Section 1- Results
Dragon Gate: The new Typhoon mega-stable fell flat in their attempt to gain both the trios and WAR junior tag belts on Tuesday. Jack Evans is the latest to join Muscle Outlaw’z.
New Japan: Notable New Japan Cup results so far include Chono over Choshu, Nakanishi over Koshinaka, Nagata over Chono, Bernard over Nakanishi, and Nakamura getting injured and forfeiting his place in the tournament. Semi-final action will be Tenzan vs Makabe and Nagata vs Bernard (a rematch of their great encounter last year, at the same building no less). Bernard & Tomko took the tag titles from Nakanishi & Omori, while Tiger Mask and Minoru Tanaka retained their junior titles against their respective Mexican opponents.
Section 2- News
AJ/NJ/Inoki/TNA: Simon Inoki resigned as New Japan president. A new Antonio Inoki promotion was announced at about the same time. Simon, who was the primary go-between for New Japan and TNA (especially regarding Angle), broke that relationship up. TNA has quickly switched over to a relationship with All Japan. More on this mess in section 4.
NOAH: Mushiking Terry (Kotaro Suzuki) gets a junior title shot at the upcoming Budokan show. Misawa is likely to wrestle at an ROH show in New York later this year.
Section 3- Pimps, Fresh and Stale
Phil Clark beats me to the punch. Again. I wrote ‘section 4′ just before he put his column up. I should learn to be more patient.
Botter. So what if he posted this a week ago.
Section 4- Forget what I said about Angle/NJ being a stable relationship
Last year, in what seemed like a worked-shoot, Simon Inoki raided and took over the Inoki Office/HQ, ending and absorbing it into Yukes. The effect of this was that Yukes controlled Inoki’s name and likeness. Last Thursday, a new Inoki-based promotion was announced. A day later, Simon left. The same day, Mutoh stated that he would be at the TNA PPV. On Sunday, Mutoh was on-camera, cementing the All Japan/TNA union. By Tuesday, it seemed clear that any future Angle-in-Japan matches would take place in Zen Nihon Prowres.
It’s hard to overstate what an odd but important chain of events that is. When Simon left and the Inoki promotion was announced, I figured neither would mean anything (and I planned on not doing a column this week). Simon had been marginalized ever since the Lesnar situation went down last June, and everything Antonio Inoki has touched since retirement has turned to dust shortly thereafter. But the TNA relationship, that I didn’t factor into the equation. Simon was instrumental in getting Kurt Angle into New Japan, and just like that all the hype New Japan devoted to the Olympian is up in smoke. Thankfully they only put him over Tomko instead of giving him the belt.
All Japan can’t give TNA a heck of a lot. They only have a handful of wrestlers who would fit the X-Division mold, and most of those are outsiders (Taka, Kondo, Nakajima). TNA already has more heavyweights/names to feature than they have time for, so there wouldn’t be any use in bringing in Kojima or Mutoh long-term. Now, what can TNA offer All Japan? Kurt Angle by himself is plenty. Angle vs Minoru Suzuki would get lots of press coverage, and stealing Angle from New Japan would be All Japan’s biggest coup since the Mutoh/Kojima jump five years ago.
The Inoki promotion is confusing to say the least, because it would seem to require Yukes’ permission. Perhaps Yukes has given Antonio Inoki his name back in exchange for removing the rest of his ties with New Japan (there are rumors that Simon will take office workers with him). Perhaps there’s more to the situation than meets the eye.
One thing that real competition for the top promotion in a country does is create juicy news. The end of WCW and ECW in 2001 really put a damper on the US wrestling news scene, as ‘Melina isn’t liked backstage!’ or ‘Test tests positive for steroids (in other news sky is blue)’ has replaced the likes of ‘WWF champ Bret Hart to WCW’ and ‘WCW champ Benoit WWF’. Thank goodness Japan still brings plenty of drama.
