Section 1- Results
All Japan: They had two shows in Taiwan, with each show featuring a title match. Sanada & Soya defended the All Asia titles against Kono & Minoru, while Hayashi downed Phil Atlas to put his defense tally up to a staggering 17.
Dragon Gate: The Yoshino-led face stable beat the unnamed heel stable in an elimination match, with Yoshino beating three people on his own at the end.
New Japan: Nagata & Inoue beat Naito & Takahashi in the tag tournament final. Jado & Gedo won the junior tag tournament. Ibushi & Omega retained the junior tag titles against Devitt & Taguchi.
Section 2- News
Dragon Gate: Anthony W. Mori will retire on the 2nd. The retirement match will be a 7-on-7 tag. The trios match on the 23rd is now a 3-way, with the heel stable defending against both Kamikaze and the team of Mochizuki, Fujii & Arai. Gamma’s partner in the tag title match is Doi, which could signal a heel turn for Gamma (not that he’s much of a babyface).
New Japan: Makabe suffered a neck injury when he took a brainbuster through a table from Masato Tanaka. It doesn’t seem too serious at the moment; he will miss the next tour but he was well enough to take part in an angle the next night. Set for the 11th are Tanahashi vs Goto, Bernard & Anderson defending against Nagata & Inoue, Devitt defending against Richards, and Kojima defending against Nakamura. Set for the 12th is Kojima vs Goto in a non-title match. I have a strong sense this will set up Tanahashi or Goto to challenge at the Tokyo Dome show.
NOAH: Joe Higuchi died of lung cancer at age 81. Set for Nippon Budokan on the 5th are Marufuji’s return (versus KENTA), Takayama & Sano defending against Hero & Castagnoli, and Kanemaru defending against Kotaro Suzuki. Morishima returns on the 23rd. Also of possible interest: Sasaki vs Hero on the 26th.
Section 2a- Meltzer News
IGF: They’ve booked Sasaki & Nakajima vs Lashley & Shane Helms for their big December 3rd show. Talks are ongoing with Batista.
Section 3- You Wear Your Shill Like It’s Some Kind Of Prize
Section 4- Media Corner
2010
All kinds of hard-hitting action, and a noteworthy performance from young quasi-mohawk-wearing Hashimoto. Big Japan has surpassed NOAH for traditional heavyweight style matches as far as I’m concerned, mostly because the wrestlers still give a crap in Big Japan, and because they aren’t forced to do long matches for the sake of having long matches.
I Love the ‘90s Part 11: New Japan & Shoot-Style, Early 1991
Sano vs Masa Funaki, SWS April 1st 1991.
Sano jumped to SWS from New Japan, which was a good career move because he would have struggled to stand out in New Japan as the years passed. Funaki jumped from New Japan to UWF to PWFG, the last of which is aligned with SWS by virtue of both being funded by glasses-maker Megane Super. This bout between budding shoot-style stars features some uncharitable strikes to the face from Funaki.
Liger vs Owen Hart, NJ Super Juniors 1991.
I’m not going to write a bunch in the hopes that you will download Liger vs Owen; they’re known commodities. I will note that the big finish caused a legit injury. Sometimes a move that looks dangerous is, in fact, dangerous.
Tamura vs Kakihara, UWFi May 10th 1991.
The first match for UWFi, which followed UWF splitting in three. Both of them are quite young and show a world of promise, especially Tamura.
Fujiwara vs Wilkins, PWFG May 19th 1991.
Fujiwara is… how to say… not young. Wilkins is and would remain a virtual unknown. This works because Wilkins is capable and Fujiwara is a Hall of Fame talent who somehow never gets much traction for the Hall of Fame.
Section 5- Puroresu Primer Part Two
Issue 6.2. A very broad look at puro history. Over the years I’ve added bits and pieces of data in other columns, so if you’re interested it’s worth poking around my archives.
Issue 5. I pimp a handful of websites and give a brief overview of the different styles in Japan. The styles section hasn’t changed enough to really revisit, but the internet has changed quite a bit in the last six years. Here are some useful links, in no particular order.
Current Events
Strong Style Spirit.The top fan site is still going strong after all these years, and featuring several worthwhile subsites. Stuart’s main page is now New Japan only, Jae is by far the best source of Dragon Gate info, and even some indies get coverage. Also, the top English-language puro forum.
Purolove. If you can parse the German, this is the best overall source for current news and results, plus quite a lot of info from years past.
General Information
Hisa’s Puroresu Dojo. A haven of historical data.
Kevin Wilson’s Puroresu Central. Plenty of info about promotions and wrestlers that you won’t find anywhere else.
Pro Wrestling History. Lots of past results, both from Japan and elsewhere in time and space.
Bahu’s FMW World. For all things related to FMW and its alumnus.
Straight From Japan
Yahoo’s ‘Fighting Sports’ photos. Lots of shots, with pages for each year. Once you figure out how to navigate there’s tons to enjoy. Try to imagine a major US website doing this!
Nikkan Sports’ Promotional link page. The websites for most every company can be found here. Naturally, all in Japanese.
Puroresu Blogs. Again, most of the content is in Japanese, but there are some funny pictures to see. Mostly of… food they’re about to eat. Yeah I don’t know why either.
Forums & Analysis
Segunda Caida. They will review pretty much anything you don’t tend to see reviewed on major sites, much of it from Japan. I often disagree, but they deliver a unique perspective.
Death Valley Driver. From the influential ‘Best of the 1990s’ vote to the archive of old reviews to the very active forum, there’s lots to see and do at DVDVR.
Joshi Fans. The place to go to learn about the ladies.
CZW Fans. Why they manage to have any worthwhile puro content is beyond me. Enter at your own peril!
DVD sellers
All of these gentlemen are established and trustworthy.
Tabe. If you buy over 10 discs he’s quite cheap, and what he has is almost entirely of the best video quality. Lots of shoot-style, All Japan, and old-school US. To get pricing, figure out how many discs you want and send him an email
IVP. If you want shows from recent years at the best price, he’s your man. As with Tabe, I recommend sending him an email for a quote.
Slambamjam. Big selection, but a tad bit more expensive. He does a couple sales a year on average but it can be hard to wait for ‘em!
The Jeff Lynch Catalog. Not up-to-date, but then the main thing you want Lynch for is older hard-to-find shows. He’s an OG when it comes to puro.
Online match viewing
For starters, both the puroresufan and DVDVR boards have media sections for active members. There is also plenty to find on youtube, especially the official New Japan channel (which purolove keeps up with on its front page). These four are hosted and/or operated by me. I will add that in recent weeks, not much has come online.
Lenny. He posts lowish-quality .wmv files of recent matches that are mostly grabbed from an obscure website in Taiwan. Often times this is the only place a match gets online.
All Japan Archive. Covers up to the split with NOAH.
NOAH Arkive. Self-explanatory.
Daily Puro. ‘Everything else’, and the site that is updated most often. The ‘updated most often’ part will escalate as we go forward.
Wrap-up
That about covers it! As I’ve mentioned several times in the past, I encourage questions and comments, especially from newbies. If there are any subjects you feel I should explore in greater detail, let me know!
Next Time: Grab-bag? The start of year-end content? Who knows?
