This week we have multiple title changes, news of a Big Japan US excursion and some worrying news for the future of one Japanese promotion. I will also begin a long term project by focussing on Gaijin talent who participate in the Big 4 promotions, starting with New Japan.
I would like to apologise for this column being late but health issues meant that I had to postpone writing this for a few days.
Results
All Japan: The 9/13 Korakuen Hall show saw the Gurentai stable of Minoru Suzuki, Taiyo Kea, NOSAWA Rongai, TAKEMURA & MAZADA beat an All Japan Sekigun team in a Captain’s fall, 10 man elimination tag match. The same show saw the formation of F4 (friend, fight, fan & future), a new stable combining the veteran Satoshi Kojima with 2 of All Japan’s promising young wrestlers, KAI & Hiroshi Yamato.
Big Japan: A new challenger has been lined up for the BJW Death match title after Takashi Sasaki pinned champion Shadow WX in a tag team death match. Daisuke Sekimoto and Mammoth Sasaki successfully defended the BJW Tag Titles against Jaki Numazawa and Jun Kasai.
Big Japan wrestlers will invade the US at Chikara’s Global Gauntlet shows on 8/10 and 8/11. Big Japan announced their team to Japanese Sports website Sports Navi. While the team contains four trainees (Katsumasa Inoue, Atsushi Oohashi, Shinya Ishikawa, & Yuuzi Okabayashi), it also contains 3 big name players: the Death match specialists Ryuji Ito & Jaki Numazawa and, the most wanted guy from Big Japan, German Suplex specialist Daisuke Sekimoto. Sekimoto is a very exciting power wrestler who is famous for his Dead weight German Suplexes.
K-Dojo: At the 9/14 Korakuen Hall show, which drew a gate of 709, two titles changed hands. Makoto Oishi won the Independent Jr. Heavyweight Title from Madoka and the WEW Tag Team titles were won by Boso Boy Raito and Boso Boy Left, beating YOSHIYA and Apple Miyuki.
New Japan: The current tour has seen GBH winning multiple main events, with both RISE and Sekigun having to work together to take on what has now become New Japan’s most dominant faction with the addition of Giant Bernard, Low Ki and Rick Fuller in the last few weeks. In the pre show match for ROH’s 9/14 show at Differ Ariake Yujiro and Tetsuya Naito defeated Kotaro Suzuki and Genba Hirayanagi to earn a shot at the NOAH Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team titles on NOAH’s 9/27 show in Osaka. This was partly achieved by locking Suzuki out of the building.
The 9/21 Kobe World Hall show saw Satoshi Kojima and Hiroyoshi Tenzan win a tag match against GBH duo Takashi Iizuka and Tomohiro Ishii, giving “Tenkoji†momentum for the forthcoming G1 Tag League. Keiji Mutoh made his 3rd successful defence of the IWGP Heavyweight Title, beating Togi Makabe. In better news for GBH, Low Ki defeated Tiger Mask IV, becoming the 54th IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion. This is good for Low Ki as he suffered a bad injury in his first match for New Japan this year, putting him out for about 5 months.
Pro Wrestling NOAH: Despite not running any shows this weekend there are some NOAH results due to their participation at ROH’s 9/14 Differ Ariake show. The most important was Bryan Danielson defeating Yoshinobu Kanemaru and winning the GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title. Danielson successfully defended the belt against Nakajima at ROH’s Glory By Honor VII at the old ECW Arena in Philadelphia on 9/20. Kensuke Sasaki made his ROH début at the show and, when signing autographs after the show, he was attacked by Mohammed Yone. This adds more tension to the upcoming GHC Heavyweight title match between Champion Sasaki and challenger Yone.
News
All Japan: There was a shock at the 9/13 Korakuen show as TNA bound Akira Raijin collapsed during his singles match with Kohei Suwama. The wrestler was diagnosed as having had a Subdurmal Haematoma and is looking to be on the shelf for up to 6 months. This is thought to have been linked to a history of concussions, another scary insight into how dangerous concussions are.
New Japan: New Japan announced 2 really great matches for the 10/13 Sumo Hall show. Firstly, the IWGP Jr. Tag titles will be defended by Prince Devitt and Minoru. Their opponents are KAI & Hiroshi Yamato, in the young challengers second title match in a month. Could they come out of October holding 2 Tag Team titles? The second match is a doozy: Yugi Nagata vs. Masato Tanaka. This is most likely the last match in the new Japan – Zero1 feud, with Tanaka being Zero1’s last undefeated player. It’s unlikely that he can beat someone of Nagata’s calibre but, if anyone in Zero1 can, it’s Tanaka. The show also looks to be the site of Mutoh’s next IWGP title defence The challenger will be the man he beat for the title, Shinsuke Nakamura.
