Wrestling in Japan (Late 90s-Early 00s)

[El-P]

2005 was the death knell of Joshi with GAEA and AJW closing

It's funny because even then ppl complained that it wasn't what it once was but joshi would kill now to be at the lvls they were in 05. AJW had been on the heavy death march since 03 so it wasn't a totall surprise when they collapsed, GAEA was still drawing well & putting on good shows so it came out of nowhere when they threw in the towell however.

GAEA closed down when Chiggy decided she wanted to quit. Simple as that. Chiggy never saw GAEA has the future of joshi, it was always a vehicule for her own benefit, much like ONita with FMW. SHe could have keep on promoting GAEA, it was the number one joshi promotion. She just didn't care to. Ah, Chiggy, always the giving one.

 

I began using "zombi fed" as early as 2000/2001 talking about JWP, NEO and Jd'. It was painfull to see joshi fell of a cliff so bad at the time. In a matter of a few years, it went from big events and a potential great future, to a bunch of mini-feds not being able to pack Korakuen Hall. ARSION was super exciting for 1 year and a half, then slowly slid then got sucked into Lioness claws and became just another z-fed. I never bothered to check out AtoZ, I taped out way before that.

[FLIK]

it was always a vehicule for her own benefit, much like ONita with FMW. SHe could have keep on promoting GAEA, it was the number one joshi promotion. She just didn't care to. Ah, Chiggy, always the giving one.

Could GAEA have continued if they really wanted? Yeah, i'll give you that one but you couldn't possibly get more opposite then Chiggy & Onita when it came to how they ran their feds.

 

GAEA from the start was about building up their trianees and making everyone they could into a star. Gonna talk more about this in a diffrent thread once i'm done but i'm currently re-watching the 1996 GAEA tv set and even that early I can point to multiple shows Chigusa didn't work the main event of, multiple tvs Chigusa didn't appear on at all or had a minimal role on and atleast 4 ocasions of the youngsters getting pins over the vets (which is a lot given GAEA only had 3 vets for much of the year until Hokuto jumped and all their youngsters only had 1 year experience at most).

 

Contrast with the Onita era whear from 89 - 95 you can count the # of main events he wasn't in on 1 hand, zero tv shows & videos released that he wasn't the main (sometimes entire) focus of and except for Kudo & the women's division, nothing done to give spotlight to anyone but himself or the ppl he was feuding against with the entire rest of the cards clearly existing just to fill time and any rare instances of this not being the case being 100% due to the influence of other ppls booking not his own.

 

Heck, Chiggy even jobed in her final match. Really complete day & night diffrence between the 2

[El-P]

At first, Chiggy maybe was thinking about building toward the future somewhat. By 1998/99, she realized that nostalgia was the way to go, and she went full bore into the nWo mode with old women on top to sell big shows, and it was kept that way afterward.

Onita is just another bird alltogether, I agree, but it wasn't the same context either. He wasn't a huge star returning, he built it from scratch, and FMW was alla bout Onita at first. GAEA was a lot more than just Chiggy.

In the end, both just washed their hands on what would happen with the company they founded.

Chiggy could have keep on promoted with (yikes) Satomura on top (not something I ever would want to watch), and although it wouldn't have drawn like it did before, the brand was still well established at the time, and it would have helped the scene quite a bit.

[rzombie1988]

GAEA would surely still be around if it didn't close. OZ is. How strong it would be would depend on if Chigusa ever got any more young girls.

[El-P]

How strong it would be would depend on if Chigusa ever got any more young girls.

The thing is, GAEA produced shit in term of rookies after the initail "fab four", because Chiggy was such a gigantic dick. And Satomura followed the lead. Most girls just quit after a few months.

[kjh]

Loss, Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye on December 31st 2000 was a key show, where pro wrestlers and MMA fighters had worked matches, as it kickstarted the New Year's Eve tradition, which Pride and K-1 later took over. It drew a near sell out crowd at the Osaka Dome. Also, Cro Cop was a ringer in the sense that Pride kept it quiet that he had trained in takedown defence, so everyone in New Japan thought Nagata would win, as he was a national calibre amateur wrestler in his youth. His loss to Fedor two years later should probably be on the 2003 yearbook too.

