HTQ Request

[Loss]

I just wondered if you had it and if you would mind sharing it. I've heard it's an amazing read. Thanks!

[Guest Hunter's Torn Quad]

All Japan Women will be holding its final show on 4/17, but the reality is, the promotion went terminal years ago, and this past week they decided to remove life support.

 

Takashi Matsunaga, the longest running head of a major wrestling organization in the world, and among the longest of all-time, folded his company after 37 years due to declaring bankruptcy and being more than $30 million in debt due to huge overdue tax bills and losses from wrestling and real estate businesses. The tax agencies informed the company it was going to start confiscating money to pay the tax bills, and at mat point, there was no reason to continue to run, because they could never pay off the debt

 

The promotion told its wrestlers this past week it was shutting down. In order to have a farewell show at Korakuen Hall the Matsunaga family made a deal with First On Stage, the parent company of Zero-One Max, to promote a farewell at Korakuen Hall. Zero-One Max and one of the Matsunaga nephews (the son of the late Toshikuni Matsunaga) are going to get the intellectual property rights to the logos the title belts and the name in exchange for the Matsunaga brothers getting a cut of all shows promoted with the All Japan Women name. Buying the trademarks, in particular the WWWA singles and tag belts, due to their major history, is similar to Zero-One Max's buying the rights to the AWA world heavyweight championship belt Takashi Matsunaga publicly claimed to be suffering from failing health and publicly announced he was retiring from promoting wrestling.

 

It's a double blow for the once huge women's wrestling industry in Japan, since months back, Gaea, the most popular women's promotion in the world, had announced late last year it was folding on 4/10 with the retirement of 40-year-old Chigusa Nagayo, Japan's biggest women's wrestling star of all-time. It is believed that Mayumi Ozaki, 36, will try and build a promotion with some of Gaea's former wrestlers.

 

The company declared bankruptcy for the first time in October of 1997. Since that time it has basically operated like a street vendor, on a cash basis. The women would run shows, and they'd share a cut in cash from the ticket and merchandise revenue from the shows, and they would go on to the next city, not unlike how some regional U.S. promotions used to run. The company had been evading the tax authorities since the bankruptcy, which led to interest, penalties and other debts piling up to ridiculous levels for what was at one point an incredible model of building a product from nothing.

 

The Matsunaga Brothers opened the company with a show in Shinagawa Hah1 in Tokyo on June 4, 1968. In their 37 years, they broke in nine Hall of Famers (Akira Hokuto, Manami Toyota, Chigusa Nagayo, Lioness Asuka, Dump Matsumoto, Jackie Sato, Jaguar Yokota, Devil Masami and Bull Nakano) and most of the 20 greatest women pro wrestlers of all-time, and almost surely, all of the top ten.

 

There had been club level women's wrestling dating back to Mildred Burke, the biggest star in the history of American women's wrestling, coming to Japan in the 50s. In 1968, Fabulous Moolah even came to one of the promotions, the JWPA, and dropped her title for several weeks briefly to its top star, Yukiko Tomoe, who started her career in 195 5 on one of those Burke tours. The Brothers had run small women's shows for years, when they formally started a company with Takashi as President, Kenji as vice president, and Toshikuni and Kunimatsu as managers.

 

The company was well below the radar, built around heel Jumbo Miyamoto and babyface Aiko Kyo, who originally battled young American women sent by Burke, who ran a Southern California wrestling school. They tried to use Burke like the male promotions used Lou Thesz, as the legendary real deal, and the original WWWA title belt was said to be the same belt that Burke defended in the U.S., and was brought to Japan in 1970 by Marie Vagnone. Due to Fabulous Moolah's monopoly on the major U.S. promotions through the NWA and WWWF, Burke's women couldn't get any U.S. bookings, so it was Japan that kept her school and booking agency alive in the early 70s. The wrestling style was terribly primitive as compared with wrestling today, and was far behind even the standards of the American women wrestlers, who would have to completely carry the Japanese when brought in on tour.

 

The first real star they created was Mach Fumiake, who debuted at the age of 15. She was rushed to the WWWA title after only eight months, as a 16-year-oid, when she beat Miyamoto on March 19, 1975. Fumiake's popularity ushered in a strange culture of bringing in athletic teenage girls, marketing them in an asexual and almost lesbian like way to an audience of almost exclusive teenage schoolgirls as their rock star like heroes.

