Purotopia General Discussion: 2016 Edition

[lostinube]

This is the TV Asahi show that has the Liger interview where he reveals his name and talks about the time he took off his mask during a local TV show in Kyushu called Jushin Daikichi. They don't show that part but they do show a match where Liger's match gets taken off. I will say that it's slightly overblown. He just says his name is Yamada, he's 50 and that he's from Fukuoka.

 

The Liger part starts at about the 17:50 mark.

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ft5os_2015-01-27%E4%B8%AD%E5%B1%85%E6%AD%A3%E5%BA%83%E3%81%AE%E3%83%9F%E3%81%AB%E3%81%AA%E3%82%8B%E5%9B%B3%E6%9B%B8%E9%A4%A8_news

[Curt McGirt]

If it's gonna be like NXT you'll see talent from NJ floating down as well as NOAH talent floating up. I can't see Morishima staying as a gatekeeper in NOAH, but I can see plenty of NJ guys going to get polish in the NOAH dojo. But who knows, this is Japanese wrestling and everything is an entirely different beast over there.

[supremebve]

If it's gonna be like NXT you'll see talent from NJ floating down as well as NOAH talent floating up. I can't see Morishima staying as a gatekeeper in NOAH, but I can see plenty of NJ guys going to get polish in the NOAH dojo. But who knows, this is Japanese wrestling and everything is an entirely different beast over there.

I honestly don't understand how the business behind Japanese wrestling works.  It seems to be countless different federations all who have at least 2 or 3 guys who probably need more exposure, but they never leave those small federations.  It seems like NJPW should have a competitive advantage when it comes to talent, but no one ever seems to jump promotions.  It would probably be good for everyone if there was more movement, because some of these promotions are stale as a bag of doritos without a chip clip. 

[Afmaldo]

I just hope Strong BJ gets booked in some New Japan shows.

[Salads]

If it's gonna be like NXT you'll see talent from NJ floating down as well as NOAH talent floating up. I can't see Morishima staying as a gatekeeper in NOAH, but I can see plenty of NJ guys going to get polish in the NOAH dojo.

 

I see it as this, but less about NOAH's dojo and more about just getting ring time. We're already seeing Nagata / Suzuki etc get some room to shine instead of working midcard tags between G1s until retirement. What I'm hoping for is something to substitute for the tried and tested 'here's a forearm, a hiptoss and a crab hold now go and job to Hiro Saito fifty times' method of teaching fundamentals that the main shows don't have room for any more. That stuff is still really useful but doesn't lend itself to selling subscription fees.

[Curt McGirt]

NJPW vs. NOAH again would be a sight to behold, now that I think about it. 

[rzombie1988]

NJPW vs. NOAH again would be a sight to behold, now that I think about it. 

The time for that was 12-14 years ago. Every interesting match has been done for the most part, except maybe a Marufuji match or two.

[Curt McGirt]

After looking at the current NOAH roster, I retract that statement.

[rzombie1988]

 

If it's gonna be like NXT you'll see talent from NJ floating down as well as NOAH talent floating up. I can't see Morishima staying as a gatekeeper in NOAH, but I can see plenty of NJ guys going to get polish in the NOAH dojo. But who knows, this is Japanese wrestling and everything is an entirely different beast over there.

I honestly don't understand how the business behind Japanese wrestling works.  It seems to be countless different federations all who have at least 2 or 3 guys who probably need more exposure, but they never leave those small federations.  It seems like NJPW should have a competitive advantage when it comes to talent, but no one ever seems to jump promotions.  It would probably be good for everyone if there was more movement, because some of these promotions are stale as a bag of doritos without a chip clip. 

 

This is the quick and dirty version. I don't feel like researching the exact years and dates, so work with me:

 

It works like this  = Ego's > Money.

 

JWA - Dies after Rikidozan dies. Inoki forms NJPW, Baba forms AJPW.

