Control21

That's true to some extent. UWF was very popular in Tokyo and eventually Osaka, but they struggled in smaller towns because more traditional fans were less exposed to the nuances of the style.

I lost my disc for that game a long time ago. It sucks because that Pride FC mode was really good. Almost an entirely different game. PRIDE took a lot of cues from UWFi, RINGS, and even UWF Newborn to an extent with their production values and the way they introduced fighters at the beginning of their events. Here's the intro UWF did for the U-COSMOS show in 1989.

Chris Walker getting a win over Raymond Rougeau must be huge, especially in Canada! Davey Boy Smith vs PCO sounded like a great main event, and that's a matchup that probably should have happened in real life at least once or twice (if it never did, can't remember). Davey Boy Smith as the TV champion will be huge for the promotion going forward. Kevin Von Erich vs Jacques Rougeau and Jim Neidhart vs Mr. Saito on the previous show were excellent too. Good writing!

I enjoyed reading SuperBrawl and the aftermath recap. There were some interesting twists and turns to make things interesting, and the top matches were well worth the wait. Dick Slater will be one to keep an eye on, especially with the help of the Assassin. The Four Horsemen Era in NWA seems to be drawing to a close, especially with the Road Warriors and others starting to make a name for themselves.

Great show! Really enjoyed reading the Mayhem Match, and the other matches sounded like you had to be there as well. Jerry Lawler as the winner makes a lot of sense and he'll make the main event scene interesting going forward.

The realistic style NJPW was going for 1985-1989, especially with the UWF feud, wasn't a huge TV draw but it did draw a lot of fans to the shows themselves, and UWF did big business 1988-1990 so it's hard to blame the UWF stuff for NJPW's TV issues in the 1980s. As others explained, there were multiple factors at play.

Vader & Bigelow is great, but I also like Steamboat and the Steiners teaming up. Can't recall if that ever happened but kudos for that pairing if not.

Andre teaming with the Von Erichs would have been a fun sight to see. I really like where this is going so far.

This was a great podcast and I would heavily recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about shoot-style.

Kiyoshi Tamura actually did sumo before he entered the UWF dojo. That's one of those interesting wrestling trivia tidbits.

Card Announcement: UWF Newborn - "Fighting Base Tokushima" February 27th, 1989 Tokushima, Japan Tokushima City Gymnasium Yasuto Sekishima vs Erik Paulson Wayne Shamrock vs Shigeo Miyato Yoji Anjo vs Masakatsu Funaki Andrei Kopylov vs Mark Fleming Nikolai Zouev vs Norman Smiley Bad News Allen vs Chris Dolman David Gobejishvili vs Marty Jones Aleksandr Karelin vs Salman Hashimikov Bob Backlund vs Nobuhiko Takada Akira Maeda vs Volk Han

Welcome back Lee! Very much looking forward to this.

This is a cool idea. Early 1990s WCW provides a very interesting sandbox because it could have gone in so many different directions. Bret Hart is going to spice things up, and I'm looking forward to how the AJW partnership adds depth to the shows. Jushin Liger vs Brian Pillman is a fun way to start things off.

He's been very sloppy lately. He's always been to some degree, but the last two years or so have been especially poor. Maybe his age is catching up to him

I don't think anyone has tried to run major shoot-style promotions since U-Style, so it's hard to judge whether UWF stuff can still sell tickets. I know GLEAT has a UWF division but they haven't really leaned on that too much so it's hard to judge, especially since it's treated like a secondary act. If this event is a bust, you could argue that shoot-style is dead and can't draw. It'll be an interesting test either way. I think some of the matches will be worthwhile. They have to have some surprises in store if they are running Sumo Hall.

Yeah, it appears to be Jim Savage going by the original thread.

Very interesting. It's good to see Josh Barnett bring this concept to Japan. Sumo Hall is an interesting choice for a venue. I wonder if he has any aces up his sleeve for that sort of building. Going to be interesting to see how the card shakes out. It's a shame so many shoot-style greats are either too old to do a match or retired now.

I think the last two came after the UFC debut

Maybe we have an alternate universe where Herb Abrams sees what UWF Japan is doing and decides "hey, I already have Steve Williams on my roster, maybe I should try this shoot-style thing and build around him." Just get a young Ken Shamrock and Gary Albright and away you go.... I often wonder what would have happened if US wrestling had taken a similar route down the shoot-style path, especially before the ascent of UFC. IIRC, the first few English UWFi PPVs sold in the US did fairly well (this was several months before the first UFC event), and Lou Thesz even talked about running UWFi house shows in the US at one point. I think the opportunity was there since wrestling fans weren't exposed to MMA yet.

I found something pretty interesting while browsing the Wrestling Classics board a few weeks ago. Someone over there posted an old contract from the first iteration of UWF Japan (1984-1985) that a friend shared with them. The original topic is here: WrestlingClassics.com Message Board: UWF Japan Contract UWF Contract Page 1 UWF Contract Page 2 UWF Contract Page 3 It's an interesting bit of history, especially if you are familiar with the 90s AJPW guidelines floating around on the internet given to foreign wrestlers who toured with the promotion during that period. It appears this wrestler in particular was paid about $10,000 in 2024 money for a three-week tour. Not bad I think! That comes out to about $120,000 for a full year. Also, I know some of you have asked about the dynamics of winning/losing in UWF, and how it worked in reality. This recent tweet sums it up pretty well. It's partially what made the ascents of wrestlers like Minoru Suzuki, Masakatsu Funaki, and Kiyoshi Tamura so fascinating. It's something hopefully I've been capturing well, and something to keep in mind with UWF's new dojo trainees debuting next month!

Yeah, TK is happy about wrestling being one big family....as long as it takes place under his roof. TK is a billionaire, and billionaires rarely do things from the bottom of their hearts. It's just the way the system works for them. I'm not saying TK is VKM 2.0 but he looks after himself, no one else.

It's been more or less very one-sided up until recently, but the fact that AEW keeps signing away talent doesn't help matters much. I know people will use the WWE argument and say that WWE would have signed them anyway, but I don't think that's true. The WWE rumors have been mostly used as a sideshow I think, especially to avoid the appearance of poaching. Of course, WWE would be interested in Ospreay, Okada, White, etc if they heard they were free agents, but they were never really interested in WWE and always were heading to AEW I think. AEW hoarding talent like this is not good for the business, especially if NJPW and maybe even CMLL end up becoming "feeder" promotions.

Per Meltzer, Romero is still working for NJPW which is kinda interesting if you think about it.

Okada is being booked for the last few dates as a freelancer. He said this himself. I imagine he has some control over how he is being booked. It's evident he has a massive ego