Opening shill: The latest Art of Wrestling features 411 Mania puro reviewer Mike Campbell, an acquaintance of mine: http://wrestling.insidepulse.com/articles/45781
Section 1- Results
All Japan: 1/8 not only had Akebono’s departure from the promotion but also three title matches. Each was a successful title defense, with Kojima, Sasaki & Nakajima and Kondo all remaining on top. After the main event Kohei Suwama turned heel and joined Voodoo Murders, somewhat replacing Albert. Whether Suwama gets a title shot here without any big wins to date is a mystery.
Dragon Gate: Blood Generation mustered up another defense of the trios titles on 1/8, with Yoshino getting the pin to set up a challenge of Dragon Kid’s title.
Kings Road: This little start-up only half-filled Korakuen for its debut so I’m going to ignore it unless some sort of super-duper main event happens.
Section 2- News
BIG MOUTH: There’s internal strife regarding Maeda and the use of Masa Funaki. This could have an effect on the New Japan/Riki Pro/BML triumvirate because Maeda and Funaki are both viewed as long-term dream match fodder for a potential New Japan dome show.
New Japan: A hard-to-understand story has leaked regarding Simon Inoki storming Inoki Office and taking it over for New Japan. There are plenty of different ways this could have gone down, from New Japan taking Inoki Office assets in return for assuming debts, to a New Japan/Inoki Office silent partnership, to… um… some sort of corporate banditry. Will Inoki Office talent like Kaz Fujita wind up in New Japan? Is this yet another non-story blown up by the rabid Japanese wrestling media? Only time will tell. In other news Tanahashi is getting a lot of positive press for his work in TNA, and the US fans’ reception of him.
NOAH: Added to this Sunday’s Budokan card are a 6-man with teams headed by Misawa and Sasaki, KENTA vs Marufuji for the junior title, and a semi-dream tag of Kobashi & Izumida vs Akebono & Rikio. Much like I wanted Akebono vs Yoshie on the New Japan card, here I really want Akebono vs IZU. Taue stated interest in a title match with Akebono, and that could be the best or worst thing in the year if it happens. It should be noted that the lack of Sapp vs Kobashi doesn’t mean it won’t happen, because Akebono and Sapp are both booked by K-1. The aborted WRESTLE-1 was as well, and they used NOAH wrestlers, so clearly NOAH and K-1 are willing to do business.
60 year old Haruka Eigen announced his retirement after many years in show-opening comedy matches. Go Shiozaki got a busted jaw in a singles match with KENTA. Finally, according to the Wrestling Observer, NOAH’s dome show was the biggest wrestling draw in the entire world by over 2.3 to 1. It out-drew all three New Japan dome shows combined.
Section 3- New Japan in Crisis part 4972 of 309216
What HASN’T happened in the last five years in this company?
Choshu comes and goes, Hashimoto splits off with Zero-One, Mutoh and Kojima leave, the freelancer stable comes and goes, Inoki-ism booking screws with the plans, different presidents, crossovers with practically every promotion in Japan, the purchase by Yukes, falling to the number two promotion for the first time in ages (ever?), numerous storyline resets, numerous concepts attempted and dropped, a Triple Crown vs IWGP match, dome shows with Sumo Hall level ticket sales, Brock Lesnar and his legal headache, the decline of the Nagata/Tenzan generation, Simon replaces Antonio as the Inoki in charge, drama surrounding the ‘New Three Musketeers’ (Tanahashi stabbed, Nakamura’s pushes and shootfights, Shibata goes freelance)… it’s almost overwhelming. It’s to the point where the events of the last two weeks aren’t even big headlines on the western wrestling internet.
First some back-story. Company loyalty is much more important in Japan, so despite the fact that wrestlers typically sign mere one year contracts it’s rare to see jumps between promotions (considering how it was in the multi-promotion US a few years ago). In New Japan, wrestlers have annual negotiations starting in January. New Japan makes an offer, and sometimes there’s a little chatter and minor revisions before a given wrestler signs. It’s rare to have more than a small handful of contracted wrestlers leave over an entire year, let alone during the negotiations. This was even the case in 2004 when Kusama cut salaries quite a lot in order to bring costs down from where they were in the profitable ’90s.
This year is a different story. While some re-signed without any fuss, others have fussed and several have left the company outright. Kanemoto and Tiger Mask were griping weeks ago but ultimately signed. Tenzan was humbled by his hefty cut, taking him to about half the pay he had three years ago. El Samurai, Wataru Inoue, Tatsutoshi Goto, Katsushi Takemura, Junji Hirata and others have so far refused to sign. New Japan is pushing Naruse and Kakihara away, and Kakihara might be pressured into retirement due to injury. Akiya Anzawa, one of the most promising young lions, has left wrestling. Yoshie, Blue Wolf and Nagao have walked away entirely. Still others signed only after multiple rounds of negotiation. Hardly any were enthusiastic by the end result of their particular negotiation. Even some non-wrestlers have taken a blow.
What you have here is a puroresu version of what’s happening with General Motors and other old firms: they can’t afford to pay what they used to and the employees are unable to make the same amount of money elsewhere. GM et al are bound by union deals, New Japan is bound by the limited number of professional-grade Japanese wrestlers, so there’s only so much they can do to cut the payroll. At the same time the workers have a very limited amount of leverage to command their above-market salaries.
Put bluntly, New Japan can’t get rid of all its undercarders and can’t afford to lose its uppercarders. Most New Japan wrestlers would be a tough fit for other promotions, or at the very least would be much less valuable. So you wind up with New Japan doing much better at retaining the top names, signaling that that’s where the contract money is still decent, and razing the contracts of young lions and expendable stalwarts with nowhere else to go. It’s rough but it’s also good business, though the company is hurting a bit from the bad press of sass-talkin’ rasslers.
The end result will be that they’ll have enough regulars and part-timers to fill out tour cards, they can always tap Choshu’s indy connections to plug gaps in case of an emergency, they won’t be paying much for wrestlers not being used, and talent cost will be reduced to the point of potential profitability for the first time in years. The product might be hurt by a mix of talent losses and a sense of diminishing fortunes, but that will be tempered by consistent/untampered booking. These are exactly the sorts of changes necessary to ensure New Japan’s long-term viability, and even if they lose every single holdout they’ll still be well ahead of All Japan, Dragon Gate and Zero-One in importance and stability. NOAH has now moved into the number one position by a goodly amount but as I’ve covered before their main event scene could deteriorate in a hurry.
I said 2006 would be interesting, but I never expected it to get this interesting this quickly.
UPDATE 1/20: Some of the wrestlers I believed had signed, such as Tenzan and Kanemoto, actually haven’t yet. Very confusing.
