Owen Edwards

Flood Waters Rise Promotion ace Mitsuharu Misawa succeeded Giant Baba as President of All Japan Pro-Wrestling in the wake of his mentor’s death in January 1999. It wasn’t a smooth transition. Baba’s widow and majority shareholder Motoko (“Mrs Baba”) had wanted Mitsuo Momota, the son of Rikidozan, to take over, but Misawa’s predecessor at the top of the promotion, Jumbo Tsuruta, lobbied successfully for Misawa. Perhaps Mrs Baba saw Momota as a more reverent choice as successor, given his lineage, or perhaps she perceived him as pliable. Either way, she soon got her revenge on Tsuruta, who was dismissed without severance soon after. Mrs Baba and Misawa couldn’t really agree on anything else, either. Misawa wanted more action by Junior Heavyweights, more varied main events, a modernised presentation, modern worker-friendly contracts (medical coverage and so forth), a change in the way merchandise revenue was handled (formerly this had been treated as the Babas’ pay cut) – basically, everything. Giant was also more diplomatic, more open to compromise – Mrs Baba lacked those qualities entirely in her dealings with Misawa. By May 2000, things had come to an impasse, and Misawa had asked Mrs Baba to bless his founding of a new company. Perhaps in response, she arranged for his dismissal as President on the 28th. He went off to form NOAH with 24 contracted wrestlers and several key foreign freelancers (notably Vader); Mrs Baba was left with something like 4 contracted wrestlers and a selection of regular guests. The NOAH story is the big and successful one. It gets plenty of attention. It was Misawa’s Ark, carrying the vision of King’s Road – but what about those left behind in the flood, who through storm and wrack brought their promotion to shore? This is my take on the two years between Misawa’s exit and Keiji Mutoh buying Mrs Baba’s shares from her to become the majority owner of All Japan. Notes on Booking in the End Days Misawa and his cohort would work two more tours with All Japan after his dismissal – the ongoing Super Power Series and four dates on the upcoming Super Action Series. I’ll deal with the latter below, but some reflections on the former are a worthwhile precursor. Misawa is booking the card on these, and the final conflict with Mrs Baba was well underway before the tour started on the 20th May. With that in mind, there are some interesting decisions, two of which we will consider. First, Stan Hansen works two singles matches. He had worked one in the whole of 1999, and hadn’t worked in the Champion Carnival in either 1999 or 2000. The old cowboy is physically limited and winding down. Why does he come back to squash Takeshi Rikio and Takeshi Morishima? Second, there is a one-night tournament on the final night of the tour – the 9th of June – for the vacated World Tag titles. Neither tag champion – Vader and Steve Williams – is on the tour, and this presumably led to the vacation (both will be back in Japan for the rest of the year, though). The semi-finals see Akira Taue and Toshiaki Kawada defeat Johnny Ace and Mike Barton, whilst Takao Omori and Yoshihiro Takayama defeat Misawa and Yoshinari Ogawa. The latter is booking for NOAH – the two young guns of NO FEAR mostly target Misawa, and this is a major elevation. The final sees Taue and Kawada beat Omori and Takayama. That’s a function of seniority in the match, perhaps, but it’s also strange insomuch as this is Misawa putting Kawada over, knowing Kawada is not coming with him to NOAH. I can’t fully explain either decision – neither is discussed as far as I know in the autobiographies of the various key personnel, most of which have been translated in summary by KinchStalker – but they both show Misawa looking forward, and perhaps looking back too. Hansen is going to come back for one last ride on the range – for All Japan, not NOAH – and this is probably the last chance to give some rookies the rub by giving them a session with the legend. He gets ring rust off, looks strong again, and makes memories with the youngsters. The Tag Titles, meanwhile, let the now-splitting Holy Demon Army win one last time (they will have a moving last hurrah at Misawa’s memorial show 9 years later), and gives Kawada a final bit of shine. I think this should be read as irenic on Misawa’s part. Both moves help the company he is leaving. Super Action Series 2000 – The New Roster And it’s not just him leaving – 23 other contracted talent including virtually every important uppercarder and midcarder, plus key foreign freelancers and backstage staff are going. Who’s even left in the flood? The senior referee, Kyohei Wada, had been Baba’s batman, and he is loyal to Mrs Baba. Ring announcer Fumi Kitahara also stays. Stan Hansen, close family friend of the Babas, is pointedly loyal to his widow (Hansen brushes this period of the split off in shoot interviews – he explained it as the Japanese being mysterious to Jim Cornette). Another old stager, the junior heavyweight Masanobu Fuchi, seems baffled by events when interviewed, and simply says he’s signed a new contract and is off to pray for Giant Baba and inform his spirit of events. Midcard heavyweight Maunakea Mossman – Hawaiian, but trained and contracted like a native – also stays, perhaps loyal to the man who scouted him out of Honolulu. Most significantly – vitally – Toshiaki Kawada, the #2 heavyweight in the promotion, stays. In an interview in June 2000, he says he could not let go of the name that Giant Baba had created (All Japan), and in his autobiography he says that his response to Misawa giving the chance to join him was similar – “To let the name All Japan die would be a lonely thing”. Kawada is outwardly positive, at this point and in his autobiography, about Misawa’s ideas and the future development of NOAH, though there is some hint of tension or confusion in the 2000 interview. Mrs Baba, perhaps naturally, frames those who remain as being loyal to Baba’s dying wish – to preserve All Japan. Misawa sees himself as saving the spirit and sloughing off the crippled body. Several key foreigners do stick around, perhaps happy with their remuneration and used to dealing with the Babas from a money perspective. “Dr Death” Steve Williams, a former Triple Crown champion, stays – this is the most significant name to remain. The others are Giant Kimala (aka Giant Kimala 2 or Botswana Beast), Scorpio (2 Cold Scorpio or Flash Funk), Wolf Hawkfield, George Hines, Johnny Smith, and Mike Barton. Hines, Hawkfield, and Smith had all been All Asia Tag champions, and Barton had been a World Tag champion. Notably, Vader and Johnny Ace do not return. Vader is a two-time Triple Crown champion; he does not join NOAH’s opening tour, which is native-only, but he goes there soon after. Ace – a multi-time tag champion for both titles and a Triple Crown challenger – was a close friend of the Babas, and so I do not believe that he wanted to stay out of the fighting (as is sometimes claimed). He had opportunities opening up with the struggling WCW, and he picked that money and security over Japan. Finally, Richard Slinger – nephew of Terry Gordy, and a reliable undercard Junior mainstay in the 1990s – had not toured pre-split that year, and when he returned in the autumn would go to NOAH. The returning foreigners perhaps do not look like much to us, but Williams and Barton, especially, were very credible to the Japanese audience. Smith and Kimala were both very reliable hands with a lot of good midcard behind them, Scorpio was fast and flashy, and Hines and Hawkfield were perfectly solid. However, Williams was definitely well past his prime – like Hansen – and most of this group were never going to be long-term uppercarders. One other freelancer is missing: the great Hiroshi Hase, who retired from full-time work with New Japan in 1996 and transferred to All Japan as a guest by invitation from Baba. Hase is busy with his political career and will not return until his traditional New Year tour in 2001. Four contracted wrestlers and seven freelance foreigners is not much to build a card with. What seems to have happened was that calls were made to whichever friends of the promotion were left. They needed more native undercarders and potential uppercarders, and they needed them to be available and reliable. One obvious choice was to bring in regular guest, Jinsei Shinzaki, on a more full-time basis. Shinzaki (Hakushi in WWF) was a Michinoku Pro talent, but had guested throughout the late ‘90s, notably in a very fun tag partnership with Hayabusa (the high-flying star of FMW, a promotion run by the Babas’ adoptive son Atsushi Onita). Shinzaki only wrestled in three matches in 2000 prior to July – though I don’t know of any injury in that period – but returned pretty much full-time with All Japan for the back half of the year. Another high-profile recruit was aging legend Yoshiaki Fujiwara (aged 51 in July 2000), whose main work had been in New Japan and shoot-style promotions, but who was now a freelancer. He would work chiefly with All Japan through 2000 and 2001. Fujiwara brought name recognition for wrestling fans – like Hansen or Steve Williams. The undercard was filled out for the tour with six names: Yuto Aijima, SHINOBI, Shigeo Okumura, Mohammed Yone, Yuki Ishikawa, and Ryuji Hijikata. None of these were big names. They weren’t random scrapings, either. Aijima and SHINOBI both chiefly worked Kyushu-based promotions: West Japan, Kageki, and Sekai No Puroresu. SHINOBI had links to Mexican promotions and to Ultimo Dragon’s Toryumon, too. Aijima would work a full-time schedule, SHINOBI a part-time. The move to All Japan probably represented a significant promotion for both, especially Aijima. I don’t know how they were recruited, though Fuchi is from Kyushu so perhaps had contacts there. Yone, Ishikawa, and Hijikata were shoot-stylists from BattlArts. BattlArts had been an important partner once Baba “brought the walls down” in 1997. He had worked with FMW (his adoptive son’s company), Michinoku Pro (a regional company in the north of Honshu), and BattlArts, as well as bringing in refugees from other shoot-style companies. Yone had in fact worked three matches in AJPW in 1998. Nevertheless, this was the first serious run for any of them with AJPW. Ishikawa is really a solid midcarder in BattlArts, and will only work two matches with AJPW; the other two are basically undercarders and will get extended runs. Okumura is the most interesting name here, in some ways (though Yone and Hijikata will go on to be much bigger). He had been trained by the Great Kabuki and Masanobu Kurisu, both ex-All Japan close associates of Genichiro Tenryu in the 1990 AJPW-SWS split (though Kurisu was a freelancer by then). He worked with their companies Tokyo Pro and TEAM KURISU, as well as Go Gundan and Samurai Pro (both run by ex-AJPW Goro Tsurumi). He followed Kabuki and Kurisu around to other promotions: IWA Japan and IWA Kokusai. In 1998 he worked parts of two tours with All Japan, chiefly jobbing to Juniors. He increasingly worked with Genichiro Tenryu’s WAR, but by December 1999 had begun to work regularly for Onita Pro – the personal brand of Atsushi Onita. I wonder if it was by Onita’s good graces that Okumura came to All Japan. Okumura had been a real wanderer, and had closely associated with the men who had “betrayed” Baba in 1990. He seems, from his early career stats, to have been willing to work any kind of match and do any kind of job. Exactly, really, who All Japan required. On the note of Genichiro Tenryu…we’ll come back to him. Day 1 – Fight for Tomorrow (July 1st, 2000) Five days of this tour were filmed – days 1, 2, 7, 8, and 16. They appeared via commercial tape, with no contemporaneous television broadcast (NTV had cut ties with All Japan and were preparing to broadcast NOAH; this was financially more directly ruinous than Misawa and co leaving). The production is actually fine here, with well-lit gymnasia and multiple well-handled cameras. I don’t know if NTV still had a hand here, or if Mrs Baba just ate the cost and paid for decent production from elsewhere; GAORA’s production later in the year is much worse, though they broadcast this (in November, albeit). This is at the Differ Ariake in Tokyo, with an estimated attendance of 1,500. The crowd is actually pretty hot and engaged. Giant Kimala vs Scorpio: 13:13, of which we have 0:39. Curtain-jerking is a hallowed art, and this is an interesting pick for the first match of the new era: quick guy versus big guy. Virtually impossible to judge, of course, because we only have the closing moments. The crowd isn’t exactly electric here, either, so maybe it’s been dull, but both these guys are fun. Scorpio strikes Kimala, Leg Lariats him, then misses a top turnbuckle Moonsault, and is