Shinjiro Ohtani: a story of two careers

[Ditch]

This might blow some minds: Ohtani has now been a chubby heavyweight for almost twice as long as he was a junior. He recently reached the 20 year mark in his career, and he's managed to go that long with no significant injuries or time off (that I can recall). Yet nobody really talks about him anymore.

 

In the famous Smarkschoice vote he was in 27th place, 12th among all Japanese and 9th among Japanese men. A more recent poll on Ohtani at DVDVR has him in the top 30 for Japan, which strikes me as a lot closer to the truth.

 

Ohtani's junior career is something most of us are familiar with. The feud with Liger, the big matches with all the big names, the facial expressions. Because he didn't wrestle much in the US, Ohtani was one of the first wrestlers you'd be introduced to upon getting tapes of '90s puro. Over the years my opinion of him as a junior has *improved*, especially from '97 on when we got more un-clipped and small-show footage to show his consistency. He was capable from a very early age, especially compared to his heavyweight counterparts in NJ.

 

But then there's heavyweight Ohtani. Not bad by any means, but not elite either. For starters, Ohtani as a junior was compelling as a heel and as an underdog/upstart. Veteran Ohtani rarely had either of those things going for him, though when he did it tended to produce good results. Ohtani in post-Hashimoto Zero1 is the rather uninspiring leader of a rather uninspiring promotion. Good matches here and there, but arguably nothing that could be considered 'great'.

 

He has no significant drawing power. Zero1 has been treading water as a semi-indy for years, and Ohtani as an outsider in other promotions is an upper-midcarder. He hasn't 'made' anyone, with the exception of training Hashimoto's promising young son Daichi. He wasn't a pioneering, legacy-having junior like Sayama, Dynamite, Fujinami, Liger, Ultimo, Sasuke or Benoit. Because there's nothing to the 'case for Ohtani' besides match quality, the second 60% of his career is a big drag. He's not one of the 50 best wrestlers ever, or the 20 best from Japan.

 

All that said, it isn't as though heavyweight Ohtani is *bad*, and he was quite the junior-heavy. This isn't about Ohtani being garbage. It's more that his career doesn't hold up to those of other stars in wrestling history who had longer, more productive/important peaks.

[Death From Above]

My favourite thing he ever did in Zero-1 was against Satoshi Kojima where he ripped off his orange breathe-rite strip to get crowd heat.

 

I don't know what that really says about the Zero-1 I watched back in the day.

[cheapshot]

I was a big fan of Ohtani as a Junior, and loved his springboard dropkicks.

 

To be his heavyweight run was something that I had forgotten about completely until reading this thread, to me that says it all.

 

I feel he really shone at the 1997 BOTSJ. I love that tourney so much, and he was one of the highlights for me (as well as the glorious appearances of Robbie Brookside and Ian 'Doc' Dean; but I digress)

[jdw]

One of the interesting things to look at for Ohtani would be his early years. He really got a bit of notice in late 1994 into 1995 when Liger was out, and he & Koji got pushed up. Noticed no later than the 10/94 Pegasus & Ohtani vs BT & Sasuke matches. But... between classics, commercial releases and hand helds, there are quite a few matches covering his first two years and change as a worker.

 

Just two of his matches made the yearbooks by the end of 1994: the second Pegasus & Ohtani vs BT & Sasuke match, and the NJPW vs MPro match in the middle of the year. He was praised in both.

 

Would be interesting to see someone go completest on what's available through the end of 1994, and chart his development.

[Loss]

John, do you happen to recall the first time you saw him and thought he had a promising future? Is there a performance that sticks out in your mind looking back?

[Ditch]

There was a September '94 match with Sasuke in MPro. Worked like a TV match, so the first half is dry as hell, but for the finishing run Ohtani was right there and looked like a high-end junior. That's darn good progress. From what I've seen he wasn't quite an Akiyama-level rookie standout, but he was damn good by the second year. The only thing of note in '93 was him eating an especially brutal Ligerbomb.

[Timbo Slice]

I think he was screwed over with all the change in the Japanese wrestling scene when he made the switch to being a heavyweight. Considering the dearth of New Japan's heavyweights at the time, he actually could have had a good run there, especially considering Mutoh and Kojima were making their exodus. Plus, while Z1 was about doing a lot of dream matches with Hash, NJPW was still making a lot of money doing dream matches, and he could have had some run up top there.

 

That being said, he was one of my favorite juniors of all time. His 1996 was incredible. Might have been Lyger's best opponent, too, and that's saying something.

[WingedEagle]

Nothing too constructive to add at this time, but for my money Ohtani had some of the best facials offered by anyone in Japan. The guy was accessible to any wrestling fan unfamiliar with the Japanese product.

[jdw]

John, do you happen to recall the first time you saw him and thought he had a promising future? Is there a performance that sticks out in your mind looking back?

Not sure.

 

No later than the 10/94 tags and then in 1995 when he and Koji carried the native half of the division while Liger was out.

 

He had the earlier Super Juniors match with Benoit, though it was clipped. The Super J Cup match with Delfin, but there was so much on that card that got attention that it's hard to recall Ohtani standing out. Dittos the NJPW vs MPro match earlier in the year.

 

I think it was more than he look like someone who was good without a lot of projecting him forward. Which is why looking at some of that earlier stuff in totality would be interesting: where were the signs earlier?

 

John