ohtani's jacket

This is an odd story. Kobashi had always wanted to wrestle in America, since All Japan had some trouble when he was a trainee and he wasn't able to go. After he took his shirt off, the female cabin attendant was surprised and said "great muscles," but then a gay looking guy suddenly touched his crotch. Kobashi was distressed and mumbled something like, "America scares me", but as soon as he got off the plane the first thing he asked was whether there was a gym still open at 11pm. There's some sort of running joke that the reason Kobashi has never gotten married is because he can't find a wife who will put up with his work out regime -- getting up at 4:30am to get ready to train and he also has the air conditioner on at 14 degrees all the time because he sweats so much. Akiyama refused to share a room with him because he had to wrap himself up in so many blankets. Seems like the guy's whole life is training and wrestling. Akira Taue was one of Baba's favourites, but hated training to Baba's dismay. He used to tell Taue that he doesn't do 1/10th the training that Kobashi does. Kawada once joked after one of their draws that a steel edged sword couldn't beat Kobashi, so maybe he should use a dumbbell. As far as the cancer thing goes, the morning he found out he had to go to some fan day, which he did, keeping the news a secret from everyone. When he finally announced it, he promised the fans he would return to the ring and Japanese people are pretty serious about keeping promises. After his surgery, his rehabilitation mostly involved weight training. He got his weight back up to 115kg, after being about 100kg post-op. I guess the idea of a return match helped his recovery. Kyoko Inoue also had a tumour removed recently, but she had to give birth first. Needless to say it was a complicated pregnancy. She's pretty motivated to make a return next year for her 20th Anniversary.

Eh, it's all in Japanese, but basically Kobashi was into body building before he ever joined All Japan. When he entered the All Japan dojo, he used to start training every morning at 5:30am. Apparently, Tenryu used to give him shit about how much he worked out. There's a story about how Kobashi's workouts are so relentless that KENTA had to be hospitalised once from exhaustion. And apparently on a flight from Atlanta to St. Louis he asked for permission to work out with his shirt off. I'll try to get it in more detail if you're really interested.

Alright, I don't know if he uses them in moderation or abuses them. Kobashi work out stories are crazy. Whatever the case, his operation took longer than expected because he has three times the muscle mass than regular people.

To what extent to people think Kobashi uses steroids?

Why do athletes try to mount comebacks? Commentating isn't part of the spotlight. Maybe it was killing JBL to be stuck behind the table. I don't think it's particularly noble or anything, but it's pretty natural.

Where did these stories come from?

I don't believe that MMA is wrestling, but there's a connection, at least where I am. If I go to a video rental store, MMA stuff is right next to the wrestling stuff, even in Champion. Wrestling magazines cover both. A large amount of Samurai TV is MMA. Wrestlers have done MMA and vice versa, and they're promoted by the same people. Most wrestling sites have, or attempted to have, separate MMA boards. There's certainly a crossover appeal. I can understand Dave covering it in the Observer. It's not wrestling, but it's closer to pro-stuff than amateur wrestling is.

I was searching about Inoki's political career, since I reckon any guy who worked Castro, Saddam Hussein, the Kremlin and North Korea has got to be the greatest con guy in pro-wrestling history. The guy smooched with presidents in the Middle East, Central America and South America. He not only got hostages released during the Gulf War, he ran one of his Peace Festival Shows in Baghdad, which the hostages attended. He ended getting done for tax evasion and election law violation. Not surprising considering he once funneled all of NJPW's money into fund that "Anton Hisel" project in Brazil (converting sugar cane into an alternative energy source.) Zach Arnold: ""There was a legendary myth in Japan that Inoki had created a company called "Anton Hisel" in 1980 to invest in biotechnology in Brazil. However, it wasn't just a myth - it was a reality. In 1980, Inoki attempted to broker deals with the Brazilian Government in investment in his biotechnological projects. Originally, the Brazilian Government had a plan to use refined alcohol as energy produced from sugarcane instead of crude oil. Oil was expensive and the Brazilians had a lot of sugarcane crops. The big challenge for the Brazilian Government was this - how could they produce this alternative form of energy without polluting the rain forests and the environment? One of the great side effects from the refined alcohol process involved the disposal of wastes. The waste disposal was not done properly and in turn, caused agricultural problems. Inoki thought that he had a perfect idea for turning the waste from the refined sugarcane alcohol into feed for livestocks by adding enzymes. At first, the idea sounded good. However, Inoki not only wanted to take the refined sugarcane alcohol waste and confert it into feed for livestock, he wanted to take the cow crap from the livestock after they ate the refined waste and recycle the cow crap into even more feed for animals. Inoki, in his mind, felt that this solution would solve hunger on the entire planet. Not only did the idea fall flat on its face, it cost him a lot of cash. The fermentation process failed and combining with the inflation of currency between Brazil & Japan, the project gathered enormous debt in no time. The project was immediately halted - until more money arrived to fund it. The project, for the next three years, continued to operate. How was Inoki able to fund such a money-losing project? Where was the cash flow?" To be fair, Inoki is pretty honest about his business failures.

