The Reality of Wrestling: Hiroshi Hase’s Retirement Show

The Reality of Wrestling: Hiroshi Hase’s Retirement Show
By Phil Clark & Mike Campbell

This is the time of the year when some of the Puro world’s bigger stories have come about: Takayama’s return after two years out of the ring, New Japan’s G-1 Climax tourney, Zero-One’s Fire Festival tourney, and Naomichi Marufuji getting a shot at the GHC Title. But it would be a simple Sumo Hall show that brought me back. Simple to some, this show was Hiroshi Hase’s retirement show. It took place on Sunday and marked the first Sumo Hall show for New Japan since December 2004. It also marked the first show since that day where the venue was above 8,000 people. All-Japan’s collapse since the split in 2000 was every bit as tragic as their rise to the top was terrific. However, with a new financial sponsor, young and popular stars, and outsiders who don’t mind working for them, All-Japan seems to be in stable condition. However, the wrestling world teaches people that what they see isn’t always what is going on.

M.C. Says: All-Japan did things right on Sunday

The All Japan show at Sumo Hall this past Sunday was the biggest show AJPW has held in quite some time. All Japan isn’t a stranger to that building in the least, in October 2004 there was a show at that arena (oddly enough it also contained a Kawada vs. Kea Triple Crown match) and not only did it sell out, but it had a better attendance than the NJPW “Chrono Stream” show held in the same arena four days later. But running big shows with high attendance figures aren’t something All Japan is really used to anymore.
To put a little perspective on things lets go back to before the NOAH split. The big All Japan shows were the ones held at the Nippon Budokan every few months at the end of tours, and the final nights of the two annual tournaments. Going through the archives located at http://www.ajpw.puroresufan.com I see that in 1999, every time they made their trip to the Budokan during the tour, with or without Triple Crown or Tag Title defenses, and for the finals of both tournaments, the result was a sell out of 16,300. All Japan ceased running Budokan in 2004, and when you look at the attendances thus far in 2006, it’s a case of seeing how the mighty have fallen. The big January show with the 100th Triple Crown match brought in a whopping 3,600. The final of the Champions Carnival was able to garner 4,600, and keep in mind these shows aren’t being labeled as “sellouts” and they’re being held in arenas much smaller than the Budokan. The show with Kea’s Triple Crown victory over Satoshi Kojima was labeled as a “Super No Vacancy” with a claimed attendance of 3,700.

All Japan came into some serious money earlier in the year though, through a partnership with the same corporation who created Hello Kitty. So it’s not much of a surprise that Mutoh went from running Super No Vacancy shows in arenas that only hold 3,700 to being back at Sumo Hall. Mutoh also seems to be spending the money wisely. Rather than bringing in overpriced gaijin who won’t draw (Goldberg, Team 3D, etc.) he’s keeping the focus on the native talent and using freelancers like Minoru Suzuki, Yutaka Yoshie, Toshiaki Kawada, and the Kensuke Office.

Right away Mutoh scored brownie points with me by using this as a retirement show for Hiroshi Hase. Hase was a great wrestler back in his prime of the early-mid 1990’s, and in my opinion, the fact that he never held the IWGP Title when he was in New Japan or even got a shot at the Triple Crown when he jumped to All Japan is a travesty. If there’s one thing that I think that pro wrestling needs a lot more of, it’s respect for tradition, and if there’s one wrestler who deserves to go out on a very high note, it’s Hase. He was able to do just that in the main event. Teaming with popular AJPW wrestler Satoshi Kojima, and freelance wrestler Katsuhiko Nakajima to defeat the top heel faction, the Voodoo Murders, consisting of TARU, Suwama, and “brother” YASSHI, Hase came out on top for his team finishing off YASSHI with his signature Northern Lights Suplex. Hase was said to have done all of his trademark moves, including a Giant Swing with 45 rotations.

Taiyo Kea also made his first defense of the Triple Crown against Toshiaki Kawada, in another match that scored points with me. The man best associated with carrying on Baba’s legacy, taking on the final remnant of the Baba era. For someone who appreciates the respecting of tradition, you can’t get much more traditional than that in AJPW. Honestly, I’m not expecting a great match though. Their 2004 Triple Crown match was all kinds of bad. I’m hoping a renewed push will invigorate Kea, as he’s someone I’ve always liked, but he’s shown he’s definitely not afraid to mail it in.

The other title match was for the AJPW World Junior Heavyweight Title, with Shuji Kondo of the Voodoo Murders defending against the winner of the 2006 Junior Heavyweight Tournament, and a former champion, Kaz Hayashi. This is realistically the biggest match for the title AJPW could run. Kondo vs. Milano Collection AT would actually be bigger because they’ve got their rivalry going back to their Toryumon/Dragon Gate days, but with Milano in New Japan now, it’s not going to happen. This is reported to have been the match of the night, and I’m not really surprised. Kondo is easily the best worker in the Voodoo Murders, and Hayashi is good when he’s reigned in, which hopefully Kondo can do.

Keiji Mutoh also unleashed The Great Muta for the first time since March on Sunday, taking on Tajiri. In what I’m sure isn’t going to be a wrestling classic, but will no doubt leave a lasting impression. Muta and Jyushin “Thunder” Lyger were the two wrestlers mostly responsible for getting me into watching Puroresu, but having seen Muta’s work in Japan, as opposed to in the states, I usually shrudder at the thought of watching a Great Muta match.

