Joe Higuchi

[KinchStalker]

Joe Higuchi (ジョー樋口)

Profession: Wrestler, Referee
Real name: Kanji Higuchi (樋口寛治)
Professional names: Kanji Higuchi, Joe Higuchi
Life: 1/18/1929-11/8/2010
Born: Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan
Career: 1954-1997
Height/Weight: 178cm/100kg (5’10”/220 lbs.)
Signature moves: unknown
Promotions: All Japan Pro Wrestling Association, Japan Wrestling Association, All Japan Pro Wrestling, Pro Wrestling NOAH
Titles: none 

Joe Higuchi was one of puroresu’s greatest referees and a beacon of hospitality for foreign talent.

An athletic child, Kanji Higuchi claimed that he was encouraged to pick up judo by the leader of a kendo club, after Kanji lost his temper during a kendo match and tossed his shinai aside to grapple his opponent and take their mask. Higuchi stuck with judo through junior high, but after the war broke out, he was mobilized for factory work and could not concentrate on it. Higuchi also states that he very nearly died during a bombing raid as his factory was targeted; fortunately, Higuchi had skipped work that day to listen to a jazz record his friend owned. Higuchi entered university in April 1945, but with his country’s surrender that August, martial arts clubs would be banned in the early days of the occupation. This did not mean that judo itself was outlawed, though, and after Higuchi won a prefectural competition, a Japanese-American soldier named George Hamaguchi offered Kanji a job teaching judo to American servicemen. Higuchi initially refused, but Hamaguchi was insistent, and Kanji would be convinced when he saw the quality of the facility. It was during this time that Higuchi learned English, and his connection to the US military kept him well-fed despite scarce supplies. When his frequent visits to the military gymnasium resulted in his expulsion from university, Hamaguchi got him employed. It was while working with the military that Higuchi attended one of the Torii Oasis Shriners Club shows of 1951. Headed by William F. Marquat, the last of Douglas MacArthur’s Bataan Boys to remain stationed in Japan after Truman relieved MacArthur of his command, the club had arranged a deal with Hawaii wrestling promoter Al Karasick to run a series of professional wrestling shows to entertain the troops and raise funds for a charity drive to help children who had been crippled by the war. This tour is most famous for having featured Rikidozan's professional wrestling debut. My source states that Higuchi saw one of the shows which also featured exhibition fights with the soon-to-retire Joe Louis, which would make it one of five shows between October 18 and December 11. (Assuming he was stationed in Osaka, it would have been the November 25 show at the Osaka Stadium.)

Higuchi and Yuichi Deguchi in an Osaka parade, during their time in the All Japan Pro Wrestling Association. [Photo credit: G Spirits Vol. 62]

After the occupation officially ended in 1952, Higuchi remained employed by the US military. However, he decided to leave his job despite familial objections to apprentice under Toshio Yamaguchi, who formed the regional All Japan Pro Wrestling Association in Osaka. While no AJPWA records exist for this timeframe, Higuchi later stated that he debuted at a Matsuzaka show in May 1955. Due to his bilinguality, and the promotion’s reliance on hiring locally stationed or living American servicemen as opponents, Higuchi was working as a referee even this early. (One photograph of the AJPWA roster shows Higuchi sitting in referee attire on the far right.) In 1956, the Association officially disbanded when local Yakuza boss (of the Sarae-gumi gang) Shotaro Matsuyama withdrew his support for health reasons. Higuchi was one of the core members who remained with Yamaguchi, relocating to Toshio’s hometown of Mishima that summer to run shows in poverty as Yamaguchi Dojo. Higuchi later recalled that he had eaten three meals a day in Osaka, but during his Yamaguchi Dojo period, he was forced to subsist on udon noodles cooked with seawater broth in an aluminum basin. Higuchi was one of the participants in the Japan Championship League tournament, an October interpromotional tour organized by the JWA. This tour is generally considered to have been an effort for the JWA to delegitimize their regional competitors and scout talent worth poaching from them, and there were multiple shoot incidents, particularly in the first show (which was closed off to the public and media). Higuchi managed to place third in the light heavyweight bracket, and it has long been reported that in the second round, he got the better of bodybuilder turned JWA midcarder Takao Kaneko with a shoot arm lock.

