2019 FOUR PILLARS BIO: CHAPTERS 25-31, PART FOUR [KAWADA SLUMP, HIROSHI HASE TRANSFERS TO AJPW, 1997 CHAMPION CARNIVAL]

[KinchStalker]

2019 FOUR PILLARS BIO: CHAPTERS 25-31, PART FOUR

On July 24, Kawada wrestled Albright in the Budokan again. This was not the original plan; as Baba announced the card, Kawada was going to team up with Albright against Misawa & Akiyama. However, Kawada publicly rejected this configuration, stating in a Hawaii interview with Ichinose that he did not want Albright to become fully assimilated into AJPW. On June 29, Baba announced that the match was changed to a second Kawada/Albright singles match, with Steve Williams and Johnny Ace getting the tag title shot instead. On July 5 in Osaka, though, Kawada declared that he wanted their match to be held under UWFi rules. Baba would flatly refuse: “If there’s no pinfall, what do you do? Rule changes? [...] If you do that, wrestling gets smaller.” Ultimately, Kawada lost to Albright in 12:18. Ichinose observes that the way Kawada sold Albright’s 3K Full Nelson Suplex might as well have made it a knockout loss.

Three weeks later, Daily Sports carried a scoop. AJPW’s isolationist period was ending, as Baba was willing to negotiate with Nobuhiko Takada.

Ichinose mentions the press comments that Kawada made before this development, which are often stated to have led to internal punishment. Kawada alluded to Masayuki Sato’s match report on his #1 contendership match against Kobashi on May 26, in which Sato wrote that Kawada “wanted to have wings”, but knew that that was “an unattainable dream”. Kawada countered that both he and Kobashi had wings, but that they were caged birds. He also criticized his company’s isolationism on business grounds; the policy had been a good idea three years before, but that didn’t mean it could work forever. 

The common narrative in the West is that Kawada’s slump in 1996 was tied to punishment for his comments, but interestingly, it was already underway by the time he would have said this.

UWFi originally wanted to rent Stan Hansen, but he couldn’t work it into his schedule. Kawada’s name came up, and a match with Yoshihiro Takayama was set for their September 11 event at Jingu Stadium. Ichinose covers the match and quotes Takayama’s postmatch comments, in which he said that Kawada “was a bigger man than him”, and that he wanted to fight again in an All Japan ring. Six months later, Takayama debuted for AJPW.

Ichinose quotes from the last long interview Baba gave him, which was published in the July 14, 1998 issue of Weekly Pro. Baba invoked puroresu’s incorporation of the martial arts concept of ukemi in his critique of Takayama and fellow ex-UWFi hire Masahito Kakihara. They did not have the “passive training” of pro wrestling. Baba would also say that he wanted AJPW to function as a sort of wrestling school, and Ichinose mentions that the guest wrestlers in late 90s All Japan who tended to do best (read: Hayabusa and Jinsei Shinzaki) played by its rules.

From here, we transition to Hiroshi Hase’s November 1996 request to transfer to AJPW.

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After representing Japan at the Los Angeles Olympics, Hiroshi Hase joined Japan Pro Wrestling. While JPW indeed had its own dojo, Hase confirms that he (and presumably other JPW rookies such as Kensuke Sasaki) received guidance from Baba in the six months of training before his overseas debut in Puerto Rico. Before shows, Hase would hit the ring for practice sessions which Baba watched from the back. He received advice on how to position and move himself to be visible to both floors of an audience, as well as some ukemi. Of course, when the bulk of JPW U-turned back to NJPW Hase would return to train again in the NJPW dojo. However, Hase does demythologize a common belief about AJPW and NJPW. It’s often believed that the traditional NJPW training method emphasized sparring instead of ukemi, but Hase states that bump drills made up a majority of his NJPW training, even if the movements they taught were a bit different.

Ichinose writes that Hase’s ukemi was excellent. It hadn’t always been that way. On June 12, 1990, Hase had taken a Tatsutoshi Goto backdrop poorly; while he managed to finish the match, he entered cardiac arrest backstage and had to be resuscitated. Hase acknowledges that it was his fault, as he had not trusted Goto and had thus taken the move wrong. Nine months later, as he and Kensuke Sasaki defended the IWGP tag titles against the Steiners in the Tokyo Dome, Hase took Rick’s throw-and-release German perfectly, over two years before Misawa brought that move into AJPW. Hase also compares the Three Musketeers’ ukemi to the Pillars. Chono used to be good at it, but (understandably) became more careful after the Steve Austin injury. It was Hashimoto’s weak spot, with Hase going so far as to state that Hashimoto only stood out when he had an opponent who could take *his* moves. Mutoh, meanwhile, had the best ukemi of all three.