Inoki is insane. Apparently he's trying to develop a perpetual motion machine. Not only that, but at one point when he was deep in debt he considered committing suicide by fighting lions.

Ha, someone should encourage Meltzer to put Nick Zappetti in the Hall of Fame. He did as much as anyone to bankroll Japanese pro-wrestling in the 50s. In Bad News Allen's shoot interview he says Abdullah the Butcher and Tiger Jeet Singh were big favourites with the yakuza, but all the heels were treated well. He also says Bob Orton, Jr. kicked a yakuza boss in the balls once and had to be flown out of Japan. The Vader story involved him getting multiple stab wounds to the legs, arms and stomach. Dunno if it's true. Apparently, Mike Awesome and Sabu were beaten up by yakuza guys at an FMW show. Onita had to intervene.

Y'know, the reason for Yumi Ikeshita retiring (maybe kayfabed) was that she was getting married. I remember a Japanese poster saying at the time he or she couldn't believe anyone could love such a woman. So, I definitely believe that some fans bought into the morality of it all. As I mentioned before, Dump's parents were harassed, so the odd person bought into it a little too much. Not everybody hated Dump though. Some people thought Dump and Bull were cool. They had fanclubs. IIRC, Hokuto helped organise the Bull fanclub and they ran an ad in the Women's Gong. And Dump was popular leading into her retirement, which drew a big number. At the height of the feud, however, Dump was a heat machine.

Shiro Abe is the ref you're talking about. He was a heel ref, although, as I recall, Dump used to beat him up regardless. There was a period in AJW where every match ended with either the faces or heels taking their frustrations out on the ref. In the early 80s, titles could change hands on a count out and there wasn't much regard for DQs.

MATCHES Lucy Kayama vs. Mami Kumano Sato/Kumi vs. Ikeshita/Leilani Kai Monster Ripper vs. Jackie Sato (WWWA title, 9/13/79) Monster Ripper vs. Jackie Sato (WWWA title, 3/15/80) Sato/Aoyama vs. Black Pair (1979) Lucy Kayama vs. Tomi Aoyama (All Pacific Title, 1979) -- The first two matches are from the same outdoor show as the Devil/Jaguar rematch. Mami/Lucy is a clipped draw. No improvement over their previous match. Mami was a poor offensive wrestler, actually she barely had any offence at all. Kayama looks to be struggling with the heat and messes up a lot. You can skip the tag, too. The highlight is Ikeshita doing an awesome adlib after slipping. -- The WWWA title matches are heavily clipped. Jackie's selling is awesome in the first match (off some pretty simple heel work; Ripper's voice is cringe worthy.) The finishing stretch is pretty typical of this era... Sato goes on an offensive tear & wins with a screwy finish. Some pretty good cat and mouse stuff, though. Sato works a knee injury & her transition back onto offence was really clever, I thought. They didn't do offensive switches well back then, so that was impressive. Ikeshita really messes Sato up in the second match. The schoolgirls lose it. -- The last two matches are really good. The tag match is pretty much definitive Black Pair. There were still large numbers of schoolgirls going to the shows in '79, so Ikeshita cheats far more than in the 1980 stuff. I liked the handheld camera work in this match. They got in real tight. Aoyama vs. Kayama is a good little partner vs. partner title shot. One of those matches were Kayama looks really good. It's a shame she didn't get a run with the White Belt because offensively she was one of the more interesting and dynamic workers AJW had at the time. Not only that but she could sell.

