Other than Vince, who do you consider to be the most important wrestling promotor in history?

[ohtani's jacket]

Japanese wrestling was screwed long before Hashimoto ever fought Ogawa.

[jdw]

I wouldn't rate a "star/promoter" over a straight promoter in a comp with Lutteroth or Vince. I don't think building a promotion around your own massive star power, then dying before it's time to find a replacement, is as impressive as building up a massive promotion like EMLL *without* being the anchor star.

 

I might have Rikidozan in the Top 10... but I'd have to think more about it. I'm just not as impressed as much by what he did as say Baba did over 25+ years:

 

* create a break away promotion that became #1

* killed off the prior #1

* fight a successful decades long war with another rival for #1

* seamlessly transition a replacement to you as the Ace

* withstand the departure of one native rival to your Ace

* withstand the departure of second native rival to your Ace

* develop a third generation of stars after the second Ace falls away

 

There isn't anything terribly exciting about what he did, but it was very impressive in total.

 

Granted... other smaller promoters in the US delt with similar stuff... well... perhaps not many did the first three things.

 

Not pimping Baba for #1. I would rate him above Inoki and Rikidozan, though. Rikidozan didn't live long enough to deal with most of what Baba did, and Inoki largely ignored it since he was consumed by pushing himself. One wonders if New Japan would have had as successful run in the 1990s if Inoki hadn't gotten himself elected to the Sangiin / House of Councillors in 1989.

 

John

[kjh]

Yeah, I think New Japan's hard tumble in the early to mid 2000s with the Inokis at the helm, is a big black mark against Antonio. Before they sold to Yukes, the company was almost as disorganised and badly booked as the dying days of WCW.

[Graham Crackers]

I'm not the sort of guy who follows gate numbers but Salvador Lutteroth was the first name that popped into my head. Started the longest running promotion in history, 20 years of promoting, discovered and pushed the biggest star in the history of his country (if not one of the biggest stars of all time), built two important arenas, and there wouldn't be lucha libre without him.

[FLIK]

Names that haven't been mentionned there are the Matsunaga brothers. I mean Zenjo was huge at points, and it has a very long history of being a super successful promotion. And defining women's wrestling.

 

You can argue Atsushi Onita has a place for doing so much with so few. The guy had no TV for so long, and he made shitload of money and drew shitload of people. Sure, it didn't lasted, but it was impressive while it was going on. I'm not seriously arguing Onita is the N°2 of course, but just wanted to throw his name out there. I don't think anyone accomplished so much with so few cards in his hands.

Yeah, the Matsunaga's for sure. Pretty much the entirety of Japanese women's wrestling is based off what they created. The recent back issue of the Observer they just put up is the one covering the Big Egg show in 94. I'm only a few paragraphs in but allready it's mentioned that when all was said in done they probably made over 8 million from that 1 show alone.

 

Onita, meh, I love the guy but he was more of a self promoter then a wrestling promoter. He rarely gave a fuck about about doing anything to make anyone else besides himself a star so kinda hard to consider him worthy of even a token mention in a thread like this.

[jdw]

Agree on Onita. Similar to Rikidozan, he was a one-note promoter: push himself. While I think people like that deserve some credit and a place *somewhere* on the list of the Top 100 Promoters of All-Time... I don't think they crack into the uppermost reaches.

 

Rikidozan does warrant props for getting pro wrestling over in a country, getting it over rather huge, and sustaining it for more than simply a few years.

 

Onita does warrarnt props for building a promotion around himself in the face of two big national promotions and a third mens promotion that popped up and was red hot. He also pushed a style that was different to a degree from the Big 2, which is similar to what the UWF did to find their niche. FMW was also successful for more than just 2-3 years. Big props on those.

 

But up there with Baba? No.

 

FWIW, if we break Shinma away from Inoki, I'd have Shinma higher. New Japan, knowing what to do with Inoki's "Wrestler vs Martial Artist" storyline, junior division, influence of Lucha, a small share of the UWF credit, cultivating the generation below Inoki. The ability to get useful gaijin talent despite being aced out of the NWA deal was pretty well done all things considered. Someone picked off Kobayashi... then the IWE guys when it died. Choshu's turn? I think he'd be fairly high up.

 

John

[NintendoLogic]

If you take the "promoting tree" into consideration, how does Eddie Graham rate? Watts, Cornette, Dusty, and Heyman can all be traced back to him.

[Loss]

How Cornette and Heyman? Do you mean a generation removed?

[jdw]

That's how a Coaching Tree works.

 

Corney learned from Dusty and Watts to a large degree, with some Memphis/Dundee in there. Dusty and Watts are Eddie Graham proteges. Cornette is part of Graham's "tree".

 

What would be interesting would be who Graham learned from.