 

NJPW - Your solid mainstay that's been around for a long time. Inoki goes nuts for MMA in the late 90's. He brings in MMA wrestlers to do wrestling and he puts his wrestlers up against MMA guys in legit shootfights. His wrestlers, specifically Yuji Nagata, get destroyed by legit shootfighters and never recover. Mutoh/Kojima/Ka Shin and others leave for NJPW. Ohtani/Hashimoto/Ogawa leave for ZERO-1. Comes very close to dying in the mid-2000's due to mismanagement. Honestly, them finally going with the younger guys of Tanahashi and Nakamura. Meltzer gets into it and pimps it to English speaking audiences who buy into it.

 

AJPW - Started to run into some problems as the territories ended and the Japan vs Foreigners thing wasn't what it used to be. Should have died in 2000 when all but two of it's natives on its roster left for NOAH. Mutoh comes in takes over. 5 guys from NOAH come in during 2012. AJPW has a lot more talent but still can't make money. Wrestle-1 splits off from AJPW in 2013.

 

IWE - The first third promotion. I honestly don't remember the full story, but they closed in 1981. Rusher Kimura was their big star. Their stars split between AJPW and NJPW.

 

Pancrase/RINGS/UWF/UWFi/Fujiwara Gumi/PWFG - Multiple shoot promotions promotions formed from guys who left NJPW to form UWF. These guys all basically end up being the forefathers of MMA. The promotions all share the same thing in common - They all are run by a charismatic top dog and when that top dog gets old(Takada, Maeda, Funaki) they all close not too long after. Takada gets old more at the box office than in age.

 

SWS/WAR - Tenryu leaves AJPW, forms SWS. They do some Tokyo Domes with the WWF and close when the sponsor pulls out along with other things. Tenryu forms WAR. They are a full-time promotion but close in the late-90's.

 

FMW - Onita, former AJPW guy, forms a hardcore deathmatch promotion. The promotion is a big success, drawing unbelievable crowds for basically having nothing but a one man show. Onita retires and tries to close FMW with him. FMW continues on, becomes WMF and WEW, all promotions die.

 

UWA - Lucha in Japan. They turn Ultimo Dragon as Asai into a star and close after a few years.

 

Michinoku Pro - Takes the Japanese from UWA and is a popular indy lucharesu promotion. Great Sasuke and Hakushi run things and the promotion is still strong today.

 

Osaka Pro - Super Delfin gets sick of M-Pro's crap and leaves after a bizarre incident where he crawls under Sasuke's legs. He trains a bunch of guys and runs the small Osaka pro. O-Pro is a small cult hit in Osaka, but eventually close after splits and economic hardships.

 

Okinawa Pro - Super Delfin and crew leave Osaka Pro and go to a vacation area to run wrestling. May or may not still be around, but they never made much of a splash and little footage was available.

 

WING/IWA - Basically offshoots of each other and FMW. Focus on deathmatch stuff. Both die, take talent from each other. IWA runs King of the Deathmatches which Cactus Jack won. IWA is still around, but its so low and barely related to what it once was.

 

Battlarts - A DVDVR favorite that focuses on stiffness/shootstyle in the late 1990's. The promotion doesn't do bad but kind of fades away for some reason. It becomes a new version of Battlarts and Futen. Battlarts is at least closed and Futen has limited video, so I don't know much about what they are doing.

 

Pride FC - MMA, but it's important. They, along with K-1, become the hottest things in Japan in the late 90's and early 2000's. Pride takes Takada and Sakuraba and use their popularity to make big bucks.  They take tons of fans away from wrestling, multiple wrestlers embarrass themselves in PRIDE or other MMA. Both promotions work together to draw a 90,000 crowd. K-1 runs into money problems and closes. PRIDE gets caught being involved with Yakuza and also closes. MMA/Kickboxing basically dies in the early 2010's with them.

 

NOAH - Misawa and most of AJPW leave to form NOAH. They leave after Giant Baba dies and his wife is in charge. The wife didn't want to use juniors so much or some of the flash, so Misawa and crew leave. They are the #2 promotion for years. Then, they abused their rookies which meant no real stars for the future. Misawa dies, Kobashi survives every horrible physical thing under the sun and retires, Taue retires. Akiyama, Shiozaki and others leave to AJPW. KENTA, Morishima, Sugiura and Marufuji are the top dogs for a few years and KENTA is now in NXT. NOAH is now funded by NJPW, since they are virtually doing the same thing they were doing 10 years ago with less talent.