[MJH]

Just jumping in before Loss answers - I understand wanting to keep any MMA off the year books, but there are instances, and Nagata/Crocop is one of the most obvious, Takayama/Frye another in the opposite way, where they're really essential to the year for pro-wrestling in Japan.

[FLIK]

At first, Chiggy maybe was thinking about building toward the future somewhat. By 1998/99, she realized that nostalgia was the way to go, and she went full bore into the nWo mode with old women on top to sell big shows, and it was kept that way afterward.

Chigusa vs Lioness then the reformation of Crush was a bit of nostalgia but Chiggy had been out of retirement for 6 years by that point and Lioness a little over 4 and they hadn't had ANY interaction up until that point so it was a no brainer angle to do and became the most succesful in the companies history.

 

Worth pointing out that "old women" weren't exactly that old at this point either. I know what your point is since by joshi standards they were but Devil was the oldest and only 37, Chiggy was about 35 and the rest were still only in their late 20's/early 30's. Hardly time to put them out to pastue.

 

Irregardless, the influx older stars besides the above example wasn't built around nostalgia, it was a combination of a shrinking home roster and all the other companies simultaniously collapsing & GAEA taking advantage. End of 1996 GAEA had 11 home grown wrestlers on their roster, by 2002 they were down to 5. It would be kinda dumb to say no Devil, Kansai, OZ, Aja, Toyota, etc... we're not interested in having you join our company and for every talent like that they also recruited Ayako Hamada, Ran YuYu, Carlos Amano, Akino, Amazing Kong, Kaori Nakayama (on & off), The Bloody (for a while) & other top young stars to balance things out.

 

but it wasn't the same context either. He wasn't a huge star returning, he built it from scratch, and FMW was alla bout Onita at first. GAEA was a lot more than just Chiggy.

My point was, it was more then just Chiggy because she allowed it to be which Onita could have but just chose not to even well past the point when he & the company were fully established and could afford to spread things around more. The entirety of W*ING is because Onita pissed off his business partners by being too egotistical so them & Quioness bounced to form their own company.

 

When GAEA started all they had besides Chigusa was Kaoru (talented wrestler who never rose beyond lower mid card in AJW), Bomber Hikaru (underated talent but a complete no name) and 6 rookies so they had to build that up from scratch too.

 

In the end, both just washed their hands on what would happen with the company they founded.

True but both companies continued on and the diffrence speaks for itself.

 

FMW post Onita wasn't predicted to last until the end of the year, saw massive declines in attendance and had no one establised to carry the company in his abscence. They recovered but it was a very tough strugle and Onita did zilch to help.

 

OZ Academy post GAEA with almost the entire GAEA roster automaticly became the top joshi company riding the wave they were set up for and didn't loose much of a step at all. They run less often but still draw well (by todays lowered standards) and are the only joshi company left with regular monthly tv at this point.

 

The thing is, GAEA produced shit in term of rookies after the initail "fab four", because Chiggy was such a gigantic dick. And Satomura followed the lead. Most girls just quit after a few months.

Not producing new talent and having those that did debut quit early was hardly a GAEA exclusive problem. Still, GAEA produced about 14-16 rookies over the course of it's existence, there wasn't one that I would say turned out bad and all but 1 or 2 lasted atleast a couple of years in the business. Those that did leave early in their careers did so for a lot more varied reasons then "mean old evil Chigusa was too rough on em" which i'm not saying didn't happen in some cases but is overblown by ppl that either don't like Chigusa to begin with or saw GAEA girls and freaked out.

 

Meiko as a trainer on her own with her Sendai Girls project has churned out 6 or 7 rookies in the last 6 years, a # of which have either allready retired or left the company to work elsewhere and none of which have become major stars because Meiko can't book worth a damn but in terms of quality they've also all been very good workers.

 

While there's also been several other great new talents produced from diffrent companies over the last few years there's also a hell of a lot more horrid rookies being let loose then ever before so i'm fully 100% behind weeding the scrubs out with tougher/harder training instead of the "nice nice" approach & lax standards we get a lot these days.

[gordi]

Loss, Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye on December 31st 2000 was a key show, where pro wrestlers and MMA fighters had worked matches, as it kickstarted the New Year's Eve tradition, which Pride and K-1 later took over. It drew a near sell out crowd at the Osaka Dome. Also, Cro Cop was a ringer in the sense that Pride kept it quiet that he had trained in takedown defence, so everyone in New Japan thought Nagata would win, as he was a national calibre amateur wrestler in his youth. His loss to Fedor two years later should probably be on the 2003 yearbook too.

