BROKEN CROWN: THE FALL OF JAPAN PRO WRESTLING, 1971-1973

[KinchStalker]

Monday is the 50th anniversary of Inoki's firing from the JWA, which triggered the greatest year of change in puroresu history. I paused Pillars bio transcription to write a four-part series on the fall of the JWA (in which I call the promotion Japan Pro Wrestling, a quirk which I will explain), paralleled by the establishments of NJPW & AJPW, and I am about 85-90% done. Each part will go live on my blog every two days beginning with the 13th, but I want to give a taste of it now. It just so happens that my post on the coup (the second in this thread!) contains some major errors concerning what exactly happened; I misinterpreted the events to mean that Akimasa Kimura had stolen money from the safe, and that that had led to Inoki being fired. I've cut the background section about 1964-69, and this won't have any of the photos or footnotes, but I hope you all enjoy.

BROKEN CROWN: THE FALL OF JAPAN PRO WRESTLING, 1971-1973
Part One: The Coup

 

Spoiler

 

"Sharp is the knife, and sudden is the stroke;
And sorely would the Gallic foemen rue,
If subtle poniards, wrapt beneath the cloak,
Could blunt the sabre's edge, or clear the cannon's smoke."
- Lord Byron
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
canto I, stanza 50

[This series will use Japan Pro Wrestling to refer to the promotion which has traditionally been called the Japan Wrestling Association (or Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance) in English-language circles. While this runs the risk of confusion with the later Japan Pro Wrestling of 1984-1987—which was literally titled such, not Nihon/Nippon Puroresu—and Japan Wrestling Association was used on the company's branding, it does risk confusion to use JWA when writing about the organization. The Association was one component of Japan Pro Wrestling's corporate apparatus, and it was not the promotion itself. This will be explained in an early section of the first post. This series will refer to various people in the actual Association and Commission by their name and position, so I believe this is the best solution.]

In November 1971, Antonio Inoki was at the center of a plot to clean up Japan Pro Wrestling. Although he gained the support of Giant Baba, the plot would fall apart during the promotion's year-end World Champion Series tour, and cost Inoki his job. By the following winter, though, the Association's two biggest stars had left to form their own companies. Just sixteen months after Inoki's firing, JPW was putting on its last show.

On December 13, the 50th anniversary of Inoki's firing, we will take a look back at the context, circumstances, and consequences of the coup that changed puroresu forever. This is the first of a four-part series on the fall of Japan Pro Wrestling, my free holiday present for the puroresu fan. It's already complete, but each part will go live every two days from here on out, on midnight Pacific time.

I have synthesized this narrative from various Japanese-language sources on the Internet, whose stated sources range from contemporaneous press coverage to retro puroresu magazines such as G Spirits and Japan Pro Wrestling Case History, and books like Kosuke Takeuchi's Defense is the Greatest Offense and Yasushi Hara's Gekiroku: Baba and Inoki. I specifically consulted resources like Igapro, a one-man puro news agency that posts regular summaries of contemporary historical puro writing, the website of long-running fanzine Showa Puroresu (see their 10-part JPW special here), and the defunct blog Puroresu Explosion Zone! A rare direct testimony that I found was an interview with The Great Kojika (relevant parts here and here). I do not currently have access to the primary sources that would give me confidence to write this as a book, but I figure that my work can help us in the West get a lot closer to understanding this history than we did before.

 

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Spoiler

Due to the extent to which this series will involve the upper corporate hierarchy of Japan Pro Wrestling, I need to establish how the promotion was set up. There were three components. The wrestling promotion itself will be translated as Japan Pro Wrestling Entertainment (Nihon Puroresu Kōgyō Co., Ltd.). This was the company which, in July 1953, was formed with Shinsaku Nitta as its president and Rikidōzan, Yoshimoto Kogyo branch head Hirotaka Hayashi, and entertainment industry don Sadao Nagata as its directors. The Japan Wrestling Association (Nihon Puroresu Kyōkai) was the industry organization and was largely where the political and underworld figures which would be associated with the promotion were seated. Finally, there was the Japan Pro Wrestling Commission (Nihon Puroresu Comisshon), which issued licenses and oversaw and certified championship matches. The latter two organizations were kayfabe; the Commission did not have the power of an actual athletic commission, for instance. However, these two arms of the organization did reflect Japan Pro Wrestling's business and political interests.