 

Zero-1 - Hashimoto left NJPW and formed this promotion due to ego's, NJPW going MMA crazy and other stuff. The main backer left and Ohtani keeps it running to less and less fans each year.

 

World Japan - forms in the early 2000's and doesn't last. Choshu left NJPW and used Onita, Hase and others, but the promotion fails and closes.

 

HUSTLE - Big promotion that got funded by the company that funded Pride and Zero-1. They did comedy and bizarre storylines.

 

Wrestle-1 -  Mutoh and his loyalists split from AJPW after the owner goes in a direction they don't like. W1 is now not interesting and likely isn't making money.

 

Toryumon - Big junior heavyweight promotion focusing on pretty guys and lucharesu. They train most of the current day indy and Dragon Gate wrestlers. It's lead by Ultimo Dragon and they have two offshoots, T2P(Best promotion ever) and Toryumon X. T2P merges with Toryumon, X fails. Ultimo Dragon is the boss and owns it, but his roster gets sick of his stuff and dumps him. Dragon still runs spot shows to this day in Mexico under the Toryumon name.

 

Dragon Gate - Splits off from Toryumon. Ultimo Dragon ran Toryumon but had other priorities. He'd come in when he wanted and didn't really help anyone, so they all dumped him and continue on as they are today. They are the #2 promotion in Japan.

 

El Dorado/Dragondoor - A short lived promotion. It mostly formed when Aagan Iisou got fired from Dragon Gate. They hooked back up with Ultimo Dragon. They close shortly after they form and run Secret Base, which draws no one.

 

DDT - No real politics. They went from sleazy/comedy indy to indy that's arguably the #3 promotion in Japan.

 

BJPW - They started with some remants from other hardcore promotions like WING, IWA and FMW. They are still going today.

 

IGF - Inoki takes shooters and turns them into wrestlers. I can't see how they don't bleed money and I don't think they've contributed one good thing to wrestling.

 

WNC - Tajiri forms this promotion. They bring in some ex-WWE's, a few lucha guys and even let women in on the shows.

 

MUGA - Osamu Nishimura forms this in the middle 2000's and it doesn't work.

 

Kensuke Office/Diamond Ring - Kensuke Sasaki gets super rookie Katsuhiko Nakajima and runs a small booking office with irregular shows. They haven't run since March 2014.

 

If you think that's fun, check out the women's promotions:

 

AJW(Dead) - Was the big promotion for years. The owners made bad investments that bankrupted the company along with a lack of new stars and poor planning. AJW basically turns into NEO, ARSION and tons of other offshoots.

 

Original JWP - Was the second women's promotion and forms in 1986.  They took AJW stars who were forced to retire due to the age limit and got some recruits AJW didn't want(AJW had thousands of applicants in the 80's). They were also supposed to be a mixed men's/women's promotion but it doesn't happen. Their first rookie class of Ozaki, Kansai and Kandori end up being big names in the 90's. Shinobu Kandori beats up Jackie Sato legit during a match and Sato leaves JWP in 1988 and retires. JWP starts to get ugly with politics. Then Rumi Kazama gets fired/leaves for LPWA and they split for good in 1992.

 

New JWP - The first half of the JWP split. They are the #2 women's promotion for most of the 90's. Plum Mariko dies, Okutsu, Fukuoka and Yagi want to retire and the promotion closes in 1997.GAEA grabs Oz and Kansai(their big stars). Arsion gets Okutsu. JWP comes back with young girls and they are still around today.

 

LLPW - The second half of the JWP split. They take more of the shooters and are basically a promotion made for pushing Kandori and friends. The promotion fades off over time, is nothing in the 2000's and is basically closed in the late 2000's as their stars get too old. The promotion may or may not be alive now after failing to get into the pretty girl wrestler game.