 

The business exploded a few months later. Naoko Sato was the star high school basketball player on a team which went to the national finals in 1975, who grew up as a fan of the women wrestlers. After graduating high school, she started training. She was the best athlete who had ever come through their doors. She was rushed into the ring in less than two months and groomed to be the next star, debuting on April 27, 1975, at Korakuen Hall, against Makiko Ueda.

 

In February 1976, the brothers came up with the concept that would change the business and put women's wrestling at a level that it may never reach again. Japanese culture was known, and still is known, for coming up with teenage female rock stars and models, which would have short runs, make money, and then be phased out for a new group. There is also a unique Japanese deal with schoolgirls connecting with athletic and powerful women as role models. The idea was to pair the prettier Ueda, now known as Maki Ueda, with Sato, given the name Jackie Sato, because Jackie was a male sounding name, pairing up a cute 16 year old with a stud athlete 18 year old. The two were tabbed, "The Beauty Pair, and on February 24, 1976, won the WWW A tag titles from Fumiake & Mariko Akagi. On June 8, 1976, in Tokyo, Ueda beat Miyamoto to become WWWA champion. In October, the Beauty Pair debuted as rock singers.

 

The Beauty Pair had a series of major hits, the biggest being "Kakemeguru Seishun (Around and Around on Youth), which sold more than 800,000 copies, a phenomenal figure for that era in Japan. In February of 1977, recognizing the popularity of The Beauty Pair, the Fuji TV Network made the company big time, giving them a weekly prime time television show, on a stronger network than even the men's promotions at the time were on.

 

The shows consisted of three wrestling matches, and a song by the wrestlers between matches. The Beauty Pair songs actually got over better than their matches. They usually came out in concert to the biggest pop of the night after the first TV match, and then came out, as wrestlers, in the TV main event Yumi Ikeshita & Shinobu Aso were put together as their rivals, The Black Pair, in a clean cut cute girls vs. ugly biker chicks morality play that became even bigger the next decade. During this period, The Beauty Pair were all over mainstream media, and regularly on the cover of every magazine aimed at teenage girls for their two-year heyday. They wrestled more than 250 shows per year, and while old-timers like to exaggerate, the truth is, virtually every house show they appeared on sold out but this was more a hula hoop than a Hulkamania, and it was quickly gone. The promotion understood what it had, and was catering to. The women lived a Spartan-like image with little outside world contact. There was to be no negative publicity about the wrestlers. There were the famed "three no's," no smoking, no drinking and no men. Women in the 70s and 80s were often kicked out for all of the three, because the teenage girls were not allowed to have the idea that their stars were promiscuous or rowdy, or anything but larger than life fighters and singers. In addition, at the age of 25, retirement was mandatory. They simply were not allowed to get old and have the teenagers unable to relate to them as peers.

 

The promotion tried to do their own biggest event ever, setting the stage for the ultimate showdown on November 1,1977, at Budokan Hall. The angle was to break up the original Beauty Pair, as on July 29, 1977, Ueda won the WWWA title for the second time, beating Akagi. On the same show, Sato & Nancy Kumi, a new 16-year-old who debuted a year earlier, was put with Sato as the new Beauty Pair, and they won the WWWA tag titles from The Black Pair.

 

Promoted to the women as the female version of the Antonio Inoki vs. Giant Baba dream match that you could never see, the Sato vs. Ueda title match sold out Budokan Hall. Up to that point, Inoki had only sold out Budokan Hall three times up to that point, a supposed interpromotional dream match when IWE champ Shozo Kobayashi jumped, a match with Korean legend Kintaro Oki, and the Muhammad Ali match. With prime time network coverage, it was without a doubt the most watched and most famous women's wrestling match up to that point in history, and may still have drawn more fans than any individual women's match, as the big shows that did better in later year were loaded shows with multiple main matches. Burke was brought in as a special judge. The two women went to a 60:00 draw, and Burke awarded the decision, and the title to Sato. By early 1979, the first boom period was over, with its real ending being Sato vs. Ueda, loser must retire, at Budokan Hall, which Sato won. It wasn't for several years before the company could run another successful major arena show.

 

The business remained on TV, and a series of new stars were brought in, with Sato remaining the top dog. Mimi Hagiwara was a rising singing star and fashion model, who met Sato on a television, and was recruited in as the first actual sex symbol. She was already 22 when she started, but was known for revealing costumes (which would be totally tame by today's U. S. standards) and her legs. But while Japanese guys drooled over her, she never caught on big with the teenage girls that were the almost exclusive house show audience. In 1981, the decision was made to go with Toshimi "Jaguar" Yokota as the new top star. Sato dropped her title, and to make sure she wasn't overshadowed, Sato was asked to retire three months later.