This is why I have decided to Japan Pro Wrestling, or JPW, to refer to the whole organization. My decision may seem indulgent, but I would rather establish this framework than risk confusion by using Japan Wrestling Association/JWA to refer to the whole organization or just the actual Kyōkai/Association depending on context. The three arms will be referred to as (JPW) Entertainment, Association, and Commission.

 

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CRACKS IN THE CANNON: MAY-OCTOBER 1971

Spoiler

Let us fast-forward to 1971. In March, Inoki flew to Los Angeles to win the NWA United National title, a belt established in 1967 which had been arranged to become his pet title. Japan Pro Wrestling had, in effect, given Inoki a new top belt to recognize his status as parallel ace without threatening Baba. Inoki would publicly respond to this in an infamous incident.

In May, the round-robin World League came down to Inoki, Baba, and two foreign wrestlers in a four-way tie before their last matches. This repeated the scenario that had allowed Inoki to win the 1969 World League without booking the Baba match that would have resulted had both men won their final matches. That time, Baba and Bobo Brazil had gone to a time-limit draw, before Inoki debuted the manjigatame (octopus stretch) to defeat Chris Markoff. This time, Inoki went to a double countout against the Destroyer, while Baba won his match against Abdullah the Butcher. Inoki made a scene and openly challenged Baba to a singles match in the waiting room. This match would never happen, but the incident was not a work.

The next day, Inoki submitted a formal letter of challenge to Shigeo Kado, the secretary general of the Japan Pro Wrestling Commission. Kado would deliver this letter to Etsusaburo Shiina, Japan Wrestling Association commissioner and vice president of the Liberal Democratic Party. Publicly, Baba stated that he would accept the match if it were approved by the commission but would later admit that he had been irritated by how Inoki used him to boost his own popularity. The proposal had garnered too much media attention not to address, though, so the Commission deferred the matter to JPW's jurisdiction. On May 28, Hasegawa and JPW Association president Yoshiichi Hirai announced that they would decline the challenge.

Baba & Inoki would defend their NWA International Tag Team titles on July 1, against Ivan Koloff and Dutch Savage. One account states that Baba actually had to be persuaded by Michiaki Yoshimura to defend the titles with Inoki during the tour. After the match, which apparently did not feature much coordination between the team, Baba stated that he wished to take a break from defending the belts. It is probably not a coincidence that Seiji Sakaguchi was called back from his second American excursion for the following tour. In September, the pecking order was implicitly reinforced. Fritz von Erich came to wrestle both Baba and Inoki for their respective singles titles, challenging Baba on September 4 and Inoki on September 6. In the former match, which is the final NTV-aired JPW match currently in circulation, Baba won 2-1. In the latter, Inoki retained after a double countout in the third fall.

It was then time for the 2nd NWA Tag Team League. The previous year, this non-title round-robin tournament had seen Inoki win with Kantaro Hoshino as his partner; each half of B-I Cannon had teamed with each half of the Yamaha Brothers. This time, Inoki was joined by Sakaguchi, while Baba wrestled alongside Yoshimura. On November 1, Inoki & Sakaguchi won their final match against Killer Kowalski & Buddy Austin.

The next day, Inoki married his second wife, actress Mitsuko Baisho, in a reported ¥100,000,000 wedding. Just a couple days later, he became embroiled in a plot which would change his life and his industry forever.

