Mighty Inoue

[KinchStalker]

Mighty Inoue (マイティ井上)

Profession: Wrestler, Referee, Commentator (Color)
Real name: Sueo Inoue (井上末雄)
Professional names: Sueo Inoue, Enzo Inoue, Inoue Tonpachi, Mighty Inoue, Mitsu Inoue, Chatti Mikki Inoue
Life: 4/12/1949-
Born: Fukushima, Osaka, Japan
Career: 1967-2010
Height/Weight: 175cm/110kg (5’8”;242 lbs.) [AJPW era=105kg/231 lbs.]
Signature moves: “Sunset Flip”/somersault drop (rolling senton) [see misc. note #5], German suplex, flying shoulder block, gutbuster, Aussie suplex [see misc. note #1]
Promotions: International Wrestling Enterprise, All Japan Pro Wrestling, Pro Wrestling NOAH [as referee]
Titles: IWA World Heavyweight [IWE] (1x), IWA World Tag Team [IWE] (6x; 3x w/Great Kusatsu, 2x w/Animal Hamaguchi, 1x w/Ashura Hara), All Asia Tag Team [AJPW] (4x; 1x w/Animal Hamaguchi, 1x w/Ashura Hara, 2x w/Takashi Ishikawa),NWA International Junior Heavyweight [AJPW] (1x), AJPW World Junior Heavyweight [AJPW] (1x)
Tournament victories: Real World Junior Tag League [AJPW] (1x, w/Gran Hamada)

Perhaps the best wrestler the IWE ever produced, Mighty Inoue was puroresu’s ultimate underdog. After a five-month world title reign, Inoue found success as a tag wrestler and, eventually, a junior heavyweight with AJPW.

 

Inoue trains with Isamu Teranishi, circa late 1969.

Sueo Inoue was a student at Osaka Gakuin University High School who practiced judo and worked out at the Naniwa Bodybuilding Gym. He dropped out of high school to join the International Wrestling Enterprise, although after he became a wrestler the school invited him to the graduation ceremony and gave him a diploma for his success. He was trained by Matty Suzuki alongside Shozo Kobayashi and Yasuyuki Fujii; for Inoue, this was later supplemented by instruction from IWE foreign ace Billy Robinson. He debuted on July 21, 1967, at the first show of the Pioneer Summer Series tour. Inoue received the stage name Enzo Inoue from Toyonobori, to whom he served as valet, the following April. While it would take Inoue longer to reach the higher echelons of the company, circumstantial evidence speaks to the growth he made in his early years. In October 1969, he received the ring name which stuck: Mighty. He had risen enough in the pecking order by then to start putting over foreign talent in the midcard, and according to the Showa Puroresu fanzine, by 1970 Inoue was sharing pamphlet pages with Tadaharu Tanaka, which put him ahead of seniors like Takeshi Ōiso, Tetsunosuke Daigo, and early rival Isamu Teranishi. In early 1970, Inoue met André Roussimoff—that is, André the Giant—and the two struck a friendship that Inoue claims transcended language.

In August 1970, Inoue was chosen over Teranishi to accompany Strong Kobayashi on a European excursion under France-based IWE booker Umeyuki Kiyomigawa. While Kobayashi went to the AWA that winter, Inoue remained in Europe except as a last-minute addition to the IWE’s AWA Big Fight Series tour in early 1971. André helped his Japanese friend early in his excursion. Inoue was originally supposed to work in France under Étienne Siry, but as someone who had started his career under Siry before shacking up with Roger Delaporte, André urged him to work for the latter. Kiyomigawa was “a little bit upset”, but acquiesced, and Inoue found that he had made the right decision when he learned about the poor pay that his coworkers had received from Siry. Besides his appearances for Delaporte, Inoue also worked in West Germany and Austria for Edmund Schober, and the United Kingdom for Joint Promotions. He wrestled as Chatti Mikki Inoue in Catch Schober, which a 2017 column by future tag partner Animal Hamaguchi suggests came from “Mickey Inoue”, an André nickname for Mighty. (The Chatti would have come from Chati Yokouchi.) As for Joint Promotions, he was billed as Mitsu Inoue in a pair of Royal Albert Hall show, the first of which saw him get chewed out backstage for pulling hair during his match. (Mighty later noted that, for a “nation of gentlemen”, England had left a bad first impression on him; he was particularly disgusted that wrestlers engaged in sexual activities in the waiting room of “a royal facility”.) While working in Catch Schober, Inoue used Naomi Chiaki’s “Yottsu no Onegai” as entrance music; this will come up later. Inoue says that if he’d stayed abroad one more year, he thinks he would have reached fluency in French. Nevertheless, Inoue learned multiple languages during his time abroad, which served him well many years later as a clerk for foreign talent in Pro Wrestling NOAH. The last phase of his foreign excursion began in June 1972, when André invited him to work in Montreal. Inoue does not have fond memories of the months he spent there due to his poor treatment at the hands of tag partner Mitsu Arukawa, but never begrudged André for that.

