Quebrada

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

1/23/97

The following is a promotion by promotion outlook for Japan in 1997

All Japan

You certainly can’t criticize the match quality that this promotion gives you. Pretty much every great heavyweight wrestler in the world works here. When you have Kobashi, Misawa, Akiyama, Kawada, Ace, Williams, etc. you are assured super matches. Look for this group to produce the most match of the year candidates.

It looks like Misawa will continue to be the man as he defeated Kobashi for the Triple Crown on 1/20 at Osaka Prefectural Gym. I’m extremely unhappy with this result because it turns Kobashi’s first title reign into a wash. Kobashi had three title matches in this reign: beat Hansen, drew Kawada, and lost to Misawa. Despite being a superior worker, Kobashi still hasn’t pinned Misawa or Kawada in singles. I’m hoping Kobashi’s first title run was a "learning experience" and he’ll be able to beat at least one to them next time. The highlight of the show result wise was AJ not being entirely predictable. Akiyama scored his first ever singles pin on Akira Taue. Some people are unhappy that this came so soon, but you have to think about the future sometimes. Taue is the worst worker of the big five, so I’d much rather see him be the one who jobs to establish Akiyama.

The key this year should be Baba finally reopening the door to interpromotional matches. With the FMW feud and Hase from July-September, All Japan should eliminate the "staleness" that ended the sellout streak at Budokan Hall last year. The AJ/FMW feud may sound good or may sound bad, but since these promotions are so different it will garner tremendous interest. Unfortunately the most outspoken wrestler in AJ, Kawada, isn’t happy about this. He said of Onita, "How could Baba ever get involved with a liar? He lied about his retirement, and more than anything else, Baba's wife was crying and emotional and it was not only hard for her and Baba, but it was hard on us to deal with business at the same time. He's (Onita) not worth our time." Misawa said, "I don't want to help Onita out. I understand about Hayabusa coming, since he wants to challenge Kobashi and learn new skills, but why do WE need to go to Yokohama Stadium? What are we going to do there? Onita's certainly not going to be fighting us..." Keep in mind that at least some of this is most likely an angle to build up the feud. If it’s not an angle then this could spell problems for FMW because Baba is going to realize that no interpromotional feud isn’t worth alienating his top stars.

I think the key to 1997 will be the mixing of the various styles and egos. I think working with FMW will lead to increased stiffness (if that’s possible), but I wonder if Hayabusa can take the stiffness? Kobashi and Misawa would be able to work Lucha with Hayabusa, but I wonder if Kawada or Williams can (Taue certainly can’t). In some cases, technical wrestling should improve since Hase and Oya will be here, but in other cases it will get worse since Onita and Pogo are also here. Will Kawada & Misawa even take FMW seriously? Can Hayato, Dragon Winger, or Van Dam rejuvenate the junior division? Will we see blading return during an Onita vs. Hansen match? Will Sabu and FMW make table breaking and use of gimmicks more prevalent? The main thing to consider is whether the fans really want to see the outsiders AJ is thinking of. What works in AJ is great working heavyweights and giant Americans that are good enough workers to be carried to very good matches by the great working heavyweights. FMW offers little to nothing in this regard. The Gladiator would be the best bet because he has the size and is capable of very good matches though these are matches where he kills the native and it's not worth finishing Misawa to get Gladiator over in AJ rings.

All Japan Women

Women’s wrestling is a cyclical thing and this is a downtime for AJW. They still have a lot of talent and there is no reason this group can’t consistently produce a couple of great matches on every major show. The problem is that everyone is aging and the years of taking all the crazy bumps are catching up. The mandatory retirement age for women’s wrestlers used to be 25. Consider that top stars Yumiko Hotta, Aja Kong, Manami Toyota, Toshiyo Yamada, Etsuko Mita, Mima Shimoda, Kyoko Inoue, Takako Inoue, Mariko Yoshida, Reggie Bennett & Kaoru Ito are all over that age. Basically that’s all the stars in the group aside from the 23-year-old Chaparrita ASARI who recently broke her hip. AJW is saying that she’ll be back in a month, but I don’t see how that is possible. It’s a bad sign that AJW is even thinking about bringing her back that quick. Rushing the women back will only shorten their careers. I was looking for ASARI to break out and become a legit star this year, so that really hurts the promotion. It’s a scary thought that Yoshiko Tamura is the best of the healthy young girls. She’s good enough to become a star, but she’s only been wrestling since 1994 so ideally she wouldn’t be put in the spotlight until at least 1998. It seems like Kumiko Maekawa will be pushed this year as she teamed with Tomoko Watanabe to win the WWWA tag titles from Toyota & Shimoda on 1/20 at Tokyo Ota Ward Gym. This move makes little sense to me. Maekawa has no major singles wins and hasn’t exactly been pinning stars in tag either. I understand that they need to push a young girl and a good one doesn’t exist right now, but why not have her score a few upsets before giving her a title? Watanabe is good, but not the caliber of the "leader" of a WWWA championship team. As expected, Kyoko won the world title unification match. Takako has never pinned Kyoko, Toyota, Aja, or Hotta in singles, so she wouldn’t have been a credible champion. They definitely need to build Takako up though, if only because they have almost no one else who could be pushed much farther than they have been up to now. I think it would be better if Kyoko doesn’t defend against Toyota until at least the summer. That way Toyota can rest a bit and heal her injuries. The problem with that is Toyota draws far better than anyone else in the promotion. They need to get Aja Kong back in the spotlight, but instead they have Aja go to a 30:00 draw with Kaoru Ito. This is the beginning of a push for Ito, but it might have been better to have Maekawa start her upsets with Ito than have Aja draw her.

