Great Kusatsu

[KinchStalker]

Great Kusatsu (グレート草津)

Profession: Wrestler, Executive, Booker
Real name: Masatake Kusatsu (草津正武)
Professional names: Kiyomasa Kusatsu, Taki Yamaguchi, Big Ku, Great Kusatsu
Life: 2/13/1942-6/21/2008
Born: Kumamoto, Kumamoto, Japan 
Career: 1965-1980
Height/Weight: 192cm/118kg
Signature moves: Figure-four leglock, Cobra twist
Promotions: Japan Wrestling Association, International Wrestling Enterprise
Titles: Western British Heavyweight [IWE] (1x); Southern British Heavyweight [IWE] (1x); European Tag Team [IWE] (2x: 1x w/Rusher Kimura, 1x w/Thunder Sugiyama); IWA World Tag Team [IWE] (9x: 2x w/Thunder Sugiyama, 1x w/Strong Kobayashi, 1x w/Rusher Kimura, 3x w/Mighty Inoue, 2x w/Animal Hamaguchi); AWA Midwest Heavyweight [AWA] (1x); AWA Midwest Tag Team [AWA] (1x, w/Ox Baker)

Failed ace turned booker Great Kusatsu may be the most divisive figure in IWE history, but for better or worse, he was one of its most important.

Masatake Kusatsu took up rugby at Kumamoto Technical High School, and his skill led him to be pressured to take a job at Yawata Steel and play on their team; his teacher was told that the corporation would not hire students from them in the following years if Kusatsu did not sign with them. He would be one of Yawata’s best players and once played on Japan’s national team until he left in the mid-sixties. On July 30, 1965, Kusatsu joined the JWA. He was one of three top prospects with athletic experience to join around this time, alongside Olympian wrestlers Masanori Saito and Tsuneharu Sugiyama. All three entered professional wrestling through the suggestion of Ichiro Hatta, the president of the Japanese amateur wrestling association and an influential man in Japanese pro wrestling and combat sports. Kusatsu became Giant Baba’s valet. While Toyonobori had left the company by the time he debuted in March 1966, Kusatsu was stuck with the ring name he had given him: Kiyomasa Kusatsu. This was a reference to 16th-century feudal lord Kiyomasa Katō, who had hailed from Kusatsu’s native Kumamoto. Kusatsu’s poor attitude and habit of skipping practice made him unpopular in the locker room. All of the “three crows” would leave the JWA that year: Saito to Toyonobori’s Tokyo Pro Wrestling, and Kusatsu and Sugiyama to the International Wrestling Enterprise (Kokusai Puroresu), formed by former JWA wrestler and sales manager Isao Yoshiwara. After the IWE was formed in October 1966, Kusatsu and Sugiyama left for the United States with Hiro Matsuda, who had joined the organization to serve as its talent booker. While Sugiyama spent his expedition working in the Detroit and Amarillo territories as Tokyo Joe, the plan appears to have been for Kusatsu to wrestle in Matsuda’s home territory of Florida. However, Kusatsu had developed misgivings about pro wrestling, and when he learned about Wahoo McDaniel, who at this point was successfully juggling wrestling and professional football, Kusatsu’s desire to play a sport rooted in rugby was stoked. He traveled to Vancouver without Matsuda’s permission, where he would wrestle to get by while participating in a training camp for the Canadian Football League’s BC Lions.

Referee Fred Atkins stops Kusatsu's title match against Lou Thesz when Kusatsu displays signs of a concussion. This match haunted Kusatsu for the rest of his career.

In late 1967, Kusatsu met with Tadao Mori, an old college friend of Yoshiwara who had a position in Tokyo Broadcasting System’s sports department. The IWE had signed a contract with the network for ¥2.2 million per episode, and by this point Hiro Matsuda had severed ties with the promotion. (See this thread for the apparent reason.) Mori and Yoshiwara had secured former JWA booker the Great Togo as Matsuda’s replacement, and the network was insistent on creating a new top star instantaneously through the power of television. Kusatsu was the candidate they chose to promote as the temporarily renamed TBS Pro Wrestling’s ace. Kusatsu returned to Japan in December and was named Great Kusatsu after and/or by Togo. At a press conference, Kusatsu read a prepared statement that he was now on equal footing with the man for whom he had worked as a valet not two years earlier. (Baba was reportedly stunned.) TBS booked the Nihon University Auditorium for their live TV debut on January 3, and the JWA took the extra cost to book a last-minute show at the Kuramae Kokugikan, in what would become known as the Battle of the Sumida River. The network thought that they could instantly make Kusatsu a star by having him defeat Lou Thesz (!!!) on their first show, but when a network executive asked that the living legend put him over, Thesz was offended. Whether or not it was Lou’s intention, the match would play out as perhaps puroresu’s most ruthless burial. They were set to wrestle a ⅔-falls match for Lou’s TWWA Heavyweight title, but when Thesz hit his signature Greco-Roman backdrop in the first fall, and Kusatsu displayed the signs of a legitimate concussion, referee Fred awarded Thesz the match by stoppage. While it was originally announced that Kusatsu would wrestle Thesz in three title matches (Showa Puroresu #4), the next two matches were given to the rechristened Thunder Sugiyama and Toyonobori instead.