What does this mean for All Japan? Having seen the many ups and downs All Japan has gone through in the last few years, I don’t see the future being a stable one. Thus far it looks like Mutoh is booking carefully, using his biggest show in quite some time to house his two biggest title matches, a retirement show for one of the best, and a special appearance by Muta. But Murphy’s Law says that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and All Japan knows firsthand how often that can happen. I’m not expecting much in the way of really great matches, and with wrestling, we know how easy it is for big shows to be negated days later with bad booking and stupid angles. But on 8/27/06, All Japan got it right.

P.C. Says: It’s a start

It’ll be known as a new beginning for All-Japan; whether it’s the beginning of a new era of prominence or the beginning of the end for the former #2 of Japanese pro wrestling is still up in the air. However, I would have to agree with Mike that All-Japan got it right on Sunday. The card was relatively stacked and Hase’s retirement was a good enough selling point to get a good turn out for the show. The fact that all of All-Japan’s big names were showcased in some way also makes this an example of doing things right, which brings up a variation of my beginning question: is All Japan ready to move back to the penthouse?

In terms of big shows in Japan, outsiders are needed to add drawing power, fresh and interesting matches, and flavor to a card. Mutoh did things right by getting Minoru Suzuki (one of Japan’s most popular freelancers), Tajiri (Japan’s hottest free-agent wrestler), and Kawada (the one man left that is synonymous with Baba’s All Japan). Granted Suzuki didn’t play much of a role in his match—a six-man tag—he was the center of attention in his match considering he has a Triple Crown title shot this weekend. Tajiri was used in a dream match (always a seller these days) that is actually a dream match in my book against The Great Muta. You can bet your ass there was some heavy mist spewing in that one. Kawada came in as Taiyo Kea’s first challenger for the Triple Crown and by jobbing to Kea on such a big show, helped Kea’s reign get off on the right foot. Now this match in particular had a lot of speculation attached to it in the weeks preceding the show as many wondered if it was right to job Dangerous K out as a first defense for Kea, whether Kawada would win the belt back, whether it’d be a draw, etc. Here’s my opinion here: this show was a coming out party (of sorts) for Kea as his match was the semi-final of All Japan’s biggest show in years and since he’d never really gotten a full push in the past, it’s good that he was able to down a legend to start his title reign.

In terms of putting on the best card possible, I would’ve made one change if I were booking this bad boy: the main-event. Yes, I love Hase, yes I’m glad he went out with a bang doing his signature stuff and getting the win, but the match itself seemed off for someone’s retirement match. This is the first time that I know of that a retirement match in Japan was a six-man tag; usually retirement matches are singles matches or tag matches. I would’ve gone with a tag match. Since Mutoh’s come into money with the new found sponsor (the same people responsible for Hello Kitty!), he could’ve thrown enough money at Kensuke Sasaki to get him to do the match. The return of HASEKEN in Hase’s retirement match would’ve guaranteed that the show sell-out instead of doing the 8-9,000 that reports indicate it did. Not only that, but Kensuke could do it despite recovering from his eye injury: hot tags, lariats, other high impact moves and minimal damage done to him during the course of the match. Now if that couldn’t be done, then Nakajima could team with Hase, which would add a dimension (hype-wise) to the match considering the team I would pit against them: Mutoh and Kojima. Mutoh’s worked double on shows in Sumo Hall before as himself and his alter ego, why not this one? If it’s a tag match, it’s not like he’d be working two matches (more like one and a half). The extra dimension added would be that former partners and rivals Mutoh and Hase would face off one more time with men who could be considered their disciples. However, I can live with what All-Japan put out there because it was crowd-pleasing and allowed Hase to exit the ring with grace rather than humilation as so often happens in this business.

For All-Japan, they have real momentum for the first time in a while. Despite the fact that they were doing shows that were being praised in Japan before they got the shot to go back to Sumo Hall, this show allowed them a much larger forum than any they’ve gotten since their last Sumo Hall show. The fact that the show went over well with the crowd and may have finally established Kea as the future of the promotion shows that they may have something going. Combine that with the fact that Minoru Suzuki has shown no disinterest or regret with his time in All-Japan and you’ve got a popular outsider willing to help you out. Also, Suzuki still has unfinished feuds with Sasaki and Kojima that could be finished at shows like Sunday’s if the need would arise. The fact that the Hayashi/Kondo Jr. Title match was said to be the match of the night by most is proof that Jr. Heavyweight wrestling is truly back in Japan and isn’t just regulated to NOAH in terms of putting on MOTYC’s. All-Japan still has a good amount of Jr.’s to use and could bring in more by developing relationships with any of the many Indy feds that are out there.

Mutoh should consider Sunday’s show a huge victory. However, the war against extinction isn’t over yet. The only difference is that Mutoh now has the opportunity to pull himself out of promoter futility and bring All-Japan back to prominence. Will it happen? Only time will tell.

The Reality is…All-Japan needed this one. After the Sumo Hall was no longer an option by the end of 2004, All-Japan took over Zero-One MAX as the #1 Indy fed in Japan out of necessity to stay alive. Mutoh’s frivolous spending on gaijin wrestlers who couldn’t draw the big money or justify their contracts had come back to bite him in the ass. Satoshi Kojima was unable to get his big Triple Crown win in a tradition All-Japan setting, but rather a smaller venue with a capacity of only 6,000. The same occurred with Taiyo Kea this summer, but in a lower venue than that. Despite the fact that Kojima’s title reign is considered a success from the fans’ standpoint, the fact remains that they were playing to small crowds with no hope in sight of making it back to the big time. Enter Mutoh’s new financial backer. That may be turn out to be one of the more significant stories in Japanese wrestling for this year and the next few years if the revival can actually take place. If not, it’ll be the last gasp of the Royal Road and one of the greatest promotions in wrestling history.