 

GAEA - They became the #1 women's promotion leading into the second half of the 90's and close soon after AJW closes, taking out the two biggest women's promotions in less than 2 months. They took most of the people leaving AJW and grabbed just about every big 80's and 90's stars. They close due to Chiggy getting tired of running them and end the way they began - with Chigusa as the main attraction.

 

ARSION - Forms after the AJW troubles in the late 90's. They take Aja Kong, a few LLPW undercarders, the beauty Yumi Fukawa, super rookie Ayako Hamada and some others along with recruits. They run into trouble when Aja leaves. They go through different bookers and end up closing, mostly due to BS politics. They went from the hottest promotion to nothing within 5 years.

 

Jd' Star - forms after GAEA and before the AJW mess. Former AJW stars Bison Kimura and Jaguar Yokota train some rookies and are a very fun promotion. Once they both retire(Yokota comes back). Jd' turns into a pretty girl promotion. They hire a bunch of models/actresses to wrestle. They waste time, money and job their stars out to these fools. The models all mostly leave within a year. They grab some more pretty girls a year or two later, who end up becoming some of the indy and WAVE stars. They close in the mid-2000's.

 

NEO - They form after the AJW split. They take Kyoko Inoue, LCO, Asari and rookies. They close then return and end up being the #1 promotion in the 2000's. Kyoko never jobs and they pay for it long term. Eventually, everyone gets old. The roster kicks out Kyoko near the end and closes. Kyoko learns nothing then forms another promotion, Diana.

 

Oz Academy - They were a faction in GAEA then became a full-time promotion as GAEA and others close. They are still around today with the focus, you guessed it, being on older stars. They have some of the most predictable and boring heel factions ever and theirs so much BS in every match.

 

SUN - Zero 1 tries to do women's wrestling. Zero 1 fails to do women's wrestling and this promotions closes soon after.

 

AtoZ - Forms after (A)rsion and (Z)enjo aka AJW closes. Hotta ran it and they lasted 2-3 years.

 

S-Ovation/Ibuki - Mariko Yoshida gets some recruits and does shows to get them booked more. She succeeds and the promotion closes.

 

WAVE - Forms after AJW/Jd/GAEA closes in the mid-2000's. They have had like 5 full-time roster members and rely a lot on freelancers. They are still going today.

 

Sendai Girls - Meiko, GAEA's future ace, forms this when GAEA closes. She gets some rookies and young girls, but runs in the middle of nowhere in Japan and the promotion doesn't really do as many shows or do much more than one show a month. They are still around, but they should have been more.

 

REINA and Diana - Formed from the ashes of NEO, LLPW and other promotions. REINA goes towards the lucha side and use CMLL girls. Doesn't make much money, may have merged with WNC. Diana takes whatever is left from NEO. Kyoko and Shimoda are really old now, as are a lot of the people now. It's still around.

 

STARDOM - AJW man Rossy Ogawa formed Arsion with Aja Kong. When it failed, he returned around the 2010's and forms Stardom with Fuka, who was a decent draw on her own in the late 2000's. He uses connections with modeling/media and gets some pretty girl wrestlers. The girls end up all being pretty decent.  However, the girls aren't wrestling fans first and most leave as they get injured. They were easily the #1 promotion in the early 2010's and I guess they still are now.

 

As I said, I know I missed a bunch of stuff and surely got dates/info wrong, but there was a ton to cover. Basically, everyone in Japan leaves their promotion to do things on their own and it usually fails.

 

The biggest people who messed things up were:

 

Inoki - For killing his own business and wrestling in Japan for the love of MMA.

 

The Matsunaga's of AJW - Their bad business decisions made joshi what it is today. If they didn't have a mandatory retirement rule at age 26, GAEA, Jd' and JWP maybe don't form. They also wouldn't have bankrupted AJW through bad investments and the NEO/Arsion/GAEA stuff doesn't happen.

 

Tiger Mask/Maeda - No Tiger Mask or Maeda and we may not have MMA as we know it today. Their love of MMA and fighting ended up creating PRIDE, which destroyed Japanese wrestling.