Splashed for the pin. Fine for what we have. 2/5 (very provisional) Maunakea Mossman vs Yuto Aijima: 3:34, of which we have 1:41. This is my first time seeing Aijima. Mossman is in Big Boy black trunks with dyed hair – he’s being promoted, clearly. Both guys actually look good here, even as it’s set up as a Mossman squash. Aijima is sharp in everything he does. Aijima gets to hit a nice Powerslam and Butterfly Suplex, Mossman then murders him. The crowd really enjoy the Hawaiian Crusher finish. If you told me Mossman as an established uppercarder and Aijima a respectable midcarder in the promotion, I’d believe you. 3/5 Jinsei Shinzaki & Johnny Smith vs Shigeo Okumura & Yoshiaki Fujiwara: 19:24, of which we have 2:16. Very hard to judge, though the crowd is engaged which is a good sign. We JIP with Fujiwara having gained the upper hand and having tagged in Okumura. Okumura gets to put some offence on Shinzaki, but eventually the senior man turns it round, and though Fujiwara breaks up one pin, Smith then drives him to the outside and assaults him pretty viciously. Dragon Screw (prophetic) into Necktie Camel Clutch for the submission on Okumura. Also my first time seeing Okumura, who does a respectable job but is just a little slow at points. This has just a tiny bit of an All Japan tag vibe. 2.5/5 George Hines & Mike Barton vs Steve Williams & Wolf Hawkfield: 13:57, of which we have 0:53. This is an interesting matchup, with the putative top two gaijin (once Hansen rides into the sunset) and two one-time All Asia title holders. Barton – Bart Gunn – is rated much more credibly here than he ever was in WWF, and all because he knocked out Steve Williams in Brawl for All. This matchup brings that to the audience’s mind, surely. It’s a reminder that here are two serious contenders. However, we get virtually none of it – we just get the finish, which is a fairly well-oiled back-and-forth with a good crowd. We do start with Dr Death half-botching a turnbuckle powerslam on Hines, which is a bit of a sign of things to come for him. Barton twice breaks up double-teams on Hines, and Hines gets a tiny final comeback. We preserve the potentially more interesting matchup for later via the finish, a Dr Death Backdrop on Hines. Entertaining for what we have. Williams and Hawkfield throw up the Triangle of Power sign at the end – that’s intended booking, I guess. 2.5/5 Masanobu Fuchi vs Toshiaki Kawada: 22:48. Shown in full. Fuchi out first in the black jacket he’s worn for 60 years or so by this point. Kawada comes out in a “Fight for Tomorrow” t-shirt, a fairly pointed piece of new merch. Fuchi is a 46-year-old Junior who doesn’t work singles anymore; Kawada is a three-time Triple Crown champ and was World Tag champ just last month. I liked this a lot the first I watched it, and rewatching has improved my opinion. This is an austere match – this is classic red Burgundy of the rural style – but it’s excellent. There is no problem re the believability of Fuchi being able to win. We know he can’t. But he and Kawada are “all that’s left” (pace the loyal and reliable Mossman), and they have to lead the Fight for Tomorrow. That’s the story, though: Kawada quickly gets in charge and stays in charge, but he cannot put Fuchi down. Fuchi can only gain advantage, and briefly, from tricks on the mat (where he can just about compete) or from frankly dirty tactics, but in the stand-up fight the best he can do is stay standing. He manages this for over twenty minutes. His chest is red-raw with Kawada’s chops and kicks, and even when he gains advantage he can only use it to take a breather, shaking cobwebs from his kick-clouded head. But he doesn’t give in, he doesn’t stooge, he doesn’t beg off. He stands up and fights against impossible odds. Each man represents a part of All Japan’s spirit in this match: Kawada is the aggressive fighter and champion, Fuchi is the indomitable fighting spirit. It becomes profoundly moving by the end. After a Dangerous Bomb finally finishes Fuchi off, Kawada lifts him and raises his hand. Fuchi has been beaten but not broken; he is All Japan. 4.5/5 We end on a Kawada interview. Day 2 – Prodigal Son At the Korakuen, with estimated attendance of 2,100. Strange, really, to have the second day at the Korakuen. A poster outside prominently bills Kawada, Mossman, Barton, Williams, and what I swear looks like Johnny Ace on the low-res rip I’ve watched but which might be Hines (but why?). Masanobu Fuchi vs Shigeo Okumura: 12:14, of which we have 0:54. Clipped to just the finish. Fuchi switches from main eventing to curtain-jerking and ends up torturing the newcome for a win with a form of Fujiwara Armbar. We JIP with Okumura on offence, and he looks fine if a little soft and slow. He seems perfectly professional, though, and sells properly. A guy like that can usually find a place in a fed needing bodies. He hits a missile dropkick “lying down”, joshi style, in a way that only Misawa has ever really made look good for me amongst men. They end up tussling for suplex positions, and Okumura moves round into a German hold, but Fuchi catches the arm into the Armbar, which is a neat finish. 2.5/5 Giant Kimala vs Wolf Hawkfield: 13:48, of which we have 2:33. This is a decent little closing clip for Kimala appreciators like me. I am also probably in the top ten Hawkfield fans in the world today, but that’s a limited statement; he’s super athletic and strong but his timing and positioning is so regularly just slightly off you have to accentuate the positives. He walks under a slow lariat from Kimala and later hits his winning frog splash slightly short. Kimala, meanwhile, hits a Flying Chop, Handspring Senton (!), and a normal Splash, and it’s very fun. Hawkfield gets pops from bodyslamming Kimala and a Gorilla Press Slam from the top turnbuckle (Kimala has gone up for a Diving Body Press). The crowd is down for all this stuff, and it’s reasonable remedial booking – we need Hawkfield, who is potentially a credible midcarder (he’s tall and athletic and has won a title before), to look good, and Kimala is always safe to job as you can’t really hurt what the crowd like about him. 2.5/5 SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: The three “ordinary” contracted talent – Kawada, Fuchi, Mossman – come to the ring in t-shirts and track trousers, followed by Mrs Baba. Kawada speaks briefly, then Mrs Baba, who quickly begins to break down in tears. Both mention Baba-san. Mrs Baba speaks at some length, mentioning the company name a lot. She finishes the first part of the speech to thunderous applause. All Japan matters to the fans. It strikes me that smark wrestling fandom back in the mid 00s – when I first got into puro – probably didn’t grasp this because of a laser focus on NOAH (and perhaps because of the association with Muto). Nevertheless, this is a hot, loyal crowd. Then Mrs Baba mentions a surprise – we get sounds of wonder – and then a name: Genichiro Tenryu. The crowd goes legitimately mad and chants the returning prodigal in. He only walks to the ring and back out but it’s enough. I think it’s pretty obvious in retrospect that this is the moment that saved All Japan, at least in the form it would take. Tenryu is barely younger than Hansen but works like a much younger man, still. He’s got massive name recognition, and has run two promotions with something like serious coverage. He’s a star, and he means that there are now two native main eventers of real calibre. With Mossman’s push, Williams, and Barton, the company suddenly looks a lot more serious. As we will also see in future tours, Tenryu also has access to undercard talent to come in and widen the native roster – he’s trained a lot of guys and he’s got his own promotion, which functionally folds into All Japan from not long after this. What’s shocking, of course, is that this Mrs Baba inviting back the man who – no questions about it – betrayed Baba’s trust with a previous exodus. Tenryu pretended to retire and then took a glasses maker’s money to run a promotion, largely stocked with AJPW talent. This was much more morally dubious than Misawa’s departure. Baba had made it clear he would never welcome Tenryu or his confederates back, though he excluded future trainees (thus Okumura having come to All Japan whilst Baba was still in charge). So this is genuinely dramatic. Scraping out some journeymen from Kyushu and some undercarders from BattlArts looks like scrabbling, and it probably was; calling in Tenryu is calling back Alcibiades in the hour of Athens’ need. There is something sublime in it, and the crowd reaction is one of the great crowd reactions in wrestling. Jinsei Shinzaki vs Scorpio: 11:21, of which we have 2:08. Curious little thing. Should be the best match on the card, but the crowd is a little subdued and the finishing run-in – which is what we have – is…okay? There’s some back and forth, and Scorpio gets a 360 Leg Drop and a Moonsault in which is fun, but there are some obvious miscommunications (or something). After the Moonsault, Shinzaki kicks at one and Scorpio comes right back in to get a two. I think he’s annoyed. The finishing run itself is basically botched, and Scorpio takes Shinzaki up for a Powerbomb and then Shinzaki falls on him (I’ve seen the suggestion this is a failed Frankensteiner). Shinzaki hits his own Powerbomb straight from this for the win. This isn’t bad, per se. It’s just not good. 2/5 Johnny Smith vs Steve Williams: 17:14, of which we have 4:18. This is interesting – Johnny is basically a midcard tag guy, but here he is in the semi-main event in singles. He’s a successful midcard tag guy, and had earned his way over with the crowd, but this is a big promotion for him, and it’s because the uppercard is pretty bare – Williams, Barton, and Kawada are established there, but they need foils. This is obviously a match to emphasize William’s seniority, just as he had gotten the pin in the tag match the previous night. (He again throws up the Triangle of Power sign afterwards.) Anyway – we start with Johnny rolling outside, with a very short brawl there and then a return and a Johnny comeback. Johnny is actually great here. His offence, though he doesn’t get much time for it, is good, and he sells his leg great – he kips up and shouts and limps, for instance. There’s also a great tussle right at the end, just before the final move, where Johnny is blocking a Williams throw by holding his leg. He looks canny, strong, but outmatched. Dr Driver for the pin, predictably, but the crowd is into this. There is a notable half-botch – Johnny goes for a swinging neckbreaker low to the mat and Williams doesn’t move. It’s odd, hard to know who to fault. Anyway, good. 3.5/5 George Hines & Mike Barton vs Maunakea Mossman & Toshiaki Kawada: 17:14, of which we have 2:52. Disappointingly cut down to the finish. This is still interesting, if nothing else for the fact that George Hines is massively over with the Korakuen faithful, and Kawada gives him a decent offensive spurt before Enzui-ing and Spin Kick-ing him into unconsciousness. We start with Barton battering Mossman whilst Hines recovers at the ropes. Mossman eventually escapes and Kawada seems on top of Barton, but a sick gutpunch gives the foreigners the advantage, and despite interference from Mossman, Hines stays competitive. I think once he’s in, it’s not going to go well for him in the end, but the booking is to make him plausible at the top of the card – he’s won one All Asia title, in 1993 (!), with Patriot. Like Mossman and Smith and (to a degree) Shinzaki, he’s seeing a drive to main event status by necessity. I enjoyed what we got here, though it’s a shame it got cut down so much. The crowd is hot. Interestingly, Kawada shakes Barton’s at the end and brings him over to bow to the crowd. 