 Inoue during his time in Montreal. The polka-dotted neckerchief shows a sense of style that culminated in Mighty’s flamboyant trunk designs of the late seventies.

After a brief stop in Hawaii, Inoue returned home in October 1972. He was generally booked as a high second-tier wrestler upon his return, and notable matches from his first six months back in the IWE include: a shot alongside Strong Kobayashi at Dick the Bruiser and Crusher Lisowski’s WWA World Tag Team titles in November; Inoue’s first match under the company’s trademark wire mesh deathmatch stipulation in February, a win over Jose Quintero; and a victory over French legend Édouard Carpentier in April. Inoue adopted his signature rolling senton from the latter. This move was acknowledged as Inoue’s patented technique for some time, as no other Japanese wrestler until Tiger Mask added it to their repertoire. The earliest match of Inoue’s which completely survives dates from September 1973, an IWA World Series block match against fellow Naniwa gym client turned IWE wrestler Animal Hamaguchi. The two wrestled as a team as early as 1973, but it would be several years before they revealed themselves as perhaps Kokusai’s best tag team.

The peak accomplishment of Inoue’s career came in 1974. After Strong Kobayashi’s departure and the end of the TBS broadcast deal, Rusher Kimura was chosen to challenge Billy Robinson for the IWA World Heavyweight title in June. However, it would not be Rusher Kimura to challenge for the promotion’s top belt when it came back around Billy Graham’s waist. It is apparent that IWE’s new network, Tokyo 12 Channel, threw their support behind Inoue as a flashier performer. Both Yoshiwara and network sports department manager Tsuyoshi Shiraishi agreed on his push, with the latter pointing out to Monthly Gong (September 1974) that “a small Japanese man [fighting] a big foreigner” had been “the bud of the Japanese wrestling boom”. Inoue was elevated in the summer and autumn with singles victories over Horst Hoffmann and Baron von Raschke, and in the Super Wide Series he got three shots to defeat Graham.

During this tour, Inoue also inspired puroresu’s first use of dedicated entrance music. When he told television director Motokazu Tanaka about his use of “Yottsu no Onegai” in Catch Schober, Tanaka was inspired to use the 101 Strings Orchestra cover of “Jesus Christ Superstar” for Graham. While AJPW broadcast director Susumu Umegaki is the one who popularized entrance music in puroresu, experimenting with it in 1975 and 1976 for Jumbo Tsuruta before striking gold with Mil Mascaras in early 1977, Kokusai was the pioneer, and Inoue is indirectly to thank for that.

The greatest moment of Inoue's career.

Anyway, Inoue needed all three of his title shots. He fought valiantly in his first attempt in Oita on October 1, but a ref bump at the eleventh hour prevented him from winning the third fall with a backdrop, and Graham capitalized on Inoue’s attempts to shake referee Takao Maemizo back to consciousness, striking him from behind and hitting a knee drop from the top rope to get the pinfall. Four days later in Nagoya, Inoue put things together in the first fall. Despite Graham pulling him by his legs to smash his groin against the steel pole, Inoue dodged another top-rope knee drop and focused his assault to gain the submission. In the second fall, however, Graham got his own submission with a Canadian backbreaker. The third fall saw Inoue go for the backdrop again, but he lost control and the two spilled to the outside for a double countout. In Koshigaya on October 7, Mighty got his last chance, for which he donned a pair of pink trunks that he claimed would be his good luck charm. He got revenge on Graham for the Nagoya groin attack, retaliating in kind and then slamming his left leg against the pole. Like in Nagoya, he won the first fall with a knee submission, but Graham got the Canadian backbreaker again to even the score. Down to the wire, Inoue got in another Canadian backbreaker, but he struggled out of it, landed on his feet, and brought down the Superstar with a backslide.