Mark Coleman & Mark Kerr vs. Takashi Iizuka & Yuji Nagata is a match from Bom-Ba-Ye that I might recommend for the 2000 yearbook on its own merits as an interesting pro wrestling match. kjh, were there any other stand-out matches from that show? I think the Coleman one is the only one I've seen, since I have it as a bonus match on a Coleman MMA compilation set.

Bas Rutten & Alexander Otsuka vs. Naoki Sano & Ricco Rodriguez and Nobuhiko Takada & Keiji Mutoh vs. Ken Shamrock & Don Frye both sound interesting to me! I've seen Rutten in worked matches before and he seemed to have a real knack for it.

 

I like the idea of MMA guys crossing over into pro wrestling much more than the idea of pro wrestling guys crossing over into MMA... except for that whole Sapp - Fujita title run fiasco!

 

Works just fine for me as a special-attraction type thing, though. Too bad it couldn't have been kept at that level!

[Bix]

I have never seen the show but I remember hearing good things about this:

 

Great Sasuke & Daijiro Matsui beat Akira Shoji & Kaoru Uno (20:00) when Sasuke pinned Uno.

 

Apparently all of the MMA guys were huge fans who did a great job crossing over into a junior style tag and doing Lucha spots with Sasuke.

 

Elsewhere on the show, this looks interesting:

 

Bas Rutten & Alexander Otsuka beat Naoki Sano & Ricco Rodriguez (14:43) when Rutten forced Sano to submit.

 

Otsuka and Sano were great workers and Rutten was usually tremendous in his few pro wrestling matches so it should be at least good.

 

Also...

 

Kazushi Sakuraba beat Kendo Kashin (19:17) via submission.

 

This was notable because both were doing shoots. IIRC it was supposed to be good but disappointing.

 

Nobuhiko Takada & Keiji Mutoh beat Ken Shamrock & Don Frye (24:13) when Takada pinned Frye.

 

This was the debut of bald Mutoh I think...don't remember much else.

 

Oh, and the show ended with Hundreds of people lining up for Inoki slaps in what I've always heard was a weirdly hilarious scene.

[gordi]

... the show ended with Hundreds of people lining up for Inoki slaps in what I've always heard was a weirdly hilarious scene.

Awesome! If there is any of that on tape, I'm gonna go ahead and recommend it for the 2000 yearbook right now.

 

I have never seen the show but I remember hearing good things about this:

 

Great Sasuke & Daijiro Matsui beat Akira Shoji & Kaoru Uno (20:00) when Sasuke pinned Uno.

 

Apparently all of the MMA guys were huge fans who did a great job crossing over into a junior style tag and doing Lucha spots with Sasuke.

That is also something I would like to see.

[ohtani's jacket]

Chigusa was free to close GAEA any time she wanted. It was her company. Running one of these companies is no mean feat and she did it for a decade. Forget about the future of Joshi, nobody gets decent rookies anymore because there's less kids in Japan every year and no reason for them to be interested in pro-wrestling. A lot of the girls in the business now would've been weeded out before ever being accepted into a dojo twenty or thirty years ago. It's a credit to them if they go through the training and try to make a go at being a wrestler -- most kids today wouldn't want to go through that sort of training -- but whatever people saw in GAEA Girls was nothing compared to the old days.

[Eduardo]

Great Sasuke & Daijiro Matsui beat Akira Shoji & Kaoru Uno (20:00) when Sasuke pinned Uno.

http://youtu.be/U3UvA_yM1hE

http://youtu.be/k4GlsMzJv5g

http://youtu.be/6aA_H9lIBKU

 

Caol Uno working with Great Sasuke just warms my heart. I wish Uno would have done more pro wrestling, he seems like a natural.

[Mr Wrestling X]

Speaking of early 00's in Puro, I don't think anyone can deny that Keiji Mutoh/Great Muta made one of the greatest comebacks in the history of professional wrestling. He was pretty much done following his disastrous tenure with WCW, in which he jobbed to nearly everyone, but then he returns to Japan and within a couple of years he's completely reinvented his wrestling style, got into great shape and adjusted his gimmick by putting away Muta and only taking him out for special occasions.