THE PLOT: NOVEMBER 1971

Spoiler

While the tag tournament had ended, the tour still had a few dates. On November 4, during a show in Toyota, Inoki found cameraderie with wrestler Hroshi "Umanosuke" Ueda, who complained about the company's financial state backstage. Both had problems with JPW's higher-ups; Ueda chafed at the executives' higher pay than the talent, while Inoki distrusted the company's accounting. By all accounts, they had good reason to be. The company was "on fire" despite its profits, and it was reportedly not uncommon for executives to snatch a stack from the safe to fund their nightlife. Ueda apparently remarked that Hasegawa spent three million yen a month on drinks, while Kokichi Endo was rumored to have been lining his pockets since Rikidōzan's time; the ¥10,000 steaks he dined on every night couldn't have helped his case. In a Tokyo Sports interview decades later, the Great (Shinya) Kojika would recall that there had recently been a dispute between the locker room and management over a retired wrestler receiving an exorbitant ¥10,000,000 severance package. (Kojika also claims that Inoki had been complaining to him about JPW management since 1970, when they had worked together in Los Angeles.)

Inoki and Ueda began to plan a coup which would take place during the last tour of the year, the World Champion Series. They had an ally in Akimasa Kimura, an accountant who held an upper position as chairman of the sponsorship association, and who managed Inoki's personal company, Antonio Enterprises. While Kimura had mysteriously procured a secret double ledger, the conspirators needed more support if they were going to pull this off. This is where Baba came in. He was the other top star of the company, but as JPW chairman he also had political pull that Inoki didn't, and they would need his advocacy for their plan to succeed. Baba would agree to meet with them on November 18. In a room of the Keio Plaza Hotel, Inoki proposed that once they had all the evidence they needed, they would stage a coup through an emergency board meeting. Here, they would demand the immediate resignations of directors Hasegawa, Endo, and Yoshimura, and instate Baba and Inoki as president and vice president.

Baba had reservations about this. First of all, he was suspicious of Kimura and his refusal to explain how he had gotten his hands on the secret ledger; Inoki continued to trust his friend who, after all, was an ex-cop. More broadly, though, Baba objected to the ambushing nature and to the severity of the proposal. He concurred that Endo was corrupt and had to go but objected to Yoshimura and Hasegawa getting the chopping block. Whether or not they deserved it as well, it would be wise to have the executives step down in stages to smooth over the transition from the outside. Baba's co-conspirators were not fans of this compromise, but as far as Baba knew, they agreed in order to secure his cooperation.

The tour began with a November 19 show at Tokyo's esteemed Korakuen Hall. Inoki and Ueda gathered the locker room to explain the reform plan and gather signatures in support. Baba was not present but had already signed the paper, and everyone except Seiji Sakaguchi (who in his early years was not politically aware), Kintaro Oki (whose objections were unknown at the time), and Oki's valet Masanori Toguchi followed suit. The emergency board meeting was planned for November 28.

Cracks began to form one week later. On November 26, Hasegawa, Yoshimura and wrestler/board member the Great (Shinya) Kojika summoned Ueda for a meeting at a Shinjuku snack bar. There were plans for JPW management to have a golf tournament the day after the tour ended, but Ueda called to warn them that something terrible was planned to capitalize on it. When he arrived, Ueda claimed that Inoki and Kimura were planning something more radical than what Baba and the locker room had signed off on. Kimura had estimated that ¥57,000,000 (approximately 177.3 million yen today, or 1.5 million dollars) went unaccounted for per year, which spurred Inoki to plot a more radical course. As Ueda claimed, Inoki wanted to be JPW president. The plan went that on December 13, as JPW management were away golfing against the promoters of the Japan Professional Football League, Inoki would change the articles of incorporation to promote himself and Kimura to president and vice president. Baba would remain in his chairman role, which didn't hold any real power. Ueda also disclosed Baba's involvement, and so Baba was called to come in as Ueda was dismissed. When Baba was grilled about this plan, it became clear that he was unaware of this, and that Inoki was acting independently of him.

