immediately starts going on about Johnny Magic. A digression on Johnny Magic: I mentioned before that, according to Smith's Japanese Wikipedia entry, Gary Albright convinced Smith to start doing more English stuff in his matches. This takes the form of an oft-repeated sequence of nifty arm work that he does anytime you see him starting in 1997. These moves - most often and most beautifully done to Jun Akiyama - make up what they're calling "Johnny Magic." And it could well be this that propels Johnny to . . . well, higher than he'd been. The fans are into it and remain into it. However, Johnny doesn't know how to sell himself. Johnny Magic is an English phenomenon. Japanese sources emphasize his training with Ted Betley, Lancashire wrestling etc. He needed to lean into it. Put the Union Jack back on your ass, Johnny! Come down to a Buzzcocks song. Do, I guess I'm saying, what Zack Sabre Jr. is doing. I thought of this because of a lengthy closeup of a star falling off of his non-descript trunks. Anyway, the story here is that the FMW guys are not a threat unless they cheat. Every transition is shady: A kick in the balls, gang-up in the corner, rake of the eyes. Gedo and Jado did the same thing last year. When the playing field is level, the home team runs over them. Really makes them look like nothing. Kanemura is great in this, despite having "Foot Loos" printed on his butt. He's there to get destroyed, and does he ever. He's flipping over on his head on Fuchi's backdrops, doing 360s on lariats . . . really earning his pay. Fuchi also shines. He gets real sadistic with his matwork, and he always shows more personality than I expect. He might have been an all-timer if he'd gotten on the gas. After one last flurry of cheating, Honda puts away Gedo. Fun stuff. It might have been better if the visitors had been shown a little more respect, but they kind of brought it on themselves with that faction name.

Johnny Smith/Bobby Duncum Jr./Rex King vs. Steve Williams/Gary Albright/The Lacrosse (sic) (AJPW 10/21/1997) Rex King (Latin for "King King") is Well from Well Dunn. The Lacrosse is Wolf Hawkfield. We're less than a month from him taking off his mask, role-playing as a video game character, and teaming up with Johnny. Four of these guys are dead. This thread is more than anything else an examination of the career of Johnny Smith. It's late 1997. Johnny is the senior member of his team, and Budokan loves him. He gets a big pop when he's announced (plus a couple streamers), and he gets another when, after weirdly long deliberations, he starts the match for his team against Albright. The fans are more or less silent for his partners. I usually enjoy Smith/Albright interactions, but they're kind of eating it out there. They're not on the same page, and the grappling is fumblesome. Doc seems to agree with me; after a few minutes of this he comes in to boot Johnny in the face. Regarding Johnny's squad here: Duncum never impressed anyone, but he looks great running. He looks out of control, which is an asset when you're doing a wild cowpoke gimmick. King gets to do very little. And the Triangle of Power, a short-lived and justly-forgotten stable that they're trying to get over in this match: The Lacrosse is very Wolf Hawkfield-ish. He takes Smith's arm-working routine better than you'd think. Albright flings King around, and we all enjoy that. I don't know that I want to watch a lot of his singles stuff except when Kawada feels like performing a miracle, but he's a real asset in multi-mans like this. Williams is great in this, providing some personality and heat in an otherwise dry match. He's truly the Stan Hansen of professional wrestlers. But damn, someone needed to tell him to ditch the Oklahoma Stampede. He does it to Duncum, who's so big that Doc barely make it across the ring doing these little tiny ballerina steps. The fans get real loud when Johnny gets his big hope spot - the missile dropkick routine followed by a German suplex to Williams. Dr. Death's favorite transition when working with Smith is to punch him right in his goddamn face - we've seen this before - and he does it twice here. I pop every time. They fooled me pretty good with a false finish. Everyone takes turns running into King, then Lacrosse does his spinny powerbomb and goes for the pin while his partners vaunt themselves and do their Triangle of Power hand thing. The camera is positioned to that you don't see Smith and Duncum come in to break it up until the last second. But then Lacrosse hits his body press and gets the pin so we can all listen to KISS for a little bit. This wasn't bad, even though the outcome was never in doubt - looking at the personnel, there aren't a lot of scenarios where someone on Team Johnny could beat someone from the Powerful Triangle without it being the kind of upset All Japan didn't do too often. The match does make one appreciate Steve Williams. Even past his physical prime, he has presence, and that's more important anyway. This is everyone's last match until the 1997 tag league kicks off. I don't know what they were thinking with the Triangle of Power thing. Lacrosse gets the pin, and all three make a real point of making triangles with their hands, but Lacrosse becomes Wolf Hawkfield and is no longer involved the next time we see him.

