Section 1- Important results
All Japan: Their Wednesday show at Korakuen featured three title matches. In the undercard, Kojima debuted a new submission finisher based on the shoot move known as the shoulder hold (it’s a type of choke). Taka retained the junior title over Gran Hamada. Rico of WWE semi-fame made his debut, teaming with Bull Buchanan to take the All Asia belts from Nagai and Naruse. In the main event, Kea and Jamal retained the tag titles over Mutoh and Suwama.
New Japan: Two notable events from their show on Sunday. First, Minoru Suzuki left his alliance with Kensuke Sasaki to join Chono’s heel stable (replacing the departed Shibata). Second, Tanahashi and Nakamura retained the tag titles over Tenzan and Nagata.
Section 2- Other news & Upcoming matches
NOAH: Kobashi and Honda are lining up to face the new tag champs; they held the belts in mid-2003. Akiyama is pushing for a tag match with himself and a partner TBA against Tenryu and Minoru Suzuki. The Tenryu/Suzuki pairing might not work after Suzuki’s shift to Chono, so we’ll see where that goes.
New Japan: Tatsumi Fujinami’s return to the ring draws nearer, and it appears he’ll be aligned with Nishimura and related wrestlers of Fujinami’s ‘Muga’ style. Yasuda is fully gone from NJ, but Ultimo Dragon might be on the way back under a new gimmick; Ultimo and WWE seem to have parted ways.
They added a series of singles matches (format uncertain) to the 2/20 Sumo Hall show between New Japan and Chono’s Black Hole faction, 4 on 4. On 1/26 there was a 5 on 5 singles *elimination* match that went 65 minutes, split into 7 matches. Elimination or no this is likely to take up the bulk of the show. New Japan’s squad is Nagata, Nakamura, Tanahashi and Sasaki (who seems to be joining the main New Japan stable). Black Hole will be represented by Chono, Suzuki, Nakanishi and Harry Smith. Harry is the son of ‘British Bulldog’ Davey Boy Smith and is making a big impact.
Section 3- The trickiness of recommending All Japan
My love of Japanese wrestling started with All Japan. My favorite matches- the ones with the depth necessary to stand the test of time- almost entirely come from the realm of Giant Baba, Jumbo Tsuruta and Mitsuharu Misawa. I could rattle off a hundred matches worth seeing, from technical chess matches to wrestling epics to colossal slugfests, with little effort. Many of them are viewed by a variety of wrestling experts as the best professional wrestling ever seen. But I can’t just give a slapdash top 10 list and some links to tape sites and say “dive in!”, because that isn’t how those matches came to be so great.
As I’ve mentioned on several columns now, a vital element to the quality of promotions like All Japan is continuity. Wrestlers progress, feuds develop, styles change, and big matches thus draw from a history both recent and decades old. Sadly, for too many current wrestling fans history ‘starts’ around 1984, when Hogan began his WWF run and Flair was tearing down the house in countless NWA territories. The 1989 series between Flair and Steamboat is often referenced as old school wrestling at its best. Yet twenty years prior to it, All Japan had wrestling that was absolutely comparable to it. By the mid ’70s their top-tier bouts were in many ways ahead of what Flair and Steamboat were doing, to say nothing of a debate over quality.
The best Japanese wrestler in All Japan at its start was Giant Baba. This might come as a shock if you’ve seen him in comedy matches from the ’90s, when he was horribly broken down, but earlier in his career he was absolutely brilliant at putting together a great wrestling match. Thanks to equally great workers like The Destroyer, matches from 1969 can still hold up when watched today for nearly perfect fundamentals (even if the movesets are archaic). Through the ’70s things picked up, as regulars like the Funks, the Briscos, Mil Mascaras, Billy Robinson and others joined the mix. The ’70s also brought with it Japanese amateur sensation Jumbo Tsuruta, who just a few years after his debut was good enough to credibly challenge for the NWA title.
As the ’80s progressed, Jumbo took over Baba’s role on top of the company… though he did it without any clear ‘passing the torch’ match. All Japan’s style, featuring a lot of technical wrestling along with bloody near-riots from Abdullah the Butcher, made a big change when Riki Choshu jumped from New Japan. Choshu’s style was much more of a high-energy sprint that was similar to a brawl, though with enough new wrinkles to be revolutionary. Choshu, seconded by Yatsu and others, fought hardest with Jumbo and his parter Tenryu. The whole setup of rival stables of Japanese wrestlers as a core to the product is what paved the way for even better feuds when better wrestlers than Choshu came into their own.
Choshu left, and quickly Jumbo’s top Japanese rival shifted to Tenryu. Jumbo versus Tenryu in the late ’80s, mostly in Triple Crown matches, was instrumental to establishing the Triple Crown and to evolving the style brought by Choshu. Tenryu’s departure in 1990 opened the door for four young wrestlers whose names are synonymous with All Japan: Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi and Taue. From summer of 1990 through the end of 1992, Jumbo and Misawa feuded with stellar results. As good as the young generation was, and though he was in declining health, it was Jumbo who made it great. Sadly it came to an end in late 1992 when Jumbo just couldn’t go on, and when he returned in 1993 it was for low-key midcard tags. The rest of the decade went on to be dominated by Misawa vs Kawada.
To fully ‘get’ Misawa vs Kawada, it’s important to see the rivalry’s seeds from when Kawada was Misawa’s lower-ranked partner in wars with Jumbo. To fully get that you need to see the origins of the style in Jumbo vs Tenryu and Jumbo vs Choshu. To see why Jumbo vs Choshu was so important, not to mention Jumbo’s origins and some of the best technical wrestling ever, you need to see some late ’60s and ’70s All Japan.
That’s not to say that Misawa vs Kawada isn’t good on its own, but starting with the high-impact recent stuff and then jumping to the past can lead to appreciating both to a lesser degree than they deserve. As I expand my old school tape library I’ll pass along some recommendations, not necessarily in exact chronological order but hopefully enough so that those of you so inclined can get an All Japan ‘education’ before moving on to the advanced work of the ’90s.
To wrap up, I want to emphasize one point: Jumbo Tsuruta is probably the most underestimated wrestler of all time. He wrestled high-end matches in various styles, with dozens of opponents, over decades. He adapted perfectly with the times and often was on the cutting edge. From charisma and selling to athletic ability and execution to psychology and storytelling, Jumbo was the complete package. His legacy needs more mainstream internet exposure, and I hope to contribute to that. All it takes to appreciate his greatness is watching him in action.