The following year, Higuchi was one of five regional wrestlers hired by the JWA; the others were fellow Yamaguchi Dojo men Michiaki Yoshimura, Yuichi Deguchi, and Hideyuki Nagasawa, and Asia Pro Wrestling’s Kiyotaka Otsubo. Unlike Yoshimura, who was briefly pushed as a top wrestler in the company on short-lived weekly television programs (these were an attempt to make up for the revenue lost by cutting ties with Sadao Nagata, the live entertainment don on whom they had wholly depended to book house shows), Higuchi was an undercarder and stayed there. However, when Rikidozan learned he was fluent in English, Higuchi began pulling double duty as a handler for foreign talent. He drew upon the culinary knowledge he had gathered during his work on military bases to provide American wrestlers with a taste of home when touring provincial markets, keeping them fed on steak, potatoes, soup, and salad. Higuchi’s cooking would gain enough of a reputation that he even cooked for Rikidozan. Despite his usefulness backstage, though, Higuchi decided to retire in 1960 due to his lack of progress between the ropes. He tried to run some sort of water business in Osaka, but it failed, and he returned to the JWA in a backstage capacity in 1963. Joe’s job was to look after foreign talent and keep them in condition to perform. Over the decades, some would not listen, and Joe was forced to earn their respect.¹

Joe did not become a JWA referee until 1966. This happened because head ref Oki Shikina was arrested for illegal firearm possession, leaving Yusef Turk and Yonetaro Tanaka as the only ones in the position. Michiaki Yoshimura, now a top executive, remembered that Higuchi had experience in the role from their time in the AJPWA, so he ordered him to take the position. In an era where foreign heels in puroresu frequently assaulted officials, Joe focused exclusively on training his bumping skills. He became so good that Giant Baba remarked that he was better at ukemi than when he was a wrestler, and word of his performances quickly spread. In 1967, Higuchi was invited by several American promoters to work with them. Joe took them up on these offers, honing his skills and building relationships.

As the BI-gun era of the JWA progressed, factions began to form behind Baba and Inoki. This extended to the referees, as Turk officiated Inoki’s matches while Oki officiated Baba’s. As the JWA entered the post-coup malaise of 1972, Higuchi eventually decided to leave the company, and Michiaki Yoshimura did not try to stop him (he himself was planning to retire soon). Higuchi had settled on working in the States, but when he asked JWA liaison officer Ryozo Yonezawa to procure a work visa, another opportunity arose. Unbeknownst to most, Yonezawa had decided to follow Baba in forming a new organization, and when he relayed this to Baba, Higuchi received an offer to join what would become AJPW. Higuchi had started a family by this time, so he was grateful to have a domestic job offer, but he had already been told by American promoters to “come immediately”. Joe apologized and shaved his head as a display of contrition, but when he explained the situation, they laughed and told him that it would be easier to work with Higuchi anyway if Baba had set up an office in Japan. Despite the amiable reaction, Joe would keep the skinhead look for the rest of his life.

Higuchi officiates Jack Brisco's June 14, 1974 (the caption is incorrect) NWA title defense against Dory Funk Jr. in the Kiel Auditorium.

In its early years, AJPW continued the JWA tradition of hiring American referees. Initially booked on a tour-by-tour basis, All Japan settled on JWA referee Jerry Murdock after the latter folded. Murdock remained with the company until he was fired in summer 1976, but Higuchi was treated as a head referee from the start. In 1974, Joe received perhaps the greatest honor of his career when he accompanied Baba to the United States. On June 14, Baba arrived in St. Louis to defend his PWF Heavyweight title against Dick Murdoch in the Kiel Auditorium. Unbeknownst to Higuchi, who had left his referee outfit in his hotel room, NWA president Sam Muchnick was intent on having Joe referee a NWA World Heavyweight title match between Jack Brisco & Dory Funk Jr. He rushed to his hotel and returned in the proper attire to officiate one of Brisco and Dory’s many 60-minute draws of the period in the venue synonymous with the NWA president.