After Hase had been elected to the House of Councilors, he stayed on with NJPW, signing a one-year contract as an advisor. That had expired in July 1996, after which Hase declared free agency, while stating interest in returning to AJPW. On November 16, Hase came out with Baba after the second match of a Korakuen show, wearing an All Japan jersey. Hase would debut for the company in January, and Ichinose caught him for an interview on December 21, in which he claimed that wrestling in AJPW had long been his dream.

Hase would not wrestle any of the Pillars on the eight dates he worked on the New Year Giant Series tour. This would change upon his August return, when he wrestled Kobashi in singles competition. The next month, he would be alongside all four, plus Akiyama, in the Fan Appreciation Day six-man. Hase admits that working against them was “almost scary”, but that the Shitenno were so skilled at taking moves. Hase never tried certain moves near the ropes, as if one’s foot got stuck on the rope while taking a move it would ruin the bump and risk serious injury. However, the Pillars could bump successfully in such situations. Their masterful spatial awareness was also what made their spots off the apron possible. (That was something the Musketeers had never even tried to copy.) Hase praises Misawa’s ukemi most of all. He recalls their one singles match in 2000, and how stunned he was when Misawa, who had no judo background, took his uranage with the proper uke. 

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After Tarzan’s resignation, Ichinose had declined the editor-in-chief position, but he would take Yamamoto’s place as lead interviewer. So it was that he interviewed Baba before the 1997 Champion Carnival. Baba remarked that the tournament was so much harder now than it had been in the Seventies, when there were only a handful of strong competitors. It was much more grueling now. Ichinose softly suggested that the Carnival could return to the two-block format of 1991-2. Baba’s response was revealing as to the company’s state; the most important factor in All Japan’s success was that they “always gave their all” whether they were wrestling in Korakuen or the provinces. Reverting to the two-block format at this point would lead to decline. Besides, the difficulty of the Carnival only made it more prestigious. Baba said that, thanks to the Internet, the whole world knew about AJPW now. Whoever won the tournament was sure to be labeled the best in the world.

The analogy that Ichinose uses to describe the situation is a bus. Baba drove it, while the Shitenno were its tires.

The tires were wearing out.

The 1997 Carnival was another rough one for Misawa. On March 24, he had his third tournament match against Akiyama in Chiba. While he won the match, Akiyama’s avalanche exploder injured his neck. As the pain spread to his back, he had difficulty sleeping, and his painkiller usage led to frequent stomachaches. This tournament would see him take his first pinfall loss to Kobashi, before the three-way final saw Kawada finally pin the exhausted Misawa in singles competition as well. Kawada’s postmatch comments are exactly what you’d imagine they would be if you saw his face after the victory: “I feel like I only won by the luck of the draw.” After Misawa was helped to the back by Akiyama and Kentaro Shiga, Misawa made no excuses. “Luck is a part of our strength. It’s not like I lost the lottery. I lost the match, and a loss is a loss.”

Kawada went on to defeat Kobashi, winning the Carnival and earning the next Triple Crown title match.

 

[NintendoLogic]

Oh man, Stan Hansen in UWFi would have been amazing.

On a somewhat related note, if you don't mind taking a bit of a detour, what do you know about Akira Maeda vs. Dutch Mantell? It was the main event of the first UWF show, and the crowd appeared to shit all over it by chanting for FU-JI-WARA, I-NO-KI, and DO-RA-GON (Fujinami). Maeda being Maeda, he seemed clearly gotten to by the chants judging by his post-match promo/temper tantrum.

Do you have any idea what he said or of any lore surrounding the match?

[KinchStalker]

10 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

On a somewhat related note, if you don't mind taking a bit of a detour, what do you know about Akira Maeda vs. Dutch Mantell? It was the main event of the first UWF show, and the crowd appeared to shit all over it by chanting for FU-JI-WARA, I-NO-KI, and DO-RA-GON (Fujinami). Maeda being Maeda, he seemed clearly gotten to by the chants judging by his post-match promo/temper tantrum.

Do you have any idea what he said or of any lore surrounding the match?

The chants were a response to what ended up being false advertising. Mind you, it didn't necessarily start out that way; the UWF had originally started with Inoki's blessing as a response to the coup of August 1983, and it looked like Inoki really was going to join them. Shinma had claimed on the show poster that he "had already secured dozens of wrestlers". Just look at the faces. 

According to a Tokyo Sports article, Maeda said something along these lines: "I'm not what I was before. I won't wrestle in a way that caters to the fans. Inoki was the same way."

I have a lot of research materials on other subjects to transcribe, so I can't promise that a deep dive into UWF 1.0 will happen anytime soon. But I would like to cover it someday, whether that be on PWO or my blog.