Quebrada

by Mike Lorefice (M.L.Liger@juno.com)

Year in Puroresu

The following is a recap by promotion of most of the major events that occurred in Japan this year.

* denotes notes added during republishing

All Japan

The first sign that Jun Akiyama was going to become a big star came on 1/26 in Kawasaki. Akiyama teamed with Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi to defeat Akira Taue, Toshiaki Kawada, & Masa Fuchi. What’s notable is that Akiyama got his first pin on one of the big four here when he pinned Taue. In 1993, Akiyama was one of the greatest working rookies the sport had ever seen. He was heavily criticized in 1994 and 1995 because he didn’t improve at the rate many felt he should have. In 1996, Akiyama would not only silence all his critics, but arguably become a top ten worker.

All Japan sold out Budokan Hall on 3/2 for a battle between the most popular native and the most popular foreigner in Japan. Misawa was successful in his Triple Crown against Gary Albright, pinning him with a rolling elbow drop in 14:20. It was a very good match, but a far cry from the masterful job Kawada did with Albright the previous October. Also on the card, in a far superior match, Kawada & Taue defended the double tag titles beating Kobashi & Akiyama when Taue pinned Akiyama with a Dynamic bomb in 20:42.

All Japan had its major singles tournament of the year, the Champion Carnival, from 3/22-4/20. This tournament showed the first signs of AJ changing their traditional ways. On 3/24, Misawa was pinned by Steve Williams in 19:59 after two backdrop drivers. This was the first singles job Misawa had done since July 28, 1994 when he lost the Triple Crown to Williams. Kenta Kobashi scored his first ever singles win over Williams on 4/10 in his hometown of Kyoto. This tournament showed the typical booking genius. It was booked so that as late as the second to last show any two of five wrestlers could make it to the finals. Hansen had 16 points (2 points are awarded for a win and 1 for a draw), but he was finished. Taue, Williams, & Kobashi all had 15 points with 1 match remaining. Misawa had 14 points with 1 match remaining. On 4/16 Taue defeated Ace and Williams defeated Omori. Therefore, these two clinched a spot in the finals and eliminated Misawa & Hansen. Kobashi still had a match with Ace so they could all wind up tie with 17. On 4/18 in Hiratsuka, Kobashi vs. Ace went to a 30:00 draw, so Kobashi wound up tied for third with Misawa & Hansen. Taue defeated Williams in the finals by pinning him following the nodowa otoshi at 21:41. Williams winning would have been a perfect story as he was returning to the promotion after about a year layoff. Williams winning would also make the other AJ wrestlers look bad, in a sense, though because they shouldn’t lose to an older man who hasn’t worked in a year. Having Taue win gave him the credibility that he needs to be considered among the top four, a status he finally earned with strong singles performances vs. Misawa the year before, and it didn’t hurt Williams because it was "amazing enough" that he could come back from the absence, pin Misawa, and make it to the finals.

Mitsuhara Misawa did his second singles job on 5/24 in Sapporo losing the Triple Crown to Akira Taue. This was the biggest win of Taue’s career, though the match was not as great as their April or September '95 contests, and the first time he had even pinned Misawa in singles. Misawa still had gold though, as in a match of the year candidate the night before he teamed with Jun Akiyama to defeat Taue & Kawada for the double tag team titles. Akiyama got the pin on Kawada in 27:26 following three uranages. This solidified Akiyama as a headliner proved the expansion of the big four to the big five was rightful.

Akira Taue’s first Triple Crown defense was 6/7 at Budokan Hall against long time partner Toshiaki Kawada. Taue defeated Kawada with his nodowa in 17:41. Also on the card, Misawa & Akiyama retained the double tag team titles by defeating Ace & Williams in a tremendous match when Akiyama pinned Ace with his uranage at 30:09.

AJ finally gave the Triple Crown to their best pure worker on 7/24 at Budokan Hall. Kenta Kobashi, who’s universally regarded as the best working heavyweight in wrestling but does not have psychology in the class with Kawada or Misawa, scored a major upset pinning Akira Taue for the title in 27:25. Kobashi is the youngest between Taue, Misawa, & Kawada so they were always pushed ahead of him and he was the one who would job for the Misawa & Kobashi team in all the classic matches.

AJ ran Budokan Hall on 9/5 with Triple Crown & Double tag title matches on top, but failed to sellout out the building. AJ had a ridiculous streak of Budokan sellouts that dated back to 1990 come to an end earlier in the year. Ace & Williams defeated Misawa & Akiyama for the double tag titles when Ace pinned Akiyama with a cobra suplex at 28:47. Though a great match, it probably won't be remembered because of the exceptional quality of their previous meeting. Kobashi defended the Triple crown defeating Hansen in a very overrated match. The once great Hansen is way past his prime and is to the point where he should retire.

Hiroshi Hase joined All Japan giving them a major name and a fresh set of matches. There is certainly a lot of money to be made for a Hase vs. Kobashi, Hase vs. Misawa, or Hase vs. Kawada match. Hase actually didn’t debut with the promotion until 1997.

Sabu also joined this promotion in October. This again shows the tradition is changing as they would never have let a side show like Sabu into the promotion before. AJ allowed him to use his gimmicks such as tables in most matches. Sabu was a disaster for NJ in their junior division and juniors (or former juniors excluding Misawa who was taken out of the division and groomed for years to be the man) never draw any money in All Japan.

All Japan failed to sellout Budokan once again on 10/18 for the main event of Kenta Kobashi defending the Triple Crown against Toshiaki Kawada. This match was a 60:00 draw. AJ totally butchered this match on tv by not splitting it up into two shows. AJ’s tv show is 30 minutes long, so they skipped roughly 2/3 of the match. The AJ style is built around psychology and building where every move means something. They were doing the exhaustion storyline, so the pace was somewhat slow during the part they aired. The finish also wasn’t as exciting as one would expect due to the storyline. This match was undoubtedly a 4 or more star match, but without seeing all the build it’s hard to gauge how good it really was. *Kobashi & Kawada also had a 60:00 draw the previous year during Kawada's debacled title reign. Both were great matches though neither did much to help champion or challenger*

All Japan’s Real World Tag Tournament had the surprise of a lifetime as Giant Kimala II & Jun Izumida defeated Misawa & Akiyama. Kobashi & Patriot where in first place the whole way, but wound up needing a draw to ensure a slot in the finals. They fought Ace & Williams on 12/4 in Niigata. The draw was teased, but Ace wound up pinning Patriot at 28:14, so both teams tied for third. This left Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kawada & Taue for the finals. Kawada & Taue had lost in the finals of the 1993 & 1995 tournaments, so it was their turn for the win. On 12/6 at a sold out Budokan Hall, Kawada pinned Misawa with his powerbomb in 31:37 to win the tournament. It was surprising that Misawa did another job. This was said to be a 5 star match. Some people are calling this the match of the year and others are going so far as to call this one of the greatest matches of all-time. *Certainly it's one of the couple best tag matches ever along with Misawa & Kobashi vs. Kawada & Taue 6/9/95 & Yamada & Toyota vs. Kansai & Ozaki 11/26/92*

All Japan Women

Akira Hokuto worked her last match for AJW on 2/2 in Marukame. Hokuto teamed with Mima Shimoda & Chaparrita ASARI to defeat Yumiko Hotta, Toshiyo Yamada, & Kumiko Maekawa. This was the end of a great era as Hokuto has had more great matches than anyone can count. You can argue all day about whether Hokuto, Toyota, Kyoko, or Jaguar Yokota is the greatest female worker of all-time. Hokuto is still active, but all the classics have taken a toll on her body and it’s doubtful she will ever reach her previous level of excellence in Gaea or WCW.

