Section 1- Results
All Japan: The biggest match of the current tour, Sasaki vs Kojima, had no finish due to Voodoo Murders interference. Kojima didn’t join them, but says he isn’t part of the ‘regular army’ either.
Dragon Gate: The new Shingo/Hulk/Onodera/Kong unit is called New Hazard. They won the trios titles last week, and have added Jack Evans to their ranks. Horiguchi re-retained over Dragon Kid.
New Japan: Tiger Mask lost the NWA junior title to Mike Quackenbush on Friday. Quack ripped Tiger’s mask and demanded attention from Japan. With the NWA/TNA split this belt has quite a bit more significance, and maybe Quack will finally get to ply his trade in Japan.
NOAH: Suzuki & Marvin defended the junior tag belts against Doi & Yoshino on Saturday.
Section 2- News
All Japan: The Minoru Suzuki angle continues. Suzuki is in Mexico, and won’t be on the current AJ tour. Fuchi is saying that Suzuki will be stripped of the Triple Crown but I highly doubt it. In other news, Nakajima’s second title defense will be on the 27th against Hijikata.
Dragon Gate: Kanda will challenge for Horiguchi’s belt at the Kobe World Hall show, though he must lose weight first. New Hazard will defend the trios belts next at that show, against the MO’z unit of Magnitude, Doi & Yoshino. A Kanemoto vs Mochizuki match is all but official for the show as well. There will be two 3 vs 3 vs 3 tags next month, and that setup produced some of Toryumon’s best bouts back in the day. Finally, there will be a CIMA vs Gamma match on 6/16 that would be an obstacle to Liger vs CIMA if that match wasn’t already written in the stars months ago.
New Japan: Tanahashi will have knee surgery and miss some time as a result. Yujiro, who is currently in the juniors division but likely will be a heavyweight down the line, will get a shot at the junior title next Tuesday. BB Hulk will be the sole outsider in this year’s Super Juniors tournament. The G-1 schedule has been released, and it’s consistent with recent years including the final two shows at Sumo Hall.
NOAH: D-Lo Brown & Buchanan will get a tag title shot on 6/8. I remember when they were in a tag match at the start of Wrestlemania 2000. I’m probably the only one. Ken Arai & Iwasa of Dragon Gate will make a junior tag title challenge on 6/3.
Zero-One: Ohtani got a concussion from, of all things, an Omori axe bomber.
Section 3- Reality change
Phil’s column changed names, don’t let that throw you off.
Section 4- Inoki-ism, the real undead threat
Inoki does a photo-op with Hulk and Brooke Hogan, with the potential of Hogan wrestling at the Inoki Genome debut next month. Inoki announces that Kurt Angle will be on the show. Inoki announces that Josh Barnett will be on the show. Inoki hints at getting Paul ‘Big Show’ Wight and Brock Lesnar on top. Inoki says that Angle/Lesnar/Barnett would be a gaijin version of Mutoh/Chono/Hashimoto, and would be the core of the company.
This raises questions. Like, where on earth is he getting the funds needed to pay for names that TNA can’t afford? Like, what happened to the supposed Simon Inoki takeover of Inoki Office on behalf of New Japan, which in turn gave Yukes the right to tell Antonio what he could and couldn’t do? Like, what are they smoking to think that building a promotion around expensive gaijin will be a success when the only complementary Japanese wrestlers on board are Kohei Sato and Tadao Yasuda?
Inoki Genome’s debut at Sumo Hall on June 29th is a show that seems, to me, far more interesting from the meta/political aspect than from what matches actually take place and who wins them. Consider that Angle now seems linked to Inoki rather than NJ or AJ. Consider that Hogan leans on Inoki now that he’s burned his bridge with WWE and bombed in Memphis. Consider that Lesnar will be fresh off his first shootfight (June 2nd in LA). Consider that this is Inoki’s first venture since Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye 2003. Ever hear of that one?
Take a look at the card. The death of Yasuda’s questionable MMA career? Check. Inoki’s last appearance in a ring? And a loss no less? Check. Nagata getting crushed by the deadliest fighter in history? Check. On the surface that’s plenty to digest. What happened as a result of this show makes it perhaps the most important event in the Japanese wrestling/MMA universe of the decade.
Fedor, based on his near invincibility in the ring, was by now the top MMA name. Period. And he belonged to PRIDE, which in no way consented to him appearing in another promotion. It certainly didn’t want him to be on a competing show on New Years Eve, which is traditionally the biggest night of the year for both Japanese television and Japanese MMA. The fact that Fedor’s agent ok’ed it meant jack, which is why Inoki’s promoter for the event became the target of some very undesirable individuals.
A year ago, Seiya Kamawata went to Japanese newspaper Shukan Gendai with explosive allegations that he had been threatened and intimidated by yakuza in service to PRIDE boss Sasakibara and PRIDE’s behind-the-scenes owner, Ishizaka. See Zach Arnold’s translations of the initial articles here and here to get a sense of the severity of the allegations. The story continued to unfold and Zach stayed on top of it through June when Fuji TV cancelled its deal with PRIDE as a result of the scandal. The financial result left PRIDE in dire straits, and suddenly they were backed even more against the wall when they cancelled a show in the US and got sued by their man in America.
I’m sure you heard that UFC bought PRIDE. When the deal fell through it caught some people by surprise. I wouldn’t link Zach so much if he wasn’t dead-on about the subject. The shady way in which PRIDE was operated was able to string things along for a few very profitable years in Japan, but things caught up to them. UFC has found out that PRIDE’s fighter contracts aren’t as strong as reported. Guess what? If they were so iron-clad, there never would have been a chance for Antonio Inoki to ‘borrow’ PRIDE’s top name.
Inoki’s mix of negligence, quirkiness and arrogance cost New Japan dearly. His decision to get Fedor for one fight (against the current IWGP champ) touched off a chain of events that have PRIDE all but buried. Now he’s getting back into the wrestling business, and apparently he has money to burn.
Heaven help us.
