Will's Puroresu News Digest

New Japan…

…held two special Masahiro Chono-produced shows in Makuhari. The big news was that the September 1^st show marked the return of Tatsumi Fujinami, Osamu Nishimura and the rest of the NJPW wrestlers who left the company in January 2006 to form Muga World. It’s hoped this could be the beginning of a reconciliation between the two sides.

New Japan have booked the 11,000 capacity Ryogoku Kokugikan again for 11/11 for a standalone show. This could be a hard sell, as they already have it booked for 10/8 (Nagata vs. Tanahashi).

The other potentially big news from New Japan is that they are planning on expanding into South Korea. No real concrete plans as of yet other than they’ll be sharing some resources with the South Korean AWF, which NJPW wrestlers have worked for in the past. New Japan certainly don’t have a deep enough roster to run full tours in South Korea and Japan, so I’d guess that this could be more of a brand-extension a la Lock Up or Wrestleland, running occasional shows with New Japan and AWF talent. Former NJ wrestler Kantaro Hoshino, who’s promoted New Japan shows for years, seems to be heading up the project.

All Japan…

…didn’t really do that much this week. Keiji Muto appealed to both Masakatsu Funaki, and diamond-eared baseball star Kazuhiro Kiyohara to join All Japan after they retired from MMA and baseball respectively. Funaki will be making a return to the ring on HEROs’ big New Years Eve show, and could (unlikely) return to wrestling. Kiyohara would be awesome… but let’s just say that Muto appeals to a lot of big names to join All Japan.

NOAH…

…neared the end of their number-one contenders tourney. Front runners are Jun Akiyama, Naomichi Marufuji and Akitoshi Saito. The winner will be decided this Sunday at Budokan Hall, on a card that also features Mitsuharu Misawa & Go Shiozaki vs. Tatsumi Fujinami & Osamu Nishimura.

Other things…

Michinoku Pro’s 4^th Fukumen World League came to its conclusion on September 2^nd. New Japan’s Tiger Mask beat CMLL legend Atlantis with a cross armbreaker in the final. It’s the second time the former Michinoku Pro star has won the League, having previously tapped Mexican legend Dos Caras with the same move in the 1999 final.

Indy minnows KAGEKI will celebrate their 10^th birthday next month in style. As a gift from Jushin Thunder Lyger, the show will feature an IWGP Junior Heavyweight title match. KAGEKI ace Azteca will take on either Ryusuke Taguchi or Tiger Mask, who clash on 24/9.

Less than a week to go before the Inoki Genome Federation holds its big show in Nagoya, and we finally have a match announced. Legendary shoot-stylist Kiyoshi Tamura will wrestle K-1 freak show Montana Silva, last seen in a wrestling ring stinking it up with Yutaka Yoshie back in 2003.

Takeshi Morishima made a successful ROH title defence on Kensuke Office’s 9/1 show at Differ Ariake, beating Katsuhiko Nakajima with a lariat.

HEROs’ 9/17 show will feature a battle of ex-pro wrestlers – Katsuyori Shibata vs. Kazushi Sakuraba. While well past his prime, Saku will be by far the toughest guy Shibata has faced in his short MMA career. Shibata will certainly have to do better than he did in his last fight.

Will's Puroresu News Digest

Puroresu News Digest 8-27-07

Puroresu News Digest~

New Japan…

…bid farewell to CTU, one of their most popular factions of recent years, on the 26^th at Korakuen Hall. Important happenings – Hirooki Goto made his official return to New Japan, in the battle of the Italy Brothers Minoru beat Milano Collection AT by ref stop in what was said to be an excellent match, and finally Gedo & Jado beat Jushin Thunder Lyger and AKIRA in the main after GBH interfered.

Coming out of the show CTU members have found new homes, Gedo & Jado join Togi Makabe and co. in GBH; Lyger has aligned himself with the rest of the old guard - Masahiro Chono, Riki Choshu, Shiro Koshinaka and Super Strong Machine; and Minoru, Milano, Prince Devitt and Hirooki Goto have joined forces with Shinsuke Nakamura to form a new, as yet unnamed group.