 

The 19-year-old Yokota was not a huge draw, but became a pivotal figure in women's wrestling history, because she was, by far, the greatest women wrestler who ever existed up to that point in time. She had matches in Mexico that would be boring by today's standards, but were better than anything the male wrestlers at the time were doing, even winning match of the year there over men's matches. In Japan, the top American wrestlers of the time period, like The Funks and Bruiser Brody conceded she and the other top women improved in the ring to where they were better then the men, a hard concession for top male wrestlers to make. She ushered in the 80s boom, that was even bigger than the Beauty Pair Era.

 

The heroines of that era were The Crash Gals, Nagayo, who started out, believe it or not, playing the cute girl role of Maki Ueda, and the more boyish Tomoko Kitamura, who was given the name Lioness Asuka. Unlike The Beauty Pair, the two were awesome wrestlers, skilled in martial arts to go along with high spots and popular submissions. Their matches were Yokota & "Devil" Masami Yoshida over the WWWA tag titles in 1984 were like no matches ever seen up to that point, with high spot after high spot, moves that were years ahead of their time, hard kicks, and crowd heat like nothing anyone had ever seen with screaming girls. While the matches weren't as athletic, they got a very different kind of Sheik-like heat when they faced the new crew of monster heels, led by Kaoru "Dump" Matsumoto, Crane Yu and Keiko "Bull" Nakano. The TV by this point was on Saturday afternoons, and during the peak of the Crush Gals era, they were doing 14.0 ratings on average for 90 minute TV shows built around some incredible wrestling matches, and incredibly bad singing by the Crush Gals. The Crush Gals had their own top ten hits, merchandise, and for a year, you couldn?t walk down a street in Tokyo without seeing posters of them in store windows.

 

The Matsunaga Brothers learned a lot about merchandising, and actually made their most money during this period. The Crush Gals phenomenon was such that the Wall Street Journal even ran a front-page story on it. While, even during the big periods, the top stars were never mat well paid, the Crush Gals had $250,000 years. The peak was on August 25, 1985, when Yokota beat Asuka to keep the WWWA title and Nagayo went to a no contest with Masami before a sellout 13,000 fans at the Denen Coliseum. This was followed a week later by Matsumoto beating Nagayo in a hair match. Nagayo's loss, because she was the hero of just about everyone, led to a new group of girls coming into pro wrestling, whose goal, as silly as this sounds, was to be like their hero and get their head shaved bald in the middle of the ring. A year later, Nagayo gained revenge in a heated and bloody hair match. In particular, merchandise sales during this time period were incredible. If you triple WWE or WCW at their peak, you'll be in the ballpark for per head sales.

 

The family invested the profits from this period, buying real estate, much in the Meguro section of Tokyo. The company had a unique world, as almost all the wrestlers lived in close proximity. The younger wrestlers, who were basically slaves, tortured in practice by the veterans, lived in dorm like conditions in a complex that included the wrestling office, the company restaurant where the rookies worked, and the gym downstairs where they trained. Life consisted of eating, cleaning, training, and getting on the bus and going to house shows. While the three no's were still in existence by the early 90s, they weren't adhered to nearly as closely, and eventually that, and mandatory retirement, by the early 90s, was dropped.

 

The Crush Gals boom period ended around 1987. An interesting lesson was learned, as when Matsumoto retired, both live attendance and TV ratings dropped significantly, with ratings falling in half, even though the Crush Gals were still around. They tried breaking them up and feuding them, but the surprising reality was how much of a catalyst Matsumoto really was in their success. By 1989, the Crush Gals retired. Similar to Sato and Ueda, the last big match was May 6, 1989, at Yokohama Arena, when 12,500 fans paid $521,250 as Asuka beat Nagayo in what was billed as her retirement match, known as 'The Day the Music Died."

 

As big as the Crush Gals were, their popularity was limited largely to teenage girls. As great as their matches often were, they were shunned by the male wrestling audience who considered seeing women wrestle was something only teenage girls who knew nothing about wrestling would see.

