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ARSION HYPER VISUAL FIGHTING
TOURNAMENT ZION'98 Commercial Tape 8/31/98 Osaka Namihaya Dome (2,100) |
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This show was a huge step up from ARS, with every tournament match that didn't involve Ayako Hamada being good to very good. Even though Hamada killed three matches, this show made her a star because she scored a major upset over Futagami to get to the finals and then held her own with Yoshida. "I agree that this show was an improvement in the tournament style that they started at ARS. I attribute most of that to how many of the girls improving throughout the year," wrote Keith. The show also helped Candy Okutsu become more of a star, as she became the first female Tiger Mask when she made her debut as Tiger Dream. This didn't work nearly as well as planned because she was never able to master the Tiger Mask spots, but her match against Hiromi Yagi was still the best on the show. Yoshida came out of the show as almost the unbeatable force of ARSION, increasing her singles record to 21 wins against only 1 loss. This push is so much better than any she ever got in AJW that I can't even begin to describe it, and winning ZION'98 was just the beginning of it. Yoshida also erased any doubt that she was worthy of this push because she was the best performer on this show. Her performance here went a long way toward establishing herself as one of the best wrestlers in the world. Unfortunately, ARSION still isn't catching on at all. Even though this show was held at a Dome, that is decieving because this isn't some 50,000 seat baseball stadium. In fact, All Japan announced a sellout of 2,050 when they ran this building during the Sekai Saikyo Tag League tour on 11/17/98. I don't know what the AJ attendance looked like, but I could see that for this show the upper level was practically vacant. While this show was not a total failure at the gate, it was yet another attempt to draw a good sized crowd outside of Tokyo that didn't exactly pan out. "This is true. There are many problems with women's wrestling in Japan right now, but two of the ones I can cite are 1) too many promotions without enough stars; and 2) too many promotions that lack star power that also do not differentiate themselves from each other. With ARSION's initiation in the women's leagues, they drew some great response because the style was fresh and the idea behind the federation was fresh. The problem is that ARSION didn't follow up by enforcing their original image of the submission specialist federation. You had only two wrestlers that decided to uphold this image in Yoshida and Futagami while the other wrestlers, although beknighted by titles such as Okutsu's "Ms Perfect," did little to reinforce the idea behind their identities. In turn, the fad that was ARSION initially had already begun to die out, especially when other leagues like GAEA had begun recruiting women with star power from other leagues and involving them in a big, interpromotional angle," wrote Keith. I tend to disagree with narrowing it down to only two wrestlers that upheld the image. I think Fukawa is credible as either Dynamite Mini, representing her more fiery attitude and her improved fast-paced ring work, and Princess of Submission, representing her major improvement in arsenal, transitions into, and application of submissions. Omukai sure as hell looks like a "Beauty Venus" to me, and she's stuck with her kicking style through thick and thin to the point that she became proficient enough in it that predominantly kicking was helping her matches. Reggie's nickname was never well worded and never had anything to do with the submission style, but she has stuck with the submission style and was better at it than the gaijins of similar size (speaking comparitively to their sex) that worked in the men's shoot leagues, Vader and Gary Albright, ever became. I see Fukawa, Omukai, & Reggie as all being new improved wrestlers at this point (of course, Reggie is long gone now and Omukai seems to not know what image to portray) due to sticking with, and greatly improving upon, the shoot oriented changes they initially displayed on the debut show. I have no problem calling these three, along with Gami & Yoshida, "Hyper Visual Fighters." I think the problem with the nicknames is that half of them sound like Reggie came up with them at four in the morning after five glasses of "beeru" too many. I mean, Rie Tamada as "The Fastest in the World?" Must be one hell of a small world. I'm sure Chikayo would smoke her in a race, much less all the actual track stars. You mentioned Candy as "Ms. Perfect," but that nickname just further proves my point that a lot of these were names that no one could possibly live up to. Having a concept is the first step, but having a concept that actually fits the performer is the step you need to take. If they could not come up with a nickname for every woman initially, they should have focused on the nicknames like Futagami's "Lady Of 1000 Holds," which isn't really original, but the main thing is that it's not too outlandish considering her technical excellence. Also, "ARSION True Heart" makes sense for Yoshida because she is the trainer and essentially the heart of the submission style and all that is good about ARSION wrestling. Another thing about the nicknames is that it made no sense to try to get over two nicknames for the same person at the same time. You can only be so many things at once, and one concept or identity is more than enough anyway. Save the double dealing for wrestlers who are already incredibly over like Lazyi Muta. "One big problem with the nicknames is that they're in English. Most of the audience won't be able to relate to them in this manner because they simply don't know what they mean. Another problem is that some of them don't make sense or were directly copied from popular American stars that Reggie probably thought would go over well with the audience in Japan. I mean, calling Jessie Bennett 'the Loose Cannon' was a bit of a stretch," wrote Keith. I think that a major problem with some of these nicknames is that noone stopped to think if these guys had any name value in Japan. For instance, when Brian Pillman last appeared in Japan, he was still Flyin' Brian. How many people in Japan saw him call Sullivan "booker man." Obviously some of the fans saw this and more heard about it, but it wasn't the buzz of the industry over there like it was here. Plus, its was three years since that happened, so people had a lot of time to forget about it, especially since he's unfortunately out of sight. Dean Malenko has some name value in Japan, but he really hasn't been over there since he became the "Man of 1000 Holds." I'd expect more Japanese fans would understand who Ms. Perfect was lifted from, but still it's like WCW, in that the casual fan is not going to be able to put two and two together to figure out what they are referring to. "Even if an American viewer would readily acknowledge Omukai as 'the beauty Venus,' you'd have to wonder what being a 'Venus' has to do with one's wrestling talents. Her book title of "Artemis" makes more sense because the the warrior woman goddess applies to Omukai's fighting ability. Still, I seriously doubt that many people in Japan would get the significance of the name "Venus" nor "Artemis," unless they're forced to study Greek mythology in school. The real problem with these 'concept' names I've been told is that ARSION didn't try to relate the wrestlers' nicknames to their gimmick somehow, or rather they didn't explicitly state why some of these women are called what they are, and what the audience should be looking for. For instance, calling Candy 'Ms. Perfect.' She might have problems, but you can say, for instance, that she has good all-around ability that makes her great. Now, the problem, of course, is that ARSION doesn't have any normal television and relies on video sales, DirecTV (before they dropped them), magazines, and their shows, so it might be harder to get to a broader audience who these women are. But you can, for instance, have the announcer (before they stopped having them on the tapes) talk about what to look for in a wrestler in each show. The main thing would be to remind the audience who the wrestlers are so that they get it drilled what each person represents. I was told that this was something lacking," wrote Keith. Special thanks to: Keith Watanabe - Manami Toyota Rules! |
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