His title reign lasted six months. His first defense was the most significant, an IWA/AWA double title match against Verne Gagne in November 1974 which went to a draw. The following February, Inoue retained against Danny Lynch. Finally, though, in April he lost the strap to Mad Dog Vachon and set up Rusher Kimura’s crowning moment. Inoue later admitted that he had been grateful to be free of the burden of being the ace, but he was still involved in the title picture for a couple years. He got title shots against his coworker in June 1975, September 1977, and May 1978; although this had precedent in the Strong Kobayashi-Rusher Kimura IWA title match of 1973, none of Kokusai’s other major players received title shots against Rusher. Meanwhile, Inoue entered the tag title picture shortly after losing the world title, essentially shifting spots with Kimura. He and Great Kusatsu enjoyed three substantive reigns with the IWA World Tag Team titles spanning between June 1975 and January 1977. In late 1975, Inoue also represented the IWE in AJPW’s 1975 Open League, alongside Kimura & Kusatsu. In the second half of the decade, he distinguished himself with the most elaborate trunks of 70s puroresu, donning florid and psychedelic designs.

Inoue and Animal Hamaguchi give Umanosuke Ueda a taste of his own medicine on November 14, 1979. The "Naniwa Brothers" were the definitive tag team of late-period IWE.

Inoue & Kusatsu vacated their titles for a March 1977 tournament held alongside the 6th IWA World Series and split up to enter with other wrestlers. This built up Animal Hamaguchi through his reaching the finals alongside Teranishi, and then winning the belts from Big John Quinn & Kurt von Hess alongside Kusatsu. (Inoue had a second excursion in Stampede afterward, returning in July.) While it still wasn’t time for Animal & Mighty to become the IWE’s top team, the “Naniwa Brothers” staked a claim as one of Japan’s major tag teams in their own right. In November 1977, the two teamed up again in a string of IWE challenges for Great Kojika & Motoshi Okuma’s All Asia Tag Team titles and won them. They successfully defended the belts four times over the next three months: twice against the Gokudō Combi, once against Samson Kutsuwada & Akihisa Takachiho, and once against Korean wrestlers Oh Tae Kyun & Yang Seung-Hi. In the meantime, Inoue also entered the first Real World Tag League alongside Takachiho, tying for last place with Genichiro Tenryu & Rocky Hata. After they dropped the belts back to Kojika & Okuma, Inoue wouldn't wear gold again for another year. In November 1978’s Japan League tournament, he placed in his block’s top four to enter the quarterfinal before losing to semifinalist Jumbo Tsuruta. It was yet another example of how much Kokusai was willing to compromise the reputation of its top stars in order to secure the interpromotional matches that they needed to book for their cash flow.

In February 1979, the Naniwa Brothers teamed up to take the IWA tag titles back from the Yamaha Brothers. Inoue’s grudge against Kotetsu Yamamoto over how these matches were booked would be a factor in his refusal to join New Japan Pro Wrestling two years later; nevertheless, the pair of matches were a strong start to the Naniwa Brothers era. In the longest title reign of Inoue’s IWE period, he and Hamaguchi defended their belts against the best gaikokujin teams that they could book, as well as Japanese “freelancers” Umanosuke Ueda, Masa Saito, and Yasu Fujii. In their final successful defense, they won by disqualification against NJPW invaders Kengo Kimura & Haruka Eigen, but this was due to an Animal injury which forced them to vacate the belts. Sixteen months after they first won their titles from New Japan, they lost a match for the now-vacant championship when Eigen came back alongside Strong Kobayashi. The Naniwa Brothers overcame them in a rematch and held the titles for eight months thereafter before Hamaguchi’s health forced them to vacate them. Inoue teamed up with the returning Ashura Hara to win them for the sixth time, and this new team held onto the belts until the company went under. Inoue’s 1,315 days as champion rank third in the IWA tag title’s history, behind Hamaguchi’s 1,343 and Kusatsu’s dominant 2,678.