All Japan Women put more emphasis on appealing to the schoolgirl audience by having their stars do rock songs at shows again. From 1968 when the promotion started until roughly 1990, the schoolgirls were the only fans of this promotion. When they started appealing to all audiences, they dropped the singing because it didn’t fit the current audience. The importance of appealing to schoolgirls is great because they are the audience that the new workers will come from. The main reason this promotion has fallen off this year is that they don’t have enough schoolgirls applying to their wrestling school. This used to be the toughest promotion in the world to make it with as they would weed the hundreds or even thousands of applications down to one or two hundred. After grueling training in their wrestling school, they would pick only a handful of women. Of those, maybe ½ would actually make it far enough to debut in the promotion. Now that they get far fewer applications, they are forced to accept lower quality workers into the league.

AJW’s biggest show of the year was Queendom’96 on 3/31 in Yokohama Arena. The six-hour show was headlined by a ****3/4 match where Manami Toyota retained her WWWA world title by defeated Kyoko Inoue. This match was supposedly held down because Kyoko was still suffering the effects of her broken shoulder. One of the best workers in the world, Sakie Hasegawa had her retirement match. Hasegawa was only 25, and was being groomed to be the next big star in late '94 and much of '95. Injuries from the punishing style had taken their toll on her although you usually couldn’t tell from watching her. Hasegawa was supposed to team with Kaoru Ito against LLPW’s Michiko Nagashima and her best friend Tomoko Watanabe. All four were members of AJW’s class of 1989 although Nagashima, who became quite a good wrestler, didn’t make the grade. Hasegawa told Ito to join the other team, so it was three against one. During the match, Ito switched back to Hasegawa’s side. The very emotional match came to an end when Watanabe pinned Hasegawa in 14:24. After the match Hasegawa & Watanabe were hugging and crying and Hasegawa got the formal AJW retirement ceremony where most of the workers gave her presents. * Ironically the best Toyota vs. Hasegawa match was the one they had just 11 days before her retirement, on 3/20/96* Members of AJW’s class of 1986 were reunited as FMW’s Combat Toyoda, Yoshimoto Pro’s Cooga (Miori Kamiya), & Aja Kong defeated FMW’s Megumi Kudo, Yoshimoto’s Bison Kimura, & Gaea’s KAORU when Cooga pinned Bison with a German suplex in 23:02. Yumiko Hotta’s shooter push was continued as she defeated Leticia Oluncini in a Vale Tudo rules match.

AJW ran into problems selling out Korakuen Hall this year because with no new stars all the matches have been done. The 5/1 show which had a tag tournament where all the teams consisted of a young girl and a star drew a disappointing 1,100. Kyoko Inoue & Tanny Mouth wound up winning the tournament when the defeated Mariko Yoshida & Rie Tamada in the finals. *The tape of this show is probably the worst full tape AJW put out on their regular label*

AJW sold out Yokohama Bunka Gym on 5/11 for their Wrestlemarinpiad show. This show was basically built to get the young girls over, but would up proving that most of them weren’t ready. The main event was a ****1/4 match where Kyoko & Takako Inoue defeated Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda when Kyoko pinned Toyota in 52:14. This was an excellent match, but the heat was down for some reason. It took 35 minutes for the crowd to start popping. The rest of the show was predominantly squash matches where the star would sell for the young girl a bit before using their finisher for the pin. Chaparrita ASARI was very impressive in her match, but the same cannot be said for many of the younger girls.

On 6/22 in Sapporo AJW had a show billed as WWWA Champions night. Manami Toyota & Mima Shimoda defeated Kyoko & Takako Inoue to become the new WWWA tag champions in a 32:48 best of three falls match. This made Toyota the first women since Lioness Asuka in 1989 to hold both the WWWA world heavyweight title and WWWA world tag title. The much improved Reggie Bennett won a one night tournament for the All-Pacific Title. Reggie defeated Mariko Yoshida in the first round and Kaoru Ito in the finals.

AJW’s Discover New Heroine show on 8/12 and 8/13 were box office let downs. The show was built around the U* tournament which was a legit shoot. The tournament was designed to further Yumiko Hotta’s shooter push, but she wound up losing to Rosina Elina in the finals. Dynamite Kansai & Tomoko Kuzumi of JWP defeated Aja Kong & Yoshika Tamura in the tag tournament final. This was supposed to have been very stiff and very good. *The tag tournament had some good matches, but the shows didn't come close to meeting the expectations for one major AJW show much less a Budokan double shot*

Aja Kong won the annual Japan Grand Prix tournament defeating Kyoko Inoue in the finals in 18:29 at Osaka Furitsu Gym. Kong had 16 points to win the round robin tournament while Hotta, Kyoko, & Bennett all tied for 2nd with 14. This set up Aja for a title shot on 10/6.

AJW drew 6,100 fans in Nagoya for the Aja Kong vs. Manami Toyota title match. In one of the promotions top matches of the year, Toyota retained the WWWA title with her Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex at 21:07. AJW used to draw their best crowds in Tokyo, but that trend has been reversed this year and they draw better for shows outside of their home base. Kyoko Inoue defeated Yumiko Hotta in 19:13 with her Niagara Driver to earn the next title shot.

AJW helped eliminate the problem of too many titles by unifying the IWA & All-Pacific titles on 11/21 in Kobe. Takako Inoue defeated Reggie Bennett to win both titles. These titles will be unified with the WWWA wold title in 1997, so AJW will have their own Triple Crown.

AJW’s tag tournament stuck with the theme of trying to get the young girls over. Aside from the Bennett & Shimoda team, a star was paired with a young girl. Toyota & Tamada won the tournament on 12/1 at Korakuen Hall beating Watanabe & Maekawa in the finals. This tournament would have to be deemed a failure as it doesn’t sound like the young girls got over.

AJW’s last major show was 12/8 at Tokyo Sumo Hall. Kyoko Inoue invented a new move and defeated Toyota to capture the WWWA title in 24:52. The move was an inverted death valley driver as she started it in torture rack position rather than Samoan drop position. *This appears to be the last great match of this legendary feud. They still pulled an excellent match when they finally got back together in '99, seemingly one of the last on that level for both* Momoe Nakanishi won AJW’s rookie tournament defeating Miho Wakizawa in the finals. Rosina Elina defeated Hotta for the second time in as many matches, this time in 4:29 with an armbreaker. Kansai & Kong avenged their loss to Yoshida & Takako Inoue when Kansai pinned Yoshida in 19:15.

Battlarts

This promotion debuted on 1/13 at Korakuen Hall. The style is another worked shoot group, most similar to UWF-I. This group doesn’t really have any big stars, but they work with other indies and have some good workers. Most of the initial workers came from the defunct PWFG. Yuki Ishikawa a.k.a. Kamikaze is one of their most well known workers (not that he’s a household name). They also use the best independent tag team, TAKA & Funaki. *They never really decided what their style was, which was probably one of the reasons the league never took off. Initially they were more toward loose PWFG, but they'd throw in traditional pro wrestling (especially NJ they grew up with), Lucha Libre, whatever into the mix so while it might have been interesting it wasn't credible and you need some semblance of credibility to be even a quasi shoot league. That said, this was one of the only promotions that was better in 98-00 than in the mid 90's, largely due to Daisuke Ikeda & Minoru Tanaka coming into their own*

Big Japan

Big Japan ran Korakuen Hall on 5/22 with a sick exploding balloon thump tacks death match. The balloon was in the air over the ring and at the 7:30 mark it exploded and dropped 30,000 thump tacks into the ring. Kendo Nagasaki & Seiji Yamakawa defeated Shoji Nakamaki & Axl Rotten when Yamakawa DDT’d Axl on the tacks. Yamakawa was powerbombed onto the tacks earlier in the match.

