Quebrada

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

November 23, 1996

Atsushi Onita, the father of garbage wrestling, is coming out of retirement #2 to wrestle on FMW’s 12/11 show at Tokyo Komazawa Olympic Park Gym. Onita was FMW’s founder, president, and top star from 1989-1995. Onita is supposed to fight long time rival Mr. Pogo in Pogo’s retirement match, but there is a lot of speculation that the match will be changed. Pogo has been wanting to tag with Onita and there is a decent chance that he will get his wish on this show or possibly the 5/5/96 Kawasaki Stadium show. The Japanese fans seem to have a mixed reaction to Onita’s return. Some are glad to see him again, but others are angry because he went back on his word. Onita’s retirement was like in basketball when say Julius Erving or Kareem Abdul Jabbar retired, in that his last match in every city and arena was a big deal. You can see why some fans would be angry, since so many fans came out to see his last match in their area as well as traveling to Kawasaki for his actual retirement match believing these were special events, last chances. Onita is a cult hero in Japan, so the fans view his retirement a bit differently than other stars. Of course, fans everywhere including the ones who are angry, know that the chance of a wrestle really staying retired is slim. It is hard to say whether Onita will just be returning for one match or he will wrestle on FMW’s big shows. Supposedly FMW’s booker Koji Nakagawa (who along with FMW’s other booker Victor Quinones has been fired but will finish out the year before relinquishing duties) has been bugging Onita to return for a while and with this being Pogo’s last show I guess it was the right time. Onita says he will just do this one match, but he said he would retire if he lost to Tenryu on 5/5/94 and worked a full year after that. He may have plans of working the major shows, but at this point say he is only doing one match in order to draw a bigger crowd. Onita is an egomaniac who is already clashing with the current FMW management, so they might not even want him to work any other matches. FMW drew 33,231 fans (50,000 capacity) on last years Kawasaki stadium show with more names than they have now. Last year they had the legend Terry Funk & Pogo vs. Hayabusa & Masato Tanaka gimmick match on top. They also had the draw of seeing the first women’s no rope electrified explosive barbed wire match between Combat Toyoda & Megumi Kudo, which turned out to be one of the best matches in the history of the promotion. Toyoda was the groups second best working and drawing female, whatever that was worth, and this was her retirement match. If things stand as they do now, there will be no Onita, no Pogo, no Terry Funk, and no Toyoda. Megumi Kudo, who is in a league of her own among FMW women and their top female draw, will be retiring on this years show. Toyoda and Kudo were allies, so the interest level of seeing them head-to-head was greater than it would have been to see Toyoda retire against a heel she had fought a million times, though with so few women in the promotion it's not like it was a new match. Without even taking into effect that you can only do the first gimmick match once, there is no woman in FMW for Kudo to fight that will garner the same interest as last years match.

Onita’s name has been bandied about as a possible opponent for Kudo. This has the potential for big money because it would be the most popular male in the company’s history vs. the most popular female in the company’s history. Male vs. Female matches are quite rare in Japan and have never occurred on a big show like this. WAR probably had the most success with this sort of match. On 12/8/95 WAR held a one-night tag tournament which sold out Tokyo Ota Ward Gym (4,200). Although it was not the main event, the first round match of Ultimo Dragon & Genichiru Tenryu vs. Hiromuchi Fuyuki & Shinobu Kandori was the match the fans came to see. Kandori, who works for LLPW, is considered the toughest of all the female workers in Japan. She mainly worked with Ultimo, who is basically the same size as her, and it was a good match (***1/4) although a bit of credibility was out the window. Michinoku Pro has also had mixed matches with women from both AJW and JWP. Aside from a huge dropoff in talent on the male side, the main difference between these matches and an Onita vs. Kudo match would be that Ultimo and the Michinoku wrestlers weigh between 135-180 while Onita may weigh 250. It is too early to say what draws FMW will have on the 5/5/97 show, but it is suffice to say that they need either Onita and/or Pogo to wrestle or some big name out of league talent. Onita’s returning as fine with me as long as he makes a decision to either stay or go. I don’t want to see Onita become Verne Gagne Jr.