3.5/5 Days 3-6, 9, 13, and 15 – Tour These are the 7 days of “normal” tour for the new All Japan. The remaining days have the rather awkward presence of much of the NOAH roster, and will be summarized separately below. These tour dates, untaped as they are – and with no surviving fancam I know of – are still pretty interesting, because we can see the general line of thinking in the booking and we can see certain experiments which may or may not last. I’ll try to summarize what the cards generally look like, as naturally there is some repetition and semi-repetition. Fuchi curtain-jerks 6 times, 4 times against Aijima and twice against Okumura. It’s an important job, and a veteran with crowd connection is the natural fit for it (cf Mitsuo Momota). Scorpio, Johnny Smith, and SHINOBI often come second; Scorpio beats SHINOBI three times (once curtain-jerking) and Hijikata once in this context, Smith beats Hijikata and SHINOBI once each, with the remaining spots being Yone over Hijikata and Okumura over SHINOBI. There’s some effort to give Yone and Okumura some shine here, as well as presumed long-term midcarders Scorpio and Smith. Hijikata and SHINOBI are here to job. The third match – the middle match, on these cards – contains Kimala four times and Jinsei Shinzaki twice, which I think is informative. Both were lower midcarders pre-split, though very popular ones; they’re natural picks to press up the card now, so as to occasionally take uppercard prominence, but they’re not selling tickets on their own (probably). Shinzaki beats SHINOBI and Yone, whilst Kimala beats Aijima twice and Scorpio once – and loses to Mossman. Mossman is being pushed into the main event, and there aren’t many people to credibly job for him – you can’t sacrifice other main eventers (Williams, Barton) and you probably shouldn’t feed him people like Smith and Shinzaki too often. Therefore, Kimala, who can be in semi-mains but is just never going to challenge for titles, can be safely jobbed out, and he’s a decent worker, too. The remaining “middle match” is Hines & Yone over Smith & Hijikata – Hines is usually working higher up, as (to be fair) is Smith, but this looks like a fun match on paper, with three pretty good workers and on perfectly respectable (guess which). The semi-mains begin to bring in the new main eventers (because of course not everyone can main event every week, except one guy). The matches are: (1) Smith & Barton over Williams & Hawkfield – potentially pretty interesting with more Williams vs Barton; (2) Barton & Hawkfield over Shinzaki & Okumura – yes, Okumura is here to job, and this is the first Barton/Steele match; (3) Smith & Mossman over Yone & Williams – Yone surely eating the pin from Mossman; (4) Williams over Kimala – Dr Death getting shine off Kimala just like Mossman had; (5) Fuchi & Williams over Kimala & Okumura – a strange matchup, but presumably Williams over Okumura; (6) Kimala & Mossman over Scorpio & Williams – Kimala getting to be on the winning team, and presumably Mossman pinning Scorpio; and (7) Barton & Hawkfield over Hines & Mossman, amping up the new tag team and probably giving Barton a pin over Hines (I can’t see Mossman eating a pin even from Barton). Barton and Hawkfield are in three of these, Williams in five, Smith in two, Kimala in three, and Mossman three. Meanwhile, Kawada main events (that’s the main point here): (1) Kawada over Shinzaki; (2) Kawada/Mossman over Smith/Williams; (3) Kawada/Shinzaki over Barton/Hawkfield; (4) Barton/Scorpio/Hawkfield over Mossman/Okumura/Kawada; (5) Kawada/Mossman over Barton/Hawkfield; (6) Kawada/Shinzaki over Barton/Hawkfield; and (7) Kawada/Shinzaki over Smith/Williams. In the tour segment of the series, aside from Kawada, the key main event pieces are clear: Mossman (3 times), Shinzaki (4 times), Williams and Smith (2 times each), Barton and Hawkfield (4 times each). Day 7 Korakuen Hall, estimated attendance of 2,100. Scorpio vs SHINOBI: 8:11, of which we have 0:38. Scorpio Powerbombs SHINOBI, Moonsaults him, refuses to pin, goes up for a 360 Splash. No doubt fun stuff, but very vestigial on the tape. The crowd claps along to Scorpio dancing after. 2.5/5 Jinsei Shinzaki vs Yuto Aijima: 10:33, of which we have 1:37. We get basically nothing here. They slap each other a bit, Shinzaki gets a lovely back spinkick in to gain advantage, then he does the top turnbuckle flying tackle, then a good-looking Necktie Clutch for the submission. He’s been on tape three times tearing through undercarders, and won by submission twice, which is a surprising direction. This is fine. 2/5 Johnny Smith & Yuki Ishikawa vs Masanobu Fuchi & Shigeo Okumura: 20:46, of which we have 2:38. Ishikawa is announced as from BattlArts by the commentators, which is interesting. We don't get much of him, or of this in general. Fuchi enters on a battered Ishikawa who immediately counters, and we get some slightly bitty back and forth across all four men. The crowd is somewhat warm, though, which adds to it. The decisive turnaround is Smith dodging an Okumura Missile Dropkick, getting two from a Piledriver, and then the pin from a British Fall. This is solid enough - the work is fine - but bitty and then it's over. 2.5/5 Giant Kimala & Mike Barton vs Steve Williams & Wolf Hawkfield: 19:26, of which we have 2:39. Very similar length and clip to the previous but a definite step up. We only get Kimala and Hawkfield as legal men, they do very respectably, though it's playing the hits. It's a shame to lose decent Barton/Williams engagement but their interferences in the main action always count and the action always develops organically - e.g., Kimala goes up to the top turnbuckle in Triangle's corner; Williams gets up from the floor and interferes; Kimala knocks him off, but Hawkfield has managed to get up; Hawkfield comes over to take advantage, but Kimala is stronger and can get off his Flying Neckbreaker/Chop anyway. It works, it all makes sense. The complete removal of the main matchup here from the clip causes this to suffer. The crowd love Kimala though. 3/5 Maunakea Mossman & Toshiaki Kawada vs Mohammed Yone & Yoshiaki Fujiwara: 20:53, of which we get 4:54. This is in two clips - just over 2:30 from the start, and 2:20ish from the finish. The content of the clips looks like it wants us to foresee a Kawada/Fujiwara rivalry. In the first clip they get into an ill-tempered strike exchange, and in the second Kawada at one point flips Fujiwara off as the old man considers interfering in Kawada hitting Yone. This actually comes down to Mossman and Yone, which has a lot of value as they do some quite nice work together - kick exchange, Mossman on top, Yone making a small and nice-looking comeback, and then building to the Hawaiian Crusher for the win. This is respectable, though Fujiwara already looks a bit slow here - he's the same age as Hansen, a year older than Tenryu, and his mobility is somewhere in between the two but closer to Hansen. I like his Baba shirt. 3/5 Day 8 The second commercial tape starts with this day, but not before a montage – starting with numerous news articles about Misawa splitting. It’s a bold way to frame things, putting the oppo’s face at the start of your tape! Then we get a summary of the Kawada vs Fuchi match and then Tenryu’s return, before a tease of the matches ahead. Ryuji Hijikata vs Shigeo Okumura: 9:40, of which we have 0:40. We get this clip to show Okumura, one of the new boys, getting in a win. He beats legitimate future AJPW legend Hijikata, who here is appearing on tape for the first time. Hijikata is crisp and bumps well and that’s all we get of him; Okumura mostly just gets move in here before getting the submission win. Hard to feel too confident that this is very good. 2/5 Johnny Smith vs Yuto Aijima: 12:39, of which we have 2:35. This is the perfectly okay run-in to the end, giving Smith a win over one of the new boys. Decent missile dropkick/kip-up and Swinging Neckbreakers from Smith. The British Fall itself is pretty good here, but Aijima stumbles on the setup, which looks sloppy. This is fine, but we’re not able to say much more from the survival. 2/5 Giant Kimala & Scorpio vs Mike Barton & Wolf Hawkfield: 19:52, of which we have 1:30. You know what, this is a pretty fun fragment, though it’s not terribly sharp. Then again, literally none of these guys are known for being insanely crisp, even Scorpio. We start with Barton and Hawkfield – tagging here for the first time on tape, for what will be an important partnership for both of them – countering Kimala, and then double-team-lariating to push him over the top rope to the floor. Barton is left with Scorpio and we get a bit from both guys. Scorpio is allowed some nice comeback bits – a big, sweet-looking Armdrag counter off a Crucifix Powerbomb attempt, for instance – but can’t really properly take Barton down. Barton counters into his rather nice sudden Cutter (learned from former Tag Championship partner Johnny Ace, perhaps) as Scorpio comes off the ropes, and the #2(ish) gaijin gets the pin. Fun. 3/5 Mohammed Yone vs Steve Williams: 4:56, of which we have 2:17. Yone is being booked surprisingly high on the card, in some ways – main event the previous night and upper-midcard here. But then he had come over and challenged for tag titles with Ikeda pre-split. We have about half of this and it’s very fun, a good story of a sharp, aggressive “underdog” taking it to the big guy senior, who ultimately just overwhelms him. Some fun bits include Williams gaining control through a high Backdrop on to the corner post, Yone’s kicks, and Yone countering the first Dr Driver attempt into a falling Crossbody pin attempt. Yone looks pretty strong for what’s really a squash. 3.5/5 Masanobu Fuchi vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara: 30:00. We have about a third of this on the commercial tape, but the whole match survives as a fancam. This is a surprising match, and in a good way. The story that develops is that Fuchi can just about hang on the mat, but Fujiwara really has the advantage there – but Fujiwara doesn’t have the upright advantage that Kawada, and Fuchi is a vicious bugger (for which, this time, the crowd love him, even going into the FU-CHI-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP bit), willing to take any step to gain advantage. He hits stepover stomps by the apron, uses the ropes as a weapon, exploits breaks, all of it. Fujiwara is obviously looking for the Armbar, and locks it in a few times, and Fuchi suffers (though we don’t get his exquisite misery as in his 1991 match against Joe Malenko, due to the camerawork), but he’s always ring-aware and works to the ropes. He even finishes the match with his own Sleeper in. This is a match about Fuchi surviving, and it’s a good matchup for some nice matwork. It does those two things well. The booking – Fujiwara got in Kawada’s face the previous night but now can’t beat Fuchi – is odd, but it’s a strong match. 3.5/5 Jinsei Shinzaki & Yuki Ishikawa vs Maunakea Mossman & Toshiaki Kawada: 25:15. We have 4:40 on tape, but 24:17 survives by fancam (there is one obvious cut, unclear if it could have lasted a minute so there may be other very subtle cuts). The complete match is a good step up from the clipped match, though the camera work is obviously more limited. The result is never really in doubt – the two serious contracted main event talent are not losing to two upper midcard outsiders – but there’s plenty of action here. Ishikawa and Mossman have some great strike and hold exchanges, Ishikawa in general is actually booked strongly, and Kawada is put on an absolute tear of dominance. He repeatedly bullies or clowns both guys, at one point staggering around waiting for a Shinzaki Missile Dropkick only to jump to Enzuigiri him as he dives, at another points Ishikawa runs in to interfere and Kawada casually turns around him and Powerbombs him, that kind of thing. Shinzaki has a strange performance here – just excellent selling, most of his work is crisp, but he seems just a little slow and notably botches a comeback against Kawada (Springboard Dropkick). There’s some decent work by Ishikawa and Shinzaki on Mossman’s leg early on, but this doesn’t carry forward really (Ishikawa does try to return to it in the final third but that doesn’t develop). Kawada pins Shinzaki after a Powerbomb and a Knee Drop. This is good, if flawed. 