The young boys scrubbing Baba's ass isn't as bad as it sounds. Japanese people love going to the hot springs. They take the hot springs naked and members of the same sex -- be it friends, family or even co-workers -- have seen each other naked many times. Before getting into the hot spring, they wash themselves and among Baba's generation it wasn't uncommon to get a trainee to wash their senior amongst all of the other menial shit they had to do. It's not like Baba's taking some young boy out back to feel up his balls.

Does this mean we'll get another big money match between Vulcan (Australian Gladiators) and the Wolf Man (UK Gladiators)?

So, I decided to go back and watch more 1991 All Japan, since, IMO, '91 > 93-94. This time I concentrated on the Gordy & Williams vs. Misawa & Kawada feud, including two very good singles matches (Misawa vs. Gordy and Kawada vs. Williams), MVC vs. Misawa/Kobashi and the two Gordy/Williams vs. Misawa/Kawada tag matches. I gotta say I prefer the old heavyweight style more. It's slower, but Gordy and Williams actually get to play heels and there's -- gasp -- matwork. I read a quote from Baba saying one of the reasons they moved in a new direction was the lack of great American wrestlers coming to Japan (i.e. no touring NWA champion and no AWA), but like the Matsunagas, who thought there couldn't be idols anymore, the new All Japan style was unsustainable really. Japanese professional wrestling shot itself in the foot in many respects in the 90s, stylistic changes being one of them, if you ask me. Anyway, this stuff smokes the big, dopey Williams & Ace tag matches I've been watching.

Lots of good stuff in MXNT41's latest uploads. Kayama/Aoyama vs. Ikeshita/Kumano Chino Sato vs. Ayumi Hori Mimi/Aoyama vs. Ikeshita/Noriko Kawakami Lucy Kayama vs. Mami Kumano Sato/Kumi/Yokota vs. Monster Ripper/Masami/Romero Rimi Yokota vs. Tenjin Masami (AJW Jr. title) -- The first match is great stuff. Aoyama is returning from injury and has her knee bandaged up. She's tagging with her old partner and one half of the current WWWA tag team champions, Kayama. The first fall is a sprint, with Ikeshita showing how awesome she is at mixing it up in any style. The second fall is where it gets awesome, with the Black Pair deciding to do a number on Aoyama's knee & boy do they do a number. There's all kinds of mayhem with the ring girls trying to intervene. Needless to say, plenty of girls in red tracksuits go flying. The Black Pair never let up & this is super drama. Ikeshita's afro was unruly. -- Chino Sato has her back bandaged in the match against Hori. Might be an indication as to why she retired. As far as a push goes, seems like she was going nowhere. -- The TV commentator says this is Hagiwara's first television appearance in a while & her back is also bandaged. In her case, she had a problem with her tailbone, and *I believe* she actually had a piece of bone floating around inside. Noriko Kawakami is one of those girls who lasted all of one year. -- Kayama vs. Kumano is OK. Kumano works singles like she does tag matches, so it's mostly Kayama fighting against Kumano & her foreign object. Kayama had a surprisingly big moveset, & although it's not used in a sophisticated way, she keeps busting out moves you don't expect to see in 1980. -- The Six-Woman tag is AJW's version of trios. It's pretty cool except for the fact that Nancy and Jackie are once again in no mood to give anything to the heels. Monster Ripper had won the WWWA title back at this point, but you wouldn't know it unless I told you. -- Finally, it's Jaguar vs. Devil, the rematch. This is more of a straight-up wrestling match and it rules. So much great wrestling from Yokota, with Devil continuing to emerge as the heir to Black Pair. This is from July or thereabouts. A lot of the girls' fortunes have waned so far, but these girls keep growing in confidence.

To be honest, these days I'd be more interested in something like "The Best UK Workers" or the "Best Wrestlers to Work Memphis." Greatest Matches or Greatest Wrestlers polls are predictable, even the revistations. EDIT: Maybe once the Watts thing gets underway at DVDVR, you'll be more interested in wrestling.