The main angle started at the Rikidozan show when New Japan wrestlers made fun of the poor working garbage promotions. This led to Big Japan wrestlers challenging New Japan to interpromotional matches, which were held on 1/4 at the Tokyo Dome.

FMW

Victor Quinones debuted with at FMW’s 2/23 show at Korakuen Hall. The main event saw Masato Tanaka, Riki Fuji, & Tetsuhiro Kuroda defeat Hido, W*ING Kanemura, & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga in a War Games cage match. After the match, Quinones, Mr. Pogo, and the Headhunters attacked both teams. Quinones was brought in as FMW’s booker and not surprisingly brought all his cronies with the bad gimmicks like Crypt Keeper with him.

FMW ran their traditional major show of the year on 5/5 at Kawasaki Stadium. The crowd of 33,231 was way down from the Onita days, but was still a success. Onita was in attendance to see the first ever womens no rope electrified explosive barbed wire death match between Noriyo Combat Toyoda & Megumi Kudo. This was the 28-year-old Combat’s retirement match. Kudo won the match in 21:26 with the reverse Gori special bomb. This was a very dramatic match. Wrestling wise, this was the best of this type of gimmick match because they actually wrestled a strong match rather than just built to explosions. This made the few explosions more meaningful. In her win, Kudo captured the WWA World and Independent World womens title. You like to see people retire with a win, but this made sense because from this point forward Kudo would have to carry the women’s division on her back. The main event was a no rope electrified explosive barbed wire time bomb land mine double hell death match. *Kudo vs. Combat is one that seems to really resonate with a lot of people, largely because intelligence seemed to be stripped from brawls once a death match went from a really intense match where two people, sans weapons and gimmicks, act like they really want to kill each other (this is where a guy like Choshu excels) to a match where two people hit each other with everything they can stuff under the ring or in a garbage can. It's probably the best match FMW ever produced and certainly the best example of the level their two quality women were capable of rising two (they are easy to discount since most of their other memorable matches were interpromotional)* Mr. Pogo & Terry Funk defeated Hayabusa & Masato Tanaka in a very good, very bloody match. Hayabusa, who came back from his injuries too soon, was cut to hell and required 110 stitches. Tanaka was the luckier of the losing team as he only needed 65 stitches. Hayabusa’s mask was ripped off after the match. This match was billed as being for the equivalent of $200,000. Hayabusa cried in the dressing room after the match because he lost his mask, the match, and "the company’s money." Also on the card, TAKA Michinoku defeated Koji Nakagawa for the Independent World jr. Title in 15:49 with the Michinoku driver II. The Head Hunters & Super Leather became the first World Street Fight Six-man champions by defeating Horace Boulder, Hisakatsu Oya, & The Gladiator in 19:59. In a barbed wire barricade spider net broken glass death match, Cactus Jack remained King of the Death Matches by pinning W*ING Kanemura with an underhook DDT at 16:49.

FMW’s major show of the summer was 8/1 at the Shiodome in Tokyo. Mr. Pogo was injured taking a bump off the ring apron into the boards with explosives, glass, & barbed wire. Pogo lay motionless, so Funk decided to light him on fire. Poor Pogo suffered a serious neck injury and was in the hospital with temporary paralysis. In his first match since 5/5, Hayabusa defeated Koji Nakagawa via count out in 21:42. Hayabusa got no reaction coming out and during the match for that matter, but that could be because both were faces or because the match sucked. Both men were way below par and the bad finish certainly didn’t help. W*ING Kanemura defeated Masato Tanaka in the finals of the tournament for the newly created Independent World heavyweight title. This was one of the best FMW matches of the year. Kanemura got the victory at 14:47 with a ThunderFire powerbomb.

Head Hunters & Oya won the World 6-man titles on 11/16 in Osaka defeating Tanaka, Nakagawa, & Tetsuhiro Kuroda. After the match, they kept beating on the heels so Pogo & Hayabusa tried to make the save. Pogo was destroyed by the Hunters and sent back to the hospital. This set up the Hunters as opponents for Pogo in his retirement match on 12/11.

FMW’s final major show was a sellout on 12/11 in Tokyo at Komazawa Olympic Park Gym. Onita returned to action, teaming with Pogo, Tanaka, & Kuroda to defeat Funk, Headhunters, & Oya. Tanaka pinned Hunter A with a back suplex in 23:04 of this Texas street fight tornado death match. This was the end of Quinones stint as booker in FMW. Hayabusa pinned Sasuke following his falcon arrow in 19:12. Thankfully the stupid death match stipulations for this match were dropped. Gladiator defeated W*ING Kanemura to unify the World Brass Knucks Title & Independent world heavyweight title. In a juice fest, LLPW’s Shinobu Kandori defeated Megumi Kudo in 14:30.

GAEA

Chigusa Nagayo announced that Akira Hokuto had joined the group on 9/16 at Korakuen Hall. Hokuto would not only wrestle, but she would train the young girls. *Hokuto was the first of many veterans that had nothing left when GAEA brought them in. Either way, they booked all of them more or less the same, with newest taking the top non Chigusa spot in the pecking order and being the toast of the league until Chigusa ran out of ideas for them and replaced them in the limelight with the next outsider*

The group crowned their first world champion on 11/2 in Singapore. Chigusa Nagayo pinned Devil Masami to win the newly created AAAW title. Sonoko Kato & Meiko Satomura beat Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima to win the newly created AAAW jr. tag team titles.

IWA Japan

This group sealed their fate, or at least it seemed that way, by deciding to stop booking most foreign talent. The idea of saving on salary and transportation was a good one, but building a promotion around washed up wrestlers like Great Kabuki, Tarzan Goto, & Umanosuke Ueda didn’t work. Even more important than losing the foreigners was the loss of Shoji Nakamaki. Nakamaki was the ideal IWA wrestler as he has no regard for his body. The main difference between him and the aforementioned aside from Nakamaki’s willingness to take the craziest bumps is that Nakamaki was already over.

IWA’s 6/4-6/8 tour drew poorly. They didn’t even draw 1,000 at Korakuen Hall. This led to the cancelation of the planned Kawasaki Stadium show in August.

IWA copromototed two shows with ECW on 8/10 at Yokohama Bunka Gym and 8/11 at Korakuen Hall. The first show drew only 1,800 in the 4,900-seat arena, but the second show sold out Korakuen Hall. These shows had lousy lineups and based on what ECW aired of the second show were bad. Horrible working ECW scrub Buh Buh Ray Dudley had a terrible match with Katsumi Hirana the first night. The second night, Buh Buh lost to Tarzan Goto in a 4:38 main event. A main event that’s shorter than 5 minutes should tell you something about that match. Eliminators had a stupid match where they treated Keisuke Yamada & Takashi Okano as jobbers. Basically both groups, but IWA in particular, showed their lack of a talent base.

IWA suspended operations after the 10/26 show. At first it looked like the group was out of business for good, but they are restarting this month. With around 30 promotions running in Japan it’s impossible for all or even most to be financially successful. 22-year-old worker Keisuke Yamada is now the president of this promotion.