I believe some notes on Higuchi’s style are appropriate, considering trends I have seen in the evaluation of his work (such as a couple comments on his Cagematch profile), which chiefly focus on his work in the context of AJPW's popular 1990s period. Kyohei Wada recalled in his 2004 autobiography that it took time for him to appreciate Joe’s style. While Joe was clearly the most fleet-footed referee in Japan during his peak, Wada noted that he “barely moved” much of the time. Eventually, though, Wada realized that that was the point. In an era so influenced by the classical NWA style, in which much of wrestling was on the mat and so much more importance was placed on transitions than spots, Higuchi knew that in order to keep the crowd engaged, he had to be not independent of the wrestlers, but contrapuntal to them. When both wrestlers were standing, sure, he barely moved, but whenever one of them got a headlock takeover or arm lock, Joe hopped around better than anyone. Journalist Kagehiro Osano has recalled that Joe, like his successor, was the perfect referee for a ringside photographer, as he was careful never to examine a hold from the most obvious angle and obstruct the best shot. Finally, there is the matter of Joe’s count speed. It’s a reasonably legitimate three seconds, but such verisimilitude is dissonant with the rhythms of post-NWA wrestling. If one believes that it is fair to judge referees against each other across time like wrestlers, then I would at least suggest framing one's evaluation of Joe primarily in the context of the product of AJPW’s first phase, or at least not solely judging him on his twilight work.

Higuchi remained AJPW’s head referee for a decade. In the main event of the Tokyo Sports show of August 31, 1979, in which BI-gun mounted a one-night reunion to face Abdullah the Butcher & Tiger Jeet Singh, Higuchi’s assignment as referee was explicitly approved by Inoki. His position only started to shift in the Japan Pro era of the mid-1980s, whose AJPW vs JPW matches would be officiated by Tiger Hattori, at Riki Choshu’s request. In the late 80s, Wada would be promoted to a co-lead referee spot to fulfill Hattori’s function of officiating native vs native matches. As the Tsuruta vs Tenryu feud gave way to the Chosedaigun-Tsurutagun and Four Pillars eras, Higuchi handed off those duties to Wada. By Joe’s own admission, he was incapable of adopting the theatrical, “dancing” count style that the clutch "2.9-count" kickouts of those matches necessitated. Perhaps as a result, AJPW’s native vs foreigner matches were slow to adopt the modern nearfall. (Consider a match like Kenta Kobashi vs. Stan Hansen from September 4, 1991, which is laid out in a way that allows Kobashi to survive two Western Lariats without kicking out of either.) Besides, Joe’s hands were severely swollen from his long career, and even unable to use chopsticks.

Higuchi in a press conference with Minoru Suzuki and Naomichi Marufuji.

Higuchi decided to retire in 1997. He initially declined to receive a retirement ceremony, as he believed it was not a referee’s place to overshadow the wrestlers; in his late career, crowds had taken to chanting his name. Baba insisted, though, so Higuchi got a grand sendoff and officiated Mitsuharu Misawa’s March 1, 1997 Triple Crown defense against Steve Williams. Joe received a ceremony at the following Budokan show, on April 19. He remained with the company afterward as a foreign handler, leaving after the May 2, 1999 Tokyo Dome show. At Ryu Nakata’s insistence, though, Joe would join Pro Wrestling NOAH as an auditor. He became the chairman of their GHC committee and remained with the promotion for a decade. In December 2003, he returned to the ring to referee a Rikidozan memorial six-man tag, during which he broke up Kenta Kobashi's machine-gun chop spot in the corner: a humorous display of just how different wrestling had become since his heyday. Joe was hospitalized in September 2010 for lung cancer and died on November 8.
 

Spoiler

1. An example of this appears in Stan Hansen’s 2010 autobiography, The Last Outlaw. Hansen was not personally present for this story, but Joe told it to him. After a show on AJPW’s 1982 Giant Series tour, Jimmy Snuka and Victor Rivera got into a drunken altercation. While Snuka sobered up when Higuchi came to break it up, Rivera did not, and Higuchi slapped him several times before dragging him into his hotel room. He said “Don’t you ever come to my country and act like a fool again,” and Rivera never worked in Japan afterward.