Control21

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

ZSJ-Danielson was as good as I expected. Better than their match in October last year I think. The first 15-20 minutes were a treat.

It looks like Sean Waltman had his first match in 1990 and did a fair amount that year. Scotty 2 Hotty had a match in 1989 and did some more stuff in 1990.

A little while back, I worked on a list of rookies for 1990. I used a combination of The Top Ranked Pro Wrestlers by Rookie Year-1990 (ainsworthsports.com) and Category:1990 debuts | Pro Wrestling | Fandom and cross-checked a good chunk of the names with Cagematch, Wikipedia, Wrestling Data, etc. I used the rules listed elsewhere to filter out names that wouldn't qualify like Great Sasuke and other Japan/Mexico wrestlers that didn't work dates in US/Canada. I also didn't include anyone who didn't have much information on them. This is the list I came up with, it's by no means exhaustive and I probably missed a few. Some might already be in the game and I didn't catch them when I looked when coming up with this. Alfred “911” Poling Barry Hardy Bill DeMott Carl Brantley? (AKA Vladimir Koloff. Mixed dates here. Cagematch and Wrestling Data say 1991) Chris Jericho Chris Hamrick Chris Von Erich Dave Sullivan Debbie Malenko Donald “Hack Meyers” Haviland Duane “Gillberg” Gill Glen “Thrasher” Ruth Glen Osbourne Horace Hogan Ian Rotten Jason “EZ Money” Broyles Jeannie Clark (manager) Joe Gomez Jose Estrada Jr. JT Smith Kevin Kruger Kevin Nash Lance Storm Lester Speight Marc Mero? (started training in 1990, didn’t debut until 1991) Marcus “Buff” Bagwell Mike “Duke” Droese Mitch Ryder Phil "Damien Demento" Theis Rich Myers Rick Fuller Rick "Renegade" Williams Rob Van Dam Saraya Knight (as a manager) Scott "Scotty 2 Hotty" Garland Sean Waltman T. Rantula Terri Runnels (as a manager) Tony “Ludvig Borga” Halme Vito “Big Vito” LoGrasso William “Billy Black” White Jr.

Dan Severn vs Toshiaki Kawada is the match we should have gotten in real life. I imagine that would have been awesome. Ricky Steamboat vs Barry Windham is something to look forward to!

Title Night is shaping up to be quite an event. Ray Stevens made sure to put over Tsuruta quite strongly as the formidable threat he is. Dory Funk Jr and AWA seems like a natural fit and I think Dory will have a lot of interesting matches on his plate with the current roster.

Super Brawl is shaping up to be a great event. Looking forward to Junkyard Dog vs Fuller in particular. The taped fist match sounds quite fun too!

It's great to see Ryuma Go in such an interesting promotion. I'm a big fan of his work and it's good to see him being utilized in Dawn of War. I agree with everyone else that Saito and Neidhart make for a great tag team. Excellent job on the write-ups so far. I love your work and it's great to see you bring your vision of Canadian wrestling to us again. Long may it continue!

Koko Ware and Shane Douglas should be a very interesting tag team. I could see them being very dynamic as partners. Valentine, Bravo, and Jimmy Hart make for an excellent group I think. They add a lot to the shows and I think they work together well. Can't wait for Steiners vs Varsity Club, that should be very exciting!

He's not going to AEW. TK hates him. He's likely going to start a new promotion in Japan later this year but predictions about a mass exodus seem pre-mature right now