 

In 1986, the first rival office, JWP, opened, and even brought Sato out of retirement as the top star. Later, after Masami's All Japan Women retirement in 1987, retirement, she also went to JWP. During the 90s, almost all the 80s stars came back with different promotions forming, including LLPW, which split from JWP, Gaea, formed by Nagayo which eventually became popular, Neo Ladies, formed by Kyoko Inoue, and Arsion (now A to Z) put together by former All Japan Woman public relations man Hiroshi "Rossy" Ogawa and Aja Kong when the All Japan Women business was on the downslide.

 

The final boom period was a little different. During the Crush Gals popularity, the number of young girls who wanted to be wrestlers and sent in resumes for the then-legendary tryout camp numbered in the thousands.

At the peak, they invited a few hundred to camps based on looks and athletic resume, where they put them through weightlifting and callisthenics. The training, under Yokota, was such that they created great wrestlers in a minimal amount of time. The style was very Japanese oriented. In early matches, it was repetition of basic moves, bodyslams, dropkicks, bridging out of pins, tackles and drop downs. You couldn't do any spectacular moves until you had the basics down. Everyone became a top-notch technical worker quickly, or they didn?t last.

 

The early 90s stars consisted of Akira Hokuto, who started during the Crush Gals era, and was regarded by the women wrestlers themselves at the tie as the best woman wrestler in history. Manami Toyota was a new Jaguar Yokota type with a cold, distant personality, but she was by far the most athletic of the women and had matches off the chart almost every night out. For heat and match quality, there wasn?t a wrestler, man or woman, anywhere in the world, who was her superior. Kyoko Inoue was bigger and more charismatic than Toyota, and probably would have been remembered in the league of Hokuto had not Toyota existed. Nakano, a holdover from the Crush Gals days, was the new monster heel, for several years. She tagged with, and later feuded with Aja Kong, a more athletic copy of Matsumoto. TV ratings were nowhere close to what they were during the Beauty Pair or Crush Gals heyday. But this crew became respected for then-wrestling ability after stealing the show on big men's shows. Their nightly business and merchandise income couldn?t come close to the other heydays, but with interpromotional matches and drawing far more than just teenage girls, they did better major show business. There was no longer a stigma for regular fans of male wrestling to attend the women's shows, and the big events in women's wrestling were on par with the major men's shows.

 

The April 2, 1993, All-Star Dream Slam I at the Yokohama Arena, one of the greatest shows in history, saw them draw 16,500 fans and $1,500,000, a new promotion record. The show brought together stars from all the different promotions by Hokuto beating Shinobu Kandori of LLPW in an all-time classic bloodbath (so well remembered that now, more than ten years later, that feud was used on Pro Wrestling NOAH'S last big show) and WWWA tag champs Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada beating Megumi Kudo & Combat Toyoda of FMW. Nagayo came out of retirement in the mid-card, losing to Masami, while legends from Asuka, Fumiake, Hagiwara, Lucy Kayama, Bison Kimura, Kumi, Matsumoto, Miyamoto, Mitsuko Nishiwaki (who later became well known for marrying a famous sumo star), Yukari Omori, Noriyo Tateno and Yokota were all honored. They did well with big shows over the next few years. An August 25, 1993, show at Budokan Hall drew 14,5 00 as Kong kept the WWWA title against JWP?s Kansai. A Kandori-Hokuto rematch on December 6, 1993, sold out Sumo Hall A September 2, 1995, show at Budokan Hall featuring a classic Toyota over Hokuto match drew 14,800. Hokuto & Kandori beat Kong & Nakano before another crowd of 16,500 paying $1.5 million at the Yokohama Arena on March 27,1994. Toyota beat Inoue on March 31, 1996 before 12,500 at the Yokohama Arena. The last big one was a December 8, 1996, Sumo Hall near full house as Inoue beat Toyota to win the WWWA title.

 

Without question, the biggest event in women's wrestling history, and an event that may never be topped by a women's promotion, was called "Big Egg Wrestling Universe," on November 20, 1994, at the Tokyo Dome. It was by far the biggest show the Matsunaga Brothers ever put on, and in many ways, was among the biggest shows in wrestling history.