3.5/5 Day 10-12 and 14 – Divorce Proceedings One unusual provision of the AJPW-NOAH split was that Misawa agreed to bring his guys to work four dates on the Super Action (Summer Action I) series. None of these were taped, and the cards are functionally split – the NOAH workers fill up the middle of each card, and only work tags and six-mans. This means that we get the last AJPW leg of Family Legion vs Villain Shokai, with the final matchup being Momota/Kimura/Rikio vs Eigen/Kikuchi/Kobayashi (i.e., KENTA). Fuchi main events on the same day with other AJPW workers; a rather poignant moment for those of us who like the comedy six-mans. The other notable NOAH booking decision is that Team NO FEAR (Omori and Takayama) win three tag matches, twice against Akiyama and a partner and once against Taue and Masao Inoue. The already strong push is only going up from here. The AJPW workers put on fewer matches as the card is naturally fuller but the dynamic of this does mean you get interesting matchups. The opening matches are AJPW in each case: Fuchi/Hijikata over SHINOBI/Aijima, Fuchi/Hawkfield over Kimala/Aijima, Fuchi over Aijima and Shinzaki/Mossman/Aijima over Hines/Scorpio/Okumura. Scorpio also twice works a “semi-opener”, beating Hijikata and SHINOBI. Everyone is still getting work, and Scorpio is getting junior heavyweights to work with to give the crowd some flash (Funk). The semi-mains are usually AJPW: Kimala/Hawkfield over Barton/Okumura (oh, I wonder who did the job here), Kimala/Barton vs Yone/Okumura, and Kimala/Williams over Barton/Hawkfield (this one plays into the Williams/Barton rivalry and I suspect might be a lot of fun, especially at only 16:03). On day 11, AJPW instead provides a match right in the middle of the card – Okumura/Williams over Shinzaki/Yone. Naturally, Kawada always main events, and the main events are always AJPW: Shinzaki/Mossman/Kawada over Smith/Scorpio/Williams (given Mossman’s push this is an obvious mismatch), Mossman/Kawada over Smith/Barton, Smith/Williams/Hawkfield over Shinzaki/Mossman/Kawada (demonstrating Hawkfield’s kayfabe superiority to Scorpio; I assume Shinzaki did the job), and Fuchi/Kawada over Smith/Fujiwara (playing into the tension between Fujiwara and the AJPW loyalists). Surprisingly, Smith main events every time as well – not Mossman (3 times) or Barton (2 times) or Williams (2 times), but Smith! But then he’s probably doing the job in two of those, and he’s a reliable crowd favourite, so this may be a bit of a thankyou for your service. The AJPW booking here is much of a piece with the rest of the tour, barring the odd opening tag mixups. Kawada and Mossman look strong, Aijima and Okumura and Hijikata and SHINOBI get to job a lot, Shinzaki and Smith get booked up the card but are often losing, Barton and Williams look pretty protected, Scorpio gets to do entertaining but minor stuff, and so forth. It’s obvious, though, by comparison, who has the stronger roster, and especially the stronger native under- and midcard. 2000-era Marufuji, Kanemaru, Takayama, Omori, Izumida, etc are obviously a step up in terms of flash and promise than Okumura, Aijima, SHINOBI, and Hijikata. The veteran undercard is interesting, with the serious competitors basically being Kikuchi and Momota vs Fuchi. Fuchi is the most accomplished of the three, though I love all of them. AJPW is very reliant on middling foreigners (a bit like the early and mid-70s), where NOAH won’t even feature foreigners in its first tour. In the native (sic) uppercard, you would give NOAH the advantage, certainly, but by less: Misawa/Kobashi/Akiyama/Taue vs Kawada/Tenryu (yet to redebut)/Mossman. NOAH has one more big name and Taue is better and more over than Mossman. Day 16 – Resurrection Budokan Hall, Tokyo, estimated attendance 16,300. We get exterior shots and then a trackalong shot of Tenryu arriving and going to his dressing room. Masanobu Fuchi vs Shigeo Okumura: 9:57, of which we have 1:50. Solid finishing clip from the curtain-jerker. The crowd is hot here which is always a nice thing. Okumura starts with a bit of control, including a nice Lariat into the corner, but Fuchi takes over with arm submissions, pushes through a mini-comeback, and hits a sickening backdrop for 2. Another, shortly after, gets him 3. Okumura sells nicely. Solid but slight in the version we have. 2.5/5 Fuchi gives a short promo after, which is at least partly about the return to the Budokan and the new start, but I’m not otherwise clear. SHIIBA vs SHINOBI: 8:48, of which we have 0:33. Semi-opener between two of the Kyushu boys. We have about as much or more of SHIIBA doing a comedy bit playing a big drum before the match as we do of the match itself. It’s a perfectly enjoyable comedy bit! The clip we have is SHIIBA rather untidily finishing up, with the pin off a Wristlock German Bridge. The more interesting thing here is that SHIIBA is actually Ryota Chikuzen, trainee of Ultimo Dragon and founder of Kyushu Pro, one of the most fun things going on in modern puro. Anyway, fluff in the form we have it. 2/5 Giant Kimala vs Yuto Aijima: 10:19, of which we have 2:16. This is pretty fun! Aijima starts our clip by, with a lot of effort, Vertical Suplexing Kimala! He then sells back pain and so is slow to the pin. Kimala gradually takes control, but not without resistance, as Aijima gets another nearfall off a Schoolboy. Kimala eventually runs through the Jumping Neckbreaker/Chop, the Rolling Senton, and finishing up with the Splash. It’s a formula Kimala match in some ways, but he’s sharp enough here and Aijima is good. 3/5 George Hines & Scorpio vs Mike Barton & Wolf Hawkfield: 15:08, of which we have 3:18. We have virtually nothing of Hines here, two attempted interrupt/comeback spots (including a good cycle kick) and nothing else. It’s Scorpio fighting for his life against Barton – though he actually starts in control with a credible pin sequence including what I guess is a 450+180 (but not a 630, let the reader understand). He goes for that again after the 2, and Barton gets his knees up. Barton sells nicely for the smaller man and is a good base here. Scorpio actually gets a few runs of offence against him, and comes out looking pretty good. Hawkfield is in for double teams, and does get a good top turnbuckle splash in, but otherwise looks as slightly confused as usual. The ending is sweet – Barton is just about fending off a bunch of Scorpio offence, Scorpio goes over the rope and lands on the apron, springs to get back in…straight into the Ace Crusher! Barton was doing these surprise cutters long before Randy Orton, turns out. This one was genuinely great. The match as we have it feels middling, because we have no sense of development, but it’s a good endrun. 3/5 Johnny Smith vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara: 19:52, of which we have 2:24. This is basically a Fujiwara Formula Match circa 2000, though of course we only get the end. It’s okay. Very early on Johnny lines up the front headlock for a Swinging Neckbreaker and then rather awkwardly changes to a waistlock and we get an extended “contesting for Germans”, which actually leads to some sick-looking Deadlift German Suplexes. It’s not entirely great action but it’s nice to see Johnny doing cool stuff. He eventually hits his Missile Dropkick and lines up for a Lariat, but Fujiwara spots it in time and takes him straight for the Armbar and the submission. Understanding the formula makes this much more palatable, but it never really moves above decent in what we have. I think we’d benefit from having more of this. After the match Fujiwara jaws at Kawada. 2.5/5 Jinsei Shinzaki vs Steve Williams: 21:11, of which we have 3:40. This is nearly all Williams tidying up on Shinzaki. Most stuff is executed fine, though Williams once attempts a comically slow Lariat to allow the dodge off the ropes. Williams does hit a very nice Gorilla Press Slam over the ropes and beyond the barriers, which Shinzaki takes beautifully. Very hard to feel too warm about this given it functions on tape as a squash. 2.5/5 Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada vs Maunakea Mossman & Stan Hansen: 23:12. Strangely for Tenryu’s return match in AJPW, this is mostly about Mossman and Hansen, but that’s the right call. Good match. Hansen and Mossman are the past and the future of All Japan (Hansen even adverts to this in a post-match interview), Kawada and Tenryu are the present. The NOAH exodus isn’t the loss of AJPW legitimacy; the true line resides here. Hansen is limited here – his hips are gone, he can’t run – but he’s still so good. He can sell and he can strike, but he also has so many clever bits and ideas. He at one point interferes, takes down Tenryu, and then contemptuously steps back outside to make the tag legal, for instance. Lovely little character touches. Tenryu actually has a quietish match, but gets plenty of good offence in and looks in good physical shape – there is only a year between him and Hansen, but the ring health difference is vast. Mossman is great, and looks like he belongs. He goes toe-to-toe with both of his opponents, and at one point dumps Tenryu outside beyond the barrier, bang in front of The Destroyer. This is his step into the spotlight and he’s not going to waste it. Kawada is dominant and brutal – and gets top billing, coming out last, after Tenryu – and he and Mossman, particularly, have several great grappling and strike exchanges. This is obviously a potential future rivalry, and it’s their first match of the tour, as previously they’ve only tagged with each other. Kawada has to roll out all his offence, but he gets the pin on Mossman and is lifted on the shoulders of Williams and Scorpio. Williams then gets a Zen Nihon chant going, and then Mossman is lifted up too. The storytelling in the match and after is all clear, though it’s very strange seeing Kimala in civvies and politely applauding Mossman. Obviously he has begun to adopt the strange customs of Japan. 4/5 Conclusion NOAH got all the attention in the 00s in Western Puro fan circles, but this is a fascinating view into a product which would only last a couple of years before the full triumph of Pro Wrestling Love. It’s often recognizably All Japan – Fuchi vs Kawada, Tenryu/Kawada vs Hansen/Mossman, Smith/Williams, Smith/Yone, Hines/Barton vs Mossman/Kawada, the Kimala matches, all follow various formats and ideas established in the 90s – but the roster is so different, and the people being pushed so different, that it’s a bit of a parallel universe exercise (except it happened in our one!). What would happen if All Japan wanted to continue some of the same philosophy, with some evolution, but more importantly with 33% new personnel and heavily reliant on upper midcard foreigners and random native jobbers? Well, we got to find out, and actually it’s pretty interesting, if only in embryo. The roster actually mostly works out. Okumura and Aijima turn up and do what they’re supposed to do, and even sometimes look good. Barton and Kimala are very underrated hands, and we see why here – they are reliably good value and reliable. Scorpio is entertaining in a flashy way. Mossman is definitely rapidly growing into his new role here, and Smith has a couple of very nice showings. Kawada, of course, is always excellent, as is – in his own contexts – Fuchi. On the other hand, Williams and Hansen are both obviously over the hill; Shinzaki has a very strange and quiet showing on tape; Fujiwara is solid but obviously a bit slow and, furthermore, booked in a strange way. There’s no depth here but there is quality. I’ll get to summing up the best matches shortly, but one difficult with analyzing the material we have is that it’s heavily clipped. These commercial VHS releases were there to sell the new product, and especially live tickets. We’re getting storyline highlights, telling us who’s strong and so forth. Some workers suffer badly from this: Shinzaki has several long matches but we nearly always get finishing clips of him being beaten, so it’s hard to know what his actual work was like. The character and story decisions all make sense, even if they’re clearly in flux. Barton and Williams are the top foreigners, and might continue to be rivals going forward; Smith and Shinzaki are on the edges of the main event; Mossman is the #2 “native”, and Kawada is booked in godlike fashion. There are strange little insertions, not necessarily bad: the experiment with lucharesu with SHIIBA and SHINOBI, Fujiwara turning up and wanting to kill Kawada for some reason, and the BattlArts boys being really tough and gnarly, most notably. There’s a degree of experimentation here, and it’s part of what’s fun. Most of all, of course, Tenryu is back, and he’s set up for needing to rank himself against Mossman, Hansen, and (ultimately) Kawada. One mitigation – or complication – of rating the VHS releases is that we have two fancams from Day 8, and in both cases these improve on the VHS clips. We have some reason – especially given crowd reactions – to think some of the other matches were better than we can possibly rate them from the remains. On the other hand, at other times it’s not clear how good the product actually is. On Day 16, at the Budokan, the card isn’t unpromising but the VHS is generally not too exciting, and sometimes the crowd reaction seems to back that up (but at other times they love it!). The barebones nature of things, the makeshift roster and the rest, is all pretty clear on a big show like this. They bring in extra people – and notably get Hansen and Tenryu in for their first dates – but whether it’s really a good enough card to justify a Budokan sellout is up for debate. However, storylines and clipping issues aside, the best of the work we have here is really very good, and there are several other bangers (interestingly, because of the fancams, Day 8 is the strongest show; Day 7 the weakest): Kawada vs Fuchi, Day 1: 4.5/5 Smith vs Williams, Day 2: 3.5/5 Kawada/Mossman vs Barton/Hines, Day 2: 3.5/5 Yone vs Williams, Day 8: 3.5/5 Fuchi vs Fujiwara, Day 8: 3.5/5 Kawada/Mossman vs Ishikawa/Shinzaki, Day 8: 3.5/5 Kawada/Tenryu vs Hansen/Mossman, Day 16: 4/5