After beating him in last weeks G1 Climax final, Hiroshi Tanahashi was announced as Yuji Nagata’s next challenger. Tanahashi will challenge for the IWGP heavyweight title on October 8^th at the Ryogoku Kokugikan (Sumo Hall). On the subject of the G1, attendances for the tour were way up from 2006, particularly in Osaka and Tokyo.

All Japan…

…held their biggest show of the year last Sunday, PRO-WRESTLING LOVE in RYOGOKU vol.3 at -yes- the 11,500 seat Ryogoku Kokugikan. Main saw Kensuke Sasaki pin Minoru Suzuki after 8 successive lariats to become new Triple Crown champ. Match went 42 minutes, which sounds a little scary. Other big results – wunderkind Katsuhiko Nakajima beat Chris Sabin to retain his AJPW World Jr. Heavyweight Title in what was said to be the match of the night; and super-heels Satoshi Kojima and TARU became AJPW World Tag Team champions after defeating Toshiaki Kawada and Taiyo Kea. The reported attendance is 8,200, so the actual number is probably around 6,000 – either All Japans biggest attendance this year if you’re a glass-half-full kinda person, or a half-house if you’re a bit more pessimistic.

NOAH…

…announced that Takeshi Rikio will be out until (at least) mid-September, due to a cervical vertebrae injury. This obviously scuppers his chances at winning NOAHs rather ho-hum #1 Contenders tourney for Mitsuharu Misawa’s GHC Heavyweight title. It may also mean that Rikio and Jun Akiyama have to forfeit their GHC Heavyweight Tag titles.

In other news…

‘Black Angel’ Jaki Numazawa became Big Japan’s new Death Match Heavyweight Champion last Sunday, beating Takashi Sasaki in 19 minutes with a low altitude lariat in front of a sell-out crowd at Differ Ariake.

Reawakening memories of his truly diabolical Super Famicom game, former FMW star turned disgraced politician Atsushi Onita unveiled his new game for the Nintendo DS – Atsushi Onita’s Political Quiz.

Yinling became a proud mother during HUSTLE’s show on the 18^th of this, when her giant egg hatched, revealing this monstrosity. Monster Bono is, of course, the result of Great MUTA spraying Yinling’s nether-regions with his ‘special’ mist.

Less than two weeks away, an 11,000 capacity Nagoya Rainbow Hall to fill, and no matches announced – it could only be Antonio Inoki’s latest bright idea. The Chin did announce some more names for his September 8^th IGF show, basically most of the undercard from his first show, including Naoya Ogawa. Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar’s names were conspicuous by their absence.

Puroresu News Digest 8-27-07

Japanese Pro-Wrestling Roundup from Will!

*WE ARE THE NEWS*************************

New Japan

July 6th saw NJPW return to a sellout Korakuen Hall for a stacked show that saw three title bouts. Dick Togo & TAKA Michinoku retained their IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag titles against Koji Kanemoto & Wataru Inoue. Ryusuke Taguchi became the 52nd IWGP Junior Heavyweight champion after downing Minoru with the Dodon. Finally, Yuji Nagata made his V2 defense of the IWGP Heavyweight title, pinning Togi Makabe with a backdrop suplex. Elsewhere on the card, after being out with various injuries, Masahiro Chono, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Jado all made their returns. Show was said to be excellent.

Giant Bernard & Travis Tomko made a successful V3 defence of their IWGP tag title against Hiroshi Tanahashi & Naofumi Yamamoto on July 8th in Gifu. Surprisingly, it was Tanahashi who dropped the fall, being pinned in 20:46 after a sit-down Last Ride from Bernard. Post-match, Bernard & Tomko were making noises about defending the belts in TNA. Is there a company in Japan not working with TNA right now?

Shinjiro Otani looks to be making a return of sorts to New Japan. The Z1 MAX man will appear on Yuji Nagata’s 15th anniversary show in Chiba on 9/9, probably tagging with Nagata. Otani left New Japan in 2001 to join Shinya Hashimoto’s Zero One promotion, and last appeared in a New Japan ring some 18 months ago for their 2006 Tokyo Dome show. Kazunari Murakami is also likely to appear on the show.