After Togo left the promotion high and dry for refusing to pay his exorbitant booking fees, TBS withdrew from company management and allowed it to revert to its original name to protect their image. Kusatsu never recovered from the Thesz match. The attempt to push him continued as he won regional titles that the company created out of thin air. He won the “Western British Heavyweight” title from Tony Charles in April 1968, and then won a double title match against Bull Davis to also become the “Southern British Champion” that August. In 1969, Kusatsu received two runs with the “European Tag Team” titles, first alongside Rusher Kimura and then alongside Sugiyama. For all these efforts, though, as well as a second excursion in the early 70s that saw Kusatsu gain a win over Verne Gagne, Kusatsu never got over as a singles ace. He would be forced to settle for, at best, a #2 position, while Thunder Sugiyama was built up properly to become the promotion’s first native ace when he defeated Billy Robinson for the IWA World Heavyweight title in 1970. It has been speculated amongst fans that Kusatsu’s eventual promotion to director and booker was an apology from Yoshiwara for the damage that the TBS Pro Wrestling debacle had done to his career. In late 1969, Kusatsu was the victim of puroresu’s first-ever native heel turn. Chati Yokouchi, a US-based Japanese wrestler who would book talent for the IWE in late 1969, refused to help Kusatsu in the main event tag of the 1969 Royal Series tour and got them disqualified. (See fragmentary 8mm footage of the match here, sourced from the personal collection of Kosuke Takeuchi.) There was a grudge match booked on the following tour’s Kuramae Kokugikan show, but it ended with the two making up.

Toyonobori’s retirement allowed Kusatsu to finally insert himself into the tag title picture, winning the IWA World Tag Team titles on February 3, 1970 alongside Sugiyama. He would win the tag titles nine times across the next eight years, in reigns that only ever ended to put over the star foreigners of the tour; his 2,678 combined days as champion eclipse all other holders, and only Giant Baba and Jumbo Tsuruta’s 5,017 and 3,662 respective days with the NWA International Tag Team titles exceed Kusatsu across all major puroresu promotions’ tag titles. This is as good a place as any to acknowledge that Kusatsu’s booking has been criticized even by fans of Kokusai. It is now known that the early 1974 departure of golden-era ace Strong Kobayashi was directly tied to his relationship with Kusatsu, who regularly knocked Kobayashi down the card to keep his total salary roughly equal to himself and Rusher Kimura,[1] openly harassed him backstage, and booked Kobayashi to both lose the 5th IWA World Series tournament and his IWA World Heavyweight title to a Japan-debuting Wahoo McDaniel, before McDaniel dropped it back at the end of that tour. Kusatsu’s reputation is generally divisive due to his abusive treatment of coworkers; Mighty Inoue recalled it as "sports club style" bullying, and both he and the late Goro Tsurumi stated that Kusatsu made others drink urine. Showa Puroresu zine writer Dr. Mick has noted that the only living former coworker who seems to have a positive view of him is his former valet, Animal Hamaguchi.

Kusatsu and Kimura face off in the 6th IWA World Series on March 25, 1977.

In late 1974, Kusatsu was appointed to oversee Kokusai’s sales department.[2] In late 1975, he entered the Open League as one of the IWE’s three representatives; two years later, he and Kimura represented their company in AJPW’s first Real World Tag League. Kusatsu apparently had some involvement in the scouting of fellow ex-rugby player Ashura Hara, but it has been said that Kusatsu was particularly hard on Hara for his failure to meet Kokusai’s impossible expectations. On January 21, 1979, Kusatsu’s final tag title reign came to an end against the Yamaha Brothers. According to then-valet Masahiko Takasugi, Kusatsu was originally scheduled to wrestle Seiji Sakaguchi in a singles match on the Tokyo Sports show, but refused and was replaced by Rocky Hata. His in-ring career ended on July 16, 1980, when he broke his right ankle during a six-man tag in his hometown; one of the ring boards had cracked and his foot fell into it. He continued to serve as a sales executive until the company closed in August 1981, although in its last year it was instead booked by Yoshiwara. To my knowledge, Kusatsu’s only participation in the wrestling business afterward was in October 1990, when he was invited to provide commentary for SWS’s first major show in October. In 1997, he also appeared at an independent show in Osaka which marked the 20th anniversary of Takasugi's career and held a retirement ceremony for Mr. Hito (he is visible in this fan recording). He proved adept at sales work in the professional world, working for a water heater manufacturer and a health foods producer at different points. Kusatsu’s second son Kenji became a kickboxer after competing in full-contact karate. Taking his father’s ring name, he fought for K-1 from 2000 until 2004, after which he took a leave of absence to care for his father, who had developed esophageal cancer. Masatake died of multiple organ failure in 2008, and Kenji would hold a retirement fight several months later.

One blog post about Kusatsu claims that his funeral featured a rugby ball, but no acknowledgment of his wrestling career. It fit a man with his reputation: one who final JWA president Junzo Yoshinosato had once said “could have been an Inoki-class wrestler”, but who all agree never showed the temperament for it.

FOOTNOTES

Spoiler

1. The IWE’s incentive pay structure, as dispensed by the TBS-era contracts, compensated an extra ¥60,000 for main events, ¥30,000 for semi-mains, and ¥5,000 yen for 30-minute draws.
2. Regarding Kusatsu’s sales department position, he was named the “sales director” (igyō tantō torishimariyaku), not the sales general manager. Kusatsu was not the one booking venues for tours and such; that duty would have fallen to former IWE announcer and veteran salesman Toshio Suzuki. (For insight into the role of a sales manager in puroresu, see this recap I wrote of a G Spirits interview with Naoki Otsuka.)

Edited March 17 by KinchStalker
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