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UWF is excited to formally announce the full card for the upcoming show in Osaka, Japan. It will be UWF's largest card to date with 10 (!) matches, including two unique exhibitions, the highly anticipated clash between Bob Backlund and Nobuhiko Takada, and the debuts of several Soviet athletes. The show will be broadcast live on WOWOW, and a capacity crowd of over 16,000 is expected. Maeda and Takada have been meeting fans who have been camping out overnight to grab tickets, handing out food and drinks. Card Announcement: UWF Newborn - "Osaka Super Bout" December 22nd, 1988 Osaka-jō Hall Osaka, Japan Wayne Shamrock vs Erik Paulson Masakatsu Funaki vs Minoru Suzuki Joe Malenko vs Osamu Kido Andrei Kopylov vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara Satoru Sayama vs Kazuo Yamazaki Vale Tudo exhibition: Marco Ruas vs Casemiro "Rei Zulu" Martins Soviet wrestling exhibition: Aleksandr Karelin vs David Gobejishvili Duane Koslowski & Dennis Koslowski vs Victor Zangiev & Salman Hashimikov Volk Han vs Akira Maeda Bob Backlund vs Nobuhiko Takada

I concur, NWA has certainly delivered this year. A nice little vacation won't do any harm. The magazine format is a good placeholder and keeps everyone in the loop as the year ends. Lots of interesting things on the horizon.

Great job with the promos for this episode, especially for Savage/Andre. Demolition vs Rockers will be a very fun match when it happens. Get well soon!

Things are heating up for Super Clash! Terry Gordy and Kerry von Erich continue to deliver with their interactions and the promos for Stevens/Jumbo and Nikita were very well done.

But how often does Mox work in Japan? Eddie Kingston and Gates of Agnony are not top guys. Calling NJPW the junior partner in a relationship that has been promoted as something between equals is not exactly the way I would go about this. There are reasons why AEW hardcores are annoying a lot of people, and talking down on promotions like NJPW is one of those reasons. Edit: My larger point is that a lot of folks, including myself, primarily follow NJPW. It irks us when people lecture us about how AEW's relationship with NJPW is beneficial when we don't really see the results and then say NJPW is the "junior partner."

Tony Khan doesn't let his top guys wrestle New Japan more than occasionally. The exception seems to be Jon Moxley and that's just for Strong shows in the US. The myth that TK lets guys sign contracts that allow them to wrestle in Japan needs to die. Danielson took like two years to show up in NJPW and that's for a Tokyo Dome show. Omega didn't even defend his US title in Japan. Takeshita rarely wrestles for DDT and his last match there was to advance an AEW storyline. We'll rarely see Ospreay in NJPW after February. TK signing Okada wouldn't go over well with NJPW either. Don't point and say WWE is the alternative because neither outcome benefits NJPW. People have turned NJPW into a junior partner in this relationship with AEW and the way some people talk about NJPW as a feeder now is very annoying. In any case, I don't expect Okada to leave.

Seems like they might be aiming for a TMDK vs Bishamon match at Wrestle Kingdom, so perhaps TMDK? As for the Okada story, I don't buy it. I would be shocked if he left but who knows? Edit: On the other hand, Super-J Cast seems to be hinting that NJPW has a lot of deeper issues going on and it might be a bigger mess than most of us realize. Kidani might need to clean house over there.

Kerry vs Gordy is really heating up and that should be a great match. Can't wait! Also love the Jumbo/Tsuruta interaction at the end, nice job closing the show and continuing to build up hype for Super Clash. Not sure why, but I'm rooting for Orndorff to walk out of Denver with the belt.

Good question. I imagine CZW wouldn't have reached the same heights ROH did and the brand would have capped their popularity levels to some extent...ECW was lightning in a bottle and I don't think they would have been able to repeat the same magic. We might have seen more of the top indie guys go to TNA instead perhaps.

It probably would have made more sense at the time, and I'm wondering why they didn't go with that since Muto would win his first major singles title a year later. This is pretty good, and I could see this happening but wrestling bookers are strange creatures and sometimes trip themselves up for no reason.

Yeah, I was surprised when I learned that as well a few years ago! One of the fascinating things about UWFi is that they had a bunch of guys you would never expect to see in a shoot-style promotion like J.T. Southern or John Tenta.

UWF Newborn adds: Aleksandr Karelin David Gobejishvili Marco Ruas Casemiro "Rei Zulu" Martins

Don Callis in an executive role should be very interesting and fun to follow. Jacques Rougeau is in NWA and he's on fire! Great job with the promo there.

Nightmares ducking the Renestos already? They can't hide for too long...

I like the Koko and Zenk pairing...that was a good choice. Might have said that before but it's worth repeating. Funny Ultimate Warrior promo...that made me chuckle.

Tully Blanchard immediately going up against Ric Flair should be very interesting.

Tony Khan dropping the ball with CM Punk and spending big money to sign Will Ospreay has to be one of the funniest things ever. All while the MJF title reign is killing the town.

A true Survivor Series feel! Very well done with everything as always. Demolition and The Rockers impress as expected, and Muta has really cemented himself as a star in WWF. Hogan is back on top form and Savage better look out. Happy belated Thanksgiving!

Heavenly Bodies with the tag belts will be an interesting change of pace, especially with Cornette backing them. Jim Duggan holds on and retains a chance at beating Dutch Mantell. Bert Prentice in a turkey suit is a funny visual.

Can't wait for Fujinami vs Vader. That should be a great match. Happy belated Thanksgiving!

A night of title changes and big moments. Great job writing this show! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Super happy to see the Road Warriors back with the belts and Jimmy Snuka should be a good addition to NWA. Ronnie Garvin pulls off the biggest upset of the night by dethroning Tully Blanchard! Wow, didn't see that one coming. Junkyard Dog is on the upswing as well. Happy belated Thanksgiving!

I would say Dragon Lee, Volador Jr, Shuji Ishikawa, and Utami all deserve a closer look

I can't say for certain how Japanese fans kept up with American wrestling in the 1980s, but magazines like Tokyo Sports, Gong/Baseball Magazine, Weekly Pro Wrestling, and the like probably did a lot to keep them in the loop. There was a lot of crossover with American wrestling during the 1980s and 1970s, so a lot of names like the Funks, Hansen, Andre the Giant, Hulk Hogan, the Malenkos, Backlund, Abdullah the Butcher, the British Bulldogs, etc were familiar. I think Japanese television channels also held highlight shows for some American wrestling companies. I forget the name right now, but there was a show that aired somewhere periodically that often covered what was going on in the territories. Edit - The name of the show was "World Pro Wrestling" which aired from 1984-1987 on TV Tokyo (Channel 12). More info from this tweet -