All Japan

Kensuke Sasaki seems a dead cert to face Triple Crown champ Minoru Suzuki on the final night of AJPW’s Summer Action Series (poster) on August 26th at the Ryogoku Kokugikan (Sumo Hall). Seeing as Suzuki has beaten pretty much everyone else in the company, you’d think Kensuke is going over here. Scott Steiner will also work the show, this week apparently aligning himself with the dastardly Voodoo Murderers.

Speaking of Voodoo Murderers, “brother” YASSHI will be making his first foray into cage fighting next month, on HEAT’s August 11 show. He’ll be facing the also-debuting Osamu Takahashi.

Wrestler-turned-politician Hiroshi Hase will replace Stan Hansen as PWF commissioner as of this Sunday. The Pacific Wrestling Federation is the pretend governing body responsible for making title matches official, so it shouldn’t cut into Hase’s schedule too badly.

NOAH

NOAH’s current tour, Summer Navigation 07, will end this Sunday at the Nippon Budokan. Veteran Mitsuharu Misawa headlines, defending his GHC title against fellow vet Akira Taue. Credible NOAH main eventers are rarer than hen’s teeth right now.

HUSTLE

In the ‘only in Japan’ story of the week, Yinling is pregnant courtesy of The Great Muta, after taking a very special green mist attack at Hustle Aid a few weeks back. Medical experts anticipate November 25th – coincidentally the same day as Hustle Mania – as the likely time of birth. The Japanese press has been making comparisons between Yinling and the recent spate of pregnancies amongst pop starlets such as Tsuji Nozomi and Kaori Iida.

In other HUSTLE news, grumpy old man extraordinaire Genichiro Tenryu made good on his promise, and after losing his match to pretend-gay-comedian-turned-wrestler HG last week, has a brand new wardrobe.

Big Japan

Japan’s premier garbage group ran the Yokohama Bunka Gymnasium for their biggest show so far this year. Main was Takashi Sasaki vs. Ryuji Ito in a 300 Fluorescent Light tubes Death Match for the BJW Death Match Heavyweight Championship. Champ Sasaki retained in 22:24 after a light-tube assisted D-Geist (Emerald Frowsion). The show drew a very healthy 4,000 fans, up from last years numbers. It’s well deserved - Big Japan has been one of the highlights of 2007 so far.

Japanese Pro-Wrestling Roundup from Will!

I-G-F! I-G-F!

Japan has a lot of wrestling promotions. An awful lot. A quick count reveals around ONE HUNDRED groups, between them covering every niche imaginable - You want blood and light-tubes? Then Big Japan’s for you. Looking for more of a wacky, WWE-esque ‘fighting opera’? HUSTLE might be just your cup of tea.

You’ll understand then, that with every base seemingly covered twice over, why the announcement of yet another promotion is hard to get excited about.

That is, unless it’s headed up by Antonio Inoki.

Perhaps the second most influential figure in the history of Japanese pro-wrestling, Inoki has been a major mainstream star in Japan since the late 60s, and was the top dog in the country’s most successful promotion - New Japan Pro-Wrestling (in and out of the ring) for decades. Following his retirement in 1998, Inoki began to scale back his involvement with New Japan, removing himself entirely a few years back. His new brainchild, the Inoki Geome Federation marks his first efforts at promoting a major show in Japan for 4 years.

Inoki’s grand designs are what separates the IGF from the pack. Whilst most new promotions would be content to pull a decent crowd at the 2,000 Korakuen Hall, Inoki’s ambitions are always stadium-sized. And with any new promotion of that scale, you’re in for some fireworks. After all, where does a brand-new promotion - with one eye on the 60,000 capacity Tokyo Dome - go to find names big enough to bring in the fans?

Point in question. When Inoki somehow secured the services of PRIDE’s Heavyweight Champion Fedor Emelianenko for his 2003 Inoki-Bom-Ba-Ye show, it set off a series of events that resulted in PRIDE (then the biggest MMA promotion in the world) losing its TV deal, most of its top fighters and ultimately being sold off to rivals UFC.