Ueda would be branded as the rat who revealed the full extent of the coup plan for decades. Theories have emerged as to why he informed Hasegawa and Yoshimura, ranging from his possible dissatisfaction at not getting a board seat in this new regime despite having sparked the plan, to him being worried about Kokichi Endo (Ueda had been his valet). The Igapro narrative makes its own suggestion as to why he hadn't kept his mouth shut. When Kotetsu Yamamoto was collecting signatures for the petition, he reportedly claimed the company would clean itself of its ex-sumo wrestlers. Both Baba and Inoki were outsiders to the sumo-to-puroresu pipeline which had been so common to the early industry, and Rikidōzan had used his sumo background to put his pupils in their place, including Inoki. While Rikidōzan had afforded Baba an unusual amount of respect for his professional sports background, Baba was no fan of the bullies that he had seen this pipeline produce. If the reformers indeed planned to clean up the ex-sumo wrestlers, though, that would include Ueda himself.

The planned board meeting went ahead on November 28. Kojika recalls that they deliberately held it early to prevent Inoki from attempting a coup during the conference. Sure enough, Inoki was absent, but Kimura appeared as his proxy, and he presented the documents which they had prepared while calling for "clear accounting and sound management". According to the Showa Puroresu account, the executives' faces turned white when Kimura presented the secret ledger, and Hasegawa drafted up a power of attorney form to appoint him as auditor.

Decades later, Ueda would recount an incident the next day which suggested the true traitor had been Baba. According to this account, which was printed in the 2007 Tokyo Sports-serialized autobiography The Will of the Golden Wolf, Ueda was confronted by Endo at the November 29 show in Yokohama. Endo claimed to know exactly what they were going to pull because Baba had disclosed it to the president of the company which printed their event programs (all I have is the surname Tanaka), who had then informed Endo and, presumably, his executive peers. It may be worth noting that Igapro's author expresses some skepticism about Endo's claim, as they don't know why Baba would have leaked this info. The author does bring up the possibility that Endo was lying about his sources in an attempt to break down or stir dissent among the reformers. Alas, Baba was long dead by the time this wrinkle in the story came to light, so we will never know whether he would have shed his lifelong reticence on the affair to address Ueda's allegation.

THE FALLOUT: DECEMBER 1-9, 1971

Spoiler

Whatever the case, the heat was on Kimura, and he moved quickly to arrange for a new company to be formed, which he and Inoki would head. Ueda was tasked to produce a seal (a required step in a Japanese company's registration) and was promised a seat on the board of directors, but he decided to tell Baba. The two would ride together as the roster took the bullet train from Kyoto to Nagoya on December 1. Baba was furious. He had not agreed to participate in a complete coup, and is said to have remarked, "We're about to be part of a terrible evil." As he learned that Kimura was about to use his privilege as auditor to get into the JPW safe, he took the train back to Tokyo to get to the headquarters. When he arrived, Hasegawa was playing poker with his employees, while Kimura was opening the safe. Baba had arrived just in time to expose Kimura's true intentions, and his auditorial privileges were swiftly revoked.

Baba arrived at the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium at 6:30, just as the show began. After the show, the whole roster sans Inoki was summoned back to Tokyo for a briefing on the extent of Inoki's plan. Ueda would remain to help JPW's legal counsel prepare a complaint against Inoki and Kimura, missing the next two shows. On December 2, Inoki was surprised by Ueda's absence for a Hanamatsu show; it was either on this day or the one before that he learned that Kimura had been banned from the company and the audit cancelled. On December 3, Hasegawa came to the show in Yamagata to demand Inoki's step down from the board of directors.

After a Sendai show on December 4, on which Inoki defended his United National title for the second and final time against Dick Murdoch, the roster returned to Tokyo for another emergency board meeting. Baba agreed to step down from both the JPW Entertainment board and his chairman role, as Inoki "glared" at Ueda for having tipped off the executives. Endo and Yoshimura also turned in their resignations as executives, though Yoshimura would continue to wrestle, and I presume Endo continued his World Pro Wrestling commentary duties. Hasegawa appointed Kintaro Oki as the new chairman, while stating that Inoki's punishment would be postponed.

