The Bridge of Dream

[Troy]

The Bridge Of Dream (4/2/1995)

 

Eight Woman Tag Team Match: Candy Okutsu, Dynamite Kansai, Fusayo Nochi & Hikari Fukuoka vs. Cutie Suzuki, Devil Masami, Hiromi Yagi & Mayumi Ozaki

Harley Saito vs. Shinobu Kandori

Aja Kong & Kyoko Inoue vs. Blizzard Yuki & Manami Toyota

Ryuma Go vs. Uchumagin Silver X

Barbed Wire Death Match: Leatherface, Shoji Nakamaki & Terry Funk vs. The Headhunters & Cactus Jack

Christopher Dewaver vs. Minoru Suzuki

Carl Greco & Don Arakawa vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Yuki Ishikawa

Six Man Tag Team Match: Gran Naniwa, Super Delfin & Taka Michinoku vs. SATO, Shiryu & The Great Sasuke

Akira Maeda vs. Chris Dolman

Six Man Tag Team Match: Gary Albright, Gene Lydick & Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Billy Scott, Masahito Kakihara & Nobuhiko Takada

No Ropes Exploding Barbed Wire Death Match: Great Nita vs. Mr. Pogo

Six Man Tag Team Match: Akira Taue, Johnny Ace & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi, Mitsuharu Misawa & Stan Hansen

Masahiro Chono vs. Shinya Hashimoto

 

 

 

I started following Japanese wrestling in 2002 and never heard of this show until earlier this year. It seems as if it's a show that's under the radar. The card looks pretty incredible. What's the backstory of this show and why doesn't it get any love?

[El-P]

It was promoted by one of the magazines I believe. For ever there was only a (crappy) handheld, so watching conditions aren't very good. It was infamous for the Women & AJ showing up everybody (well, except the MPro guys), including a pretty lame NJ main event in their own building, and an awful FMW match. With a legit TV broadcast, it probably would have become legendary. Well, it kinda is, but overlooked still.

[WingedEagle]

Indeed promoted by one of the magazines, Weekly Pro Wrestling. At one point I had a copy of the show saved in a Youtube playlist, but it was of course removed long before I had a chance to watch. Would definitely like to see what's available if its at all quality.

[NintendoLogic]

The story goes that New Japan owns the footage but they were embarrassed by Hash/Chono stinking out the joint so they never consented to release it.

[PeteF3]

It also put the kibosh on a sequel in 1996, which would have been headlined by Muto vs. Misawa with Muto having agreed to do the job.

 

It's a pretty great card with a main event that could generously be described as underwhelming. The AJPW and AJW matches are two of the better matches for those promotions in that year. The W*ING six-man is a lot of fun, and a lot of other "fall out of bed" good matches from most of the other promotions. Also, Ryuma Go fighting hillbilly aliens.

[WingedEagle]

Pete, is it available online anywhere these days?

[DGinnetty]

There are 2 versions of this show in circulation.

1 is someone recording the Jumbotron for the entire show.

 

The other is the pro-shot version, like you might see on a commercial release

We didn't know about this release until somewhere in the early 2000s.

 

Some years ago, I was buying some footage from a collector in Japan.

I saw he had the 4/2/95 show. I already had it, but figured his quality would be better, so I ordered the show.

 

He emailed me back, asking if I wanted the Jumbotron version or the Pro-shot version!!

 

I opted for the pro-shot version, which was a major upgrade.

 

Dan

[PeteF3]

Doesn't appear that the whole show is online. I found the main event and the AJW match from a simple Google Video search and there may be more out there on a match-by-match basis. The All-Japan 6-man is in the Google Drive AJPW archive.

[fxnj]

The full pro shot show is up on XWT Classics last I checked. However, there are audio difficulties in the AJPW 6-man and the version in the Google Drive appears to be a straight rip from that version. I remember a version without the audio difficulties being uploaded to YouTube a few years ago, though, and I would be interested if anyone saved it or had further info on the story behind that.

[jushin muta liger]

I watched some of this show earlier in the year and I watched the Chono vs Hashimoto match first to see if it was bad or not (which it wasn't all that bad) but when I started to watch the show in the beginning, I understood why. The AJW match had some great near falls towards the end. I still have to watch the AJPW match but the show is really good like Pete said.

[El-P]

The story goes that New Japan owns the footage but they were embarrassed by Hash/Chono stinking out the joint so they never consented to release it.

 

The original Workrate Guilt.

 

Well, they did get showed up by IWA Japan that night too, so, it's understandable.

[elliott]

This is probably my favorite show of all time. Nothing could possibly compare to it for sheer variety. It took place the same day as WrestleMania XI which is funny to think about.

 

As others have said it was put on by Weekly Pro, the most popular Japanese wrestling magazine at the time, to celebrate the "40th Anniversary of Pro Wrestling in Japan."