 

On September 14, 1981, Inoue attends an AJPW press conference to announce his participation with the company. Left to right: Baba, Inoue, Tenshin Yonemura, Nobuyoshi Sugawara, Hiromichi Fuyuki.

It was after the IWE folded that Inoue disobeyed Isao Yoshiwara for the first time in his life. In the company’s last days, Yoshiwara had apparently consulted Baba for a merger with AJPW, but as Baba had just lost managerial authority in his company due to a network takeover, he could not make this happen. Yoshiwara dissolved the promotion and told his wrestlers that he would have them go to New Japan. Like Ashura Hara, who was genuinely bitter about how New Japan had booked him to submit to Tatsumi Fujinami the previous year, Inoue refused to join New Japan over personal misgivings; Kotetsu Yamamoto once booking him to submit in one fall in a match against the Yamaha Brothers, despite Inoue having defeated Superstar Billy Graham a few years before, was the big one. Inoue contacted Baba through the intermediary of Kosuke Takeuchi and asked him to take himself and a few others. Inoue brought Hiromichi Fuyuki and Nobuyoshi Sugawara, who had been two of the IWE’s three last significant trainees. Tenshin Yonemura became affiliated with AJPW alongside them, working their shows when they stopped in his hometown. 

Inoue’s first match in All Japan was a shot at Mil Mascaras’ pet IWA World Heavyweight title on October 9. (This was a different IWA from the governing body of the IWE’s titles: specifically, the Eddie Einhorn-Pedro Martinez failed national US promotion of 1975-78.) While Inoue lost to Mascaras in less than ten minutes, and he is the rare Japanese person who has openly corroborated Mascaras’ reputation (“he only tried to show his good points [...] Mexicans didn’t like him either; they called him cabeza grande”), it would be far from the highlight of Inoue’s AJPW career. 

Inoue celebrates his NWA International Junior Heavyweight title victory alongside new AWA World Heavyweight champion Jumbo Tsuruta.

Now, he could only ever go so far. While it is my opinion that Mighty Inoue was the IWE’s best worker, he was 5’8”, and especially with a promoter like Giant Baba that was a modest ceiling. As a singles wrestler in the heavyweight division, the furthest he ever got was a dismal tenth place ranking in the 1982 Champion Carnival. When All Japan began seriously investing in a junior heavyweight division, Inoue was ordered to slim down to fit in the division because of his height, and he obeyed, going from the 110kg of his IWE heyday to 105. After Atsushi Onita’s major knee injury, Inoue was ultimately chosen to bring the NWA International Junior Heavyweight title back from Chavo Guerrero Sr. to Japan, and his 468-day reign from February 1984 to June 1985 was the longest in the belt’s seven-year original run of activity. During this reign, he successfully fought off Onita twice; the second time served as Onita’s first retirement match. He and Gran Hamada also teamed up to win a small tournament, the Real World Junior Tag League. He dropped the junior title to the Dynamite Kid, but four years later, Inoue’s final title reign was a transitional AJPW World Junior Heavyweight title reign between Joe Malenko and Masanobu Fuchi. It wasn’t as a junior heavyweight that he was most successful in All Japan, though.

Inoue and Hara win the All Asia Tag Team titles.

From 1983 through 1988, Inoue was a significant player in the All Asia Tag Team title picture. The All Asia titles had served a unique role ever since AJPW had revived them in 1976, as for a long time they were the company’s only championship to be contested and even change hands between native teams. When Inoue joined the company, Gokudō’s final reign had ended to Akio Sato & Takashi Ishikawa. He and Hara reunited to take a shot at the champions in November 1981, and it ended in a draw, but when the titles were vacated in early 1983, the final IWA Tag Team champions went over Gokudō by disqualification to win gold together again. Inoue would vacate them to concentrate on his junior title, but in the mid-80s, he and Ishikawa joined forces to hold the titles twice for a combined 587 days. Inoue & Ishikawa were the wall that Footloose broke down in 1988.