I liked the Ume Vs Ogawa match too, both very promising guys. Ume was smoother, Ogawa was more ambitious.

Surprised I didn't post my review of this when I watched it last year: *Masanobu Fuchi © vs Mitsuo Momota (March 29th, 1989): AJPW World Junior Heavyweight Title match. 15:57. This is not yet part of Fuchi’s record-length reign, which starts later in 1989; this is during his short second reign. This is very good. The Korakuen is very, very hot here. They chant “Momota” from before the match to after it, they boo Fuchi hard throughout, especially when he wants to do his moves. Momota is older than Fuchi here and well-established as the curtain-jerker, but he has just had a challenge against Mighty Inoue, so he’s a natural lower-ranked challenger. Momota runs a long early shine segment starting with a crossbody and then a high-impact suicida. A curious thing with Momota – it comes up elsewhere – is that he can work shine off putting his opponent in holds. He counters Fuchi again and again, keeps him slowed down, and it takes some time before Fuchi gets his first big turn. Then Fuchi tortures Momota (with Kobashi as Fuchi’s cornerman, there’s an irony here). Momota can sell, screaming painfully as he’s taken down into armbreaker drops and acting very expressively with his face. The story now is that, with his technical acumen out of the way, Fuchi is just much better than him – well, so we think. His hope spots get quickly cut off, he’s really put through the wringer…and then, thrown into the corner, he somehow works a Sunset Flip, and though Fuchi does cut him off repeatedly, he scrappily works a comeback period through a mixture of guts and brains. He dodges a second fist drop and a gamengiri, he turns round a Backdrop attempt into a Crossbody pin, he works a a few flash pins when Fuchi is off-balance, after Fuchi dodges another Suicida attempt Momota slides out and dropkicks him instead. Eventually he gets a Bridging German, but Fuchi survives through it all and even when Momota hits two Backdrop Suplexes, it’s only to catch his breath, and Fuchi is up first. Still, Fuchi has to turn to a slightly exhausted Thesz Press to win – it’s almost a desperation move, and it will also remind us of Jumbo, and of that move as the mark of the ace. Possibly the best singles match of Momota’s career, and a genuinely good and emotionally compelling bout. 4.5/5

(Mentai Will make my 100)

Tenryu is decent from 1981/1982, and excellent from (say) 1985-2002; Kawada is decent from 1987, and excellent from (say) 1989-2005. Kawada probably has really, really good matches post-peak later than Tenryu (the Misawa memorial match, which is about 60% Kawada, is 4 years post-peak; does Tenryu have a similarly excellent match from 2006?). Tenryu might be argued to have a slightly longer peak/extended peak. I think Kawada's volume of great work and range of opponents with which we had it is stronger/deeper/wider. I probably prefer Kawada's acting but wouldn't want to undersell Tenryu. Kawada is top 10 for me, Tenryu might be.