Pro Wrestling NOAH: The 9/27 Osaka show looks good, with matches like Takeshi Morishima vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima (hopefully better than their last encounter) and Naomichi Marufuji & Ricky Marvin vs. KENTA & Taiji Ishimori filling out the under card for the previously mentioned Heavyweight and Jr Heavyweight Tag Title matches.
Zero1: In more bad news for Zero1, Ryouji Sai has announced that he will take a 2 month hiatus from wrestling. With Omori leaving recently Zero1, already one of the smaller rosters in Japan, is looking even more delicate. Masato Tanaka defends the Zero1 World Heavyweight Title against Kohei Sato on 9/23.
Down the Tube
This week I’ve decided to highlight some of the more random Puroresu related footage found on youtube. Firstly we have footage of New Japan wrestlers from a Beat Takeshi film, featuring Masahiro Chono as a Noodle Chef you don’t want to argue with. Since Shadow WX was pinned this week I think it’s a good opportunity to show you how he almost single handedly got the use of fire in wrestling banned from the Korakuen Hall.
Shills
Pulse Glazer looks at ROH’s Glory By Honor VII.
John Wiswell looks at Matt Sydal and how he continues to be surprised by him
Gaijin in New Japan
Puroresu has always been influenced by the western world. Names like Lou Thesz, Billy Robinson, Terry Funk and Dory Funk Jr were influential in shaping Japanese wrestling in the ring. In the dojo’s so many wrestlers were trained or influenced by the likes of The Destroyer and Karl Gotch. New Japan has traditionally had a strong Gaijin influence. The Jr ranks have featured names like Dynamite Kid, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Mark Rocco (the First Black Tiger), and Dean Malenko. Their tag team champions have included the Road Warriors, the Steiners, Scott Norton, Bam Bam Bigelow, and Vader. During the early 90’s New Japan often exchanged talent with WCW, with many New Japan wrestlers holding WCW gold. This column is going to focus on New Japan’s current crop of gaijin, a mix of US indy talent and former WWE and WCW wrestlers.
Giant Bernard: The most established Gaijin in New Japan at the moment. Known to many western fans as Albert, Bernard has been wrestling in Japan since 2005, when he joined All Japan’s Voodoo Murders stable. After joining New Japan in January 2006, Bernard has slowly established himself as a force in New Japan within 6 months by winning the New Japan cup in April. In 2007 he won the IWGP Tag Team Championship with Tyson Tomko and they held it for 11 months. They may have held the belts for longer if Tomko hadn’t looked for bookings from the Antonio Inoki promoted IGF. Since then Bernard formed another strong gaijin team, this time with former WCW jobber Rick Fuller. The Detonators, as they became known, joined RISE before turning on their team mates and joining the dominant heel stable GBH.
Bernard has greatly improved since his days in the WWE. The one time “Hip Hop Hippo†has become a dominating giant and has put on some great singles matches against the likes of Yugi Nagata and Hiroshi Tanahashi, as well as becoming the back bone of the tag team division for over a year. The most over foreigner in New Japan is unlikely to hold the IWGP Heavyweight title but he is still a very useful wrestler who would not look out of place if the WWE turned their attention back to him.
Rick Fuller: Famous for a stint in the late 90’s as a WCW jobber, the big man has spent years on the US indy scene before he started working for New Japan on 7/5, teaming with Giant Bernard. The two have become inseparable and have only lost one tag team match since then, when they failed to take the Tag Titles from Togi Makabe and Toru Yano. This is ironic since Fuller and Bernard recently turned on RISE and joined Makabe’s GBH stable. Fuller fits in well with Bernard as part of a big, US heel tag team and this could easily become the most significant run in his career.
Karl Anderson: A veteran of the West Coast indies, Anderson trained with New Japan’s US Dojo in 2005. Anderson first wrestled in New Japan in March 2008 when the NWA sent Anderson as their representative in the New Japan Cup. Anderson lost in the 1st round and spent a lot of that tour dropping fall but he managed to gain a place in New Japan and is currently on an extended tour. Anderson joined GBH in April and has done quite well, despite dropping a lot of falls due to his status. He has adapted his style in New Japan and now uses the “Gun Stun,†a renamed Stunner. Anderson is the least pushed of New Japan’s current batch of Gaijin and is used in a lot of 4, 6 and 8 man tag matches along with other members of GBH, dropping many of the falls. The PWG and NWA wrestler is looking to prove that he deserves to be in New Japan but it will be interesting to see if he is still in New Japan come 2009.