Misawa/Kobashi/Kikuchi vs Taue/Fuchi/Ogawa, 7/21/92 Eh, throwaway match. Misawa's injury was a major disruption. Misawa vs Kawada, 10/21/92 I don't think it's fair to judge this match on anything that came before it or anything they did afterwards. It was a particular moment in time when they were trying something new. The first half is like a traditional heavyweight match, which is more or less a feeling out period. The last third or so is where they start kicking out of each other's finishers. The first part is either a slow rhythm builder or meaningless, depending on how you feel about this sort of thing. In a sense it's time killing, but Misawa and Kawada knew as well as anyone that a match has to build to a climax. The opening minutes aren't a great hook, but it builds from there and does so naturally. There wasn't a lot of depth & no amazing story, it was just a match. But it was a match the fans wanted to see, and they wrestled to the best of their ability in October, 1992. The stretch run was just an idea at this point, and like any idea they needed to sketch it out. No, we weren't in Norman Mailer territory here (i.e. his account of Rumble in the Jungle), but it was well paced. All in all, a hell of a lot more positive than most of the All Japan from '92.

MORE 1980 AJW Courtesy of MXNT41 Mimi Hagiwara vs. Chino Sato Rimi Yokota/Ayumi Hori vs. Yumi Ikeshita/Wendi Richter Rimi Yokota vs. Tenjin Masami (AJW Jr. title) Nancy Kumi vs. Monster Ripper Jackie Sato vs. Chabela Romero -- Mimi vs. Chino Sato is OK. Looks like a clipped 30 minute draw. Mimi keeps trying to turn it into a boxing match with her tiny fists of fury. Actually, those tiny fists can pack a punch in Japan, but you gotta hand one first. -- The tag is just a clip, no finish, which is a shame since I wanted to see more Yokota vs. Ikeshita and Richter was one of the better American girls back then. -- The AJW Jr title match was really impressive from the point of view that it a juniors match laid out like a main event. Yokota was The Woman in waiting at this point, and it was interesting to see Jackie mentoring her at the beginning. A few months later and they'd be beating the crap out of each other. Devil was still "Tenjin" Masami here, but it was surfacing... beginning with some awesome outside interference from The Black Pair & continuing with Masami working over Yokota's face... Rimi was on point with everything -- timing, selling, execution -- all the traits that would become synonymnous with her work. Devil & Jaguar would work this match again at WWWA level, before Jaguar perfected it against La Galactica. On one hand that shows how ingrained working styles & match structure were in these girls, but it was still impressive to see them pull it off as juniors. -- Singh was in better ring shape here, even if it cost her some of that "Monster" aura. Nancy may have been hysterical & a bitch, but she was a pretty good worker I've decided. AJW sure loved count outs back then. Still, I always liked that spot where one girl is holding onto the other girl's legs. -- Jackie was a wrestling machine in 1980. Unfortunately that meant she barely gave Romero anything, which sucks because Romero was the type of big girl who knew how to use her size.

Selected matches from All Japan. Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi vs Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi, 1/24/92 Eh, there were early signs here of a move away from heel work, injury angles & face in peril stuff. Kinda makes me wanna jump off the early 90s bandwagon, but I guess this feud was running out of steam. There's only so many times you can rough up a young guy before he needs to show something... That he can not only work through it, but prevent it from happening in the first place. There were a few opportunities for sustained heat here, but it felt like the young guys wanted more of an even keel. Jumbo/Taue vs Kobashi/Kikuchi, 1/26/92 OK, but the intensity wasn't there. Kobashi & Kikuchi's double teaming is really annoying. Kawada vs Taue, 3/31/92 Blah, this is one of those cases where the workers don't know what kind of match they want to work. Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi vs Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi, 5/22/92 A last hurrah? Honestly, there wasn't much life to this feud anymore. There was still a lot of heat, but it wasn't the same shock and surprise as before. Nothing really new about this match, except for Taue's injury angle (which was a shoot & then adlib, if you ask me.) Jumbo/Taue vs Misawa/Kobashi, 6/5/92 Excellent, slow burning tag. This felt like the first "90s" tag match of the era. Jumbo was getting smaller and smaller throughout '92 (both physically & presence wise), but this was a big match performance from him. They managed to blend Jumbo being Jumbo with the kind of big tag build that was pressing. Some kinks, but one of the better matches from '92. Strange year. The work wasn't bad, but there weren't as many epics.

