Dub > Sub: 1990 All Japan TV

[William Bologna]

Have you ever watched All Japan Pro Wrestling as broadcast on the television and wondered what the hell the announcers were yakking about the whole time? Sure, you can figure it out when you hear “Joanie Smissu” or “single matchy,” but what else are they saying to pass the time?

Well, we live in the future, so I mean to find out. I found an app that will automatically dub the audio into English. I couldn’t wait to experience puroresu in a whole new way. “This,” I said to myself, “is going to be perfect!”

I was once again back-stabbed by my own inner optimist. It’s definitely not perfect.

• There’s a lot of gibberish.
• What isn’t gibberish is mostly dry play-by-play. “A chop. A headlock. Now the leg.”
• It puts everything into first person, to the point that it sounds like one of the competitors reminiscing. “The missile kick is focused on my shoulder.”
• There is no distinction between speakers and no change in intensity. When the play-by-play is guy is (probably) screaming, I’m still hearing the HAL voice.
• It cuts off all other audio, so there’s no crowd noise.

These - particularly the last two - were bad enough that I almost gave up. But there are gems here and there, so I’m going to stick with it.

I picked 1990. All our favorites are here, and it’s a big year. A lot going on. So let’s get started.

[William Bologna]

All Japan TV January 7, 1990

Night two of the New Year Giant Series coming at you from historic Korakuen Hall. We begin with:

Great Kabuki vs. Kenta Kobashi

This match is bad timing for me. You ever watch That’s What I Call Wrestling? I love it. That guy cracks me up. There’s a running gag referring to this Harley Race promo where he’s listing guys he wants to run Ric Flair out of rassling. He loses his train of thought, takes a breath, pauses enough to make it weird, and yells “KABUKI!”

TWICW covers some pretty dire indies, and whenever one of these mudshow palookas gets lost in a promo - which is nearly every time - we get a Kabuki Moment. I’ve been bingeing the channel, so it’s all I could think about for the duration of the match.

(As an aside, that really is a hell of a promo from Race in spite of the Kabuki Moment. He’s desperate! Someone take the damn money! Seriously, A+.)

So anyway, they’re putting Kobashi through a Seven Match Series. They did this from time to time with up and coming young guys. I remember Mossman had one. This is the second installment; he lost to Yatsu yesterday.

Kabuki is an interesting fella. He played the mist-spitting inscrutable Oriental demon over in the US, and then he came home and . . . well, I don’t know. He kept the face paint, but he doesn’t do any ninja magic or anything. Perfectly conventional worker.

They go back and forth, with Kobashi trying to take it to the air and Kabuki outsmarting him. Finally Kobashi gets some momentum, but Kabuki catches him with a rollup thingy. Kobashi loses but looks stronger than his veteran opponent, which makes me think Kabuki was a pretty canny worker.

His GWE thread here is divided - it seems like it depends where you see him. He was a good regular ol’ puroresu guy here. Maybe even very good.

I should mention that the dubbed commentary told me nothing of interest. There is a little bit about Kabuki being on Tenryu’s team. The problem with that is that he wasn't.

[William Bologna]

Toshiaki Kawada/Samson Fuyuki vs The Fantastics 

The Footloose defend their All Asia Tag belts against Bobby Fulton & Tommy Rogers, and we’ve got four women handing out bouquets. We do get some value out of the dubbing, as the announcer informs us the flowers are provided by Nippon TV and the event’s sponsors. We also get the title proclamation translated (nothing interesting - “This is an official title match blah blah blah”). 

Kawada’s front teeth are already gone at this point. We are informed of this via a closeup of his face while he’s suffering in a Boston crab. Fuyuki breaks this up well: He comes in, bounces off the ropes, and clotheslines a Fantastic in the back of the head.

Kawada and a Fantastic work a really awkward sequence where after a pin attempt they phonily get into a 69 position, roll around, stand up, try like hell to get Kawada in the air, reverse it, and not quite piledrive the Fantastic. Awful.

I liked the finishing stretch, in part because it was really messy. They’re breaking up double teams and seemingly inventing new ones as they go along. Eventually Fuyuki wins with a German.