Oki, however, had other plans.

On December 6, Oki called a locker-room meeting without them or Ueda. Here, he drew up a letter requesting Inoki's explusion from the tour. Oki hadn't signed the reform plan in November because he knew that this could be his ticket to the top of the company if it blew up in Baba & Inoki's faces. He had skipped several shows to urge Hasegawa and company in Tokyo to make him the new chairman, which would allow him to organize the roster. By extension, he could garner their support to become the new ace, which had been denied to him several years before when the 1964 plan for him to inherit Rikidōzan’s stage name had not gone through. Oki gathered the support of the ex-sumo contingent whose jobs had been threatened by the coup and got the naive Sakaguchi to sign on as well. In fact, he got everybody in the locker room that wasn't implicated in the coup to sign on, except for Kotetsu Yamamoto. This was enough support to pressure Hasegawa to expel Inoki, and the original plan was for the wrestlers' association to boycott the following shows if Inoki was allowed to participate. Hasegawa talked Oki down from such an extreme measure. Inoki was already scheduled to challenge for Dory Funk Jr.'s NWA World Heavyweight title on the 9th, so Hasegawa persuaded them to put it off until the end of the tour.

The following night, Inoki wrestled his final match in Japan Pro Wrestling, in which he and Baba defended their NWA International Tag Team titles against the Funks. Baba and Inoki sat far apart in the waiting room, uttering nary a word to one another, as Yamamoto remained by Inoki's side "like a bouncer". Inoki lost the first fall to a 16:05 Dory pinfall, before Baba and Terry traded falls with a Baba boston crab submission at 5:34 and a Terry pin at 4:12. In 25:51, the Amarillo boys ended the B-I Cannon era.

Accompanied by referee Youssef Turk, Inoki booked a different hotel from the rest of the roster. Upon his return to Tokyo on the 8th, he would check into the Kobayashi Surgery clinic in Shibuya due to a stomachache. Inoki actually did this on Turk's recommendation to protect himself from a possible assault. Meanwhile, Mitsuko Baisho came to the JPW office to present a medical certificate for her husband's absence, as well as an application to vacate his United National title. Inoki's NWA title shot would be given to Sakaguchi at the last minute, as the promotion consulted their network carriers about Inoki's firing.

AFTERMATH: DECEMBER 13-17, 1971

Spoiler

On December 13, 1971, at 3:00 PM, Yoshikazu Hirai, Hasegawa, and Kintaro Oki addressed the press in the conference room of the JPW headquarters to announce that Antonio Inoki has been fired. That same day, Mitsuko Baisho turned in her husband's letter of resignation alongside his United National belt. Afterwards, the majority of the JPW roster celebrated with a toast. Who among them could have known that this would set off the greatest period of change that their native industry would ever see?

The next day, Inoki and Kimura held a press conference of their own. The two stressed that they had planned to conduct organizational reform, not a coup d'état, and brandished documents which they claimed proved managerial corruption. They named Endo and Yoshimura as corrupt executives, branded Baba and Ueda as traitors, and even threw out the idea to sue JPW for violating the Commercial Code. The press flooded the JPW office for a response. Hasegawa countered that it had been the wrestlers' association who fired Inoki, not him, because they had seen through his ambition. He presented Inoki's resignation letter as proof that Inoki admitted to the coup attempt.