JWP

Long time tag partners Cuty Suzuki & Mayumi Ozaki broke up on 1/31 in Osaka. The two were challenging KAORU & Hikari Fukuoka for the JWP tag titles, but lost. This split between the two beauty idols gave JWP some new matches as Ozaki became a great heel, but didn’t solve the real problem which is the need for a headliner to replace the aging Devil Masami. *JWP were good at playing heels and faces based on the opposition rather than having a strict role, which was important giving their limited roster. For instance, Ozaki would be a heel against the younger or equally small girls but a face against the monsters (Kansai, Masami, Chigusa when they fought in JWP).

*Though a slight year for interpromotional classics on the women's side, the 4/7 Yokohama Bunka Taiikukan show was headlined by one of the standouts. Dynamite Kansai & Takako Inoue defeated Mayumi Ozaki & Kyoko Inoue in what was certainly one of the best. Noted JWP fan Koji Yamamoto once cited this as one of the couple best matches in the history of the promotion. Takako pinned Ozaki here, but Ozaki avenged the next month in a very good Dress Up Wild Fight.*

JWP’s major show of the year was the Ryogoku Big Project show on 10/13 at Tokyo Sumo Hall. JWP, with help from other promotions, drew 6,000 fans which was a success, but shows their drawing power. Kyoko Inoue of AJW teamed with Devil Masami to defeat Aja Kong of AJW & Dynamite Kansai in the main event. They had a mixed match where Michinoku’s Sasuke & Tiger Mask #4 teamed with Hiromi Yagi & Hiraki Fukuoka to defeat Michinoku’s Gran Naniwa & Super Delfin plus Boirshoi Kid & Candy Okutsu. This was an aerial exhibition of some of the best flyers around.

*JWP had a really strong crew at this point with veterans Ozaki & Kansai still at the top of their game (maybe a stretch since Kansai had some health problems but she had a number of strong performances up through 4/97), Fukuoka waiting in the wings and ready to peak, and most importantly a strong crop of young wrestlers. Hiromi Yagi had improved tremendously and Candy Okutsu, who had been pushed first but wasn't as good, was also a rising star. With four promising new wrestlers in Kuzumi, Miyaguchi, Amano, & Motoya, Cuty still having some drawing power, Devil being a smart wrestler people could learn from, and so on this promotion seemed set to challenge AJW. In fact, in my opinion they were the more interesting group to watch for most of this year and the first half of the next before their legendary streak of bad luck with Candy & Yagi both retiring, Plum dying, etc. the promotion was never able to recover from*

Michinoku Pro

Michinoku was able to capitalize on the drawing power of famous juniors from the past this year. The first such show was on 3/16 where they sold out Tokyo Ota Ward Gym. The main event saw Shiryu, Great Sasuke, & Tiger Mask #4 defeat TAKA Michinoku, Gran Naniwa, & Super Delfin. Two of the all-time greats, Tiger Mask Sayama and Dynamite Kid, sat at ringside for the main event. Sayama was the greatest innovator of all-time and with the help of Kid made junior heavyweight wrestling a draw and changed the entire face and style of wrestling. This was the first time they met since Sayama quit New Japan in 1983.

Michinoku Pro ran the biggest show in company history on 10/10, drawing 7,980 to Tokyo Sumo Hall. The group once again capitalized on Sayama & Dynamite Kid to draw. The main event was a nostalgia match where the greatest flyers in Japan of the past three decades, Mascaras, Sayama, & Sasuke were defeated by Sayama rivals Dynamite Kid, Kuniaki Kobayashi and Mascaras’ brother Dos Caras. Dynamite was in horrible shape and the match was bad. The fans new it wouldn’t be a great match going in, but liked the idea of seeing all the legends in the ring together. Mascaras doing a plancha at his age was certainly impressive. The ***** 10 man tag where TAKA, Shoichi Funaki, Dick Togo, Shiryu, & Mens Teoh defeated Hamada, Delfin, Naniwa, Yakushiji, & Tiger Mask #4 more than made up for the nostalgia match.

Michinoku ran their annual tag team tournament from 10/30 through 11/10. Dick Togo & Mens Teoh won the tournament defeating El Hijo Del Santo & Super Delfin in the finals on 10/10 in Fukushima.

New Japan

New Japan opened the year by selling out the Tokyo Dome on 1/4. This show, entitled '96 Wrestle War in Tokyo Dome, was the biggest money show of the year with a live gate that is no worse than 3rd all-time. Nobuhiko Takada defeated Keiji Muto in 17:51 with a cross armbreaker. In doing so, Takada won the IWGP heavyweight title. Takada was still willing to work despite their 10/95 debacle, but Muto once again sabotaged it. In a very good match, Jushin "Thunder" Liger captured the IWGP Title for the 7th time defeating Koji Kanemoto in 18:59 with a stardust press. Antonio Inoki got Vader to submit to an armbreaker in 14:16. The biggest surprise of the show was the quality of this match. The psychology was great. Inoki should be credited for taking all of Vader’s stiff blows especially the released German suplex. *This turned out to be the last memorable match of Inoki's career, and is probably the match to look at when you want to make your case for just how great of a big man Vader was* Riki Choshu and his selfish egotistical booking were in full swing as Choshu embarrassed UWF-I’s hottest young worker Masahito Kakihara. Kakihara had all the tools to become a big star, but Choshu saw fit to no sell all his offense. It was truly disgraceful. Even though Takada won the title, this show was basically the straw that broke UWF-I’s back. Every UWF-I wrestler but Takada was defeated. The shooter myth and the aura that UWF-I was the real deal was destroyed. They even had Yoji Anjoh lose a comedy garbage match to Hiromuchi Fuyuki. In the match, Jado & Gedo taped Anjoh’s mouth shut as a joke because Anjoh is infamous for running his mouth and making grandstand challenges. Vader was the only American booked on the show. NJ proved that foreigner’s importance as far as drawing was no where near what it was by selling out the Dome twice in 3 months basically without foreign help. *It took me years to forgive Choshu for what he did to UWF-I. The excitement of the first UWF-I PPV, even though it was far from one of their better shows in retrospect, played such an important part in my need to see puroresu, and in general I just believe if you are going to work together you work for dual benefit. Now, I'd "give anything" for a league with talent to have a booker like Choshu that has one match lead to another for the majority of the league in a way that's logical and meaningful. I don't think one can understate the importance of caring about the results (and titles) for a wrestling fan. When wrestling is exciting the matches are great, sure, but in a way what I really miss is the anticipation that was there when the results meant something to my friends and I. When everyone couldn't wait to see what happened and schmooze about what it meant and where it was going. Once we all figured out it was going nowhere the occasional great (or more like excellent) match became more the justification for still watching (everything then sometimes then at all) than the reason to watch*

In March, New Japan started booking all its foreigners through WCW. This was bad for everyone. It shutout a lot of talented foreign workers and cost others money because they didn’t have Japan for leverage. New Japan got a bunch of guys that couldn’t work their style. New Japan was already booking the Benoit, Guerrero, and Malenko, so WCW had nothing to offer. All they got was old guys whose style didn’t hold water or green guys that had no right in New Japan rings.

New Japan sold out Tokyo Sumo Hall for the main event of Liger & Muto vs. Takada & Sano. The match was under New Japan rules. The storyline of the match was that Sano was being double teamed, but Takada wouldn’t help because there’s no such thing as double teaming or saving in UWF-I. Takada was heavily booed by the crowd. Liger wound up pinning his longtime friend Sano with a Liger Bomb. Due to the juniors, it was better than the major singles matches between Muto & Takada. Another key match saw Shiro Koshinaka pin Hiroyoshi Tenzan with a Dragon suplex in 5:29. This kept Shiro strong for his 3/1 title shot against Takada (which he would go on to lose). After the match, the legendary Tatsumi Fujinami made his return to New Japan rings by shaking Koshinaka’s hand. Fujinami, who saved New Japan by not jumping in 1984, announced that he would be returning to New Japan and forming a tag team with Koshinaka.

