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KING of FREEDOM WORLD TAG CHAMPIONSHIP League 2014


Kevin Wilson

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FREEDOMS has announced that they will be holding a tournament to crown their first ever tag team champions.  Since many of these wrestlers currently do or used to wrestle in Big Japan, I figured there were enough recognizable names to talk about the results.  Since this goes until March I will update this post as the results happen, but feel free to use this as a general FREEDOMS thread.  I just want to make sure we aren't only giving love to the main promotions :).  Occasionally their stuff makes it to the Internet... but not very often.  If I can find anything from these shows, I will post them.  Here are the blocks:

 

Block A
 
Kenji Fukimoto and Karate Brahman [2]
Jun Kasai and Masashi Takeda [2]
Kamui and SUSUMU [0]
HIROKI and Daisuke Masaoka [0]
Takashi Sasaki and Tatushito Takaiwa [0]
 
Block B
 
Great Kojika and The Winger [4]
Daisuke and Tatsuhiko Yoshino [2]
Minoru Fujita and Kenichiro Arai
Shu & Kei Brahman [0]
Mammoth Sasaki and Toru Sugiura [0]
 
1/8 Results:
 
Block B: Daisuke and Tatsuhiko Yoshino [2] defeated Brahman Shu and Brahman Kei [0] (10:22) with a Messenger from Yoshino to Kei
Block A: Kenji Fukimoto and Karate Brahman [2] defeated HIROKI and Daisuke Masaoka [0] (9:54) when Brahman hit Masaoka with a Package Piledriver and Fukimoto pinned him
Block B: Great Kojika and The Winger [2] defeated Mammoth Sasaki and Toru Sugiura [0] (15:52) with a Japanese Leg Roll Clutch Hold from Winger to Sugiura
Block A: Jun Kasai and Masashi Takeda [2] defeated Takashi Sasaki and Tatsuhito Takaiwa [0] (14:18) with a Mega Rubber from Takeda to Sasaki
 
1/19 Results:
 
B Block Match: Great Kojika and The Winger defeated Daisuke and Tatsuhiko Yoshino with a Jacknife Hold from Winger to Yoshino
A Block Match: Kamui and SUSUMU vs. Kenji Fukimoto and Karate Brahman - DRAW (No Points Rewarded)
 
 
Anyone follow FREEDOMS?  Any thoughts on the Tournament?
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This is indeed a very weak tournament on paper at least unless you're a fan of Japanese indies.

The best thing from this tournament is Mammoth Sasaki.

Who's Toru Sugiura?

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Toru Sugiura is from the Nagoya based DEP promotion originally. He joined FREEDOMS officially in May 2012.

Karate Brahman is the best thing in FREEDOMS. I like FREEDOMS but actually watching every show from them can drag at times but he was always hilarious in everything he does.

I've also been working the last couple of months on covering Mammoth's 3 1/2 year career in FREEDOMS and besides right when he came back you can tell he just does not have the motivation after the car wreck that he did before.

Jeff Lynch's supplier does not get in FREEDOMS DVD's anymore. I ended up buying everything from May-September from their official DVD dealer in Japan and 30 bucks a DVD is rough. I was told not to expect them until January-February when I ordered them in November. Still waiting for them but I am sure they will circulate some time later this year when I trade/sell them to Lynch.

Also next Shin-Kiba 1st Ring will have Takashi Sasaki vs. GENTARO in the opening match to celebrate 5 years of the promotion as that was the first match of the promotion back in September 2009. GENTARO is obviously still recovering from the stroke and can't really do anything physical but I am guessing it will be very short and very simple.

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  • 1 month later...

So there is one show left before the semi-finals and finals show at Korakuen Hall on March 13th for the King of Freedom Tag Team Tournament. Jun Kasai and Masashi Takeda are out due to Takeda's injury so Kasai will be facing Yuji Hino in a Hardcore Match instead at Korakuen.