Meanwhile, Baba flew to Los Angeles to work for NWA Hollywood, where he and John Tolos wrestled Masa Saito and Kinji Shibuya in a cage match on December 17. It was here that Baba gave one of the few comments he ever would about the coup attempt. In an interview with Monthly Gong correspondent Kayama (who I believe was credited mononymously), Baba was asked to comment on Inoki's claim that he was a traitor. He countered that he had been supported the reform completely, and that they had gained the support of the wrestlers' association, but that Inoki had then gone against the plan. Baba painted Akimasa Kimura as a third party who had intervened and questioned Inoki's methods, and whom Baba had not wished to work with because he saw that his intentions were not in accordance with the reform plan. The testimony of Ueda had shown that Inoki was, in fact, the traitor, for using this reform plan as a springboard to privatize the company for himself and his business partner.

Inoki did not immediately set about forming a new promotion. Amidst speculation that he would either jump ship to the International Wrestling Enterprise, which he had left soon after the Tokyo Pro merger amidst financial dispute, or work overseas, Inoki's first move was actually to try to return to JPW. According to this account, Inoki contacted commissioner Shiina. Ultimately, the opposition of the wrestlers' association made it impossible.

His destiny laid elsewhere.

 

 

[Dav'oh]

The more I learn about Inoki, the more I wonder how much weight to give "Insanity" when making his Greatest Wrestler Ever case. It's a huge part of what made him whatever one thinks he is, and thanks for this peek into his nascent lunacy.

[TheDuke]

I bet you a movie about Inoki's life would be amazing. 

[KinchStalker]

I'm still holding out hope for a Western release of that drama he starred in. I very much need to see Inoki take care of a delinquent boy while projecting his dead son who always wore a Destroyer mask onto him. (I am not making this up.)

[leo]

From what I know, Kintarō Ōki had a big part to play during this debacle too; he was complicit in the plan as he believed he could capitalise on whatever fallout ensued from the coup d'etat. After Baba was questioned by Yoshinosato and owned up to being in on the plan, he willingly resigned from the position of roster chairman. Ōki, owing to his relationship with Yoshinosato, was able to take over this coveted role which was was considered at the time to be analogous with company ace. After having had to share the joint number 2 spot with Inoki for years, behind Baba, Ōki was of the mind that it was his time to lead the company, and this was the perfect opportunity. He was not particularly close with either Inoki nor Baba therefore had little reason to side with either.

While Baba was off on his initial excursions (1961/1964) they had Inoki vs Ōki work a series of marquee matches with each other at Riki Sports Palace, with Ōki winning 6, Inoki, winning none with 26 draws (the final 20 matches all being draws). Ōki had his star-making run in Korea shortly after and enjoyed multiple All-Asia tag title reigns with Michiaki Yoshimura, as well as a short-lived team with Inoki in early 1969, which failed miserably due to their backstage differences. One has to wonder how this along with Inoki being selected as the posterboy for the Kyōkai's live TV debut on NET instead of him did to cement Ōki's feelings towards the situation.

Another interesting fact I came to learn regarding the TV deal in 1969 was that Great Tōgō and Lou Thesz started up a company at the beginning of the year, holding the intention of securing their own deal with none other than NET themselves. Despite Tōgō's reputation he was regarded by businessmen in that sphere to be a solid booker, and with the backing of Thesz who was of course held in extremely high regard, was able to reach serious talks with the station. Upon hearing about this the Kyōkai contacted NET and convinced them not to proceed with the deal and instead work with them.

[KinchStalker]

1 hour ago, leo said:

While Baba was off on his initial excursions (1961/1964) they had Inoki vs Ōki work a series of marquee matches with each other at Riki Sports Palace, with Ōki winning 6, Inoki, winning none with 26 draws (the final 20 matches all being draws). Ōki had his star-making run in Korea shortly after and enjoyed multiple All-Asia tag title reigns with Michiaki Yoshimura, as well as a short-lived team with Inoki in early 1969, which failed miserably due to their backstage differences. One has to wonder how this along with Inoki being selected as the posterboy for the Kyōkai's live TV debut on NET instead of him did to cement Ōki's feelings towards the situation.
 