All the controversy is over regarding the 12/15/96 Universal Vale Tudo Show. It doesn’t look like we will even know the motives of Inoki or New Japan, but since the show was "postponed" it doesn’t really matter. The main reason for the show being canceled or "postponed" as they called it was poor ticket sales. This comes as a surprise to no one since the card was way too weak for a Dome show. The deal with Shamrock falling through was also another reason, since he was the biggest draw on the show. There wasn’t anyone with enough name value to replace Shamrock and even with Shamrock there was no interest. U Japan’s show on 11/17 at Tokyo Bar Ariake Coliseum did exactly the opposite of what I feared the UVT show would do. On this show, which was the first show in Japan to use the octagon-cage (the other shoot shows all use a wrestling ring) all the wrestlers were downed. The show, which contained all legit matches except possibly Severn vs. Matsunaga, was designed to expose the difference between legitimate fighters and professional wrestlers and kill the myth of pro wrestling. There were 7 pro wrestlers on the show and the only one that won was Dan Severn. Despite that "prestigious" NWA title, Severn shouldn’t really be considered a pro wrestler these days anyway. Severn fought Mitsuhiro Matsunaga of Big Japan, so a wrestler had to win that match. Matsunaga has a martial arts background, but he has no business in the same ring as Severn and was dominated, getting suplexed a few times before submitting in less than a minute and a half. The main event was Bam Bam Bigelow, who was a killer heel and a huge name in New Japan in the late 1980's and early 1990's vs. Kimo Leopaldo, a self-mutilator of minimal talent who is most famous for lasting a few minutes with Royce Gracie and doing enough damage with a punch or two to knock him out of the tournament. Gracie won that match relatively easy; he just had a little more difficulty getting to the ground and it cost him a tournament he would likely have gone on to win. Bigelow, who outweighs Kimo by roughly 90 pounds, was totally dominated by Kimo. Kimo threw punches from the mount, which opened up a above Bigelow’s eye. Bigelow lasted all of 2:15 before tapping out due to Kimo’s choke sleeper. In what might be the final nail in the coffin for Yoji Anjoh, he lost to BJJ fighter Sean Alvares. Anjoh was seconded by Nobuhiko Takada, Masahito Kakihara, Naoki Sano, Kazushi Sakuraba, Yoshihiro Takayama (for everyone’s sake please keep this scrub as a second rather than a performer), Kenichi Yamamoto, and Hiromitsu Kanehara or in other words anyone who is anything in UWF-I. I have mentioned how Anjoh ruined UWF-I by shooting his mouth off saying he could beat Rickson Gracie and then getting his head handed to him on a platter when they fought. Not to take anything away from Alvares, but it really makes Anjoh look bad when he challenges possibly the best BJJ practitioner at the time and he can’t even beat the lesser BJJ practitioners. To Anjoh’s defense, he put up a good fight and it took Alvares 34:27 to defeat him. The other notable match was Yoko Takahashi vs. Becky Levi. Takahashi, a kempo karate practitioner who works for the JD promotion (used to work for AJW) is considered to be one of the toughest womens wrestlers in Japan. Becky Levi, a power lifter who trains with Don Frye, got on top of her and threw a series of punches before Takahashi’s corner threw the towel in at 2:13. Safe to say that it wasn’t a good night for the pro wrestlers and U Japan’s plan of getting their stars over by taking out pro wrestling stars probably worked.

Konnan’s first Promo Azteca show on 11/15 drew a 2,700 sellout in Xochimiko. This was the first tv taping for this group and will air on Tv-Azteca sometime in January. This card doesn’t sound that good on paper although there are a lot of unknowns that may or may not be good. Some of the former AAA minis are now in Promo as the great Mascarita Sagrada along with Octagoncito defeated Jerrito Estrada (who is shouldn’t be a mini because he is about 5 feet tall, but the rule is that is you were shorter than the shortest regular worker at the time Super Astro who was 5' ½" then you would be considered a mini) and Piratita Morgan via DQ. In the main event Psicosis, Blue Panther, & Cien Caras defeated Rey Misterio Jr., Angel Azteca, & Konnan via DQ. Other workers included Dragon de Oro (who is a very good flyer although he seems to never be on tv) Andy Barrow (who managed Killer before leaving AAA and probably isn’t much in the ring), Pantera Del Ring (formerly Panterita Del Ring who is very good although he has never made it as a national star), Shu El Guerrero (seems like this guy has been around forever), Super Calo, & Fantasma (a solid but unspectacular worker who is better as a heel because he isn’t flashy). Juventud, La Parka, Damian (Galaxy in WCW), and Halloween (Ciclope in WCW. WCW thought the pumpkin mask looked ridiculous, so they gave him a mask with one eye instead) didn’t work the show because they were at WCW tapings. One must commend Parka for being so professional about leaving AAA. Observer reported that Pena wanted him to become a heel again and feud with Octagon. Instead of refusing, giving notice, or even telling Pena he was quitting, he just no showed all his bookings and showed up at the WCW tapings at Disney on 11/9. When Pena called his house to find out his whereabouts, his wife lied and told Pena they had a fight, Parka left, and she didn’t know where he was. This is when Pena spread the news Parka was booked in the Royal Rumble hoping it would convince him to stay.