It should be pointed out that most stars in the other women’s groups are former AJW wrestlers. One of the biggest problems is AJW getting rid of talent or talent leaving AJW. Consider that Jaguar, Asuka, Nagayo, KAORU, Hokuto, Kudo, Bison, Noriyo Tateno, etc. are all former AJW workers. I think AJW running too many shows is the reason top stars leave AJW or come out of retirement and join another promotion. Consider that AJW ran 265 shows in 1996 while the second most active company, Michinoku Pro, ran 137. The second most active women’s group was JWP, who ran 101 shows. AJW believes running so many shows is the best way to develop new talent. I believe that running so many shows, especially when you consider these women work a rough athletic style rather than purporting the Scott Hall theory (don’t do anything unless it’s a PPV or large sold out house show), leads to injuries, constant fatigue, broken down bodies, and early retirement.

There are two things that I think need to happen this year. The first is to run another show like last years Junior All-Stars. That was a successful show attendance wise because, even though there were no big stars, all the matches were interpromotional. The main thing that has to happen is getting the young girls over. Having an entire show spotlight the youngsters is probably the easiest way to do it. All the matches won’t be great, but it’s the best way for the promotions and fans to separate the talent from the fodder. The second thing is to run more interpromotional matches. Tokyo went from becoming their best drawing area, to not even selling out Korakuen Hall on some occasions last year. The basic problem is that the same people have been on top for a long time and there isn’t a hot young worker to challenge the established stars. The problem with interpromotional matches has been that each promotion wanted to win an equal number of matches despite the fact that the AJW workers were superior. This is still true, but there are so many promotions now that each one has some top stars that are certainly good enough to get a win.

Battlarts

I’m wondering how the reopening of UWF-I will affect this promotion. I have to think that it will be in a positive way, because it will keep 100% worked shooting in the spotlight. It seems that no competition only leads to a greatly decreased number of fans, rather than the promotion that lasts taking over all the other promotions fans. So if UWF-I doesn’t last the year then it will most likely be a negative to this group. They also might fail because the tastes of the fans have changed and people would rather see the real thing. The deal with Michinoku Pro seems to be the key to their existence. TAKA and Shoichi Funaki give the group credibility, drawing power, and great work.

The potential draws are Alexander Otsuka and Satoshi Yoneyama. Otsuka is quite impressive. I just saw him in an 8-man Michinoku match and he adapted to the pro style way better than any of the young UWF-I workers did. He didn’t look out of place at all. Yoneyama has the same problem as Hikari Fukuoka. He comes off as a poor mans Yoshihisa Yamamoto, which again doesn’t help him with the fans. They need to change his looks/image and position him to fued with Daisuke Ikeda.

Probably the most interesting thing about the group will be seeing how the style evolves. They seem to be leaning more toward shoot style matches with pro style psychology. This is essential is you are working. Without pro style psychology, you have a match that makes little sense with a finish that comes out of nowhere. With pro style psychology, you have a match that builds by working on a body part to the finish where a submission is applied to that body part.

FMW

1997 is looking much brighter this week than it did last week. FMW Guru Zach Arnold is reporting that an agreement for a series of interpromotional matches with All Japan has been reached. The deal was put together through a meeting between Onita, Pogo, Sambo Asako (former FMW star now Baba cronie) and Baba. This should not only help save FMW financially, but finally get them some respect as workers. Kobashi and possible other AJ workers will work FMW’s major show on 4/29 in Yokohama Arena, so any question about that one selling out has been erased.