[Curt McGirt]

Wow, that was a rush... the Joshi info that I didn't know about has my head spinning. One of the the Matsunagas committed suicide as well if I recall which is probably pointless to mention but underlines their failure. What you didn't mention that I caught: Futen is the BattlARTS subsect, and there's also Kensuke Office/Diamond Ring, which folks can learn more about here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensuke_Sasaki

 

I have to ask, what is the Delfin-crawling-under-legs story?

[clintthecrippler]

Dont have anything to add other than a big hearty THANK YOU to rzombie for that history lesson. Shit, the post itself should be Pinned.

[Eivion]

NJPW - Your solid mainstay that's been around for a long time. Inoki goes nuts for MMA in the late 90's. He brings in MMA wrestlers to do wrestling and he puts his wrestlers up against MMA guys in legit shootfights. His wrestlers, specifically Yuji Nagata, get destroyed by legit shootfighters and never recover. Mutoh/Kojima/Ka Shin and others leave for NJPW. Ohtani/Hashimoto/Ogawa leave for ZERO-1. Comes very close to dying in the mid-2000's due to mismanagement. Honestly, it gets saved due to Dave Meltzer pimping it and them finally going with the younger guys of Tanahashi and Nakamura.

Meltzer shit on NJPW w/o even watching for years. He didn't start giving much of a fuck until Okada came around. Whats more he is an American journalist I doubt many Japanese fans are even aware he exists. How did you come to such a ridiculous conclusion?

 

SUN - Zero 1 tries to do women's wrestling. Zero 1 fails to do women's wrestling and this promotions closes soon after.

They mostly failed because wrestlers refused to join up leaving them with a roster of 4-5.

 

S-Ovation/Ibuki - Mariko Yoshida gets some recruits and forms a popular promotion. Promotion closes soon after for some reason.

Was never a real promotion. It was more in the vain of Kensuke Office, meant to help wrestlers train and get booked.

 

Sendai Girls - Meiko, GAEA's future ace, forms this when GAEA closes. She gets some rookies and young girls, but runs in the middle of nowhere in Japan and the promotion doesn't really do as many shows or do much more than one show a month. They are still around, but they should have been more.

No on wanted to move to Sendai. Want to say they actually lost three vets before they even had their debut show as it wasn't just supposed to be Meiko there. Their shows actually seem to do decent numbers. They really could have become something if they had anything resembling a real roster.

 

REINA and Diana - Formed from the ashes of NEO, LLPW and other promotions. REINA goes towards the lucha side and use CMLL girls. Doesn't make much money, Diana takes whatever is left from NEO. Kyoko and Shimoda are really old now, as are alot of the people now. May or may not be around. Don't care.

Pretty sure Reina is actually owned by CMLL. REINA did a partial merge with Wrestle New Classic and I suppose a complete one when WNC died. Diana is still around.

 

STARDOM - AJW man Rossy Ogawa formed Arsion with Aja Kong. When it failed, he returned around the 2010's and forms Stardom with Fuka, who was a decent draw on her own in the late 2000's. He uses connections with modeling/media and gets some pretty girl wrestlers. The girls end up all being pretty decent.  However, the girls aren't wrestling fans first and most leave as they get injured. They were easily the #1 promotion in the early 2010's and I guess they still are now.

Fuka seems to be the one who actually brought in the initial class. Some are fans, some aren't. Only a handful or so have left due to injuries. At least three of them were cases of having to retire rather than wanting to. Two others actually came back just not to Stardom. One girl was fired. Another was forced to leave by her parents during the Nosawa/Io incident where the two were caught with drugs.

 

 

[rzombie1988]

Wow, that was a rush... the Joshi info that I didn't know about has my head spinning. One of the the Matsunagas committed suicide as well if I recall which is probably pointless to mention but underlines their failure. What you didn't mention that I caught: Futen is the BattlARTS subsect, and there's also Kensuke Office/Diamond Ring, which folks can learn more about here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensuke_Sasaki

 

I have to ask, what is the Delfin-crawling-under-legs story?