Low Ki: New Japan is the 3rd Japanese promotion that Low Ki has wrestled for, having been part of the Jr. ranks in both Zero1 and NOAH. Low Ki’s New Japan run had a dreadful start after he suffered a Knee injury in his first match on 2/2/08. Low Ki’s next match in New Japan was in September, where he joined GBH despite initially being a member of RISE. Low Ki won a series of matches throughout September, building up momentum for a Jr. Title match against Tiger Mask IV. Low Ki won that match and is now the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion.
Low Ki, only 3 weeks shy of his tenth year in wrestling, could have a great little title reign as he will really mix up the Jr. division by giving a fresh range of matches. If Low Ki manages to hold his temper and backstage attitude, something that has been very detrimental to him in the past, then this will be a very good opportunity for him to prove how good a wrestler he can be. In terms of the current regular Gaijin Low Ki is in the top 3, with only Bernard and Prince Devitt being close to him in terms of in ring talent.
Prince Devitt: Fergal Devitt is a unique prospect in that he is treated like a product of the New Japan Dojo, rather than a gaijin. He made his New Japan début in 2006 and has been a regular ever since. Devitt is being built up in the traditional Japanese fashion, namely losing a lot of falls but slowly winning matches and building up his reputation. Devitt has had a great year so far, winning the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Titles twice with his RISE team mate Minoru. Devitt’s team beat the teams of Taka Michinoku & Dick Togo and AKIRA & Jushin Thunder Liger, which shows how much trust New Japan have in this young man that many see as the in ring second coming of Chris Benoit, another Gaijin who was rained in the New Japan Dojo.
Devitt will eventually become one of the big names in New Japan’s Jr division and he is already a very exciting talent. The young Irishman has a great career ahead of him and is set to become another wrestler whose stock is so much higher in Japan then it is in his home country.
As well as these 5 wrestlers, New Japan has seen many other American wrestlers this year. Tyson Tomko was a former Tag Team Champion but he was let go after accepting bookings from the IGF. All the other US talent have come in with links to TNA. Kurt Angle has had 4 big name matches this year, defending the IWGP 3rd title against Yugi Nagata before losing it to Shinsuke Nakamura. He also had 2 big tag team matches during this years G1 Climax, teaming with the likes of Masahiro Chono and Nakamura against teams featuring AJ Styles, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Shinjiro Ohtani. Speaking of Styles, he had a great showing against Tanahashi at the 2/17 show and was part of the TNA team that won the opening 6 man tag in the New Japan Tokyo Dome show. Christian Cage and Petey Williams were also part of that tag team match and Abyss had a bad match against Manabu Nakanishi on the same show. Christopher Daniels has had a mini feud with Wataru Inoue over the Jr Heavyweight Title, meeting 3 times this year in singles matches. This has been Daniels only real opportunity to show his serious side, having been saddled with his Curry Man gimmick in TNA.
It’s not just TNA wrestlers who have had 1 time only matches in New Japan this year, as US Tag Team veterans the Dudley Boys and the Steiners both had matches at the Tokyo Dome show. The former beat Makabe and Yano while the former failed to win the IWGP Tag Team Titles that they held in the 90’s.
In summary, New Japan doesn’t have the largest group of Gaijin (NOAH have had at least 3 times as many this year) but they have a good mix of young talent and older wrestlers who are willing to improve. Giant Bernard is arguably the best big Gaijin in Japan today, having really flourished since coming to Japan in 2005 and Prince Devitt could become something special if he is careful with injuries.
Last thoughts
This hasn’t been the busiest week in Japan but it has been a successful one for American Jr. Heavyweights, with both Low Ki and Bryan Danielson winning Jr. Heavyweight Titles. Hopefully this will help freshen up both New Japan and NOAH’s Jr. Divisions and will lead to a lot of good title matches. This has inspired me to start a series of columns on Gaijin talent in Japan today, with this weeks piece focussing on New Japan. While the Japanese scene is not in a great place at the moment, putting trust in younger talent is always a good sign of companies wanting to rise above their current position.