Some matches that have reportedly been agreed to (I don’t have a date on when this will happen so this lineup may be reworked) include Onita/Hansen, Hayabusa/Kobashi, Misawa/Ohya, & Kanemura/Tanaka vs. Ace/Williams. I like Misawa vs. Oya and Kanemura & Tanaka vs. Ace & Williams a lot. That’s FMW’s three best workers against three of the best in the world. Those will be great matches and people will have to learn to respect those FMW workers. Onita vs. Hansen will be bad. I believe these two have never met before, so that would be a historical match up. Hayabusa & Kobashi have become good friends. I think this match can work as Kobashi won’t work a transitionless match like the Hayabusa vs. Shinzaki debacle. I’m going to think of the great matches between good friends like Liger vs. Sano, Rey Jr. vs. Psicosis, Rey Jr. vs. Juventud, or Eddy vs. Dean. They are supposedly talking about Pogo vs. Taue. That would be awful. In a way I’d like to see it because it would expose Taue as a guy who’s just being carried by the great AJ guys which make up more than 1/4 of the top 20 workers in the world. The bad thing is that when the match stunk up the joint, everyone would blame the supposedly "terrible garbage wrestler" Pogo rather than see Taue for what he is. I’m not saying that Pogo’s a great worker, but he gets less than no respect while Taue is considered to be great. Another match in the works is Hayato Nanjyo against either Tsuyo Kikuchi or Yoshinari Ogawa. That would be a good junior match up. Ogawa and Nanjyo are very underrated workers, but Kikuchi has seen better days.

The women’s division is in further disarray. Shinobu Kandori of LLPW is refusing to fight FMW women now. It looks like Megumi Kudo will fight Shark Tsuchiya in her retirement match on 4/29. After seeing their barbed wire match from 12/22/95, I have no desire to see this match up. The status of the FMW women after that is up in the air now. It doesn’t sound like they will be going to LLPW as originally planned though.

Look for Hisakatsu Oya and Masato Tanaka to shine in 1997. Oya is a great technical wrestler and an AJ fued should give him some great counterparts to display his skills with. Tanaka has the perfect body for AJ. He’s athletic enough for all the bumps, but thick enough to withstand the stiff blows. Dragon Winger is also someone to keep an eye on. Gladiator is returning for the 2/9-2/19 "Crushing Clash" tour (2/18 & 2/19 at Korakuen Hall have already sold out). It will be interesting to see if he can get back on President Arai’s good side or if they will punish him for no showing on the last tour. I’m really down on Hayabusa, but he’s fallen so far that there’s no where to go but up. If he can learn transitions and psychology this year there’s still a chance that he could be great.

GAEA

Of all the women’s groups, this group has the most promising future. Death Valley Driver Boy Dean Rasmussen put it best when he said, "GAEA has the kids of tomorrow: Toshie Uematsu, Sonoko Kato, and Meiko Satamura all being guided by the Queens of Psychology Chigusa Nagayo and now Akira Hokuto." The great thing about the promotion is that the young girls are high school age, but are already developing into something. Uematsu & Kato will feud with against Sugar Sato and Chikayo Nagashima of Mayumi Ozaki’s army. Sato was one of 1996's best rookies. Gaea is a smaller promotion than AJW & JWP. Since they don’t run any big shows, they can afford to continually program the youngsters with the four great veterans: Nagayo, Hokuto, KAORU, and Ozaki. Their following will recognize this is good for the promotion and won’t only show up for say Chigusa vs. Ozaki.

Hokuto hasn’t even really figured into the picture yet, although Hokuto and Chigusa weren’t happy with KAORU’s actions during the recent Hokuto & KAORU vs. Kato & Satamura match. It looks like KAORU will join Ozaki’s heel army and fued with Chigusa this year. Those matches will not be good. If another promising youngster, Bomber Hikari, teams with Chigusa against KAORU & Ozaki you may or may not have a good match, but it will be excellent for Bomber’s development.

Their deal with WCW gives their workers exposure abroad. So far, I’m not happy with this deal. This is due to WCW’s handling of them rather than Gaea. Obviously the worst part of it has been Nagayo disgracing herself in that horrible racist war plane gimmick as Zero. The main problem with working in WCW is it means you have to work with the mutant Madusa. Madusa developed into a pretty good worker after 2 years of being stretchered every night in AJW, but that seems like a long time ago. She can’t work with those street cones in her chest and it’s been about two years since her last good match, which was against Nakano. If Hokuto remains champion and Kato, Uematsu, Sakamura wrestle her they will be able to improve a lot even if the matches are the typical WCW three minute rush jobs.