Looks like I slipped on the Delfin story, my bad.

 

Here's the wiki on it:

"

 

1995 , Dick Togo becomes the conflict state ("Kaientai DX" in team name change after) Heisei Kaientai led, conspicuous tameness in the game from this time, in other Delfin corps struggle Delfin one person There was that many of you are down. Or even broken mask, was that often also receive a sanction by exposing the is stripped and Famous. Both regular army led by Sasuke was Mikane united front (Delfin corps at this point can be said to have been absorbed into the regular army) the situation does not change, became a top decisive battle Namie in Delfin vs. Dick Togo game in tournament in, Delfin is Togo fight loss in the onslaught, "I'll forgive you if Kugure my crotch!" and received a microphone appeal of Togo, and passing under the crotch but this may leave all fours is said.

Appeal of Togo is by frustration too of tameness of Delfin was high thick walls were losing streak such as at once the undercover stripped match and hair match, but was to be of thought would be enlivened If it said until there , really Kaientai members in that it was passed under the rage, and received the above sanctions until it in reverse, torn up the costume broken the mask, incident occurs that is written as "stupid" on the back in the colored spray. Angry crowd rioted, Delfin would have disappeared in the middle of the series. Then, the real face Delfin of sunglasses figure appears in the game venue, Sasuke after the game skip Geki, Delfin declared the return.

Delfin resurrection is to learn a new "Osaka Coastal Upper" is trick. It also succeeded in Body Modification, confronted by the difference in muscle with earlier in Shirtless costume in 6 man tag between the two countries Kokugikan "Takewaki" tournaments became a comeback, from the audience referred to as "dude ..." voice also rose. Last to Togo to decide the "Osaka Coastal Upper" KO of the game, played a revenge. (It should be noted that the beat in fist in wrestling because of the foul, this technique is a palm strokes)"

 

I thought about listing Kensuke Office. I guess I can.

[rzombie1988]

 

NJPW - Your solid mainstay that's been around for a long time. Inoki goes nuts for MMA in the late 90's. He brings in MMA wrestlers to do wrestling and he puts his wrestlers up against MMA guys in legit shootfights. His wrestlers, specifically Yuji Nagata, get destroyed by legit shootfighters and never recover. Mutoh/Kojima/Ka Shin and others leave for NJPW. Ohtani/Hashimoto/Ogawa leave for ZERO-1. Comes very close to dying in the mid-2000's due to mismanagement. Honestly, it gets saved due to Dave Meltzer pimping it and them finally going with the younger guys of Tanahashi and Nakamura.

Meltzer shit on NJPW w/o even watching for years. He didn't start giving much of a fuck until Okada came around. Whats more he is an American journalist I doubt many Japanese fans are even aware he exists. How did you come to such a ridiculous conclusion?

 

SUN - Zero 1 tries to do women's wrestling. Zero 1 fails to do women's wrestling and this promotions closes soon after.

They mostly failed because wrestlers refused to join up leaving them with a roster of 4-5.

 

S-Ovation/Ibuki - Mariko Yoshida gets some recruits and forms a popular promotion. Promotion closes soon after for some reason.

Was never a real promotion. It was more in the vain of Kensuke Office, meant to help wrestlers train and get booked.

 

Sendai Girls - Meiko, GAEA's future ace, forms this when GAEA closes. She gets some rookies and young girls, but runs in the middle of nowhere in Japan and the promotion doesn't really do as many shows or do much more than one show a month. They are still around, but they should have been more.

No on wanted to move to Sendai. Want to say they actually lost three vets before they even had their debut show as it wasn't just supposed to be Meiko there. Their shows actually seem to do decent numbers. They really could have become something if they had anything resembling a real roster.

 

REINA and Diana - Formed from the ashes of NEO, LLPW and other promotions. REINA goes towards the lucha side and use CMLL girls. Doesn't make much money, Diana takes whatever is left from NEO. Kyoko and Shimoda are really old now, as are alot of the people now. May or may not be around. Don't care.