Fujinami’s in ring return came on 3/26 in front of a sold out Tokyo Gymnasium. The team of Fujinami & Koshinaka won an eight-team tournament by defeating Muto & Sasaki in the finals when Fujinami pinned Sasaki in 13:22. Also on this show, Tokimitsu Ishizawa defeated Yugi Nagata in the finals of the Young Lions tournament. Usually the winner of this tournament receives a fairly big push, but in this case both men have been sent abroad.

New Japan sold out the Tokyo Dome for the second time in 1997 and the third time with Takada on top in seven months on 4/29. This time Takada lost the IWGP Title to Shinya Hashimoto in 12:33 via cross armbreaker. This was the match people were looking for when Takada vs. NJ was discussed, and they delivered in a way that was kind of hard to believe given how much shine had been taken off Takada and UWF-I. Now, if someone can give me a good reason for taking the belt off Takada so soon and then never using him in a money match again I’d like to hear it. They sold out three Dome shows with Takada and (especially behind this match) could have continued to draw big gates with Takada since he either had never fought most New Japan stars or hadn’t fought them since he jumped to the second UWF. Choshu’s booking on top was stupid, but at least he kept himself out of the spotlight on this show and allowed some of the younger wrestlers to get over. Great Sasuke followed in the footsteps of his trainer Ultimo Dragon as non-New Japan wrestlers to hold the IWGP Jr. title when he pinned Jushin Liger with a Tiger suplex in 19:27. *This wasn't on par with their great matches from '94, which is no surprise given juniors at the Tokyo Dome, but it was at least a very high quality match. The Road Warriors worked together in Japan for the first time in many years. The duo teamed with Power Warrior (Sasaki) to beat the Steiners & Scott Norton when they used their double impact to pin Rick in 15:17. Tenryu defeated Fujinami with a clothesline in 9:16. This was a very stiff match where Fujinami allowed Tenryu to legitimately break his nose. The blood from Fujinami’s nose was spurting all over the place.

New Japan ran the annual Top of the Super Junior Tournament from 5/23-6/12. This tournament was different from previous years as the field was split into two groups of seven. Each worker would do six matches against his own group and the first and second place finishers in each group would advance to the semifinals. Though the final three matches delivered, this was probably the worst of the Super Junior leagues because it was marred by injuries and the out of league talent wasn’t as good as it usually is. Koji Kanemoto blew out his knee and had to undergo surgery. Emilio Charles Jr. broke his shoulder on 5/30 in Takaoka. Lynn separated his shoulder. These injuries led to a lot of forfeit wins. Pegasus & Samurai tied with a 4-2 record in block A, but Samurai got first because he defeated Benoit in their match. Black Tiger won the block B with a 5-1 record while Liger & Otani tied for 2nd at 4-2. Liger had beaten Otani in their match, so he advanced to the semifinals. On 6/11 in Hiroshima, Black Tiger & Jushin Liger advanced to the finals pinning Pegasus & Samurai respectively. On 6/12 in Osaka, Tiger won Top of the Super Jr. tournament by upsetting Liger in an excellent match. This gave Tiger credibility for his scheduled title shot on 6/17 vs. Sasuke.

Liger booked the Skydiving J, a show that consisted of all junior title matches on 6/17 at Budokan Hall. The show was a sellout, which only makes me wonder why they didn’t do a J Cup this year. Sasuke defended the IWGP Jr. title by pinning Black Tiger in 16:54 with the Die Hard. This was a good match, but Tiger was having an off night and it was disappointing for a jr. match of that magnitude. Storm & Yasuraoka of WAR retained the WAR international jr. title by defeating Samurai & Norio Honaga. Masayoshi Motegi of Wrestle Dream Factory retained his NWA jr. title against Shiryu of Michinoku. Gran Hamada of Michinoku retained his WWA light heavyweight title by pinning Tatsuhito Takaiwa. Otani became the UWA world light heavyweight champion by defeating Kazushi Sakuraba of UWF-I. Super Delfin retained the CMLL welterweight title by pinning TAKA Michinoku in 16:09 with a Tiger suplex. That was an excellent match as Delfin was serious and both men pulled out all the stops. These two were a team in Michinoku, but TAKA broke up the team because he felt Delfin’s comedy was holding him back. Ultimo Dragon of WAR retained his International jr. Title by pinning Gran Naniwa of Michinoku in 13:58. Liger defeated Dick Togo of Michinoku to win the British jr. heavyweight title. This was a great match that made Togo a name outside of Michinoku. Liger was great, but Togo has improved a lot so it’s not like Liger was carrying anything less than a very good worker.

Hiroshi Hase returned to New Japan rings for probably the last time on 7/26 in his hometown of Kanazawa. The senator teamed with Kensuke Sasaki to lose to Choshu & Nagata. Hase was pinned by a Choshu lariat as Hase couldn’t be expected to be able to beat the top NJ guys after a 7-month layoff.

New Japan sold out Tokyo Sumo Hall from 8/2-8/6 for the G-1 Climax heavyweight tournament and the J Crown junior heavyweight unification tournament. On 8/2, Great Sasuke added the NWA jr. heavyweight title to his collection by defeating Masayoshi Motegi with a Tiger suplex in 11:50. Motegi looked better than usual and wasn’t nervous like the J Cup so it was ***3/4. Ultimo Dragon shocked Liger defeating him in 2:38 with La Magistral. This was partially done because Liger had the brain tumor, but it was a great idea because it established the idea that the finish could come any time. This increased the crowd heat because sometimes they won’t pop for a finisher early in the match because they know it’s not the finish. Liger proved his unselfishness by jobbing in the first round of his own tournament. Ultimo captured the British jr. heavyweight title in a *** match. On 8/4 El Samurai defeated Gran Hamada with a ThunderFire powerbomb at 12:38. This match was the worst in the tournament due to Hamada blowing his knee out on a plancha and his shoulder out taking a back superplex. Samurai captured the WWA jr. title in a **3/4 match. Otani got over the traditional style clash as good as anyone could have and carried Negro Casas to a ***3/4 match. Otani won the NWA Welterweight title pinning Casas with a springboard spin kick at 11:34. On 8/4 Ultimo defeated Otani in the second best match I’ve seen this year, *****. Otani’s charisma and superb facials had the whole crowd pulling for him to upset the veteran Dragon. Ultimo captured the UWA light heavyweight title & NWA Welterweight title with a running Liger bomb at 16:04. Sasuke captured the WWA jr. light heavyweight title & WWF light heavyweight title by defeating Samurai in 13:56. This was a ****1/4 match, but was slightly below their match at the J Cup. On 8/5, Sasuke unified all eight belts by pinning Dragon with a huracanrana at 13:56. Unfortunately Sasuke came up short on a flip dive off the post and cracked his skull. It was ****1/4 despite going home 4 spots early. The heavyweight round robin tournament was dominated by the theme of it being Choshu’s last G-1. Choshu announced he would be retiring in 1997, so the fans were into seeing his last go at it. On 8/2, Choshu had a shockingly good match with Hashimoto. The match had great psychology and crowd heat. Choshu won after 5 Riki lariats, but was injured taking all the stiff blows and was more limited than usual the rest of the way. Hashimoto’s leg was injured and the whole tournament everyone would work on his leg and the injury was his out for not winning. On 8/3, Junji Hirata blew out his knee doing a turning powerslam against Sasaki and was forced to cancel the rest of his G-1 matches. Koshinaka defeated Yamazaki in the main event pinning Kazuo with a powerbomb at 13:50. Shiro was, as usual, by far the best worker of all the heavyweights in this tournament. On 8/4, Tenzan got the biggest win of his career when he upset Hashimoto. Tenzan used a diving headbutt off the top to the injured knee for the pin. Shiro headlined again, this time defeating Chono in a battle of the heel group leaders. On 8/5, Choshu defeated his student Kensuke Sasaki with a choke at 15:13. Sasaki was supposed to beat Choshu for the first time here, which would set up a playoff but Hirata’s injury messed up the booking. Muto defeated Koshinaka in the best match of the tournament, ****1/2, and the best NJ heavyweight match of the year for that matter. On 8/6, Chono defeated Muto in 24:43 with an inside cradle to advance to the finals against Choshu. Choshu then captured the G-1 forcing Chono to submit to his scorpion at 13:45. Final was anticlimactic and Choshu’s no selling killed Chono’s big moves. Liger’s brain tumor was the saddest news of the year, but luckily he had successful surgery to remove the tumor and was able to continue his great career. *Due to the novelty of the J Crown, I'd have to rate this as the best G-1 week Obviously having one of the all-time great junior matches and a couple other excellent ones rather than the usual not particularly important G-1 undercards helps a great deal, but the heavyweights were also on top of their game. While there wasn't one overly memorable match, there were several very good ones. Kojima put himself on the map with several good matches, including one against Koshinaka that was as good as Koshinaka vs. Muto. Choshu had his last hurrah, but Tenzan had an even better match with Hashimoto playing off Hashimoto being weakened by Riki. Koshinaka & Yamazaki, given their yearly chance to shine, were consistently excellent*