Jumbo vs Kobashi, 5/24/91 Hard to know how good this is... The Sapporo crowd is hot (I guess they didn't get many shows up that way) and what's shown is well laid out. I don't like Kobashi that much (don't like his moveset for a guy that size), but he was perfect in the young wrestler role & the commentating keeps driving that point home. Jumbo/Fuchi/Ogawa vs Misawa/Kawada/Kikuchi, 7/26 Eh, this is an example of them working a 6-man without any story or major booking point. The work is good, but the intensity is several notches below the best 6-mans. The finishing stretch was excellent, as usual. Jumbo/Taue vs Misawa/Kawada, 11/29 Great match. Actually, this might be the most exciting match of the year. This is a match-up I've really come to love, which is strange, because as a tag team I think Misawa and Kawada had very little rapport. Nevertheless, this was great. It was almost like a coda for the entire year -- a year in which these guys really tried to physically hurt each other. The result didn't really matter to me because the intensity never dropped off. As popular a heel as Jumbo was, this was one of those matches where he was just out-and-out pissed & Misawa came into this match with a target on this forehead (or under his eye(s) as the case may be.) On a side note, I thought Taue was brilliant in his secondary role in this match. Dunno what the elbow pad was there for, but the legitmacy of Taue the worker continues.

1991 All Japan Kawada vs Taue, 1/15/91 Such an awesome match. It's like a throwback to 80s brawling, but with cool new spots. Courtesy of Taue. Taue in the early 90s was more visibly "on" or "off" than most wrestlers, but "not so good" workers simply don't have matches like this. Taue owned this match. Hell, that was the story of the match, which made the finish beyond awesome. And that cheap shot at the end was such class. Tenryu would've been proud of that. Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi vs Misawa/Kawada/Kikuchi, 1/27/91 In the grand scheme of All Japan 6-man tags, I guess this is just another good one, but rewatching this stuff I keep finding that the 6-man tags are the best way (for me) to enjoy All Japan. The multiple story threads & shifting dynamics are more engaging than the single match structure. I liked how this shifted from Kawada vs. Taue into Jumbo getting all pissy with Kawada, to the point where he's even shoving Fuchi out of the way. Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi vs Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi, 4/20/91 The type of match that makes me wish I went to shows back in the day, though if this really went past midnight (as the analogy goes), I'd miss the train & that'd be a bitch... I was impressed that they kept up this pace for 50 minutes without running out of ideas. It was held together by two story threads -- the first was Kawada vs. Taue, the second was a reprise of the 10/90 match where Kobashi had his nose broken. The latter came just in time for people like me who have a hard time sitting through long matches. Fuchi was such a prick in this. I gotta say, though, that was dumb of Jumbo to go after Kawada on the outside when his man was in a pinning predicament. Misawa/Kawada vs Jumbo/Taue, 9/4/91 Cool match. It seemed like they were putting a different spin on the 12/90 match, where Jumbo was laid out on the floor. At first I thought Misawa made his comeback too soon, but they beat him down & it was all good. The finish came out of nowhere, similar to Misawa's original victory over Misawa, so either Misawa wasn't good at working to a finish or they wanted to play it that way. The captions at the end are cheesy. I don't know if they're direct quotes or not, but you're not missing out on anything. Jumbo/Fuchi/Taue vs Misawa/Kawada/Kikuchi, 10/15/91 I thought this was the most exciting match of the year. Maybe I'm partial to a big story match, but I really felt like everything came to a head in this match. I mean there was so much shit boiling over in '91, and this was the match where it all got nasty. Interesting that Taue was the calmest guy in the ring, despite the fact he was being a real asshole. Jumbo vs Kawada, 10/24/91 A good match, but it felt a bit stark to me. It didn't have a big arc -- Kawada basically tried to wear Jumbo down, until Jumbo shrugged it off and killed Kawada, reaffirming what we already knew, that Jumbo was still _The Man._ To be honest, I thought their exchanges in the 6-man tags were more exciting than this, and I'd expect a singles match to escalate that, not fall into predictable patterns.

I didn't know about this. Downloads please.