Their tv deal with Samurai Fighting tv will give the group much more exposure this year. In addition, it ensures that some money is heading their way.

IWA Japan

The hiatus is nearly over. Keisuke Yamada will be running the show now. Since this is his first shot at running anything there’s no way to predict what direction the promotion will take. The top star is 48-year-old Great Kabuki. He’s washed up beyond belief. I’m trying to think of the last time he looked good in a match that I saw. The fact that the 1/3/90 match vs. Kobashi is coming to mind should tell you something. Aside from working, Kabuki and disenfranchised Tokyo Pro scrubs Takashi Ishikawa, Shigeo Okumura, Daikokubo Benkei, and Kishin Kawabata will be training the young wrestlers.

The fued with WAR will be the key to this promotion’s existence. It started on 1/12 at Korakuen Hall when Nobutaka Araya was wrestling Keizo Matsuda of IWA. Other IWA and WAR guys came in the ring and brawled into the parking lot. Matsuda was powerbombed onto a $20,000 car and wrecked the hood of a black car. This wasn’t a plant and Tenryu, who wasn’t too happy about this said, "They messed up in my ring!"

Jd’

Lioness Asuka has left this promotion for LLPW. That really hurts as Asuka was their second biggest star and second best worker. Asuka is a former WWWA World champion. This leaves the all-time great Jaguar Yokota along with Bison Kimura as the main developers of talent. Jaguar can make something of nothing, but I was never even sold as Bison as a worker. Bison can at least teach some psychology though. The most promising star is Chikako Shiratori (anyone remember her in AJW as Chikako Hasegawa?). I think Shiratori will be a star because of her looks and the fact they have few other wrestlers to push, but I don’t know that there’s enough potential stars to keep this promotion alive once the 35-year-old Yokota retires.

JWP

They have the same basic problem as AJW. Devil Masami, Dynamite Kansai, Mayumi Ozaki, & Cuty Suzuki have some drawing power but they've been presenting the same matches for ten years. Masami is 35, so she’s not going to last forever. Both Kansai and Masami are power wrestlers who base their matches on stiff work and psychology, so they aren’t affected by age as much. Kansai is very versatile and she’s one of the top workers in the world. Retirements are really taking a toll on all this promotion. Undercard wrestlers Saburo & Fusayo Nouchi both had their retirement matches (Saburo vs. Candy Okutsu, Nouchi vs. Cuty Suzuki, both 5-minute draws) and ceremonies on the 12/28 JWP show at Korakuen Hall. Saburo’s retirement is totally due to injuries. Nouchi is only 21 and she hasn’t had any serious injuries, so her retirement is surprising. She was a pretty good worker who had star potential. Another quality worker Hiroumi Yagi, 25, is retiring on 3/9 because she’s getting married. Candy Okutsu, 22, who was the best of all the young girls in Japan not that long ago has a really bad back. I always look for them to push Hikari Fukuoka to the top because she’s an excellent worker. The problem is that she resembles Toyota in both look and style, but she’s obviously not nearly as good. Since nobody can top Toyota at Toyota’s style, it’s hard for her to get over.

Michinoku Pro

This should be their breakout year. The tv deal with Samurai Fighting tv is bringing them exposure and revenue. The ECW deal has some potential. At least it will open U.S. fans eyes to their great product. It may also open Eric Bischoff or Vince McMahon’s eyes to the product. It would help the promotion financially if Uncle Eric throws some of Billionaire Ted’s money their way. Sasuke is thinking of opening a gym in North America, which would give him a broader base of guys that were bookable. If Vampiro goes full time, he would give them a good draw. He was well received on the tour and he was working with the bum Shinzaki.

They have one great giant feud since the team of TAKA & Funaki who are known as Yume Karyuudo(dream hunters) joined Kaientai Deluxe heel group to fued with Sasuke, Delfin, and crew. The more ten mans they run the better.

The wrestler to look out for is Masato Yakushiji. He really broke out in the 10/10 ten man match. His quickness and speed are unbelievable. Think of him as the Japanese Rey Misterio Jr.

New Japan

It’s the 25th anniversary of this promotion, so we’ll see even more big shows this year. They officially announced three Dome shows: 5/3 in Osaka, 8/10 in Nagayo, and 11/2 or 11/9 in Fukuoka. They may run the Tokyo Dome again as well. The downside about the 8/10 show is that the G-1 Climax, which is usually a 5-consecutive day tournament has been cut to three days. The G-1 was the highlight of 1996 for New Japan since the J Crown tournament was awesome and the Shiro & Yamazaki gave great efforts in the heavyweight tournament. Obviously, you can’t expect to sell out Sumo Hall 5 days in a row and then run a Dome show 4 days later. Even if business is great, you still have to do a ton of promotion and building to draw a huge crowd. It looks like New Japan will easily dominate the wrestling world from the money making standpoint.