Series Outline Part 1: Three Crows and One Heir 1972-1982 Part 2: Atsushi Onita, Junior Heavyweight Ace 1982-1983 (You Are Here) Part 3: Rise of the Tiger 1983-1984 Part 4: Young Lion Invasion 1985-1986 Part 5: The Glorious Summer of Fuchi 1987-1999 Part 6: Single Man Rising Sun Tights Army 1990-1993 Part 7: Transition 1994-1996 Part 8: Signs of Spring 1997-2000 Rise of the Juniors The first number in this series was really a long preamble, attempting to explain why All Japan introduced a Junior Heavyweight division in 1982, and how Atsushi Onita, particularly, rose to the role of Junior Heavyweight Ace. A short recap of the reasoning is in order, but with a new emphasis on what was going on in All Japan in 1982. All Japan’s great strength in 1972 – or perhaps, better, 1973 – was that it had one or two fantastic native heavyweights (Baba and then, from 1973, Jumbo) and in simple terms won the war for foreign talent. Aside from an early big name run from El Santo in 1973, and the acquisition of Andre the Giant’s services, New Japan had few big name or high skill foreign talents. All Japan had access to the NWA Champion, plus long-term arrangements with the Funks, The Destroyer, Fritz von Erich, Mil Mascaras, and – early on – Bruno Sammartino. Through the ‘70s it added Bill Robinson (after Inoki decided he couldn’t afford to keep him on), the Sheik, and Abdullah the Butcher. Whatever else might be said about Abby, he was a draw. By 1980, Baba had slowed down a lot. In the native midcard, AJPW had Motoshi Okuma and Great Kojika, Rocky Hata, Tiger Toguchi, and the relatively young Takashi Ishikawa. Okuma and Kojika were really reaching the end of their competitive shelf lives, and Toguchi would soon enough move on to greener peastures. Many of the same foreigners remained, with added regular work from Harley Race, Dos Caras, the younger von Erichs, and Nick Bockwinkel, but cracks were beginning to show. Abdullah and the Sheik’s runs were coming to an end, and the work they were involved in was pretty worn out; Robinson still had a good couple of years in him, but his uppercard work was increasingly limited; Mascaras had reached the “no yob” era of his career. Basically, the card was stale and somewhat thin. The network enforced changes from 1981, sidelining Baba in booking, with the new AJPW President Matsune even publicly saying (in 1982) that he thought Baba should retire. A roster refreshment was in order; the sports analogy is better here, I think, than the TV network analogy, because it is a case of finding which individual players you can bring in and what they can do in combination with the other pieces. There are three key acquisitions in the early ‘80s, before Onita’s return from excursion, which are worth noting: Bruiser Brody first, then the return of Genichiro Tenryu from his long excursion, and then the transfer of Stan Hansen over from New Japan. Another foreigner – Ricky Steamboat – also has a very important run in this period, touring four out of five years from 1980 to 1984, and having a bucket of good matches. The other key foreign signings are Tiger Jeet Singh, functionally replacing Abdullah, and Dick Slater, who has several important tours in this period too. Domestically, the first Japanese heel, Umanosuke Ueda, comes over, and the collapse of IWE brings former Heavyweight Champion Mighty Inoue and former Junior Heavyweight Champion Ashura Hara into the fold, with the balance of the IWE roster joining NJPW. Baba, Jumbo, Hata (initially), the Funks, Robinson, and Mascaras all stay in place in different roles. This is how the heavyweight division begins to get refreshed, with a long-running Hansen feud giving new life to Baba (he will end up getting, for my money, two Five Star matches facing Hansen, running as late as 1989; after The Destroyer, Hansen was probably Baba’s best opponent). The most interesting foreign acquisition for us, though, is Chavo Guerrero (Senior). Having worked in New Japan and having faced off against Tatsumi Fujinami, he went over to All Japan from 1981-1985, comfortably his longest Japanese run. (He jobbed in AJPW in 1975, was in NJPW 1978-1980 and for two matches in 1996, and then in SWS/WAR 1992-1993, plus a few random appearances elsewhere.) Chavo held plenty of NWA singles belts in the ‘70s and ‘80s, notably 16 reigns as the NWA Americas Heavyweight Champion in Hollywood Wrestling, plus 6 reigns in lighter NWA weight categories (World Light Heavyweight, World Junior Heavyweight, International Junior Heavyweight). His move to All Japan overruns his first International Junior title run, and that is probably significant. Whatever the background politicking that produced it, what it practically means is that the NWA International Junior Heavyweight Title becomes an All Japan belt. There is a prize and centrepiece for a new division. Initially, that division is very thin. The returning Onita will be the native ace, with native (oversized) rookie Shiro Koshinaka sometimes in support. Chavo and Dos Caras are the foreign stars in the weight category. Ashura Hara will not work that weight category, nor – initially – will Mighty Inoue. Mitsuo Momota stays curtain jerking, as, generally, do Junior rookies Mitsuharu Misawa (debuted in 1981) and Toshiaki Kawada (to debut in October 1982). Masanobu Fuchi and Magic Dragon remain on excursion. With that, let us consider the work itself. Year of Glory: 1982 North Carolina and Mexico The key moment that – with a slight delay – brings Junior Heavyweight wrestling to All Japan does not happen in Japan, but in North Carolina. Some deal has been done, and Onita gets a title shot against Chavo Guerrero. It’s really a JCP/AJPW supershow at the Charlotte Coliseum, with a roster chiefly of Baba’s natives, his favoured foreigenrs, and a few Crockett and Graham talents to round out the card. (For context, two of the other three title matches on the card are AJPW titles – Dory Funk’s NWA International Heavyweight and Jumbo’s NWA United National belts. Baba, Tenryu, Billy Robinson, the Briscoes, and Stan Hansen not long before his AJPW debut help fill out the card.) This is the beginning of an important rivalry, though it’s merely a solid match playing to a quiet crowd. It starts really nicely with matwork used to press for position, it has a good endrun – and a pretty pointless, if well-executed, middle, where the men take turns doing minor things without lots of emphasis or developmental purpose. The highlight here is that Terry Funk and Giant Baba are at ringside, and Terry goes mad with delight and Baba is briefly caught smiling emotionally as his adoptive son makes his bones. It’s a positive and distinct kind of work from Onita, compared to his Memphis (and probably his Florida) runs. Crockett didn’t simply run foreigners as heels, though he could do; he had a half-Japanese white meat babyface in Ricky Steamboat, and Fuchi ended up having a good MACW match against him too, very much in this serious wrestling vein. Chavo was also an astute recruit both in political terms but also in wrestling terms. He had Magic Dragon’s best excursion match in WCCW, and also had a solid little match against Fuchi in SWCW. He could work serious material, and escalate well to emotion. The latter is not so much on show here, but we get the former. Onita now went on the final leg of his excursion, to Mexico and EMLL. I don’t think any of this survives on tape – typical ‘80s Lucha in that respect. He worked ten matches on record, but as that is over about two months I give leave to suspect that there were more, maybe even many more. Five of those recorded are six-mans, one is an eight-man, and four are singles. In the multi-mans he works some big and/or interesting names: Gran Hamada, Mascara Ano 2000, Baby Face, El Farao, Perro Aguayo, El Rayo de Jalisco Jr, and Gran Hamada, notably. There is the intriguingly-named “El Nazi”, whose gimmick I think we can guess. In the eight-man, he rather unusually teams up with two NJPW men on tour: Kuniaki Kobayashi and George Takano. Both will end up in All Japan at some stage in the Ishin Gundan Era. The singles matches feature two notable names who also worked the multi-mans, Sangre Chicana and Halcon Ortiz (i.e., El Halcon, who had toured All Japan in the late ‘70s). Chicana is actually Onita’s first fully-developed feud as a Junior champ: they work several multi-mans before Chicana takes the title in Onita’s first defence. In a non-title rematch, Chicana wins by Countout, before Onita regains the title in his stipulatory rematch. I rather imagine these matches are good, knowing that Chicana’s best run on tape is about to start (in 1983-1986). They’ll be fiery, scrappy affairs, unless tightly channelled into the lucha title match format, which wouldn’t really suit Chicana; however, Onita’s happiness to brawl and bleed may have been allowed some play here. Hopefully! The last recorded match of this quasi-excursion was against Halcon Ortiz, ending in an Onita retention. In kayfabe, this feels like a really solid run: he goes to Mexico, grapples with some of the best, loses his title but wins it back against an up-and-comer, and finishes with a retention against a solid hand known to his home audience. He has wrestled and won in a credible context. AJPW Excites Series 1982 Coming home at the end of May, matters stand a little different. The only native Juniors, or quasi-Juniors, are the semi-rookie Shiro Koshinaka and the 1981 debutant Mitsuharu Misawa. Baba works to fill out the nascent division: ex-IWE man Masahiko Takasugi, who has been in EMLL, comes in full-time as spaceman gimmick Ultra Seven. Mighty Inoue will sometimes be seconded to work in Junior-ish tags. Regular guest Dos Caras – smaller than his brother and with experience working the rookie Juniors a few years before – will do the same. Some effort will be made to bring in new guests to give Onita opponents (and partners). Most importantly, though, the man whose title Onita took is brought in. Chavo Guerrero will, from 1982 to 1985, be a staple in All Japan and a reliably enjoyable presence. His best work, though, will come in and around his feud against Atsushi Onita. First, though, before they reunite in the ring, Onita has five matches on tape to consider (there are not any other taped Junior-style matches to consider in the summer of 1982, to my knowledge). Onita’s homecoming re-debut is on the 28th May, halfway through the Excite tour of the year, and there is a particular constellation of workers who he will nearly exclusively work with: he works multiple times against Ron Miller, Jay Youngblood, Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell (The High Flyers), and Dick Slater; Akio Sato is a regular tag partner; he works both with and against Ricky Steamboat, that rather delightful feature of early ‘80s All Japan foreigner recruitment; and he tags once each with Giant Baba, Rocky Hata, and Takashi Ishikawa and once against Ric Flair. The first of these to survive to tape is his first Japanese defence of the NWA International Junior Heavyweight Title, against Jay Youngblood. Youngblood can just about work a Junior match and style, and this one has a couple of really great moments – we are introduced to Onita’s Suicida, and it’s one of the best – but is just a little flat, with Onita naturally retaining. The next taped match is Onita’s tag with his adoptive father Baba against Slater and Flair, and it’s a good step up. There is clear character work, crisp work, Onita gets some shine but also gets brutalized, and without ever stepping up a gear it’s a decent companion to his high flying against Youngblood. The final Excite Series match is the best of the three. Onita teams with fan favourite Steamboat to challenge for the AWA World Tag Team Title, held by The High Flyers. Greg Gagne is a badly underrated tag worker; resentment over nepotism haunts him, even forty years on! The High Flyers work heel, and the faces have distinct roles with a slight Southern tag vibe. For two thirds of the match, this is pretty near perfect, before slightly spinning its wheels and offering up a strange ending. Onita whiffs on a BIIIG Plancha outside, which looks amazing, but seems to have actually rung his own bell: Greg is visibly speaking to him for several seconds before he comes up to the apron and has a Suplex attempt reversed into a slightly botched Bodyslam and pin by Greg. I suspect this is a hurried-up ending. Summer Action Series 1982 We again have three surviving matches from this series, culminating in Onita’s first rematch with Chavo. Onita tags regularly with Takashi Ishikawa, Shiro Koshinaka, and Mighty Inoue, and once each with Mitsuharu Misawa and Rocky Hata. We see here the gradual movement of Inoue over to the Junior division, whilst Ishikawa and Hata are really just performing quotidian midcard duties due to how thin the division is. Onita works against Chavo, Steve Regal (no, not that one), and native rival Ultra Seven, and tags once against Mil Mascaras and Dos Caras. This is a slightly smaller group for Onita to work than the previous tour, and the relationships are pretty fixed – he tags with natives, he works against foreigners plus Ultra Seven. The matches we have are variable in quality. A tour opening tag with Ishikawa against Chavo and Ultra Seven is fine, and certainly demonstrates that Onita and Chavo are good, crisp, and have chemistry, but is also a little flat and has some obvious botches. This is where we see for the first time Ultra Seven’s habit of not quite knowing what’s going on: he’s badly out of position on an Onita suicida. The second surviving match is against the Mexican brothers, and is really very good. The tag dynamic feels “modern”, with rapid and engaging tags and interruptions that don’t strain patience. The most interesting thing, though, is the ill-tempered, uncooperative vibe. I don’t know if there is an actual issue here, but at one point Onita pulls a legit-looking single leg take down on Mil, who has basically not given him any moves thus far in the match. It feels contested and spicy and serious and could have been a model for work in the division as a whole. The final match we have from the tour is the title rematch against Chavo…and it’s not very good. It starts fine, then there’s some work outside which is – and I am loth to use the term but it’s appropriate – no sold completely, and there’s a ref bump to set up a replacement ref run-in (funny how you only get a replacement when you have a bad finish spot set up), and then there’s a double pin with each ref counting a different guy. It’s not played for laughs, but it does look silly. As a result, the title is vacated. One match we lack is the prior title defence, against Ultra Seven, which Onita won. We do have a clip of a later singles match between the two so will touch on this pairing then. Super Power Series 1982 No footage survives to my knowledge from the Super Power series. Onita worked singles against Ultra Seven and Frank Dusek, twice each. (I note that Dusek – who I’m not familiar with – was 6’1” and 257lbs. Ron Miller was 6’ and 238lbs. Jay Youngblood was 6’ and 242lbs. Yankee Steve Regal was 6’ and 222lbs. At 5’11” – the same height as Chavo – Onita is not a total dwarf in comparison, but a trend has emerged here. Foreign competitors brought over will usually outsize and outweigh Onita, often by a significant margin.) In tags, Onita will work with Mighty Inoue, Akio Sato, Genichiro Tenryu, Takashi Ishikawa, Terry Funk, and Ashura Hara. Sato, Hara, and Tenryu are his most common partners. He will work against The Destroyer, Ultra Seven, Hara, Inoue, Dusek, Kojika & Okuma, Rufus Jones, Koshinaka, and Ishikawa. There is a lot more variety in the tags than the four singles matches, and I think we’re probably really much the poorer for none of those Destroyer matches making tape. Giant Series 1982 Onita’s Giant Series is all about his rivalry with Chavo. He wrestles Guerrero 20 out of the 28 dates on the tour. They wrestle in singles three times. They even wrestle two six-mans (Onita teams once with Baba and Jumbo against Chavo, Dream Machine, and Gypsy Joe, whilst in the other he’s with Dory Funk Jr and Tenryu against Chavo, JimmySnuka, and Nikolai Volkoff). He also works singles against Larry Zbysko and Gypsy Joe, once each, and five times against Victor Rivera, who is his bunny for the tour to give him credibility-enhancing wins. Those opponents mentioned also makes up all the standard tags, where Onita teams with Tenryu, Sato, Hara, Ishikawa, and Koshinaka. Hara and Tenryu, it should be said, usually work midcard heavyweight bouts, and team with those senior to them as well; they must be seen here as filling out and varying the card. Four matches survive, one of which I have not seen (a handheld of Onita & Tenryu against Chavo & Rivera). Our one surviving non-Chavo match is a clip of the singles match against Zbyszko, which is as reliable and solid as you’d expect. Onita has great babyface energy here and a connection with the audience, especially the younger – and sometimes female – segments. There’s an element of early ‘90s Kobashi here. Onita is over, but not on Baba levels, nor on ‘70s Jumbo levels. Two Chavo singles matches survive. Unfortunately we do not have the 20/10/82 match, which Chavo wins – this seems like an important step in the rivalry! Their first match of the series is on the 1st October, and like the second is not for the title. This is much better than their first Japan-side rematch. This is pacey, high-flying – fluffy, perhaps, but with some intensity. We finish with a reversal into a slightly sloppy Blockbuster by Onita, also used against Zbyszko. One imagines that, given time, a better finisher would have emerged. As they come to the Title Vacancy match on the 4th November, they are 1-1 in their Japanese series, plus the double pin. This is winner takes all. They have proven they are an even matchup. This is a very strong match to end this portion of the rivalry on. To best appreciate it, it’s best to look at it as a lucha title match from the period, rather than a Tiger Mask I title match. The dynamic is of the lucha title style; positional, working for advantage, big (and flying) moves for emphasis rather than acrobatic fluidity. There is a strong, if carefully paced, opening lucharesu mat section, and then things pace up and never really slow down. The crowd is hot – the young and female segments for Onita, the older male segment for Chavo…if in crowd terms Onita is Kobashi, Chavo is Fuchi, even down to torturous holds being booed and cheered simultaneously. They work into a final flying and bomb section, and then Onita wins off a backslide. A clear victory, but leaving things open. Chavo initially takes all this with good grace and congratulates Onita…BUT THEN GOES CRAZY! Chavo does a better number on the trophy than Brody or Hansen ever did, properly smashing it, and cutting Onita up hardway with a shard (!!!). Forget your Brody/Funk rivalries; this is blood-crazed lucha action. Onita stretchered out, past a concerned Baba in the corridor. World’s Strongest Tag Determination League 1982 In the year’s final tour, Onita works the last six dates only. I’m unsure, but he may have been kayfabed out with the title match injury – he takes over a month off. He works with Sato, Misawa, Dory, and Inoue in tags, against Jay Youngblood, Steamboat, Sato, Inoue, hara, Jumbo, and Tenryu. In singles he beats Misawa and draws with Steamboat on the tour-closer. The Sato/Inoue vs Onita/Misawa match survives on handheld, but I haven’t seen it. The Steamboat match – a midcard 20 minute match, a convenient length to justify a draw – is very good. They work the TLD format without descending into any really slow sections. The matwork is crisp, and we see how Onita has the tools to do different types of match – this is much more American than the excellent Chavo match from November. It closes with stiff chop exchanges, and then – and this must have impacted at the time, as Onita’s next match after Chavo – Onita nearly gets the win off a Backslide. We end with Steamboat slightly on top, but honours even. Year-End Review The Junior division mostly exists on paper, it’s clear. IWE Middleweights/Junior Heavyweights – Inoue, Hara, and Ultra Seven – fill out of the matches (and Hara and Inoue are good). Misawa and Koshinaka are the younger homegrown men. The foreigners involved depend, I guess, on who was in Terry’s phonebook at the time – sometimes it’s guys who can work the style (Youngblood), sometimes it’s no-names, sometimes it’s respectable workers who simply aren’t Juniors (Zbyszko). Mil and Dos are the key foreign workers, naturally, though we are at a stage where Mil is no longer quite so good a dance partner. Onita, though, is good nearly throughout. For me, a “Four Star” match is really very good, and he’s involved in four of them: the tags against the High Flyers and the Mexican brothers, and the November match against Chavo and the closing singles match against Steamboat. We could argue a different way – perhaps Onita isn’t great but he can work up to the level of good opponents. However, he’s comfortably one of the best workers in the High Flyers match, and it’s his bolshy aggression which makes the Mascaras/Caras match so good. His intensely sympathetic work from underneath is a massive part of both good Chavo matches, and he has excellent chemistry with his rival. Year of Disaster: 1983 New Year Giant Series 1983 Onita works a very different slate of men in the opening tour of 1982, and it’s not for the better. His title defence for the tour is against Rocky Jones, and he also works singles against ex-IWE man Goro Tsurumi and Ultra Seven. He tags with Ishikawa, Inoue, Hara, and Tenryu – all good workers – against Tsurumi, Gypsy Joe, Ultra Seven, Jones, Dream Machine, Hercules Hernandez, Tiger Jeet Singh, Tor Kamata, and Steve Bolus. Thankfully no footage against Singh or Kamata survives. Three matches from Onita survive, plus a non-Onita Junior tag (!!). The title defence against Jones is fine, but Jones isn’t a Junior. He’s 6’, 240lbs, and though athletic – he does some flips – his perfectly decent matwork and his offence aren’t Junior-flavoured. We have 3 minutes of an Ultra Seven singles match, and whilst not exactly bad – it’s perfectly well executed, the time passes fine – it’s not great. Onita works well from underneath, he works well flying; Ultra Seven shows little credible offence over his surviving footage (including here), and Onita hits, I think, one flying move here. Onita wins on a rollthrough, which protects a potential native rival, but feels weak. The tag with Tenryu against Dream Machine and Jones, at the end of the tour, is much better. Dream Machine is a pro, and maybe my favourite moment of the match involves him – Onita sizing up a dive on to Jones on the floor, only for Machine to bodyblock him in the ring. It’s just unteachable dramatic instinct. Jones works better here in the different dynamic, and Tenryu, though not crisp, has been finding his persona now for 18 months and is working like his mature self. This ends with interference from Gypsy Joe, who cuts Onita open with his kukri; we get a brilliantly furious Onita promo to camera after this, leading to a match down the line. We also have Mil Mascaras and Ultra Seven against Mighty Inoue and Takashi Ishikawa – a fairly early appearance for that latter tag team, which is one of the best midcard acts of the ‘80s in All Japan. Inoue and Mil work beautifully together, naturally, though Mil refuses to really give Inoue anything. Inoue carries this, I think, into “good” – he sells well, he gets off characterful offence against Ultra Seven, he’s just as neat and fluid as Mascaras on the mat. Excite Series 1983 The ever-revolving door turns again. Onita will fight two title defences – against Mike Davis and Dos Caras – and otherwise work tags. He teams with Ultra Seven, Inoue, Hara, Great Kabuki, Ishikawa, and Misawa, plus Tenryu and Tsuruta in six-mans. He works against a less actively distressing but still pretty anonymous cast in the tags – Caras, Victor Jovica, Jim Dillon, Mike Davis, Ishikawa, Ultra Seven, Goro Tsurumi, and Umanosuke Ueda. Tiger Jeet Singh turns up in a six-man. Three Onita and two non-Onita matches survive. For Onita, we start with Ultra Seven against Dos Caras and Victor Jovica. Jovica doesn’t tag in during the surviving 2 minute clip, and Ultra Seven doesn’t do much other than get stiffed and pinned by Dos, but the two senior men work a beautiful mat section. On the same date, Mike Davis beats Koshinaka; we have the back half of the match, and it’s really just a fun rookie-style bout. Davis is better sized for the division than Jones, but still looks more like a respectable Middleweight. Onita and Davis match up a few days later for the title, and this is very bland stuff in the remaining clip. It’s slow, and Onita never really gets going to anything very exciting. The Koshinaka clip is probably better! On the same day, Caras and Jovica team up again, this time against Ishikawa and Misawa. The actual surviving 2 minute clip only has Caras and Misawa as the legal men, and actually – seen as a mini-singles match – this is pretty fun. Misawa gets off a bit of offence and gets to absorb a lot of punishment, including a beautiful Caras dive, before giving up the pin. Onita’s final match of the tour is his second title defence, against Dos Caras. This should be one of his career matches, but it’s actually pretty disappointing. It’s ambitious, actually, which is to its credit; you can see they want to play with some of the furious lucha elements as in the aftermath of the Chavo match, you can see they want to mix in more brawl elements. Nonetheless, the good part of this match is the opening lucharesu matwork, with great Onita facials when working from underneath. Things fall apart when we get outside, though: Onita hits a piledrive but visibly overprotects Caras, who gets up and rolls into the ring with the advantage straight away. They are soon enough back outside and counted out, but in a way that breaks the established use of the rule in AJPW at this time – both men are under the ropes when the 10 sounds. Then they brawl a bit more, for some reason, and Onita tries to unmask Caras. All this seems unjustified, and the back half of the match is badly executed and confusing. It’s a bizarre misstep from two good workers. Grand Champion Carnival I 1983 Onita will work this tour, but his AJPW Junior Ace career will end with a dramatic shoot injury after his final match. He works non-title singles against Misawa, Ultra Seven, Chic Donovan (twice), and Koshinaka. He fights three title defences, against Donovan, Gypsy Joe, and Hector Guerrero. In tags, he teams with Mighty Inoue, Ultra Seven, Hara, Giant Baba, Rocky Hata, and Tenryu; he works against teams including Hata, Ultra Seven, Misawa, Koshinaka, ex-IWE rookie Nobuyoshi Sugawara, Ted DiBiase, Terry Funk, Alexis Smirnoff, Donovan, Hara, Inoue, Kerry von Erich, Gypsy Joe, Ishikawa, and Hector Guerrero. There is one six-man including a selection of this cast. Only one Onita match from this tour survives – that final, pivotal match against Hector – but we do have a partial fancam, in a couple short clips, of Mitsuo Momota vs Toshiaki Kawada in a curtain-jerker. This is quotidian rookie match action, but we should be reminded at Momota’s early qualities: he’s fiery and the crowd love him, with the kids rather startlingly giving a “MO-MO-TA!” chant. Those kids will one day be the adults who thunderously cheer Momota on against Fuchi, Nakano, Joe Malenko, and Liger. Kawada is a mere slip of a boy here, not too long from debut, and shows athletic promise. The title match against Hector is good. It’s less careful, more flashy than the Chavo series. Hector is presentationally very different – his ring gear is even more colourful, he struts and poses and trills – and his work is different, with more emphasis on agility and brawl than Chavo’s careful strategic breakdown. Hector is good, though, and these guys match well, with a simple rudo against a whitemeat babyface. No “Hector!” chants from the crowd here! They progress in a fairly intelligent if direct manner, hitting a nice nearfall sequence before Onita grabs an underdog victory. Then, celebrating on the apron, Onita slips and shatters his leg in a freak accident. “Year-End” Review Onita puts together two pretty good matches. The Jones/Dream Machine tag shows an ability to work a different style effectively, and the Hector match – though simple and fluffy and limited by that – is a good contrast to the mat-based Chavo bouts and the decently-executed “upright fights” with Youngblood and Jones. Very little of what we see this year is bad, but several matches are merely middling. The talent pool is shallow, and the botching of the potentially great Dos Caras match is a real shame. On the other hand, we finally see more coverage given to the expanded division via the decent Davis-Koshinaka “pre-Title Match warmup” match, the fun Misawa-Caras minimatch at the end of a tag match, and the handheld of Momota-Kawada. Momota, I think, could have genuinely added something to the “main division” at this point; his work is good, he has a crowd connection. His job opening the show is valuable, but he’s miles better than Ultra Seven, who basically never does anything memorable on tape. (…Maybe he was great on the “house shows”!) Conclusion Onita worked as the “Junior Ace” for a year, more or less, from his title win in North Carolina to his accident in April 1983. There is a sense that he wasn’t quite the finished product; he was ambitious and tried new things, and was willing to hit big daring moves, but his experiments didn’t always work. His fire, his athleticism, and his mat knowhow form a solid base to this period, but there is not much else to mark. His native rival – Ultra Seven – just isn’t very good. The elite rookies are still on the rise, not yet serious contenders, though by his final tour they are more engaged (albeit we have no serious footage to test their quality). The foreign guests were often inappropriate matches: Jones, Davis, and likely Gypsy Joe and Donovan. The best luchadors were still all shipping to NJPW, and AJPW had yet to recruit British talent except for the America-based Robinson. On the other hand, when the right talent is involved, you get some really good material, with excellent singles matches against Steamboat and Chavo and a great tag match against the High Flyers, and subsidiary strong matches against Chavo and Hector and a similar-quality tag against Machine/Jones. One can imagine the near-future, with Koshinaka and Misawa rising in the division, Fuchi and then Magic Dragon returning from excursion, and more involvement from Mighty Inoue. Onita, with this wider context and the benefit of more time and experience, continues to round out as a top star. It’s a strong division, already several steps up from the nascent first year of Onita’s Acedom; with an ongoing rivalry with Chavo and Hector, and a better rematch against Dos Caras, and that second year really could have been something. Alas, it was not to be. Click here for full matchguide and links.

