Section 1- Results
All Japan: Notable results from the last round-robin days of the Champions Carnival include Kiyoshi over Suwama, Suzuki over Kojima, and Kono over Kojima. The semis were Suzuki over Suwama and Funaki over Kono, leading to Suzuki beating Funaki in the finals. Hayashi retained. Suzuki disbanded his stable after winning the final.
Dragon Gate: Notable results from King of Gate included Yoshino over Mochizuki, Dragon Kid over Yoshino, Shingo over Hulk, and Shingo over Kid in the final. Mochizuki’s squad retained the trios titles on the 11th. Tigers Mask of Osaka Pro won the lightweight title from Shisa.
NOAH: Notable results from the tournament include Saito over Marufuji & Morishima, Sasaki over Akiyama, Sugiura going to a draw with Sasaki & Rikio, Kawada over Marufuji, and Yone over Marufuji to put Marufuji out of contention. But as a consolation, Marufuji beat Shiozaki in Shiozaki’s return match. Sano is also out of the running after three losses. Bison Smith & Keith Walker won the tag titles on the 14th.
Zero-One: Sato beat Kawada for the title.
Section 2- News
All Japan: Kojima will be out at least three months after he has elbow surgery in June. His contract will expire and he will re-sign with the company once he’s able to return. This is similar to what New Japan did with Tenzan.
Hama defends against Suzuki at Aichi Prefectural Gym on May 2nd. Also on that show is Hayashi defending against NOSAWA. They have a packed show set for Korakuen on the 29th, with the finals of a junior tag tournament, Kojima vs Kea, Funaki & Suzuki vs Suwama & Kono, and Akebono & Hama defending the All Asia tag straps against TARU & Viscera.
Dragon Gate: Shingo & Cyber Kong defend against Hulk & Yoshino on Sunday. Also on that card, Kamizake and Warriors will meet in a trios title contendership bout. Three title matches are set for the next big show, May 5th at Aichi Prefectural Gym. Yamato defends against Shingo, Team Mochizuki defends against Deep Drunkards, and Tigers Mask will defend against Dragon Kid. The semi-main will be a World-1 vs Warriors 8-man elimination match, which will introduce a new Warriors member. Mochizuki will face the winner of Yamato/Shingo on the 13th at Korakuen.
New Japan: They will do a 6-man tournament in June. The junior tag tournament will have the junior tag titles up for grabs, as Devitt & Taguchi have vacated the belts.
NOAH: Kanemaru defends against Delirious on Sunday.
Section 2a- Meltzer News
All Japan: Mutoh will be out until next year at the earliest. With Mutoh out indefinitely, the decision was made to have Minoru Suzuki as the company’s top star. Kojima wasn’t seen as a good leader, and Funaki lacks Suzuki’s charisma. It looks like Hama will be a transition champion.
Other: Dick Togo will retire next year.
Section 3- Shill-Kiba Tanteidan
A column about DGUSA. Note: the views expressed in the shill do not necessarily reflect those of the shiller, or this broadcast station, or the United States of America. Reprinting without express written permission of Major League Baseball is prohibited.
Man, what kind of fan would focus primarily on business numbers? I wouldn’t know what that’s like. *cough*
Section 4- Media Corner
2010
Why yes, it is almost the end of April before I’m posting anything, why do you ask?
Hidaka & Sawa vs Usuda & Yoshikawa, Battlarts February 7th.
Battlarts shows take longer than normal to circulate because they don’t air on TV. This match is Yoshikawa’s retirement, as he joins the ranks of young wrestlers who are dropping out due to the lack of money in the industry. His career highlight was a tag from 2008 with Ishikawa in Usuda’s place, and it’s one that got raves from the vast majority of people who saw it. This match is vaguely similar in that the focus is on Yoshikawa’s fighting spirit, and in that there’s ten pounds of stiffness in a five pound bag. Huge file, which normally I’d shrink down but in this case I can’t… hey at least we get really great video quality out of it!
Tanaka & Mochizuki vs Hidaka & Sawa, Zero-One March 2nd.
Good energy and pace considering the length, plenty of hard-hitting, and shock-of-shocks a hot crowd at Korakuen Hall.
Sasaki vs Akiyama, NOAH April 10th.
Markedly better than last year’s GHC title change, with some great selling by Akiyama and a big-match feel despite taking place at the modest confines of Korakuen.
I Love The ‘90s: Prelude to Misawa
This installment covers All Japan during the last few months of Tenryu’s stay. Tenryu’s departure is what led to Misawa unmasking and becoming a sensation; in a way it was a good thing because All Japan had somewhat stagnated in early 1990 and needed something fresh after almost three years of Jumbo vs Tenryu being the focus of the promotion.
British Bulldogs & Kobashi vs Can-Am Express & Fuchi, All Japan November 19th 1989.
Six quality workers in one ring. I wasn’t sure how well they’d mesh, especially a heavyweight-minded Bulldogs with an over-the-hill Dynamite Kid, but this is everything you’d expect and maybe a little more.
Tenryu & Hansen vs Baba & Rusher Kimura, All Japan Tag League 1989.
That this match is any good is no small feat. By 1989 a team of Giant Baba and Rusher Kimura was one of the least athletic tandems imaginable, and more often than not they were unwatchable. Tenryu and Hansen are able to make it work because they use low-end offense to the best possible effect, and Tenryu starts things off with a bang. Blood helps as well. Historic finish to top it off.