 

So many years of doing the moonsault hampered his wrestling ability, but he managed to completely do a 180 and get back to the top by switching to a mat-based style where he can still showcase his phenomenal wrestling ability, whilst taking the strain off his knees and preserving his career as an active performer.

[gordi]

Great Sasuke & Daijiro Matsui beat Akira Shoji & Kaoru Uno (20:00) when Sasuke pinned Uno.

http://youtu.be/U3UvA_yM1hE

http://youtu.be/k4GlsMzJv5g

http://youtu.be/6aA_H9lIBKU

 

Caol Uno working with Great Sasuke just warms my heart. I wish Uno would have done more pro wrestling, he seems like a natural.

 

Oh. Awesome. Thank you! Uno really is something else!

[FLIK]

Dunno whear it fits but there's also this

 

Battlarts 10/14/2001

 

Takahiro Oba vs Manabu Sato

Ikuto Hidaka, Mr. Sakai & Mr. Sakai '01 vs junji.com, Black Sakai & Tommy Diablo

Takeshi Ono vs Tanomusaku Toba

Daijiro Matsui vs Shannon Ritch

Katsumi Usuda vs Touradj Mansouri

Tadao Yasuda vs Mohammed Yone

Bas Rutten vs Carl Malenko

Dos Caras, Jr. vs Kazunari Murakami

Quinton Jackson vs Alexander Otsuka

Muhammed Ali vs Yuki Ishikawa

 

First 8 are pro wrestling but the last 2 were shoots. Ali is of course not the famous one but another fighter that happened to have the same name. I've had this show for years but never watched it as everything except the last 3 or 4 matches appears to be cliped heavily on it.

[FLIK]

Little before the time frame but fits the theme

 

U- Japan MMA 11/17/1996

http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/mma.cfm?go...0e-9a3e1a131c0b

 

Matches of note

 

Dan Severn vs Mitsuhiro Matsunaga (just watched this on youtube, weird match, Matsunaga holds on for dear life as Dan smashes him into the mat 5 or 6 times then taps him out with an armbar a minute in. Matsunaga came into the octagon with a barb wire bat & barb wire crown but sadly did not use them. Ichiro Mother Fucking Yaguchi was his corner man)

 

Sean Alvarez vs Yoji Anjo

 

Kimo vs Bam Bam Bigelow (if you believe his wiki page, Bam Bam got $75 to 100k for this match)

[WrestlingPower]

I haven't finished reading thru this thread so this may be redundant. On my trips to Tokyo for the 2001 and 2002 Dome shows, I remember the sentiment around Naoya Ogawa very much transcended language barriers. He was a huge draw to wrestling fans in a way that seemed to straddle kayfabe. From what I remember Ogawa was such a prick (whether worked or not or a combination) by refusing to sell for or do jobs for pro wrestlers and working stiff with them that it really riled up the pro wrestling fans. I think they would have been ok with an outsider coming into their world and playing fair, but this guy had the nerve to come in and not cooperate and ticket sales boomed by people coming out in hopes of watching him get his comeuppance. I think eventually it turned into more & more of a work but Hash/Ogawa was certainly the main thing I remember as the tipping point as even then I was trying to ignore all the MMA stuff.

[tomk]

Identifying the key moments from that time period that are key in telling the story would also be helpful, along with guys like Takada and Hashimoto who were pretty much killed off by these changes.

1) Inoki and Ogawa

 

1998 Riki Choshu had retirement series, his protege Sasaki was failing on top....Inoki retirement match v Don Frye sets a record drawing something like a $7 million gate.

 

April 12, 1997- debuting Olympic silver medalist Naoya Ogawa TKO Shinya Hashimoto (9:25). This is pre-Ogawa working "shooter gimmick" although he is being positioned as future "hot" Hash rival

 

Jan 4,1999 Tokyo Dome---Shinya Hashimoto NC Naoya Ogawa (now with one Pride "win") (6:58).Drawing 52,500

October 11, 1999 Tokyo Dome- NWA World Champ Naoya Ogawa (now 2-0 in Pride) TKO Shinya Hashimoto (13:10). Drawing 48,000

April 7, 2000 Tokyo Dome---Naoya Ogawa (now 3-0 in Pride) KO Shinya Hashimoto (15:09). Drawing a heavily papered 40,000

 

and well the non-Dome business crashed during this feud too.