 

Anyway, here is a good two part piece on NFL Coaching Trees, including the concept of "forests":

 

http://www.sports-central.org/sports/2008/...e_2008_pt_1.php

 

http://www.sports-central.org/sports/2008/...e_2008_pt_2.php

 

His thoughts on Bill Walsh are interesting. In a sense Walsh is off a major Forest (Paul Brown) and off a tree (Al Davis) in one of the other major Forests (Sid Gillman). I'm not entirely sure that I'd fully agree with the author that Walsh's offense is closer to Davis' than Paul Brown's, but Walsh did lift bits and pieces from here and there.

 

John

[cm funk]

Where does Gagne rank? Top 5? Top 10? Is there an argument that he's #2 or #3 behind Vince in the US?

 

People tend to focus on the mistakes he made in the 80's, and he did push himself too much and for too long, but breaking away from the NWA, creating a world title and having a large and thriving territory for 25 years is pretty damn impressive to me. He also discovered and trained a lot of great talent. Has anybody ever had his simultaneous success in all facets of the business, performing, training, booking and promoting?

 

Also, how much credit does Wally Karbo get in the AWA's success? I know he was Gagne's right hand man and had the Twin Cities territory that became the base of the AWA, but I don't know much more about him.

[jdw]

I think Kevin and Jim could probably speak more on Gagne pushing himself, but I think it was less than folks may think from simply looking at the Title History.

 

My recollection is that they've said that Bockwinkel & Stevens did a bit more of the heavy lifting as the promotional focus in 1972-75.

 

In turn, Mad Dog dominated the AWA Title from 10/64 - 2/67 and there were essentially three tag teams going off on dominant runs: Crusher & Brusier, Hennig & Race, and the Vachons.

 

Not trying to say that the AWA was a "tag team territory", but despite the long 1967-75 run with the title, it seemed like there were a lot of other major players getting massive pushes in the AWA. It doesn't quite seem like an Onita-centric FMW or a Rikidozan-centric JWA.

 

John

[El-P]

Onita does warrarnt props for building a promotion around himself in the face of two big national promotions and a third mens promotion that popped up and was red hot. He also pushed a style that was different to a degree from the Big 2, which is similar to what the UWF did to find their niche. FMW was also successful for more than just 2-3 years. Big props on those.

 

But up there with Baba? No.

Of course not. I wouldn't argue otherwise.

 

I just wanted to throw his name to remind that he was quite an amazing promoter, self-promoter if you prefer. He was a former junior heavyweight from All Japan working against a karate guy on indy shows. A few years later he would draw 30.000 people against Terry Funk at the Kawasaki Stadium. All that with no TV. Impressive.

[jdw]

Yeah, very impressive. It's pretty insane to ponder how successful he got. ECW didn't get as successful as Onita. Think about that one.

 

John

[Loss]

So under the "tree" philosophy, we can trace FMW back to Onita working Tupelo concession stand brawls in Memphis in the early 80s. This would give Onita a similar relationship with Jerry Jarrett. FMW isn't really Memphis-style wrestling, but I think factoring out the death match excess, it's probably the closest to Memphis-style wrestling a major promotion in Japan has really ever been.

[El-P]

I think the Memphis connection is overstated. Onita did get some stuff from there, but also from Puerto Rico. And don't forget that at the beginning, it was all about Onita vs martial artists, in a bizarre parody of UWF. I don't see how FMW was close to Memphis style at all to be honest.

[El-P]

Yeah, very impressive. It's pretty insane to ponder how successful he got. ECW didn't get as successful as Onita. Think about that one.

 

John

Nobody understood that Onita was all about making money, and not getting killed in stupid gimmick matches for the "pride of being hardcore". His in-ring style was all about selling and milking the hell out of everything.

Then you get a bunch of morons who think the point is to bleed, get hit very hard with chairs and take bumps into barb-wire. Onita was set on *making money*, and the hardcore style was just a vehicule to achieve that. The ECW guys killed themselves because they were drinking Heyman's kool-aid. And don't even mention the cohorts of garbage-men who followed ECW in the US, or FMW in Japan. The break a thousand lightbulbs and bleed buckets and don't make any money doing it. That's the opposite of what Onita was about.

[Loss]

I think the Memphis connection is overstated. Onita did get some stuff from there, but also from Puerto Rico. And don't forget that at the beginning, it was all about Onita vs martial artists, in a bizarre parody of UWF. I don't see how FMW was close to Memphis style at all to be honest.

Not you necessarily, but I always think people who downplay this do so because they can't possibly believe anyone in Japan learned anything from a promotion that had Jerry Lawler as the top star.