The New Japan vs. WCW tournament in September was a huge success at the gate, but a wash in the ring. The 16-man tournament proved how insuperior WCW is as NJ had to job out all the WCW guys other than Scott Norton, who they still consider one of their own anyway. Sasaki defeated Koshinaka in the finals on 9/23 before a sellout crowd at Yokohama Arena. Liger returned from brain surgery on this card. He defeated Wild Pegasus with a Liger bomb at 18:31 in a very good match. Muto defeated Pedro Otarvio in one of the worst worked shoots in history. Pedro tapped out after Muto mounted him and supposedly hit a series of blows although they were lame as hell.

New Japan’s Super Grade Tag League Tournament wasn’t as interesting this year as it has been in the past. Injuries again hurt the tournament as Koshinaka blew out his knee. Regal left because his wife was ill. Both Koshinaka’s & Regal’s teams were forced to forfeit their remaining matches. Scott Norton & Shinya Hashimoto won the tournament by defeating Keiji Muto & Rick Steiner in the final on 11/1 in Hiroshima.

Pancrase

Pancrase taped their first show for U.S. PPV on 1/28 at Yokohama Bunka Gym. The show certainly didn’t turn out to be the best way to introduce the product. Four of the eight matches went the full time limit, which isn’t a desired finish to introduce. Ken Shamrock should have been the key draw in the U.S., but it took a decision for Shamrock to defeat 189 pound undercarder (at that time) Yoshiki Takahashi. SEG decided against airing the match because they felt it would hurt Shamrock’s marketability in UFC (the big title defense with Severn was coming up). As a result, SEG had no known star to market the initial ppv around. The biggest match on the card was Frank Shamrock becoming the Provincial King of Pancrase by defeating Minoru Suzuki in 22:53 with a knee cross.

Pancrase taped their second U.S. PPV on 5/16 at Budokan Hall. Bas Rutten regained the King of Pancrase that he had vacated by defeating Frank Shamrock in 11:11 when the ref stopped the bout due to a dangerous cut near Frank’s left eye. Ryushi Yanagisawa upset debuting Oleg Taktarov on points.

Coming of a major upset victory over Minoru Suzuki, Yuki Kondo captured Pancrase’s Neo Blood tournament on 7/23 at Korakuen Hall. The Neo Blood tournament is a 2-day tournament of the younger wrestlers in the promotion. Kondo defeated Peter Williams in the final of the eight-man tournament via unanimous decision in 20:00.

Pancrase celebrated their third anniversary on 9/7 by selling out Tokyo Bay NK Hall. This was the 4th U.S. PPV and the first show under the new rules which help the strikers. Bas Rutten retained the King of Pancrase defeating Masakatsu Funaki in one of the best Pancrase matches ever. Yuki Kondo proved he should be rookie of the year by upsetting number 1 contender Frank Shamrock via knockout from a kick to the head in 12:43. This was another excellent fight.

Pancrase and cofounder Ken Shamrock had a falling out. Shamrock was both the American trainer and booker for this promotion. Among other things, he was unhappy that President Masami Ozaki went to America and signed 14 Americans into Pancrase. Shamrock felt this was a breach of his American booker position since Ozaki went over his head. Many of Shamrocks Lions Den fighters where thought to be out of Pancrase, but they are pretty much all back in now.

Pancrase ran a four-man tournament to crown a new King of Pancrase since Rutten once again vacated the title. The semifinals were 11/9 in Kobe. Jason DeLucia defeated Osami Shibuya in 11:45. In the other semi, Masakatsu Funaki defeated Yuki Kondo in 1:43 with a choke. This was a pretty week tournament due to injuries and no Lions Dens.

The finals of the King of Pancrase tournament took place on 12/15 at Budokan Hall. Cofounder Masakatsu Funaki finally captured the King of Pancrase defeating DeLucia in 7:49 via TKO from lost points. Frank Shamrock was once again upset by a rookie as Kunioku Kiuma beat him via unanimous decision.

RINGS

RINGS biggest show of the year was the Battle Dimension ’95 tournament finals on 1/24 at Tokyo Budokan Hall. Akira Maeda won Battle Dimension by defeated Yoshihisa Yamamoto in 17:59 with a heel hook. In retrospect, it would have been much better for Maeda to lose here. The tournament was built to get Yamamoto over as the successor to Maeda, which it did but not to the extent it would have if he won. Maeda is getting old (nearly 38) and his body is breaking down. He missed most of the year with injuries and in his absence Yamamoto was always on top. Yamamoto was coming off an excellent match against top native Han and everyone figured Yamamoto would win Battle Dimension ’96 and establish himself as a true top star of the promotion.

RINGS scored a major coup by signing Kiyoshi Tamura away from UWF-I in June. Tamura along with Masahito Kakihara were the two young wrestlers that UWF-I had pushed to the top. Tamura never joined the NJ vs. UWF-I feud, so it was months since he actually worked for UWF-I. At 26, Tamura gave RINGS a bright young star who along with Yamamoto should carry RINGS in the years to come.

With Maeda out of action, RINGS moved more toward reality. On 8/24 at Tokyo Ariake Coliseum, top star Yoshihisa Yamamoto lost to Ricardo Morias in :46 seconds. This was a shoot, which is something that’s can never be said of Maeda’s main event matches. At least ½ the show was legit, which was a first for this promotion. Moving more toward reality made this promotion as hot as it has been in a long time.

*The first ever meeting between the two best worked shooters of all-time took place on 9/25 at Sapporo Nakajima Taiiku Center. Volk Han defeated Kiyoshi Tamura with a reverse armlock at 10:32 in what was then not only the best RINGS match ever, but also the best of both men's careers.

Maeda’s return from injury wasn’t as big a deal as expected as they only drew 4,995 for his return on 10/25 in Nagoya. With that crowd, you must remember that RINGS only runs once a month. Maeda defeated Andre Kopilov in 4:59 with an armlock. The crowd was even more disappointing since it was the first of the four shows in the Battle Dimension ’96 tournament.

