Section 1- Results
All Japan: Kai beat Hayashi to earn a junior title shot.
Dragon Gate: Notable King of Gate round 1 results were Hulk over Doi and Mochizuki over Shingo. Round 2 saw CIMA beat Yamato. In the semis, Hulk beat CIMA and Kanda beat Mochizuki to set up Hulk over Kanda in the finals. The trios titles were vacated after Blood Warriors turned on Dragon Kid. Shingo ended the Kamikaze stable; he and Yamato will join Mochizuki’s group. Dragon Kid also joined. Cyber Kong said he would, only to turn on them and join BW right away.
New Japan: Tanahashi and Devitt both retained in the US. Devitt & Taguchi retained over Low Ki & Homicide. MVP won the tournament to become the first IWGP Intercontinental Champion. The Chaos stable has been shaken up, as Takahashi turned on Naito and joined Tanaka, Jado & Gedo. Notable day 1 results from the Super Juniors tournament included Richards over Devitt, Hayato over Kanemoto, Sasuke over Taka, and Taguchi over Ibushi.
NOAH: Sugiura, Takayama & Sano, ans Kotaro Suzuki all retained on the 8th. Sugiura retained three times during the European tour, including against Kotaro Suzuki and Castagnoli. He broke Kobashi’s title defense record. KENTA & Kanemaru won the junior tag titles in a decision match against Kotaro & Aoki.
Section 2- News
All Japan: Scheduled for the 19th at Sumo Hall are Suwama vs Nagata, Kono & Doering vs Muta & Kenzo, Minoru Tanaka vs Kai, and Sekimoto & Okabayashi vs Sanada & Soya.
Dragon Gate: Set for the 18th are Pac vs Ricochet, and CIMA, Doi & Gamma vs Hulk, Yamato & Yoshino to determine new trios champs. The next night has Mochizuki vs Kanda, and Saito & Horiguchi vs Pac & Dragon Kid. Hulk’s title shot against Mochizuki (who is 99.99% sure to beat Kanda) looks like it will take place at Kobe World Hall.
New Japan: The Osaka Prefectural Gym show on the 18th will be headlined by Tanahashi vs Goto. The IWGP and GHC tag titles will both be on the line as Bernard & Anderson face Takayama & Sano. MVP defends against Yano, who he beat in the tournament final.
NOAH: Shiozaki vs Morishima will take place on the 11th, with the winner getting Sugiura on July 10th.
Section 3- Early Summer Shill Goodbye
Section 4a- Trip Background & Press Conference
Thanks to my paid gig with Fighting Spirit Magazine, I was given the opportunity to go to New Japan’s three US shows as a member of the press. The resulting article will come out in a month or two. Since FSM is professional and what-not, my focus was on what happened around me rather than what happened to me. So this will focus on the latter. The three days were a mix of extreme highs and maddening lows.
On Thursday, I drove down to Newark for the press conference. The initial bit of madness came in finding the Ramada where the thing was happening. The road it’s on is amidst a bewildering maze of highways, and once on the road there are no signs telling you which way to go, nor is it visible until you’re near it. Once I did find it, I drove past the tiny entrance and was heading towards a nearby prison before I knew what had happened. It’s a good thing the conference started late, because after changing from ‘travel’ to ‘Ditch Premium™’ I was behind schedule. There’s something about walking into a hotel and seeing Yujiro and Tanahashi that immediately made things real.
While preparing for the trip I’d been wondering exactly what ‘press’ would be at the conference, considering that it isn’t the sort of thing that the mass media would care about. Once at the hotel the correct answer dawned on me: this was for the Japanese press first and foremost. Sure enough, that’s most of who was there, and most of the talking was in Japanese (though at least it was translated). As soon as you entered the room, BAM, there was the shiny new Intercontinental title belt sitting on a table. I go over most of the conference happenings in the FSM column. One thing I’ll note is that nobody knew if the IWGP title had been defended in the US; Tiger Hattori said Norton did it but in fact he hadn’t. Afterwards I was able to speak with MVP, ‘Red Shoes’ Unno, Kojima and Gedo. All were very considerate, which was my experience throughout the weekend. Kojima called me a “maniac fan†for knowing about his current feud with Minoru Suzuki.