The winner of Takashi Sasaki/Tatsuhito Takaiwa against HIROKI and Daisuke Masaoka advance into the Semi-Finals for the A Bracket along with Kamui and SUSUMU who already have advanced.

B Bracket has Mammoth Sasaki/Toru Sugiura against Brahman Shu/Kei with the winner advancing to the semi-finals. If Great Kojika/The Winger defeat Minoru Fujita/Kenichiro Arai then they advance but if they lose there's the possibility of a three or four way tie at that point.

I also ended up getting in from Japan a bunch of FREEDOMS DVD's from 2013 that had not made their way over here due to Lynch losing his connection. I got the Kasai Death Match Tournament shows as well some stuff from June and September as well.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Great Kojika and The Winger won the tag titles defeating Takashi Sasaki and Tatsuhito Takaiwa.

Show bombed big time drawing 428 fans. Problems were the tag team tournament never really got over drawing wise, the lineup was not announced until three days earlier as they wanted everything undecided going into the Nagoya show which is fine and all but now when the Nagoya is just 4 days before the Korakuen Hall show. There was a really bad storm going on in Tokyo so that probably messed up any chance at last minute ticket purchases and the only outside names that are not usually on the Shin-Kiba shows already were The Great Sasuke, Yuji Hino, and Shuji Ishikawa which is not the best group of guys for outside draws. I think FREEDOMS had to expect something like this. I would have guessed 500 something myself but no question the show and the tournament as a whole was a bomb for the promotion.

Big news that came out of it though was GENTARO announcing he would return to the ring on May 2nd at Korakuen Hall. I believe it's going to be against Takashi Sasaki but nothing is official. My earlier post from a couple of months ago was Takashi Sasaki vs. GENTARO's chosen opponent which ended up being Yuji Hino.

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I always have trouble with smaller promotions to determine what is a good draw and what isn't a good draw.  Common sense dictates none of these small promotions make money with sub 500 attendances but they all last for years anyway.  Some promotions don't even sell their events on DVD online and yet still survive.  I don't get it.  As a fan though when this event is available I am still interested in seeing it, wrestlers tend to go more all out for 'big' title matches so I am sure they did the best they could to make it a good show.

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"I always have trouble with smaller promotions to determine what is a good draw and what isn't a good draw. Common sense dictates none of these small promotions make money with sub 500 attendances but they all last for years anyway."

Well what kind of promotion are we talking and what kind of building are we talking about? Since this thread is about FREEDOMS I guess we will use them. They mostly run Shin-Kiba monthly and Korakuen three times a year. Their average at Shin-Kiba is around 150 (although they will get in the 200's every now and then). Shin-Kiba is 1000 dollars to rent out the building. Tickets are 50/40 dollars. So even if just 150 people bought 40 dollar tickets that still comes out to 6000 dollars on tickets. Now there is of course other payments they have to make like paying the wrestlers (Naoshi Sano told me FREEDOMS does not pay well) as well as just misc. costs of just promoting a wrestling show. Then you add profits off expensive DVD's that are 30 dollars, t-shirts that are 30-50 dollars, and just other merchandise that makes both the wrestlers and the promotion money. You also have to add in sponsors that pay the promotion and wrestler that have dinner with the wrestlers afterwards as well as advertisements.

Now running at Korakuen Hall is around $16,000 to run although I know that if you can get it for less if you downsize the building which is what FREEDOMS did for this show. So this show did 428 fans and just assuming that everyone bought tickets at 40 dollars which I know is not the case then the show would have done $17,120. So I know this show probably lost money overall but this isn't something that would kill a promotion and is more an exception than the rule.

"Some promotions don't even sell their events on DVD online and yet still survive."

Does not mean they don't make money off DVD's sales at the shows. Also, they might be sold online and you just don't know about it. Just because Jeff Lynch does not get it in does not mean someone in Japan can't order it online. VKF and Ring Shop cover numerous promotions and sale online even internationally but they don't make it out of Japan that much anymore.

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