 

The show, which lasted ten hours, included a 60-piece marching band that led a parade of wrestlers from 11 different flag-carrying federations that looked like a scaled-down version of the Olympic Games opening ceremony. The announced attendance was 42,500 fans, although 32,500 would be closer to reality. The gate was about $4 million and merchandise sales of $1.6 million (that's $49.23 per person?a figure that is likely an all-time record, and one that is in no danger of being equalled for a long time) including $612,000 in sales of the Super Bowl like program. They are all money figures that no Wrestlemania in history has ever reached. Approximately $1.1 million was budgeted for special effects. There were 23 matches, seven of which hit four stars and four of which were shoots, including involving wrestles who medalled ten years later when women's wrestling debuted as a sport in the Athens Olympics. Kyoko Hamaguchi, who later became regarded as the greatest woman legitimate wrestler in history, but then was just a 16-year-old with big dreams, made her debut on that show. Ana Gomes of France, who medalled in the last Olympics, was also on the show. Both lost shoot matches to world amateur champions whose primes came before the sport hit Olympic level. There was even a WWF title change, as Nakano won the WWF women's title from Alundra Blayze (Madusa).

 

The main item on the show was an eight woman tournament, featured the supposed eight biggest woman wrestling stars, with Combat Toyoda (representing the FMW women's division), Yumiko Hotta (who had just won All Japan Women's Grand Prix), Hokuto (the CMLL women's world champion), Eagle Sawai (the LLPW champion), Kong (the WWWA champion), Toyota (the IWA champion), Dynamite Kansai (the JWP rep) and Kyoko Inoue (another All Japan Women?s' rep). For the finals, Kong came out in what looked like a space ship with a fireworks display and elaborate laser light show. Hokuto, clearly the star of the show, came out, wearing a mask, with two little masked Hokuto?s, and was the eventual tournament winner.

 

But by October of 1997, far more due to the real estate market going bad, although wrestling's popularity had fallen and their TV had moved to past midnight and only once a month, the company was deeply in debt and declared bankruptcy.

 

The company continued to limp along as an all cash business, avoiding creditors, and eventually losing network television. They made some new stars, most notably Momoe Nakanishi, a 4-10 women who worked so hard and put on so many great matches she ended up in an early retirement; and Ayako Hamada, the second daughter of Gran Hamada who became a wrestler, who started elsewhere but became WWWA champ. Of late, Nanae Takahashi, the WWWA champ, blew out her right knee in December, and the next big star, Hikaru, broke her left leg in February. The company folded with only six full-time wrestlers left, two of whom were out with injuries. The other four were Tomoko Watanabe and Kumiko Maekawa, who were mid-carders during the last glory period, and younger wrestlers Saki Maemura and Sasori. All were furious at the promotion when they got the word it was folding, as all were way behind in money owed.

I'm assuming you mean this one from about a month ago.

[Loss]

That's the one. Thanks for posting it.

 

[Tim Cooke]

Good read.

 

Why does Meltzer always preference that matches from 20 years ago would be considered boring today? He talks about that in reference to Yokota in Mexico in the early 80's. That is an insult to an audience who is supposed to grasp basic wrestling concepts.

 

Tim

[Al]

I would assume he references the casual viewing audience when he says that.

[goodhelmet]

I would assume he references the casual viewing audience when he says that.

The only problem with that is Meltzer's subscribers are not the casual viewing audience.

[Guest Some Guy]

Maybe he finds 20 year old matches boring compared to today's standards. He's entitled to his opinion, that's half of his job, to give his opinion that is.

[Tim Cooke]

"Maybe he finds 20 year old matches boring compared to today's standards. He's entitled to his opinion, that's half of his job, to give his opinion that is."

 

Telling that to your audience, which has a lot of people who started watching way before "Today's standards", is weak.

 

It also shows a major flaw with Meltzer.

 

I wouldn't expect everyone to love Destroyer vs. Baba from 3/5/69 but I would expect some thought to be put in in comparing to today's matches. Japanese/US wrestling is all rooted in the same philosophy. Destroyer does more good heel work than anyone in the US in 2004.

 

Meltzer also talked recently about Jumbo v Robinson matches from the 70's and said they were great at the time but wouldn't look good compared to the wrestling of today. Since wrestling (outside of lucha, but lucha can be included with an explanation) is based in the same fundamental principles, great matches will stand the test of time, regardless of period.

 

Jumbo/Funk from 6/76 would almost certainly be passed off as dated by Meltzer today when in fact it brings everything to the table and more than any match from 2004.

 

Watching in context is more key than judging against today's standards. Tommy Rogers did a lot of high flying for 1985 and did it well. It isn't as impressive as Rey Jr. but it is done well and holds up.