Johnny Smith/Dynamite Kid vs. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi/Mitsuo Momota (AJPW 11/19/1990) Dynamite Kid is really popular. Johnny gets booed when he comes in to break up a pin, but DK does the same thing to cheers. When he goes to the top for the match-ending headbutt, everyone in Niigata City Gymnasium is on their feet. It's the typical Kid 'n' Johnny formula: Smith does a bunch of arm-wringers and whatnot, then Dynamite tags in and brutalizes. Kikuchi's a great foil for both, so his presence is always welcome.

Time for a clip show. The longest thing here is maybe five minutes. Johnny Smith/Arc Angel vs. Bruce Hart/Kevin Brosny (Stampede 11/24/1989) Sometimes you wonder why two Hart brothers are hall of famers and a whole bunch of others aren't. Then you see Bruce Hart and you stop wondering. He is fortunately on the apron for most of this while the heels beat up Kevin Brosny. Arc Angel is a great big muscle guy most famous as Firebreaker Chip. From WCW Special Forces! He gets the pin with a Doomsday Device followed by a pretty dopey finisher where he does a vertical suplex setup but then drops the guy on his face. The highlight is when A. Angel runs into Brosny, and the color guy says it's like getting hit by a truck going, "60 miles an hour (or 100 kilometers depending on who you are)." Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith vs. Butch Masters/Skywalker Nitron (AJPW RWTL 12/1/1990) I could have sworn one of these guys was Kevin Nash, but it's not the case. One of them became an actor (he played Ajax in Troy), and the other one did motivational speaking. Good heat. Whichever tall guy it is gets booed hard, and we get a big pop when Dynamite throws him off the second rope. Which is followed by an even bigger pop for Johnny's missile dropkick. Good guys win after a DK headbutt. I really enjoyed this but only because I thought it was Kevin Nash getting manhandled by two short guys. Terry Funk & Dory Funk Jr. vs. Dynamite Kid & Johnny Smith (AJPW RWTL 11/25/1990) Only a minute, but it’s odd to see even a minute of DK and Johnny beating up a couple NWA worlds heavyweight champions. And, you know, NWA champions back when it meant something. We’re not talking about Mike Rapada and Colt Cabana here. They work on Terry for about 45 seconds, who flops around like a trout. Then he and Smith do some pretty slick rollup stuff and Terry wins. Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith vs. Giant Baba/Andre the Giant (AJPW RWTL 12/4/1991) The British Bruisers aren't so lucky against these tall guys. You have to get used to watching Baba. When you have haven't seen him in a while, his movements look uncanny, like he’s a Ray Harryhausen effect. It's hard to believe he’d be racking up all those Meltzer stars years after this. He DDTs Johnny, and Andre just stands in front of DK in the corner to guard the pin. Probably a good use of Andre there.