 

I let my observer sub lapse but there's an incredible review of the show in the WON archives and Foley rather famously talks about the show in his first book. Basically, Japanese Wrestling Mags were a big business at this time period and they had grand ideas of putting on a show at the Tokyo Dome with representatives from all of the promotions in Japan. The only missing promotion was WAR because Tenryu had issues with Weekly Pro going back to his SWS days (I think SWS had the audacity to print real attendance figures or something like that, regardless that's how this card happened without Tenryu being on it).

 

At first, the major promotions were just going to send midcard matches but when All Japan Women, JWP, M-Pro, and IWA Japan essentially sent their biggest matches to try and steal the show, AJ and NJ felt pressured to send bigger matches. And that's how we ended up getting the card we got.

 

It is an awesome show for sheer variety. The smaller promotions like JWP and M-Pro wanted to try and get over in front of as many people as they'd ever work in front of so they were balls to the wall matches. All Japan Women wasn't about to get shown up by JWP so they had a great match too.

 

The IWA Japan match is pretty legendary because of Foley's book "The greatest clusterfuck of spots ever" - Foley Quoting Meltzer's review. And that motherfucker holds up as an awesome spectacle.

 

I would need to rewatch the PWFG match because I don't remember anything about it. But Fujiwara, Ishikawa, Carl Greco make me think it was probably really good. I seem to recall enjoying the UWFi 6. The Pancrase and LLPW matches are too short to be noteworthy.

 

The FMW match is indeed a disappointment both in quality and in heat. Onita was probably the biggest draw in Japan at this point (he was a month away from his retirement show that sold 55,000 seats at Kawasaki Stadium) but the match lacked the heat needed to make Onita matches feel special instead of awkward. Because it was a no rope exploding barbed wire match, they had a separate ring set up basically off in the corner and apparently the majority of the live crowd couldn't see the match. That's what Dave said at the time, but you know, Jumbotron. Maybe the match just sucked.

 

The All Japan 6 man is a great match and has always been pointed to as the best match on the show. According to the folks there live, Misawa was the star/most over wrestler on the show with fans starting to chant for him almost as soon as the FMW match ended. Apparently the pop for the All Japan referee was bigger than anything on the show up to that point.

 

Hashimoto vs Chono I almost want to rewatch in a vacuum because I suspect it isn't as bad as it comes across watching the full show. It just couldn't follow the previous match or the previous 12 matches. I probably would have sent Hashimoto vs Choshu if it had to be a singles match. Or done something like Hashimoto/Chono/Muto vs Fujinami/Choshu/Inoki and make Inoki work that shit. At least the 3 Musketeers vs Biggest Stars in NJ History has a sort of "special" feeling that this show had. Instead of the 25th Hashimoto vs Chono match. I mean, I get why they sent that match. Its a "big" match like the other promotions, but its a "big match" without giving away a "New Big Match" for a New Japan only show. I mean, my theoretical Inoki involved 6 man wouldn't be as good as the All Japan 6 man either. But I think that sort of match has more appeal on a show like this and more of a chance to get over than Hash/Chono.

 

Oh and Ryuma Go vs Alien Hillbilly is the real main event.

 

Anyway, I would highly recommend seeking the show out in complete form, even with several disappointing/too short to matter matches, the ridiculous spectacle of it all makes it worth watching in entirety.

 

I mean, you can't fully appreciate Ryuma Go vs Alien Hillbillies without first watching the Lou Thesz and Kintaro Oki in a ceremony right before this with Oki crying and kissing the ring posts. Oh, now here's an aliens. WTF. Or the IWA Clusterfuck O'Rama being right before a fucking Pancrase match. Just ridiculous. The flow is amazing. Every promoter likes to talk about having "a little variety" on the show. Nothing like this has ever happened in terms of variety.

 

Watching it now it comes across as a MAJOR deal and considering the success it is pretty shocking it didn't happen again. I'd also recommend reading the old WON coverage of the show as its really interesting stuff.

 

Top to bottom the card is probably better than every WrestleMania.

 

Edit:

Just found this old classics thread with Meltzer & jdw talking about it.

http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=print_topic;f=9;t=031554

 

double edit:

I have never heard of it being called "The Bridge of Dream" in my 18ish years of going to internet wrestling boards and reading about Japanese wrestling. If you search around for "Weekly Pro at the Tokyo Dome" you'll have more success than looking around for "The Bridge of Dream"

[ohtani's jacket]

The full name in Japanese is something like: "Bridge of Dreams - Dome Spring in Full Bloom."

[Jetlag]

I remember watching the PWFG match and it was really fun. Some comedy and quality shootstyle action.

 

These japanese supershows are really interesting. There's also the Rikidozan Memorial Shows or Indy Summit shows from the 2000s that give you all kinds of weird matchups like Tarzan Goto vs. Yoji Anjo.

[joeg]

I could swear I saw the entire show at somepoint.

[WingedEagle]

Recently posted in case anyone would like to check it out:

 

 

[Brian Elliott]

I'm generally not much of a snob for A/V quality, but a high-quality version of this appearing from somewhere really would be wonderful.