*The second of the Battle Dimension shows on 11/22/96 was highlighted by an excellent match where Volk Han defeated Tsuyoshi Kosaka with an armlock at 10:27*

The semifinals of Battle Dimension ’96 on 12/19 in Fukuoka had an upset. Yamamoto, who lost last year was expected to win this year, but he was defeated by Tamura in 9:49 with a cross arm breaker. Volk Han defeated Bitsaze Tariel in 6:17 in the other semifinal. This sets up Han vs. Tamura at RINGS biggest show of the year on 1/22. Han will most likely win the tournament. *This was also a tremendous match won by Han, though not quite as good as their first*

Tokyo Pro Wrestling

The first debacle Abdullah the Butcher match came on 6/24 at Korakuen Hall. Abby faced Sabu and there was obviously a huge style clash. Abby wanted a bloodbath, but Sabu doesn’t want to blade anymore. Sabu wanted to fly, but the ancient Butcher didn’t want to take the crazy bumps. The match which headlined Korakuen Hall only sold 1,400 tickets. The poor match wound up being ruled a no contest at 4:27.

Tokyo Pro ran a free show at Atani Sun Beach on 7/23 that was reportedly viewed by 65,000. It didn’t make Woodstock look like a backyard barbecue, but exposed the group to a crowd that was more than 30 times better than usual. Abdullah the Butcher & Daikokubo Benkei defeated Kishin Kawabata & Takashi Ishikawa.

Tiger Mask Sayama formed a strange team with Yoji Anjoh to capture the TWA tag titles on 8/25 in Yokohama. The duo defeated Abdullah & Daikokubo Benkei in the finals. I can’t imagine seeing Sayama work with Abby. Also on the card Sabu pinned Black Wazma (2 Cold) and Gekko was DQ’d for dropkicking the ref, but the crowd hates screw jobs so he wrestled Dandy for 5 more minutes before the time limit expired.

Tokyo Pro had a major failure by drawing less than 1,500 at 6,500 seat Osaka Furitsu Gym on 10/8. Takada defeated Butcher in a match marred by one of the biggest style clashes of all-time. Takada basically took the $27,000 and ran in this one. Yoji Anjoh won presidency of the company when he defeated former president Takashi Ishikawa.

Goto’s group, Fuyuki’s group, & Anjoh’s group all joined Tokyo Pro. This gives the group some major names although there will undoubtedly be an ego clash.

Takashi Ishikawa, who founded Tokyo Pro, wound up out of power due to the restructuring and left Tokyo Pro. Ishikawa returned to WAR where he worked before forming Tokyo Pro.

Tokyo Pro’s final major show was 12/7 at Tokyo Sumo Hall. This again proved that this group doesn’t have the drawing power to successfully run a large arena. Abby defeated Ryo Miyake in another one of those "match of year candidates." After the match, Harley Race attacked Butcher and they brawled out of the ring. Tarzan Goto & Mr. Gannosuke beat Anjoh & Shigeo Okumura in the main event. Anjoh continued the president angle by resigning due to disgrace of this loss.

UWF-I

For all intents in purposes, this promotion was dead before the year started. New Japan, saved the group financially for a while, but killed their credibility in the process. After New Japan stopped dealing with them, Tokyo Pro’s Ishizawa bought 1/3 of their stock, but this still didn’t save them from their debts.

3/1 at Budokan Hall was another of the many shows in the New Japan vs. UWF-I feud. In the main event, Takada retained the IWGP Title by forcing Koshinaka to submit in 10:53. These two had a number of memorable matches in the mid 80's before Takada left again for U.W.F. UWF-I actually won 3 of the 4 interpromotional matches on this show.

Yoji Anjoh solidified himself as a garbage match heel rather than a legitimate fighter. Anjoh used chop sticks against Abdullah (as a joke because Abby uses forks & knives as weapons), eggs, and to top it off hung Hiromuchi Fuyuki with the legs of a live octopus.

UWF-I totally flopped at Tokyo Jingu Baseball Stadium drawing 5,000 during the fair in a 46,300 stadium. Takada defeated Anjoh in the main event via KO at 11:26. Tenryu pinned Sano in 8:59 to set up the next Jingu show where he would challenge Takada. The two greatest native juniors of the early 1980's, Tiger Mask Sayama & Gran Hamada went to a 15:00 draw.

UWF-I ran their last major show on 9/11 at Jingu Stadium. Takada defeated Tenryu in the main event at 19:30 with a cross arm breaker. The match was described as being between 3 1/4 to 3 3/4 stars. The major story was isolationist AJ allowing Toshiaki Kawada to appear on the show. Kawada defeated Takayama in 8:43. Other main matches saw Hashimoto defeat Sano and Anjoh defeat David Beneteau of UFC fame.

On 12/21, Union of Wrestling Force International President Nobuhiko Takada announced the company was going out of business. The final show was 12/27 at Korakuen Hall. UWF-I was one of the most successful promotions in 1993 & 1994, but Anjoh’s big mouth, changing tastes, availability of legit groups, and lack of a credible legitimate shooter led to the demise.

WAR

Genichiru Tenryu tried to phase himself out, but low attendance forced him to work much more often than the 20 dates a year he had talked about. This low attendance plagued WAR’s tournament for the International junior heavyweight tag titles. This tour, which took place in February, had juniors on top every night. It presented the strongest lineup of matches (at least on paper as I haven’t seen it) WAR would present all year. Unfortunately, workrate and attendance don’t coincide in WAR. The finals of the tournament took place on 2/23 in Sendai before a sellout crowd of 2,000. Ultimo Dragon & Negro Casas, Lion Do (Chris Irvine a.k.a. Jericho) & Gedo, Lance Storm & Yuji Yasuraoka, & Gran Naniwa & Masaaki Mochizuki were all tied with one match remaining. Storm & Yasuraoka defeated Naniwa & Mochizuki. Lion Do & Gedo defeated Ultimo & Casas. In the final, Lion Do & Gedo defeated Storm & Yasuraoka to win the newly created titles.

WAR ran Sumo Hall on 7/20 & 7/21 in celebration of their fourth anniversary. The first night sold out (11,000) while the second night drew a poorer crowd that was announced as 10,000 although it was less. The first night was a one-night tournament for the vacant WAR six-man titles. The UWF-I trio of Takada, Kakihara, & Sano defeated Jado, Gedo, & Fuyuki in the finals when Takada forced Gedo to submit to his cross armbreaker at 12:35. Takada’s team defeated Tenryu, Fujinami, & Nobutaka Araya in the first round. It was the first time that Takada & Tenryu ever faced each other and a segway for their 9/11 match at Jingu Baseball Stadium. Liger & Samurai won WAR’s International jr. tag titles from Storm & Yasuraoka on the undercard. Rey Misterio Jr. won the WWA welterweight title from Juventud Guerrera in 8:36 via a Frankensteiner. Tenryu defeated Anjoh in the main event of the second night. This again led to the 9/11 match as Takada had to regain the credibility of his group. The best match on the second show was said to be the juniors dream match where Ultimo, Misterio Jr., Storm, & Yasuraoka defeated Liger, Guerrera, Lion Do, & Gedo in 17:35.

Three days after the Tokyo Pro debacle at Osaka Furitsu Gym, WAR sold out the building. The main event saw Tenryu defeat the Great Muta with a powerbomb in 17:19. Anjoh, Bigelow, & Fuyuki defeated Takada, Sano, & Kakihara for the WAR 6-man titles. Ultimo Dragon captured the J Crown by defeating Great Sasuke with a running powerbomb in 13:43.