Johnny Smith vs. Davey Boy Smith (Stampede 11/3/1989) It's brother vs. fake brother! Young John Hindley was brought to Calgary as Davey Boy's brother, which is the reason his fake stage name is the most nondescript name you can possibly have. He never left, by the way. I mean, obviously he got on an airplane from time to time, but Johnny Smith got to Calgary and never again felt the call of Albion. We join this match 55 minutes in. My initial response was, "and thank God for that," but further reflection indicates that we probably got the worst portion of this we could have gotten. Consider: The Smiths probably did some real nifty stuff. I bet they did all kind of rollups, and I further bet that it was pretty sharp. There's no reason these two wouldn't have worked well together, but we only get to see them when they're exhausted. We are brought into this match as David Boy prepares to put Johnny in a surfboard. And he takes his time - we get a solid minute of setup while the announcer talks in excruciating detail about it. Then Johnny just falls out of it. Doesn't work at all. I have wonder about the editing here, because I do not feel that we needed to see any of that. As we head to the time limit, somebody gets on the PA and starts counting down. The match-ending crescendo of kickouts is accompanied by this dumb fucking hoser announcing, and I quote, "Two three one!" Not only were these obviously not full seconds, this stupid hick can't make his way from three to one without getting lost. Stampede is so low-rent. I miss Japan.

Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith vs. Terry Gordy/Steve Williams (All Japan RWTL 11/15/1990) A note on nomenclature: Sometimes you see “Real World Tag League” called a mistranslation; the correct term is “World's Strongest Tag Determination League.” Sure, maybe. But consider this video from the opening of the 2000 league, where Lord James Blears in his capacity as chairman of the Pacific Wrestling Federation calls it the “Real World Tag Team League” while reading from a very official-looking piece of paper. It doesn’t get any more authoritative than that. This puts the term on firmer ground than “Holy Demon Army” or “Miracle Violence Connection,” which unless I’ve missed something are puroresu smark translationese. Speaking of which, it’s the first night of the "Real World Tag League," and one fan in Korakuen is so excited to see the “Miracle Violence Connection” that he brought his own Confederate flag. Just about everyone else is on Dynamite and Johnny’s side, though. Williams and Gordy are booed heartily whenever they stretch the rules, which really isn’t even all that much. Dynamite once again wrestles like he’s 6’5”, standing toe-to-toe with the giant Americans and trading blows. Johnny fills the time as pleasantly as he always does, and everything is just fine. It’s awkward but in a good way. Except for when Smith comes in to to stop an Oklahoma Stampede that Williams was determined to complete. Johnny hits him in the back, and Doc just ignores him for a while while he gets to the other corner. So they do stuff back and forth until Williams uses the Stampede on Johnny, and man do I hate that move. A powerslam is devastating, but you know what would make it even worse? What if your back was lightly dinked into two turnbuckles first? Try kicking out of that! As with Takayama’s legdrop, it’s just about the least painful-looking thing Steve Williams does. Was he using the Doctor Bomb yet? I never see it in the old stuff. So maybe 1990 isn’t so bad. Let’s see what happens next, when I press my luck by going to 1989 and *gulp* Calgary Stampede Wrestling.

I really liked Akebono. It's not easy to become a wrestler in your mid-30s, and it's not easy to do much of anything when you're 500 pounds. He did it anyway and provided an irreplaceable presence in quite a few good matches. I'm wondering who had the best sumo/puroresu number. My model is Bill James' power/speed number in baseball, which basically tried to find players who had a lot of power and a lot of speed but had to have a good amount of both. I think Akebono wins this. Tenryu had the best puroresu career anyone could have, but he only barely made it to the first division in sumo. Hiroshi Wajima was a yokozuna but only wrestled for a couple years and accomplished nothing. Koji Kitao did make yokozuna, but he's the worst one ever. He wrestled professionally for a long time, but you wouldn't call it a great career. I think he has the best case and still comes up short. Tadao Yasuda's an interesting case. He made it to komosubi, which is a rank higher than Tenryu managed. He did a lot in puroresu, for better or for worse. IWGP champion. Azumafuji Kin'ichi was a yokozuna who won some tag titles with Rikidozan in the 1950s. Interesting! PS I forgot about Rikidozan! Maybe it's he. He got to third from the top in sumo. Depends how you balance it.