Inoue wound down his in-ring career in the 1990s. He shone early on as an ensemble performer in the company’s six-man main-events, wrestling alongside Jumbo Tsuruta and what eventually became known as Tsurutagun. Inoue was not considered one of Tsurutagun’s four members, but he made his presence felt in the early stage of the faction’s rivalry with Chosedaigun, before Yoshinari Ogawa essentially took his spot. After this, Inoue found a role in AJPW’s comedic six-man tradition as a member of the “villainous” Akuyaku Shokai faction. However, he was reportedly struck with an internal disease in mid-1997 and was ultimately forced to retire in 1998. As the company culture became tenser in the latter half of the decade, Inoue was on the chopping block, and was nearly cut by Motoko Baba until he took his coworkers’ advice to announce during his retirement ceremony that he would transition into refereeing. 

Inoue speaks at his second retirement with his wife, Ryoko, at his side.

Apparently, the job did not come naturally to him, and his early work was considered awkward and intrusive. He stuck with it for over a decade, though, as he joined the walkout to become Pro Wrestling NOAH’s designated undercard referee. Donning a red shirt as a trademark, Inoue's “verbal pro-wrestling” style of refereeing and occasional participation in spots made him a bit player in NOAH’s continuity of the AJPW comedy tradition. (For instance, see Mitsuo Momota’s 2006 match against SUWA, after which both Inoue and Momota’s recently retired rival Haruka Eigen join forces to put the young punk in his place for a postmatch assault.) NOAH saw Inoue expand his role into a foreign clerk and even a color commentator. He left the company when his contract lapsed on New Years Eve 2009, as one among many who likely found himself disillusioned with what the company became after Mitsuharu Misawa’s death. That same day, he wrestled his first match in twelve years, a ten-man elimination tag for a BJW/DDT/Kaientai Dojo joint show. He later received a proper sendoff with a retirement show at Korakuen Hall on May 22, 2010. Outside of a one-night return for the 2019 Giant Baba Memorial Show, he has stuck to that.

Inoue returns to refereeing for the February 19, 2019 Giant Baba Memorial Show. This commemorative photo was shared by Shuhei Nishinaga afterwards. Left to right: Daisuke Kanbayashi (WRESTLE-1), Nishinaga (who holds a photo of Joe Higuchi), Akihiko Fukuda, Inoue, Kyohei Wada, and Red Shoes Unno.

 

FOOTNOTES

1. Inoue’s “Aussie suplex”, named after its inventor Al Costello, is performed with the same mechanic as a bridging tiger suplex, but is considered a distinct move in Japanese discourse. Essentially, the Aussie suplex is a pin, not a throw. The move has been subsequently used by Naomichi Marufuji.
2. According to Showa Puroresu, the quirk of calling Inoue’s rolling senton a sunset flip originated from a supposed Carpentier request.
3. Inoue reportedly once injured one of Austin Idol’s ribs with his gutbuster.
4. Inoue’s love of karaoke seems to have been a major part of writing about him as a person in puroresu magazines. He states that he got a spot on TBS variety show Let’s Meet At 3 O’Clock when television producers heard him sing in a bar. This got Inoue the opportunity to record a single, “Furui Botoru” (“Sieve Bottle”), for minor Osaka label Lamon Records. To my knowledge, the only modern rerelease of this recording is through a 2011 compilation CD of Lamon recordings, which is lamentably out of my budget on Discogs. Less elusive, though, is the 7” of enka music he recorded for Victor Records in 1984, “Ema no Omokage/Nogizaka Night”. Both songs are easily found on YouTube, and the A-side probably features the most competent vocal performance I have heard from a male Japanese wrestler of his generation. (I have a three-page article about singing wrestlers from the January 1980 issue of Deluxe Pro Wrestling magazine that I would like to translate for fun someday.)