Fuyuki was better than Kawada in this. I thought that’s just something people said, but he’s batting 1.000 in the Footloose matches I’ve seen.

[William Bologna]

British Bulldogs vs Tiger Mask/Masa Fuchi 

These All Japan tag matches could use a little more face in peril stuff. Inevitably someone gets beaten up by both of his opponents, but then he just strolls over and tags out. Why not try to milk it a little?

The big takeaway from this match - which ain’t much - is that Davey Boy Smith is really strong. (Dubbed commentator: “Dave Smith.” That’s not wrong - it is his name - but it sounds so weird). He catches a running Tiger, lifts him over his head and holds him there like it’s no effort at all, and then throws him on top of a ringside Fuchi.

Later David Boy holds Fuchi, tags Dynamite, powerslams his opponent, and gives Kid gets an assisted takeoff bodypress (maybe it was supposed to be a headbutt, but there was no head contact) to win.

Three of these guys are great, but Dynamite’s in a diminished state and Misawa’s in a limiting gimmick. Fuchi was excellent. I’m developing a case in my head that he’s an all-time worker who never got to do anything important. I’ll keep you posted.

[William Bologna]

Genichiro Tenryu vs Ivan Koloff 

I’m not great at keeping wrestling’s fake Russians straight, so it came as a surprise that this is actually former WWWF champion Ivan Koloff. The guy who pinned Bruno. Here he is on his only All Japan tour at a sprightly 48 years young. One fan is excited enough that he’s waving a Soviet flag.

Tenryu makes his way to the ring only to be ambushed by Isao Takagi. Chair attack! Can Tenryu survive starting with a handicap?

He does, but it’s a real interesting match. Koloff looks great! It’s all simple stuff, but this is top tier back-clubberin’. He’s not in there long, but he’s killing every minute of it.

The announcers are talking a lot about Tenryu’s Revolution, which made me think this was a new development. It’s not - he and Jumbo split up back in 1987.

They also kinda kayfabe us about Koloff - “He’s a Canadian of Russian descent.” Of course, we all know that he’s actually a regular-ass Rick Martel-ass Dan Kroffat-ass Pat Patterson-ass Rene Goulet-ass Claude Lemieux-ass French Canadian.

One more dubbing note: It’s switching between calling Tenryu Tenryu and translating it, resulting in some accidental poetry (or maybe just accidental video game writing): “There is a Celestial Dragon who will strike you with a chop of anger.”

Koloff is good on defense, too. Tenryu tries for an abdominal stretch, but Ivan doesn’t let him get his feet set and ponderously carries him over to the ropes to get out of it. Everything he does is realistic by pro wrestling standards.

Tenryu wins after a perfunctory comeback: Vertical suplex, elbow drop, and the win.

Funnily enough, @JerryvonKramer gave us a review of this match in the Ivan Koloff GWE thread. He too was shocked at the high quality of Koloff's contributions and noted that Tenryu was pretty bad.

[William Bologna]

All Japan TV January 11, 1990 

British Bulldogs vs Isao Takagi/Akira Taue 
Takagi was the villain of last week’s episode, waylaying Tenryu on the way to his showdown with former WWWF champion Ivan Koloff. He later gained 80 pounds and became Arashi. Taue is two years in and has big things coming up for him in 1990.

We get a subtle dig from the dubbed commentators: “Foreigners have good muscles, right?” These guys sure do! All that chicken breast and broccoli.

Once again no face in peril structure. Most of this is Takagi getting worked over, and then he reverses and Irish whip and tags out.

Taue comes in pretty intense. He drops three or four elbows on Dynamite and goes to the top, but Kid gets out of the way of whatever he was trying to do from up there.

Weak finish. Dynamite comes in to break up a pin and beats up Taue for a longer time than the referee should have allowed - you can get away with a stomp to break it up, but then you’re supposed to go back! This allows them to repeat the sequence from last week (tag, powerslam, diving headbutt) to win flatly. Takagi didn’t even try to stop it.

I got nothing out of Takagi. Generic.