 

Tim

[Guest Some Guy]

I didn't say he was right. I think his view is an over-generalization, but one he is entitled to. What I don't get is that he has something to gain from pimping old stuff because of the Wrestling Gold Collection, so one would think he wouldn't marginalize older stuff based on age alone.

[Tim Cooke]

As a reader of the WON (and I love it), I am insulted at the over generalization and think he is doing the readers a dis-service. An opinion is one thing, but an over generalization is another.

 

Tim

[Al]

I would assume he references the casual viewing audience when he says that.

The only problem with that is Meltzer's subscribers are not the casual viewing audience.

His subscribers are not, but the general audience when watching a wrestling show is casual fans, and Meltzer understands that, I would think. I could be wrong, since I can't speak for him.

[Mad Dog]

Good read.

 

Why does Meltzer always preference that matches from 20 years ago would be considered boring today?  He talks about that in reference to Yokota in Mexico in the early 80's.  That is an insult to an audience who is supposed to grasp basic wrestling concepts.

 

Tim

It's a silly statement in general because a lot of people would find the Japanese style to be boring. I doubt the casual fan would like the mat work periods and the lack of outside interference.

[Loss]

That's most likely true, but again, the Observer doesn't cater to that crowd anyway. I watched some late 70s stuff last night I'll be posting about later with Inoki, Dusty, Backlund and Hansen that I loved.

[Al]

Good read.

 

Why does Meltzer always preference that matches from 20 years ago would be considered boring today?  He talks about that in reference to Yokota in Mexico in the early 80's.  That is an insult to an audience who is supposed to grasp basic wrestling concepts.

 

Tim

It's a silly statement in general because a lot of people would find the Japanese style to be boring. I doubt the casual fan would like the mat work periods and the lack of outside interference.

Actually, I bet most fans would love the lack of outside interference. I know viewers who grew quite irritated during the Russo era when EVERY MATCH had some sort of run-in.

[Loss]

I've showed some stuff to some casual fan friends of mine at times, and once they get over the "Haha! They're not speaking English on commentary!" factor, they seem to get pretty into it.

[Marty]

I should probably mention here that my girlfriend is a non-wrestling fan, but much rather prefers it when I'm watching Japanese matches over North American matches.

 

[Al]

Meltzer mentioned one promotion produced a majority of the top 20 in womens' wrestling history. Are there ANY American Female Wrestlers that would rank among the top 20. Medusa is the only female of note, and possibly Mildred Burke for historical perspective.

[Mad Dog]

Are we talking workers or drawing. Wendi Richter is really the only proven women's draw as far as the U.S. goes. The WWF has had some top notch women's workers over the years though. The Jumping Bomb Angels come quickly to mind.

[Tim Cooke]

Debbie Malenko is the best US worker I have seen. Cynthia Moreno and Fabi Apache are good luchadoras but are a few steps behind Malenko.

 

Tim

[Loss]

Leilani Kai was also a hell of a worker in the 80s, but I don't know if I'd put her quite that high. She often teamed with Judy Martin against the JBAs in the WWF, and she had runs in AJW as well.

[Al]

Are we talking workers or drawing.  Wendi Richter is really the only proven women's draw as far as the U.S. goes.  The WWF has had some top notch women's workers over the years though.  The Jumping Bomb Angels come quickly to mind.

I'll take either answer.

[Guest Hunter's Torn Quad]

I should probably mention here that my girlfriend is a non-wrestling fan, but much rather prefers it when I'm watching Japanese matches over North American matches.

 

You'll find that happening a lot with people who consider American wrestling a joke because of its over-the-top nature. To watch wrestling with the actual wrestling at the forefront, rather than absurd skits and angles, and with the wrestling treated as a sport and with a lot of respect, it makes Japanese wrestling more appealing to people who don't want their intelligence insulted, and, like Loss said, once they get over the non-English commentary, they're usually hooked, if only because it's treated like a sport.

[Guest Some Guy]

I agree.

 

But on occasion I find the commentary to be distracting during highspots, because it's funny.

"DIVING HEADBUTTOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH."

[Loss]

Oh man I *love* the announcing, especially in AJPW. What's-his-name gets so excited and it lends so much to the atmosphere.

[Mad Dog]

I find the New Japan announcers to be the best. The one guy just sits there and agrees with the color commentator for most of the match and then starts screaming during the high spot portions of the match. I half expect him to drop dead from a heart attack during one of these shows.