Pretty sure Reina is actually owned by CMLL. REINA did a partial merge with Wrestle New Classic and I suppose a complete one when WNC died. Diana is still around.

 

STARDOM - AJW man Rossy Ogawa formed Arsion with Aja Kong. When it failed, he returned around the 2010's and forms Stardom with Fuka, who was a decent draw on her own in the late 2000's. He uses connections with modeling/media and gets some pretty girl wrestlers. The girls end up all being pretty decent.  However, the girls aren't wrestling fans first and most leave as they get injured. They were easily the #1 promotion in the early 2010's and I guess they still are now.

Fuka seems to be the one who actually brought in the initial class. Some are fans, some aren't. Only a handful or so have left due to injuries. At least three of them were cases of having to retire rather than wanting to. Two others actually came back just not to Stardom. One girl was fired. Another was forced to leave by her parents during the Nosawa/Io incident where the two were caught with drugs.

 

I meant for along the lines of, Meltzer's interest sparks English-speaking fan interest and gets it hot. There's no doubt in my mind without Dave, there's no NJPW on USA TV. Same with AAA/AJW being hot for smart fans in the 90's.

 

Def agree that Fuka had influence, though Rossy/Fuka are business match, so it's a little of both. Not up on anything in the last year, so don't really know.

 

Will try to add in the rest of the details on the others. It was just a quick and dirty fix.

[Eivion]

The Matsunaga's of AJW - Their bad business decisions made joshi what it is today. If they didn't have a mandatory retirement rule at age 26, GAEA, Jd' and JWP maybe don't form.

Or maybe some iterations of them form sooner. When I started watching joshi a decade ago the biggest thing I recall hearing that was damaging joshi was vets refusing to put over the younger generation and retire. The problem hasn't really gone away. I can see why the rule existed even though I don't really agree with it.

 

I meant for along the lines of, Meltzer's interest sparks English-speaking fan interest and gets it hot. There's no doubt in my mind without Dave, there's no NJPW on USA TV.

They started trying to sell some of the bigger live shows on the internet to English fans a good two years ago. I imagine that deal has a lot more to do with Jeff Jarett and his attempts to create an NWA type of entity.

[rzombie1988]

 

The Matsunaga's of AJW - Their bad business decisions made joshi what it is today. If they didn't have a mandatory retirement rule at age 26, GAEA, Jd' and JWP maybe don't form.

Or maybe some iterations of them form sooner. When I started watching joshi a decade ago the biggest thing I recall hearing that was damaging joshi was vets refusing to put over the younger generation and retire. The problem hasn't really gone away. I can see why the rule existed even though I don't really agree with it.

 

I meant for along the lines of, Meltzer's interest sparks English-speaking fan interest and gets it hot. There's no doubt in my mind without Dave, there's no NJPW on USA TV.

They started trying to sell some of the bigger live shows on the internet to English fans a good two years ago. I imagine that deal has a lot more to do with Jeff Jarett and his attempts to create an NWA type of entity.

 

I get the retirement rule, and while it did have some good effects, it has more negative effects. For the rule to work, you'd need:

- The stars to not go elsewhere.

- A steady stream of recruits.

- Recruits who can take it further than their seniors could, become stars and a willingness to sacrifice the profit loss of getting rid of the older girls for the newer girls.

[rzombie1988]

Thanks for the extra info Eiv, will add it.

[substancej]

You corrected the Kaientai angle but that's not what prompted Delfin's departure by any stretch. It was Michinoku's biggest money drawing angle and Delfin's biggest publicity since the '94 Super Juniors final. The story was that Dick Togo beat Delfin so badly that it broke his spirit, like WWE should have done when Brock destroyed Cena at Summerslam. Togo refused to end the match until Delfin submitted by crawling through his legs. It was a brutal beating to put over the angle. Delfin didn't wrestle for nearly a year, sporadically reappearing in sunglasses claiming to be retired and refusing visits from Sasuke and Naniwa & the camera crew. Delfin finally snapped out of it (camera crew conveniently on hand) and began training with Takehiro Murahama to develop the Osaka Rinkai Upper in addition to building up a bunch of muscle for his return match which would be the culmination of the Kaientai feud on 10.10.97 at Ryogoku. Delfin was always the hero and the focal point. There may have been more planned since NJPW wanted to bring in Kaientai for an invasion of the Juniors division (and even shot an opening angle at a dome show) but Kaientai left for WWF along with Sasuke.