Hiromuchi Fuyuki, WAR #2 star, left the promotion after the 10/28 Korakuen Hall show. Fuyuki, of course, took his cronies Jado & Gedo with him. This really isn’t much of a loss to WAR, but Fuyuki does have some drawing power. The trio lost the WAR 6-man titles to Tenryu, Ultimo, & Araya on the way out.

WAR’s final major show was on 12/13 at Tokyo Sumo Hall. Despite Union participation, the lineup wasn’t very impressive. Tenryu avenged his loss to Takada on 9/11 by pinning him in 19:27. Rey Misterio Jr. lost his first match in Japan as Ultimo retained the J Crown pinning him in 10:16. Storm & Yasuraoka retained the WAR International jr. tag titles defeating Sayama & Mochizuki. Kitao defeated Tenta at 7:20 in the rematch of their infamous no-cooperation match.

Other News

Maybe the most important feud of the year didn’t even take place in the ring. Instead it was a battle between Weekly Pro Wrestling and New Japan. To break it down ever further, it was editor Tarzan Yamamoto vs. booker Riki Choshu. The main argument was that New Japan felt Weekly Pro’s coverage was too insiderish and bad for the wrestling business. New Japan banned Weekly Pro by taking away Weekly Pro’s press credentials for all New Japan shows. Since Weekly Pro is a magazine, they need good photos to sell copies. Not having top quality photos of the most popular promotion in the countries shows hurt the top selling wrestling magazine in Japan. Weekly Pro coverage doesn’t come out and say everything was a work, but they don’t want insult the intelligence of their own readers either. Weekly Gong is their main rival and they cover the sport more like the Apter rags. To me, this was more of Choshu feeding his ego than anything. After all, New Japan was and is the hottest promotion in Japan. How much was this insider info, like announcing lineups before New Japan did angles to build them up, really hurting them? New Japan stated that they would give Weekly Pro the press credentials back if Yamamoto was canned. Weekly Pro went on for a while with Yamamoto and no New Japan coverage at all. Then they did a 50-page edition that just covered NJ’s 4/29 Tokyo Dome show and contained no pictures. Choshu got WAR, UWF-I, Fujinami’s Muga Promotions, & Kitao Dojo to join in the ban. Yamamoto, who was Weekly Pro’s editor since its inception in 1984, resigned in June. Weekly Pro’s sales had declined 8%, while rival Weekly Gong’s had increased by 16%. Yamamoto wasn’t exactly the most popular guy, so many people were initially happy he was gone. Once they thought about it more, they realized that it wasn’t good for a promotion to control the media. New Japan and Choshu were happy that they won the war, but still delayed in ending the ban. By August they let Weekly Pro have one or two photographers at ringside, but still wouldn’t give them back stage passes or interviews with the workers. Eventually an agreement was reached.

WAR, Kitao Dojo, Michinoku Pro, Samurai Project, Wrestle Dream Factory, Big Japan, Battlarts, & IWA all formed The Union on 11/23. This was to combat the new Tokyo Pro and their money mark Ishizawa who wanted to own all the independent promotions. This allowed the indies to present a stronger lineup and run potentially bigger shows.

Combined Shows

All seven promotions that have womens wrestling in Japan combined for the Women Pro Wrestling Dream & Future Junior All-Stars. The idea of the show was to get the young girls over. Since it was all interpromotional matches, it was able to sell out Tokyo Ota Ward Gym without any stars. Genki Misae won the four-woman Womens graduate tournament defeating Gaea’s Toshie Sato in the finals. Chaparrita ASARI defeated Toshie Uematsu of Gaea to win AJW’s newly created WWWA super lightweight title. Michiko Omukai of LLPW & Chikako Shiratori of Yoshimoto Pro defeated Rie Tamada of AJW & Meiko Satomura of Gaea in the main event.

Antonio Inoki promoted the first World Wrestling Peace Festival on 6/1 at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. The paid attendance was a miserable 2,513. The show suffered from a lack of publicity. The only promotion that did much to promote the show was New Japan and it wasn’t like thousands of Japanese were going to hop on planes to attend (although some did). Just like the 4/2/95 Weekly Pro Wrestling Show, political problems between promotions kept it from making any money after the fact. The show was a success based on the fact that New Japan, AAA, EMLL, & WCW were able to work together to put on a show. Aside from the disappointing Casas vs. Santo match, every match was about as good or bad as you would expect. Ultimo & Rey Misterio Jr. defeated Heavy Metal & Psicosis in the best match on the show. Liger pinned Sasuke with a Liger bomb at 12:47. The main event of Inoki & Severn vs. Fujiwara & Taktarov was both good and bad. It was good because it was very realistic looking, but bad because Taktarov didn’t know hot to sell or take Severn’s German suplex. Overall, it was one of the best shows of the year in the States despite its financial failure. The show arguably had the most talent to ever appear on a single card in the U.S.

The father of Japanese wrestling, Rikidozan, was honored on 6/30 at Yokohama Arena. Rikidozan was and is the biggest superstar in the history of Puroresu. He was murdered in 1963. 16 different promotions were involved in the show. Unfortunately, the show expressed the difference between the major promotions and the garbage leagues. The fact that most of the fans purposely came late to miss the first couple matches tells you all you need to know about those matches. The main reason the garbage wrestlers looked so bad is that booker Kotetsu Yamamoto, wanting to promote a traditional pro wrestling show as a tribute to one of the traditional legends, didn’t allow brawling out of the ring, chair shots, juice, or foreign objects. Imagine if Heyman made the Gangstas or D-Von Dudley work a straight match. The highlight of the show was the original Tiger Mask Satoru Sayama going to a draw with his protege Tiger Mask #4. Rikidozan’s son Mitsuo Momota defeated Masao Inoue. Baba took a lot of heat for sending two prelim wrestlers to this show, but in his defense his own show that was taking place at the same time should take precedent. Why wouldn’t you want Momota working on his late father’s tribute show? It would have been better if they gave Momota a better opponent though. In more poor booking they had an interpromotional strong style match between Fujiwara & Anjoh end in a count out. This is the worst possible finish in Japan, but even worse since the shoot groups absolutely never have screw job finishes. The main event had Tenryu & Fujinami defeat Tatsumi Kitahara & Choshu when Tenryu powerbombed Kitahara at 13:51. This was supposed to be a good match although on paper it sounds bad.

Fighting Samurai TV debuted on 12/1. The station is the first 24-hour fighting channel in the world. They air classic AJ & NJ, two 2 hour live shows a week one of a women’s promotion and one of a men’s promotion, classic American wrestling, Lucha, WCW Pro International, a news and highlights show, & the Tiger Mask cartoon series. To garner immediate interest in the PerfecTV (similar to Direct TV) channel, Antonio Inoki promoted a show at Tokyo Yoyogi Gym which aired live on the station. Ultimo retained the J Crown defeating Naniwa with a Frankensteiner at 12:29. Kitao defeated Mabel in 4:55 with an armbreaker in a match that was obviously not a match of the year candidate. Dick Togo, Mens Teoh, Shiryu, TAKA, & S.Funaki defeated Sasuke, Hamada, Naohiro Hoshikawa, Delfin, & Yakushiji in the original main event. *This was the "least" Michinoku ran in the last quarter of '96, but still an excellent match that somewhat saved an otherwise lackluster show* The actual main event was Inoki defeating a bad indy wrestler who was under a hood using the Gasper pirate gimmick. The 4:58 match was said to be very bad. Shocking?

Overall it was a very good year and I’m looking forward to the events of 1997.