Tenryu vs Isao Takagi, All Japan January 28th 1990.
Takagi, who would go on to better things under the name Arashi (before an arrest for pot possession ruined his career), gets the crud beat out of him by Tenryu. Not many people do a more entertaining squash than Tenryu.
Jumbo vs Tenryu, Triple Crown, All Japan April 19th 1990.
This has the effect of writing Tenryu out of the story, as it were. Not nearly the epic they had in June ‘89, but it’s still a satisfying conclusion to the rivalry. That Jumbo was finally able to get two clean wins in a row over Tenryu, thus winning the feud, is vital to understanding the start of the Jumbo vs Misawa feud. With Tenryu gone, Jumbo was on another level from any other Japanese wrestler in the company.
Section 5- Current Events Corner
How much longer can I possibly sustain this streak of actually discussing what’s going on in Japan?!
All of the big 5 (AJ/NJ/NOAH/DG/BJPW) have big shows in the first 5 days of May, due to Golden Week.
All Japan: I have to say that I’m disappointed and confused by the choice of having Suzuki win the Champions Carnival. I can somewhat understand the thinking that he should be the star of the company, but he doesn’t need the win and he just lost the (seeming) blowoff match of his feud with Funaki. Their cage match was lackluster, so maybe that killed any potential Funaki push. But in that case why not have him put over a younger star like Suwama or Kono in his first singles loss with the company? Why the urgency to put the belt on Suzuki when he can be given a push at will and win the Triple Crown at a bigger show, like the summer Sumo Hall event? Having Suwama win the tournament, beat Hama and then defend the title once or twice before dropping the belts to Suzuki would help build Suwama’s resume and offer more time between Suzuki’s cage match loss and his re-push. But what’s done is done, and now we can expect a long reign from Suzuki once the tubby boy wonder is disposed of. Side-note: All Japan is doing a junior tag tournament on this tour, and it would make some sense to do an elimination-style tournament on the next tour for the heavyweight tag titles (since Mutoh won’t be back this year). Either that, or merge the main tag titles with the All Asia belts, since there isn’t quite the uppercard/undercard segregation that there was in Baba’s day.
Big Japan: Their bi-annual Yokohama Bunka Gym show is coming up, and the choice for the main event is rather confusing. The company got positive press when Ito vs Kasai from November won a Japanese MOTY award, so logically the winner (Kasai) would get the next big title shot. Instead they used Isami Kodaka as a filler challenger to kill time until the Yokohama show, and gave Ito the shot. Perhaps the thought is that they’ll build to an Ito vs Kasai rematch for the next Yokohama show (usually in December), but if that’s the case why not have Kasai win the title from Miyamoto, with Ito having an easy ‘revenge’ storyline? Maybe Kasai is injured and not up to a high-impact deathmatch, in which case the company made the right call, but then why book him in numerous tag team light tube deathmatches this year? The company only drew 1200 at Korakuen for Miyamoto vs Kodaka, by far the worst they’ve done with the deathmatch title on the line, so they really need to be smart about their booking even if they are still profitable thanks to the cheap roster.
Dragon Gate: The King of Gate tournament was booked perfectly in terms of creating challengers for Yamato. He lost to Mochizuki, who lost to Yoshino, who lost to Dragon Kid, who lost to Shingo. Mochizuki and Shingo are already lined up, and either Yoshino or Dragon Kid could feasibly be used at a smaller venue in June. With the use of Yamato vs Shingo next month, I’m going to predict that the Kobe World Hall main event will either be Yamato vs Hulk or Yamato against an outsider. I continue to be down on the matches but high on the booking. One dark horse scenario would be for Billy Ken Kid, Osaka Pro’s champ, to beat CIMA at an interpromotional show in June and then challenge Yamato in Kobe. Kobe is near Osaka so the match might draw reasonably well. The main drawback would be that Osaka might not want to have its champ lose to DG’s champ.
NOAH: The way they’ve booked the tournament makes it clear that the Sano push is over, which is welcome news. Sugiura being protected by going to draws rather than dropping falls is also a good sign, since he can’t afford to look weak given his lack of size. Akiyama seems to be the obvious winner of the tournament, with him beating Sugiura on the last day in order to reach the finals. They haven’t released their schedule far enough to be able to tell when the next big show is, but I have to guess that the title match will be in July. What they do at that point is anyone’s guess, since Sugiura has only had one title defense and Akiyama has missed two big matches due to injury, but my gut says Akiyama will win to set up a big Akiyama vs Kawada title match in the fall or winter. The question in that match would be whether NOAH wants Kawada to ‘pass the torch’ to Akiyama, or wait and have him do so with someone like Shiozaki. Putting aside the issue about whether Kawada even has a torch to pass of course.
I don’t talk about tag titles much, but I would be in remiss if I didn’t note the way Rikio & Yone were dethroned. Passing the belts to Smith & Walker, who lost far more big matches than they won and who placed last in their block in the tag league, seems like a clear signal that Rikio & Yone are (deservedly) on the crap list. Smith & Walker don’t get superstar reactions but they don’t get booed either, and that’s an improvement.
Next Time: Big shows all around, and I’ll have the fallout! The streak continues!