In a footnote on the full blog post, I go into the old plan for Oki to inherit Rikidozan's stage name. The higher-ups were forced by the underworld guys in the Association to promise to do so once he won the world title; all those guys were involved in diplomacy with South Korea, and they saw this as a potential expansion of business. (Park Chung-hee would bankroll Oki's promotion at home to provide anti-communist, pro-American entertainment.) Thing is, EVERYBODY knew Oki was Korean, and he had immigrated illegally at that, so it would have tanked their image. That helps explain his bitterness too.

1 hour ago, leo said:

Another interesting fact I came to learn regarding the TV deal in 1969 was that Great Tōgō and Lou Thesz started up a company at the beginning of the year, holding the intention of securing their own deal with none other than NET themselves. Despite Tōgō's reputation he was regarded by businessmen in that sphere to be a solid booker, and with the backing of Thesz who was of course held in extremely high regard, was able to reach serious talks with the station. Upon hearing about this the Kyōkai contacted NET and convinced them not to proceed with the deal and instead work with them.

Now see, the story I heard was that Togo just used Thesz's name to create his Togo & Thesz company. Endo was able to convince NTV to let them shop for a second deal with NET because he planted stories in the press that Thesz really *was* coming to work for the company.

[leo]

19 hours ago, KinchStalker said:

In a footnote on the full blog post, I go into the old plan for Oki to inherit Rikidozan's stage name. The higher-ups were forced by the underworld guys in the Association to promise to do so once he won the world title; all those guys were involved in diplomacy with South Korea, and they saw this as a potential expansion of business. (Park Chung-hee would bankroll Oki's promotion at home to provide anti-communist, pro-American entertainment.) Thing is, EVERYBODY knew Oki was Korean, and he had immigrated illegally at that, so it would have tanked their image. That helps explain his bitterness too.

Now see, the story I heard was that Togo just used Thesz's name to create his Togo & Thesz company. Endo was able to convince NTV to let them shop for a second deal with NET because he planted stories in the press that Thesz really *was* coming to work for the company.

I've not read the suggestion that Tōgō was simply using Thesz's name value before but it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Just want to say that I think you are doing an incredible job with your blog. I've been researching Japanese pro wrestling in my own time for a few years now but never thought to transcribe my findings; it makes me super happy to know there are others out there with a similar interest. I've put most of my time into studying the history of the IWE - there are a couple of excellent books G-Spirits published in the last few years which I recommend if you haven't picked them up already. If you ever want to chop this stuff up, feel free to drop me a DM here.

[KinchStalker]

On 12/14/2021 at 2:47 PM, leo said:

I've put most of my time into studying the history of the IWE - there are a couple of excellent books G-Spirits published in the last few years which I recommend if you haven't picked them up already. If you ever want to chop this stuff up, feel free to drop me a DM here.

Awesome! Those two books are definitely on the itinerary. I've got enough transcription work to last me a while, but I may take you up on that when I've worked through all this stuff.

Speaking of, I have started work on the last section of the Ichinose Pillars book after much-needed rest. I hope to have something out in January. 

One last thing, though. I have acquired another book for future transcription. This is a 2004 biography of Sadao Nagata, the box office don who helped manage the JWA in its early years. Only about 150(/500) pages are dedicated to the section about Rikidōzan, but I think transcribing the book as a whole may provide valuable context for the broader entertainment industry. After all, Nagata is basically responsible for letting the Yakuza into the industry proper, through becoming a business partner of Noboru Yamaguchi of the Yamaguchi-gumi in the mid-twenties.

[leo]

Cool, sounds good. It would be great to collaborate. I've just ordered 興行界の顔役 myself since you mentioned it, along with 昭和プロレス正史 by Fumi Saitō. Looking forward to getting into those once they arrive. The first one will take a little longer since I had to use a forwarding service, so you might already be well into it by the time I get my hands on the book.

There are a couple of biographical texts on Banboku Ono as well which I'm thinking of picking up. They might be of use towards your research around the business side of the industry during the Rikidōzan era.

Anyway, really enjoying the JWA series.