Section 1- Results
Dragon Gate: Ryo Saito ended Magnitude Kishiwada’s title reign last Friday. Also on the show Yoshino vs Doi went to a draw in the lightweight title tournament, and the original M2K stable is being re-formed for a tag on 3/17 against Blood Generation. This involves the in-ring return of Kanda, ref/commissioner for Dragon Gate who retired from wrestling due to injury. Also returning from ‘injury’ for this will be Darkness Dragon/K-Ness and Chocoflake K-Ichi, who was taken out years ago when CIMA debuted his Schwein finisher.
Zero-One: It’s worth noting that Ikuto Hidaka and Minoru Fujita have lost their relevant titles heading into their NOAH appearance on Sunday. Yoshie, Steve Corino and Nagai have formed a ‘Pink Force’ stable there as well, with Yoshie & Corino winning the tag titles from Hidaka & Fujita.
Section 2- News
Dragon Gate: Magnitude is out indefinitely due to his bad shoulder. It’s amazing he did two twenty minute plus title defenses like that. Tenryu is coming in on 3/25 and 3/26, first for another singles match against Mangum Tokyo, then for a tag with Don Fujii against Magnum & Mochizuki. The Tenryu/Fujii pairing could be really fun.
New Japan: Cards for the upcoming tour are out, with the big matches mostly determined. Nakamura is gone for the tour and perhaps others, having gone overseas for training and muscle mass gain (something he struggles with). The 3/19 Sumo Hall main event is probably going to be Lesnar vs Akebono, while Tanahashi gets a rematch against Shibata. Naofumi Yamamoto’s push continues as he tags with Nagata in a title match against Chono & Tenzan. Kanemoto & Inoue return with a bang, getting a junior tag title shot against Samurai & Taguchi. On 3/11 in Aichi, Tiger Mask makes his first title defense against Minoru Tanaka. That card is headlined by a 6-man tag featuring Choshu, Akebono, Chono and Tenzan, a risky proposition for such a large venue.
Section 3- Shillage
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Section 4- Kojima’s reign turns 1; All Japan still withering
A year ago, when Kojima had both the Triple Crown and IWGP belts, I thought he wouldn’t be able to sell out any venue larger than Sumo Hall. As it turned out I was half right; he hasn’t been on top of a sold out show of larger than 10,000 since the unification match with Tenzan. The title win vs Kawada sold out mid-range Yoyogi Gym #2. The first defense against Nakamura wasn’t the hit it needed to be. The Tenzan rematch did very poorly at the Dome. The Mutoh defense didn’t even fill Yoyogi, though the Sasaki defense essentially did. Kojima vs Jamal, Albert and TARU were never going to do well but also show that Kojima isn’t in the same league as Kawada for drawing against inferior opponents.
I can only fault Mutoh so much in booking Kojima’s title reign. Considering that Kawada and Akebono have left, the Kawada reign used up most of the “so-and-so’s inevitable title shot” matches, and New Japan never sent any talent to challenge for the Triple Crown during the crossover, there wasn’t a whole lot to work with. Kojima was booked as strong but beatable rather than an unrealistic Kobashi-esque superman. Kojima’s work hasn’t been stellar, and it’s apparent that he won’t become a superstar, but he hasn’t dropped the ball as badly as Rikio did.
Still excuses are just excuses, and the reality of the situation is bad. For all of New Japan’s woes, All Japan is still well behind them and getting worse. Beyond the issues of recently losing outside talent (Akebono, Jamal, Albert, Dudleys), they’ve also lost native talent (Kawada, Ishikari, Miyamoto) and office workers. They’ve shrunk to the point where Kojima vs Muta is being run at Ota Ward Gym, a rarely used venue of just 5,000 seats. Going back they haven’t sold 10,000 tickets since the shows in ’04 with Misawa coming in for dream matches (and those numbers might be inflated). New Japan has been forced to concede the Tokyo Dome, but All Japan has had to concede Budokan Hall and Sumo Hall for venues half the size.
The Triple Crown scene, All Japan’s lifeblood, is abysmal. Mutoh is the sole contracted alternative to Kojima and he’s fairly played out at this point. Sasaki is an outside possibility for a few months but other than the Kobashi match he hasn’t been a huge draw during his recent run of entertaining matches. Even if he was, even if Mutoh was, they have nothing to work with. There’s simply no combination of All Japan wrestlers that generates buzz due to the very short upper-card. Taiyo Kea and Kohei Suwama can wrestle a ‘big’ match but neither has allure enough to get attention beyond the current small All Japan fan base. Yoshie and Matt Morgan have been brought in and neither of them is going to revitalize the promotion.
What then? Arashi? Araya? Honma? They’ve been treated like also-rans for too long. That’s the problem Zero-One had, because big wins went to Hashimoto and Naoya Ogawa without serious elevation of Otani, Masato Tanaka or younger stars like Sato and Yokoi. Zero-One elevated wrestlers among the rest of the roster, but by protecting Hash and Ogawa so thoroughly it cemented the fans’ opinion that Zero-One was a two-man show. Zero-One hasn’t drawn even 4,000 to a show without Hashimoto. I’m pretty sure that number might be as low as 3,000.
A potential solution would be to have fewer title matches, say 5 per year instead of the recent average of 7. Eliminate the two most pointless defenses and use the extra time to add build to the matches, stretch out the most valuable bouts and groom midcarders into more credible threats. All Japan at this point can’t expect to do much better than it currently is without building its own names. I’d say the last main eventer All Japan developed is Akiyama and that was ten years ago; Kojima was well on his way by the time he jumped from New Japan. There’s enough talent in wrestlers like Kea, Honma and Yoshie for them to contribute a lot with the right booking. If they got the sort of attention Kojima has had for the last year and a half they could go a long way toward putting All Japan back in the hunt with New Japan and NOAH.
If they can’t? Mutoh’s knees aren’t getting younger. Kojima can’t hold the belt forever. Sasaki isn’t under contract and at his age he’s overdue for a major injury. Rookies like Suwama need a lot more seasoning. If they shrink much further it will be harder to attract new outside talent and keep what they have. It’s not about going out of business so much as remaining a major promotion. And if I may be sentimental for a moment, it’s also about maintaining some dignity for the memory of Shohei ‘Giant’ Baba, whose handiwork deserves better than this.
I don’t want to write these negative columns one after another, but what’s currently going on in the Japanese wrestling industry is scary. For all the ups and downs in the US, it’s never had such an extended slump in ticket sales, TV support and general fan interest. To an extent there’s only so much the industry can do. If new wrestlers really aren’t on par with older ones, that makes a big difference. If the fans grow tired of even ‘good’ wrestling, there’s little promoters can do. At the same time the numerous mistakes that have been made by the bookers over the years have exacerbated the situation. Rather than put energy into building new stars we’ve seen far too much booking that revolves around milking the ’90s, lacks coherence, or simply accomplishes nothing.
For the sake of the business I hope those trends come to an end before things get any more dire than they already are.