 

Between Sasuke trying to get into WWF and being injured, Delfin was left in charge of Michinoku with only a skeleton crew in early '98. When Sasuke returned his solution to the absence of Kaientai was to work his own heel program against Delfin. Sasuke got a little too into the whole SASUKE Gumi angle and began exposing Delfin's private life as promo material and generally ridiculing him. By the end of 1998 Delfin was either fed up or contractually free to escape to Osaka with his crew. Clearly Michinoku was a sinking ship as Teioh went to BJW and Togo went to Osaka upon leaving WWF. Certainly there was no bad blood between Delfin and Togo.

[ka-to]

IWA Japan actually folded last year.

[lostinube]

Okinawa Pro still exists but I don't think they even run shows in Okinawa in anymore. They run a show maybe once a year (?) wherever Delfin is and right now he is in Osaka where he is a politician. Ryukyu Dragon Pro Wrestling seems to be filling the void right now.

 

Jd was initially backed by (or created by, not sure) Yoshimoto Kogyo, one of the heavyweight talent agencies in Japan (and probably the main comedian agency). Whenever it was they became JD Star is when Yoshimoto pulled out.

[NikoBaltimore]

I just want to say starting with rzombie's detailed post forward, this has been super beneficial to read.  I agree, that post plus the revisions ones should be stickied.  I've never really followed any wrestling in Japan, but I at least credit Meltzer with getting me informed on at least the top guys.  But credit should go to GFW as well for making those who kind of know into wanting more.

 

I understand that NJPW has their stuff on NJPW World, so no reason looking elsewhere for their stuff.  For other promotions, is it fair game on Youtube/Dailymotion/elsewhere?  From what I can tell if I wanted to see a recent event from AJPW or NOAH it's legally possible.  If so, do they normally have full shows?  I know these are noob-like questions.  Just trying to get a feel for what I'm expecting if I do some searching when I get home.

 

Oh, one last thing.  Would/could they ever considering adding defunct promotions to NJPW World.  Like WWE, what interest is there for them to buy the library for those not running and put it on there.  It's copying off what WWE Network is doing, but as a mainly US wrestling fan I ask "Why not?"

[supremebve]

I just want to say starting with rzombie's detailed post forward, this has been super beneficial to read.  I agree, that post plus the revisions ones should be stickied.  I've never really followed any wrestling in Japan, but I at least credit Meltzer with getting me informed on at least the top guys.  But credit should go to GFW as well for making those who kind of know into wanting more.

 

I understand that NJPW has their stuff on NJPW World, so no reason looking elsewhere for their stuff.  For other promotions, is it fair game on Youtube/Dailymotion/elsewhere?  From what I can tell if I wanted to see a recent event from AJPW or NOAH it's legally possible.  If so, do they normally have full shows?  I know these are noob-like questions.  Just trying to get a feel for what I'm expecting if I do some searching when I get home.

I think we should do some sort of "How to watch..." post/folder.  Don't get me wrong you can find a lot of things on YouTube, but with copyright laws and all those videos could be fleeting.  I honestly don't know where to watch Dragongate, DDT, or AJPW or who the relevant workers are in each group.  If nothing else it could help raise the level of conversation in the puro folder.

[NikoBaltimore]

That would be great.  I remember the matches folder on the older boards having tons of content.  Would be cool to get it close to that level again.

[Kevin Wilson]

No one is stopping anyone from making a post doing that  I mean I get most of my video watching from torrent sites and dailymotion personally, that and NJPW World when applicable.

[GOTNW]

Tenryu is retiring in november on the same date he debuted (the 13th).