With a budget of $850,000 and Tokyo’s 11,000 capacity Ryogoku Kokugikan to fill, it seemed inevitable that there’d be more shenanigans from the IGF.

As is his wont, Inoki set about building the show around tough, credible athletes - much as he had done with his earlier (failed) Universal Fighting Arts Organization. Whilst only one match had been announced beforehand, the line-up was looking pretty healthy, with the possibility of some very intriguing matches. Confirmed names included Kurt Angle, Brock Lesnar, Kiyoshi Tamura, Josh Barnett, Alexander Otsuka, Yuki Ishikawa, Kevin Randleman and Mark Coleman. Perhaps the biggest coup of the lot (and certainly from the perspective of the Japanese media) Inoki poached Naoya Ogawa from rival promotion HUSTLE. An Olympic Judo silver-medalist and a major mainstream celebrity, Ogawa equals column inches, though not necessarily decent matches.

Whilst the acquisition of Ogawa was certainly a spanner in works as far as HUSTLE was concerned, it was that one announced match that was prove the biggest story. Kurt Angle was to fight Brock Lesnar for Lesnar’s version of the New Japan’s IWGP heavyweight title.

Back story – Lesnar signed with New Japan in 2005 and quickly (like, in his first match) gained their version of the world title, the IWGP (International Wrestling Grand Prix) heavyweight championship. After a disappointing run as champ, New Japan requested Brock drop the belt to bright young thing Hiroshi Tanahashi. Lesnar refused. New Japan fired Lesnar. Lesnar kept their title. Tanahashi then won a hastily put together tournament, received an older version of the IWGP belt, and things carried on as if Brock and his belt had never existed.

Lesnar arrived mid-week at Tokyo’s Narita airport complete with belt, proclaiming himself to be the real deal and publicly challenging New Japan’s current champ Yuji Nagata. Instead of Nagata however, IGF management instead received a visit from New Japan’s lawyers, who threatened legal action if Inoki went ahead with the proposed title match. Knowing full well that New Japan owned the rights to the name,Inoki stopped billing his main event as an IWGP championship match, though confusingly the belt was still on the line. Initials or not however, the message seemed clear; Inoki’s crew were the real deal.

The results…
0. Munenori Sawa beat Yuki Ishikawa (7:06) by TKO after a Shining Whizard
0. Rocky Romero beat El Blazer (6:09) by referee stoppage (Cross Armbreaker)
1. Kevin Randleman beat Alexander Otsuka (5:09) with a "Shrimp Setting" (modified Powerbomb).
2. Michiyoshi Ohara beat Taka Kunou (6:05) with the Tombstone Piledriver
3. Kiyoshi Tamura & Ryuki Ueyama beat Hidehisa Matsuda & Yuki Kotake (15:00) when Tamura used a Cross Kneelock on Matsuda
4. Josh Barnett beat Tadao Yasuda (4:17) with a Cross Armbreaker
5. Naoya Ogawa beat Mark Coleman (06:44) by referee stoppage (Sleeper Hold)
6. Kurt Angle beat Brock Lesnar (10:36) with an Ankle Lock

The card was poorly received overall, with some wrestlers, notably Ogawa and Barnett, seemingly phoning it in. They didn’t sell out the building; though claim a respectable attendance of 8,426. Angle vs. Lesnar was disappointing, though if you’ve seen Lesnar’s efforts in New Japan hardly surprising. Kurt Angle publicly appealed to Nagata for an IWGP unification match.

Plenty of questions coming out of the show - Will we be seeing more of Kurt Angle in Japan? Is there any real chance of a Nagata vs. Angle dream match? Where would they hold it? Will there even be another IGF show? If this whole thing isn’t some elaborate angle, how can Inoki expect to use another company’s title and not to get sued out of his boots? Time will tell. With Inoki around things may not always be pretty, but they’re rarely dull.

By Will Byard

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I-G-F! I-G-F!