 

The Ogawa v New Japan feud was a super hot TV ratings feud but people weren't actually interested in paying to see it.

 

Booking a guy as Ivan Drago promising to no sell and break top star Rocky and then having him actually no sell and break top star isn't something that people pay to see.

 

This is obvious but kind of forgoten important point in world where idiots complain that the wrong guy won Lesnar v Cena and how it should have been booked more like Ogawa in NJ.

 

Sheet writers supposedly "smart" to biz should be able to see lesson of 52,500--48,000---40,000 before they write about "burning money".

 

I think the Don Frye v Inoki retirement match and the Ogawa v New Japan feud are kind of the most important stuff to understand this period.

 

guys who were sacrificed, the impact on the style (Is this how Takayama became a star in 2002?)

2) Takayama-

 

Team No Fear (Takayama/Omori) pushed to double tag titles in AJ in 1999.

Team No Fear pushed to beat Misawa and Ogawa for NOah tag title in 01

Takayama is pushed to the finals of the NOAh title tournament (to crown first champion) losing to Misawa in April 01

 

May 01 Takayama( being ex-UWfi guy) dips toe into Pride. At this point he is a guy who has figured out how to be a super charismatic pro-wrestler and impresses the fans in main event loss to Fujita.

 

Takayama looses two more times in Pride (0-3) including "fight of the year" opposite Frye before the 02 G1 tourney.

02 G1 tourney he is #1 outsider booked to finals before putting over #1 native Chono.

He beats Yoshinari Ogawa for GHC title in 02 before losing to Misawa.

Back in G1 in 03 where he is booked as #2 outsider (behind Akiyama); with semi-final of Akiyama beating Nagata, and Tenzan beating Takayama for a Tenzan v Akiyama final.

 

 

I'm not sure if the question you're asking is "would Takayama have been pushed to GHC title and as #1 outsider in 02 G1 and, #2 outisder in 03 G1 without his 0-4 shoot record?" or " Would Takayama have drawn as much money/as big ratings, etc in those positions as he did?"

 

I would say probably "yes" to the first and "no" to the second.

If you wanted to, you could make an argument that the damage from the shoot matches shortened Takayama's career.

 

 

3) Fujita and Yasuda: guys pushed due to shoot wins

 

Fujita:

Fujita debuts in about 96 and is booked with "shooter" gimmick four yeas before he does any shoots. New Japan has a couple guys who they book with shooter gimmicks , "guys who can legit work shooters" and so you'll find posts by New Japan partisans back in 96 complaining when Fujita puts over Choshu or some other non-shooter gimmicked guy. He gets paired opposite legit amateur Nagata a bunch. But does not get pushed heavily untill after his shoot wins. He has to vacate the IWGP title after first win due to injuries sustained in an MMA match.

 

Yasuda:

Ex-sumo had been around NJ since early 90s floating around midcard, beat a k-1superstar in an MMA match and then was pushed more seriously in NJ winning a IWGP title.

 

4)Nagata and Nakamura: shoots make guys go ouch

 

One of the cooler Japanese booking tricks is the seasoning trip abroad. Seasoning trip abroad allows booker to build a guys credibility up (move him up the ladder) without sacrificing other members of his roster. Maybe a wrestler actually does learn something working away from regular audience, can fail and experiment without those failures and experiments haunting him forever. Whatever? A guy can comeback from a seasoning trip abroad with some photos of success and a bigger body (cycling on steroids without fans seeing the growth) and immediately be placed higher on card.

 

MMA matches aren't a trip to WCW or England. You can loose in front of your regular crowd and you can get badly hurt. It's unclear that the Japanese bookers understood this.

 

 

Nagata-

Yuji Nagata is a guy with amateur background who after stint in WCW was pushed as regular challenger to IWGP belt. Pushed as guy with legit amateur background surrounded by stable of guys with legit sports backgrounds. Like Fujita booked as guy credible opposite MMA outsiders.

 

Nagata was booked in legit shoot match with Cro Cop in 2001. Nagata got knocked out in under a minute. Despite the loss he still is booked to win the IWGP title in 02. He holds the belt for over a year and is booked to hold the record for most succesfull title defenses.