The Junior division was already great and now Liger is booking TAKA, Hamada again, and Chris Jericho. The New Japan juniors are easily the best top to bottom division in the world. Ultimo Dragon’s great work in WCW should keep the other WCW Cruiserweights in top form for tours of Japan. I expect to see Rey Misterio Jr. and possibly Juventud Guerrera & Psicosis booked into New Japan this year. If the Luchadores became elite mat wrestlers and the New Japan juniors started incorporating more Lucha spots everyone could improve to an unbelievable level.

Then you have the poor heavyweight division and the equally useless tag team division. Hashimoto will definitely drop the strap at some point this year. The most likely candidates for a title run are moveless Chono and Choshu #2 (my nickname for Sasaki). Both are stiffs as far as I’m concerned. Meanwhile, Shiro Koshinaka will continue to place high on the most underrated list. Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka should continue to carry the tag team division. Anyone who can consistently get ***1/2 out of the Chono & Tenzan team deserves all the credit in the world.

Pancrase

This should be a very good year. Once everyone gets healthy they will go back to the usual stacked card. Funaki will have some great matches with the top guys whether it’s in a title tournament or a defense of the King of Pancrase.

The one problem is the brutality of the new style. Taking all the brutal kicks is going to shorten a lot of careers. Minoru Suzuki was completely banged up before the new style kicked in. When he returns, I’m not sure his body is going to hold up.

Yuki Kondo, who was Rookie of the Year in 1996 as far as I’m concerned (when did the Giant ever have a good match?) should score some big upsets this year en route to becoming a star. The other star rookie, Kunioku Kiuma should also improve a lot this year. The competition level is so high in Pancrase that basically anyone can lose on a given day. That’s really what makes Pancrase so exciting.

RINGS

This is another promotion to keep an eye on. The mix of working and shooting has created an interesting problem. The top star, Akira Maeda, and best worker, Volk Han, don’t do legitimate matches. This limits the promotions booking. The other problem is with Kiyoshi Tamura & Yoshihisa Yamamoto doing worked matches and shoot matches you are always taking a chance that they might lose a shoot or worse yet get injured in one and it would hurt future plans.

Akira Maeda is certainly on his way out, so it will come down to who his successor will be. Either Tamura or Yamamoto can carry the torch. Tamura is more skilled and is a bigger name in pro wrestling from UWF-I, but Yamamoto has done more in RINGS and made a mark in his limited shoots. This could be a great rivalry for years to come. Ideally, this promotion will move more and more toward legit matches. That has been what renewed the interest in the promotion. Han won the annual Battle Dimension tournament defeating Tamura on 1/22 at Budokan Hall. This result ensures that they will not become 100% legit (or even 50% for that matter) any time soon. Han is such a great worker that his worked matches steal the show and his stuff won’t look out of place even if they increase the number of shoots. He’s also respected enough that anyone can lose to him in a work without losing credibility.

UWF-I

It looks like the group will be restarting in February. The workers have been paid for the month of January, so they are ahead of FFF (they never paid anyone then folded). This return must be serious since Liger asked Kazushi Sakuraba to come to New Japan and he immediately turned him down. I really wonder about the decision to not work with All Japan. UWF-I doesn’t really have that many workers anymore. They will need outside help if they plan on running any major shows and AJ would have been ideal. I don’t think there’s another promotion (willing to work with them) that they could benefit from working with.

WAR

What’s left? This group was never known for presenting a top to bottom card in the first place. Without Ultimo until July, there’s little talent here and the junior division has basically collapsed. I don’t think Rey Misterio Jr. or Psicosis will be around to save a bad card either. Tenryu is nearly 47, so he isn’t going to be wrestling a whole lot longer. The problem is that there’s no one for him to pass the torch too. The development of Nobutaka Araya is extremely important, but there’s no one to develop him. He will be good in the IWA feud since he spent extensive time in the W*INGS promotion, but that background is the reason he’s not a complete worker. They seem on the verge of becoming a garbage league.

Lance Storm is the guy to look out for. He was expected to leave WAR this year before, but now that there’s no one for him to work with he’s even more apt to leave. They probably need to split up the team of Storm and Yuji Yasuraoka to have a good match, but that team is among the only bright points in the promotion.