[Bix]

I think the Memphis connection is overstated. Onita did get some stuff from there, but also from Puerto Rico. And don't forget that at the beginning, it was all about Onita vs martial artists, in a bizarre parody of UWF. I don't see how FMW was close to Memphis style at all to be honest.

Not you necessarily, but I always think people who downplay this do so because they can't possibly believe anyone in Japan learned anything from a promotion that had Jerry Lawler as the top star.

 

Also, the non-martial artist main events early on (like the tag with Murdoch and LeDuc, and while I've never seen it, that pimped 1990 tag with Sakurada has always been described as a Memphis-style arena brawl) are pretty clearly influenced by the Memphis brawling style. As late as 1992 the FMW parts of the Los Angeles trios match are pretty Memphis-y.

[jdw]

Onita also learned a lot from Terry Funk, long before he went to Memphis. Not saying that he didn't learn anything from his time in Memphis, but there were a variety of things that went into what made him tick.

 

That's also more from a "work" standpoint rather than exactly a Promotional or Booking standpoint. You'd have to get someone who is an expert in both FMW and also the potential US promotional and booking influences to figure that one out.

 

John

[Loss]

And even past that, FMW had more of an American-style babyfaces and heels than any other Japanese promotion that I can recall.

[Death From Above]

Not to derail this totally with FMW discussion, but for how long was Onita the booker? Was he still the guy running it when they got into the Hayabusa/Tanaka/Shinzaki vs. Team No Respect period in (I think) 96/97? Because that period was really, really fun in general before it eventually derailed and the company came apart at the seams.

 

Then you get a bunch of morons who think the point is to bleed, get hit very hard with chairs and take bumps into barb-wire. Onita was set on *making money*, and the hardcore style was just a vehicule to achieve that. The ECW guys killed themselves because they were drinking Heyman's kool-aid. And don't even mention the cohorts of garbage-men who followed ECW in the US, or FMW in Japan. The break a thousand lightbulbs and bleed buckets and don't make any money doing it. That's the opposite of what Onita was about.

This kind of sums up how I feel about the American indy interpetation of Japanese wrestling of the 1990's and early 2000's in general. White kids working "strong style" where they just slap the shit out of each other and do head drops for no reason, and make no money. And it was always laughable from the beginning. It was inmates running the asylum and pandering to their own taste, instead of actually giving the average local fan a style they were interested in digesting.

 

Of course, Japan as a whole sort of drove off the cliff there eventually, but that only adds to the "lemming see, lemming do, lemming no understand" feel of the whole American strong style thing.

[KrisZ]

Eddie Graham's mentor was Cowboy Luttrall who ran Florida for decades.

 

Onita definitely was influenced by Memphis and their philosophy and also Eddie Gilbert who molded ECW in that image

[FLIK]

Not to derail this totally with FMW discussion, but for how long was Onita the booker? Was he still the guy running it when they got into the Hayabusa/Tanaka/Shinzaki vs. Team No Respect period in (I think) 96/97?

He was head guy in charge up until he retired for the first time in 95. After that he sold the company to Shoichi Arai. Go Ito came in around 91 and was an assistent booker during the Onita years and then head booker from 95 post Onita until sometime in 99 I want to say. Victor Quiones was helping book some as well during 96 & 97. The Team No Respect era was 98 & 99 and yeah that was all Go Ito booking. Fuyuki got power later on in 99 and it all went to hell after that.

 

For a longer more detailed account go read BAHU's massive 3 part FMW history piece

 

http://www.fmwwrestling.us/FMWHistory.html

[Mad Dog]

Yeah, I think New Japan's hard tumble in the early to mid 2000s with the Inokis at the helm, is a big black mark against Antonio. Before they sold to Yukes, the company was almost as disorganised and badly booked as the dying days of WCW.

Everyone builds up the black marks in the twilight of their lives. We've all seen that athlete that hung on for a few two many seasons or had that favorite author that wrote a few too many books. It doesn't take away from the accomplishments earlier in their live, it's just kind of the human condition at work.

[Mad Dog]

This kind of sums up how I feel about the American indy interpetation of Japanese wrestling of the 1990's and early 2000's in general. White kids working "strong style" where they just slap the shit out of each other and do head drops for no reason, and make no money. And it was always laughable from the beginning. It was inmates running the asylum and pandering to their own taste, instead of actually giving the average local fan a style they were interested in digesting.

This is exactly why I dislike RoH so much. It always feels self-indulgent and ridiculous when every other indy match has two guys chopping the shit out of each other and no selling it. And it always astounds me how they managed to grab on to the absolute worst excesses of Japanese wrestling.

 

A lot of cartoonists talk about how when you're a cartoonist, you start off by aping the Far Side and then you eventually find your own voice. It feels like a lot of guys like Davey Richards are like those guys that never get past the aping the Far Side phase of their career.