He's a lovely either, doubt he'll make my top 100, but seeing his name is giving me Sad Ladder PTSD

Joe is not currently on my top 100, though Dean is flirting with it. Need to expand just a little on both to make final judgements. Joe is good, though. Baffling to think people don't see it. Some of this has to be footage and access, what people had watched once upon a time. His 1989 Junior and semi-Junior Tag work is just fantastic, and the tag element stretches back to '88 and forward to '92. He's fun in the Double Malenko team as the shooter and ground guy, and he's fun in the Kikuchi team as the big brother (that is a neglected team). His work for PWFG/UWFi is good, too, on the whole, and a nice stepchange.

I think that's not an unfair argument.

I think Dynamite is an obvious case for "hurt by short peak" - she's beginning to look slow at points even by 1994!! - but she's so good in that peak, and as as Stump Puller says, she still works hard after that. She may make my 100.

Summer Break Kyushu Pro took a little break after the Mentai retirement show, was active in June, but then pretty quiet through July and early August. Japanese companies, of course, have often run shorter schedules over the year than their traditional American equivalents – though talent safety concerns now affect the big American companies, too. The recap batch today wraps up the end of June, the only show in July (an untelevised community show), and the first show of August. Kyushu Pro Kamigoto O Genki Ni Suru Bai! 29/06/2025 Held at Shin Uonome General Gymnasium, Shinkamigoto, Nagasaki Prefecture. An attendance of 458, on the smaller side for this type of show. The show has two guests, making it a twelve-man roster, which is usually the set for a larger show, but here the guests are Koreans from PWS who also worked the 22/06 and 23/06 dates, so it might be reasonably guessed that they had trained and worked through the week and this wasn’t a major extra commitment for them. Having two guests does always allow a slightly better mix of matches for what is basically a ten-man permanent roster, so here we get rookie Koyo Ume working singles, the comedy tag giving Jet Wei and STAR LIGHT NARU a chance to get a bit more exposure, and the main event trios involving everyone else. Asosan vs Koyo Ume In my short experience of watching QPro, there are two distinct eras: before and after Mentai’s retirement. In this period after, with the debut of a new rookie, a lot of opportunity and attention is being given to Koyo Ume, albeit in the context of a classic rookie run of losses. One is struck that, with a New Ring Boy helping out, Kyushu Pro could debut another guy next year and have four workers under 30. The old guard of the promotion (Chikuzen, Mentai, Asosan, Batten, and, joining a little later, Genkai) are aging out, and the retirement tour guys (TAJIRI, Shima) are obviously here to serve the promotion, not drive it froward. Sasaki is 46, and he’s the main title contender. Sakurajima is 40, still very good, and really still counts as the “head” of the younger group…! So I’m all for these rookie matches. This one, though, isn’t very strong. Asosan can still drive himself to bouts of mobility, but he’s very much in the final leg of his career by any normal measure (of course, Great Kojika says different). Ume isn’t really stiff enough or high-flying enough to make up for the limited bumping Asosan is up for. This match isn’t overlong at all, they both work hard enough, but this is functionally just a five minute build to Asosan hitting a finisher. Asosan defeats Koyo Ume in 5:53. Batten Blabla & Jet Wei vs STAR LIGHT NARU & TAJIRI The comedy matchup for the show, and this is pretty fun. TAJIRI plays a fairly minor role here beating up Batten a bit, and everyone else can work. There are two real sellers here: first, Batten is being Jet’s Senpai, and what that practically means is bullying him and telling him to do strategically stupid stuff, like forego a finisher to tag Batten in; second, NARU and Jet work most of the match, and the means you get a promising PWS rookie against one of the young guns of Kyushu Pro. Jet continues to develop and demonstrate his offence now he is no longer the most junior guy in the organization, and he looks great here. There’s a fun moment where NARU knocks him out of the ring, starts to do a silly influencer dance, only to be knocked over by Jet, who has returned to the ring behind him and briefly looms threateningly ala the Undertaker. We conclude with Batten going too far in his bullying of his trainee, and Jet joins the other team to knock him out and achieve a triple pin. NARU is the technical winner, which means he ends his tour on a win. He was a little loose and soft here, but still fun to watch. Enormous promise. STAR LIGHT NARU & TAJIRI defeat Batten Blabla & Jet Wei in 11:10. Genkai & Ha Da On & Super Strong Kishan vs Hitamaru Sasaki & Kodai Nozaki & Naoki Sakurajima SS Kishan is Shigeno Shima here. I think it might be a rotating role. A problem with these six-mans CAN be that you cover up low effort work by being able to maintain a constant visual jamboree by sheer numbers. I think we get that here. This is perfectly passable, an amiable enough way to spend some time, and it’s going to have worked better in-person than on screen because there is a certain frisson to some of the work – otherwise fairly soft brawling through the crowd, for instance – that will always be cooler in-person, as you see the stars up close and personal. Shima does not give an inspired, freaky, weirdo performance as SS Kishan, more’s the pity. He’s just solid as always. Sasaki takes a backseat, having gotten some recent shine for his upcoming title match. Sakurajima naturally works hard, elevating the whole. Nozaki gets the pin on SS Kishan, giving him just a bit of shine. Indifferent stuff. Hitamaru Sasaki & Kodai Nozaki & Naoki Sakurajima defeat Genkai & Ha Da On & Super Strong Kishan in 13:31. Event Summary An odd show. No booking here towards the larger potential “angles” – that is, the titles – and no rivalries really worked on. We’re pursuing Rookie Ume’s march through the roster, which doesn’t work as well here as in previous shows. It’s nice to see Jet Wei given a chance to shine, and you definitely sense that he should be in the Tag Title picture soon. Not a must-see, on the whole. Kyushu Pro 20/07/2025 The promotion’s only show in July, held at AEON Mall Kagoshima 1F Water Plaza Special Ring. This will have been outdoors, I guess nextdoor to a fountain or pool or splash pad or something. Kyushu Pro do these community shows regularly – sometimes there are decent photos up online afterwards. They’re obviously part of the deal for charitable funding from local government and corporations. Unusually, Batten isn’t in ring here, though he was probably at ringside. Hitamaru Sasaki vs Koyo Ume A rematch from June, and probably decent fun, with Sasaki kicking and putting on holds, and Ume trying to tough out and get a few dropkicks and a Camel Clutch back in return. I’d guess Sasaki forces Ume to submit. Hitamaru Sasaki defeats Koyo Ume in 9:21. Genkai & Jet Wei vs Naoki Sakurajima & Shigeno Shima I bet the Naoki/Jet stuff here was fun, and the match was probably built around their exchanges, to give Genkai and Shima reasonably easy days. I presume the pin was Naoki over Jet, as Shima doesn’t get pins and Genkai doesn’t take them. Naoki Sakurajima & Shigeno Shima defeat Genkai & Jet Wei in 10:45. Event Summary The rookie angle gets more time, and Jet gets a better slot. Kyushu Pro Itoshima Ba Genki Ni Suru Bai 13/08/2025 Held at Itoshima Sports Park Multipurpose Gymnasium Main Arena, in Itoshima in Fukuoka Prefecture, with an attendance of 608. Decent crowd for this type of event, and they use the upper deck seating which makes the crowd look cool. It’s a warm and engaged crowd (as usual). One guest this time: Shuji Ishikawa, former Triple Crown and current Kyushu Pro Champion. He’s setting up a title challenge from Hitamaru Sasaki on the 24th August. Ishikawa is aging out, as with many of the Kyushu Pro roster, but he’s still mobile and capable and he adds some valuable credibility to the title and promotion by guesting here. Koyo Ume vs Naoki Sakurajima This was pretty fun within the format. Ume has now wrestled Sasaki twice and Asosan once, but a match with Sakurajima gives the advantage that Sakurajima is a strong bumper and seller. If you want the rookie to be plausible, he has to be sold for. Ume is marvellously expressive, with a rubbery face and strong physical mannerisms. He does well here, and his offence – rookie offence though it is – looks the best I’ve seen it, albeit in a small sample of three matches. Partly I think this is because Sakurajima bothers to sell his strikes, and bumps pretty nicely for his Missile Dropkick. Sakurajima actually has a tonne of offensive options – more than many on the roster – and you do see him roll out a few things here. Sakurajima wins via pinfall. Good opener. Naoki Sakurajima defeats Koyo Ume in 7:36. Batten Blabla vs Genkai vs Kodai Nozaki Failure. Batten works hard, his Enzuigiri is great as ever, and there are one or two funny moments, but there is a strong sense that Genkai and Nozaki sees this, at best, as a nice day off. Jet threw himself into the comedy format; Shima usually gives it a cheerful go. Genkai and Nozaki, perhaps because they are two of the stronger-booked workers, simply do not engage very much. Batten is close to wrestling a broom here, and he salvages what he can. The best moment: Nozaki helping Batten and letting him have a pin attempt unmolested, knowing it can’t possibly work. Genkai defeats Batten Blabla and Kodai Nozaki in 7:06. Asosan & Hitamaru Sasaki & Jet Wei vs Shigeno Shima & Shuji Ishikawa & TAJIRI This includes some bad Kyushu Pro habits – the idiot ref keeps being distracted, allowing the heels to bully our hero (Sasaki) in the corner. The actual heat is poor and slow. My best defence of this is that there is a lot of theatre here for the kids present. There is a pantomime element. Perhaps we should grant the motifs as part of the style of theatre – Early Modern English in Shakespeare, religious symbology in the Mystery Plays, masks in kabuki, etc. Nonetheless, it’s hard to enjoy or engage with, because it’s boring. The match as a whole, though, moves past this, because it has too many good workers and too many interesting things it wants to do. Again, Jet – here working, rarely, on the face team in the trios – gets another little breakout, building some shine against Ishikawa. Sasaki is challenging Ishikawa on the 24th, and they have a few really good exchanges. Sasaki is horrendously outsized, but relies on his kicks and size-negating holds, including the Crucifix/Octopus combination Misawa used. Ishikawa just hosses around everywhere and everyone and it’s great. Gigantic, strong guy, physical charisma through the roof (almost literally). Asosan and TAJIRI are largely along for the ride, and Shima does his usual solid work letting others get their stuff off. Eventually, there is enough cheating to ensure the heels win. This is pretty entertaining without excelling. It helps set up the title challenge just fine, though the whole framing is more Sports Entertainment than I’d like. Event Summary Booking-wise, we have the current champion winning going into the challenge, which sets up surprising booking expectations. We are left, whatever the title match result, not quite knowing the company’s route forward in the main event. The company’s best workers are Sakurajima, Nozaki, and Jet – Ishikawa has beaten Nozaki twice, Jet is too junior, and Sakurajima isn’t in the picture at all. Sasaki is solid if not very charismatic, and offers something different. The undercard in a small company can cause problems, especially in a company which regularly provides trios for its main event. If you can handle rookie matches, the Koyo Ume stuff is pretty good and a way of building out that card. On the other hand, you need some people in the comedy match who want to be there, not just Batten, and the necessities round booking the main event this time meant they had the wrong two people. Post-Mentai, who could do everything, the company needs more regular guests or full-timers, but of course money is the barrier. For full matchguide and more essays, click here.

There are many exceptions to the rule (and none prove the rule). I might rank something like 20 "pure faces" on my list. It's a misleading rule. It has its strongest salience in America, and much less importance in plenty of historic Japanese contexts. It essentially has no applicability in the WoS British era. It's a useful way of showing a great American wrestler's range, basically.

Steamboat will rank high for me. Along with a couple others, the perfect proof you don't have to work both sides of the mat to be one of the best ever. An unrelenting peak more or less from his first title win to initial retirement, and then a glorious nostalgia tour in 2009.

Doubt she'll make my list but a really reliable, charismatic hand.

Yes. I think old saws and truisms haunt "Smarks" as much as anyone else, and I remember even 20 years ago people were saying the Sayama stuff was overrated and they weren't really proper matches etc - it's an old saw by this point. The fact Dynamite is just the perfect heel to play off Sayama's character and half-makes Tiger mask, the fact that his execution was nearly always at least "good" and often beautiful, the fact that his British work and his work against the Harts are just perfect within their genre - they're not relevant to the old saw. But yes, you just have to watch him from the late 70s through to 91 (or even, just about, 93) and you'll see a consistently intense, aggressive, charismatic guy. Watch him headbutt Jumbo half to death in RWTL91, or put in one last truly great performance against Kobashi and Kikuchi, or use his smarts to compete with Hansen on multiple occasons - he never lost the aura, the will, the basic ability, even as his body started rebelling against him.