Then I almost had a heart attack trying to get to Long Island. Curse you, New Jersey highway system and NYC construction delays!
Section 4b- Friday
Getting to and from Rahway was a relative piece of cake. Once there I hit one of the running themes of the weekend: New Japan would not give me proper press treatment. Nowhere to set up my laptop, no interviews before or after shows (other than when I’d walk up to someone at random), and no ‘press room’ as I had been told. Nobody was rude to me, and I didn’t pay to get in, but it was very little more than I’d have as a fan. So, I ended up sitting in a vending machine room for 2 hours watching matches until the doors opened. I happened to see Tanahashi, and informed him that Tiger was wrong about the IWGP-in-America thing. Tanahashi apologized for some reason; I wish I could have said something reassuring. It’s not his fault!
The pre-show was a meet-and-greet, which seemed like by far the best deal out of all ‘pay to stand next to a wrestler’ opportunities (and there were lots of those). I learned afterwards that Nakamura speaks English, meaning I lost a golden opportunity to chat him up. Kojima recognized me but we didn’t get to interact any further. I did speak with Hattori before and after the show, and we traded cards. I definitely got the better end of that exchange. I also brought up the IWGP thing, and I can’t tell whether he was genuinely impressed or giving me sarcastic “nobody cares, nerd†over-the-top praise. In general the Japanese are not prone to sarcasm, but Hattori has spent a lot of time in the US, and I am a nerd…
I ended up picking the best seats for what I cared about (networking): bleachers near the entrance. Jay Lethal was two seats away, Yujiro plopped next to me after intermission, and most interestingly, I was behind the Bloom (Giant Bernard) family. They’re scattered across the globe: he works in Japan and lives in Arizona with his wife and daughter; dad is in Florida; most of the others are around Boston. So this was a big family get-together weekend. I’m hoping to get an interview with him and/or Karl Anderson down the line. Mrs. Bloom is 5’9â€, so the daughter (who seems big for her age) could be a bit tall. Yujiro’s right ear was nasty; I’m not sure if it was cauliflower ear or what. He did give me the correct info on his opponent the next night, meaning I scooped most of the ‘net. Take THAT, Mike Johnson! That’ll teach you to believe people who aren’t Yujiro!
Section 4c- Saturday & Etcetera
I thought deciphering New Jersey’s highway system was bad. New York was an absolute nightmare.
-First, the directions tell me to get off the subway and walk along a certain street in such a way that I’d go past Wall Street. But that subway exit was closed and I got off at the intersection with Wall Street, meaning I had no idea what direction to go (since I don’t have one of those fancy-dancy iPhones, unlike the rest of civilization).
-Ah, but that didn’t matter because the directions were WILDLY wrong. I asked people where ‘Basketball City’ was, and of three possible options I was told to go the two wrong ways. I frantically called Scott Finkelstein, who was doing the photography for FSM, and his girlfriend told me to walk up to the Manhattan bridge. I was standing at the southern tip of the island. That is a long walk for someone with a desk job carrying a laptop bag (with a laptop that wouldn’t actually be used).
-On the way back, I ended up on the wrong platform twice, started at the worst possible entrance, and needed two and a half hours to get to Penn Station, a 3.5 mile walk. Then it was a 50 minute wait for the train to Long Island, and over an hour on the train with obnoxious humanoids. Four and a half hours when I was starting out exhausted. Tokyo is bigger, more populated, and it’s easy to get around in even though I can’t read Japanese!
Ah, but the good made up for the bad.
-I got to meet Adam Randis, who long ago helped guide my development as a puro fan. He’s working with Scott Norton on an autobiography.
-Spoke with Bernard, Anderson, Omega, Maff, Taguchi, President Sugabayashi and Josh Daniels. And I accidentally hit on MVP. Omega is another potential interviewee.
-Kojima was once again happy as could be to try and string together English words.
-The show was vastly superior to the first and I had a much better view.
I didn’t stay for the third show because I needed to be home to work on Monday, and I live too far away to drive from Philly after it ended. And because, to be honest, I don’t like current New Japan enough to go out of my way for a third helping of it.