 

Still, Nagata never being as popular as Hashimoto is often blamed on the KO. Even without the Ko, I doubt he was gonna be the next Rock.

 

Shinsuke Nakamura-

 

Nakamura debuted in spring of 02 and quickly is booked (wins following) as "Super Rookie": tough charismatic blowjob babyface who sold from underneath and then could catch opponents in slick subs. For new generation of blowjob babyfaces he would be the KENTA (one with the tougher offense) to Tanahashi's Marafuji (guy with the more watered down lucharesu by way of Elix Skipper offense).

 

He gets booked in three "MMA" matches before he wins the IWGP belt in 03.

The three "MMA" matches are an Inoki-boom-baye show, a New Japan show, and a Jungle Fight ( promotion that Inoki has his hands in and which regularly features New Japan trainees, NJ trainers and stuff like Kakihara v Rocky Romero).

Nakamura wins the IWGP belt in Dec of 03, completing the journey from super rookie to title. The generation of guys (Tenzan, Kojima, Nagata, Nakanishi) after the Three Muskateers really hasn't excited the NJ fans and NJ was going to go with a new generation.

Nakamura is then booked for a New Years eve k1 MMA match where he looses and is beat up so badly that he works one defense on Jan 4 (still looking completely glassy eyed) and has to forfeit the belt due to injuries.

 

The Nakamura "super-Rookie" story as well as the booking of the IWGP title were both fucked up by the decision to book him into an MMA match.

 

5)Keiji Mutoh and Kensuke Sasaki:

 

Keiji Mutoh:

2001, Keiji Mutoh is a broken down shell of a wrestler. Ex-pro "Gracie Killer" Sakuraba gets TKOd by repeated knee strikes to the head in a Pride fight opposite Wanderei Silva. Mutoh reinvents himself as guy who wins with a knee strike.

 

Kensuke Sasaki:

Hey remember Sasaki, he was guy who wasn't working as maineventer before NJ decided to go push the Ogawa v Hashimoto feud. Turns out he's short enough to be credible opposite Kawada (the third most important guy in rival fed AJ).

[NintendoLogic]

I have heard literally nobody say that Cena/Lesnar should have been booked like Hash/Ogawa.

[Tim Cooke]

I think what Tom meant was that by wanting Lesnar to squash Cena more or less/work the same match and still have Lesnar win, it could be similar to the start of the Hash/Ogawa feud.

[El-P]

I don't think anyone who complained about Cena winning his very first match with Lesnar implied that he had to be just squashed like a bug then be squashed again... then be squashed again. And look like complete shit in the process. Which was basically how Ogawa vs Hash worked. One of the most depressing feud ever for a puro fan back then.

[tomk]

Booking a guy as Ivan Drago promising to no sell and break top star Rocky and then having him actually no sell and break top star isn't something that people pay to see.

The complaint of the match was that it was perfect except for the finish. Not having Lesnar dominate and then win was "burning money". History shows the opposite.

[NintendoLogic]

I don't think anyone who complained about Cena winning his very first match with Lesnar implied that he had to be just squashed like a bug then be squashed again... then be squashed again. And look like complete shit in the process. Which was basically how Ogawa vs Hash worked. One of the most depressing feud ever for a puro fan back then.

Yeah, this. The problem wasn't that Hashimoto lost to Ogawa, it's that he lost over and over again without getting his win back.

 

Also, it needs to be pointed out that Rocky didn't face Ivan Drago until after he killed Apollo Creed. And in the previous film, he got destroyed by Clubber Lang before getting his win back in the rematch. Either the Drago route or the Lang route would have been fine. Instead, they went the Thunderlips route.

[rzombie1988]

I wrote a big long post about how dumb it was to have Cena beat Brock. Brock beating Cena was where the money was at. They could have made it a year long program easy and could have squeezed 3-4 PPV matches out of it with no trouble. Cena could have got a rematch and lost, making him 0-2. Then, Brock would make him put up something to get another match. I don't know what it would be since Cena left the WWE for less than 24 hour total last time but there's always something. However, Cena could have won that match to end the feud or they could have had him come back after the stipulation as a reborn Cena and finally have him take down Brock. WWE would never do any of this, but that was my idea going in and coming out of it.