Michinoku Pro’s tag team tournament concluded with the heel duo of Dick Togo (formerly SATO) and Mens Teoh (formerly Terry Boy) defeating Super Delfin and El Hijo Del Santo in the finals. This has to be construed as an upset despite the fact that the Kaientai trio (Shiryu is other member) has been getting a big push lately. All Japan’s tag tournament began on 11/16 and it looks like the traditional booking is loosening a bit. On 11/17, Jun Izumida & Giant Kimala II, the worst team in the tournament from both a working and drawing standpoint defeated Misawa & Akiyama, the top team in both categories. This is a huge, huge, upset as Misawa is the companies top star and Akiyama is the wrestler whose workrate (of course it helped that they had no capable alternatives) forced them to give him a megapush early in the year which hasn’t stopped. Also, on 11/17, Kobashi & Patriot defeated Kawada & Taue. This wouldn’t be much of an upset if it wasn’t for the fact that Patriot scored his 1st ever pin on Kawada. Kawada & Taue were also defeated by Hansen & Omori. Obviously Hansen was the one who got the pin on Taue. Sabu & Gary Albright began competing on 11/20 due to Sabu’s commitment to work ECW’s November to Remember. The team defeated Kimala II & Izumida the first night, but lost to Kobashi & Patriot on 11/21 when Kobashi pinned Sabu. The two best matches on paper so far were Misawa & Akiyama going a 30:00 draw with Williams and Ace on opening night and Kawada & Taue defeating Misawa & Akiyama in 29:46 (teased the draw) when Kawada pinned Akiyama. Through 11/21, Kobashi & Patriot are in first place with 10 points (5-0-0 record). I still don’t see Kobashi & Patriot winning the tournament because Patriot just isn’t that good. They like the top teams to lose early so they can make a comeback.

This weeks match of the year candidate is Jushin Thunder Liger, El Samurai, & Gran Hamada vs. TAKA Michinoku, Shinjiro Otani, & Koji Kanemoto. The match took place on 4/5/96 in Tokyo Korakuen Hall and aired on New Japan TV on 4/27. The match pitted the established jr. stars (all over 30 with at least 11 years experience) vs. the up and coming jr. stars (Otani & TAKA are both under 25 and even though Kanemoto just turned 30 he started late and has only been wrestling since November of 1990).

The match began slow, but all the mat wrestling was done to build toward and/or set up the high spots. Otani and Kanemoto worked over Liger’s leg. While Kanemoto had Liger in a figure four, Otani gave Liger a springboard knee to the leg and TAKA followed with a knee drop off the top to Liger’s leg. Otani tagged in and tried to work on Liger’s leg, but Liger broke it up with an Enzuiguri (back brain kick). From this point, the main focus of the veteran team was to work over Otani’s arm. Hamada started this trend. While standing, he put Otani in an arm bar and Samurai came off the top with a knee to the arm. Even though they obviously let go of the arm it still looked like a lethal maneuver. While Samurai was hammerlocking Otani, Liger came off the top with a knee drop on Otani’s arm. Liger used a short arm bulldog and tagged Samurai, who came off the top with a double boot stomp to Otani’s arm. Samurai put Otani in the Wakigatamae (a.k.a. Fujiwara arm bar, Japanese arm bar, Pain Killer, and Whammy Bar). Hamada in, Hamada snapmares Otani and with a great transition goes right into the cross arm breaker. Liger in, Liger whips Otani into the corner and misses his Koppo kick. As soon as Liger gets up, Otani catches him with a leg lariat for a 2 count. Otani attempts his Dragon suplex, but Liger elbows his way out and runs off the ropes. When Liger rebounds off the ropes, Otani delivers a jump spinning heel kick. Otani goes for his Dragon suplex again, but Samurai comes in and breaks it up. Liger then sets Otani up for a brainbuster and Samurai assists by spiking Otani. Liger sets Otani up on the top rope and Hamada comes in and Frankensteiners Otani off the top for a 2 ½ count. Hamada tries for an Irish whip, but Otani reverses and attempts a back body drop. Hamada does his classic spot where he counters the back body drop by landing on his feet, but Otani proceeds to nail him with a jump spinning heel kick. Kanemoto tags in and unloads some roundhouse kicks on Hamada. Kanemoto then positions Hamada with a body slam and does his rolling senton off the middle rope. Kanemoto again positions Hamada with a slam and attempts his moonsault. Hamada avoids the moonsault, but Kanemoto lands on his feet and charges at Hamada in the corner. Hamada knee lifts the charging Kanemoto and uses a swinging DDT off the middle rope. Samurai tags in and misses a flying elbow. Kanemoto uses a jump spinning heel kick followed by an Enzui (to back of head) leg lariat. Kanemoto tries for his Tiger suplex, but Samurai goes behind and uses a Tiger suplex of his own for a 2 count before TAKA makes the save. Kanemoto countered Samurai’s verticle suplex and slapped Samurai in the face. Then at the same time, Samurai is sandwiched by dropkicks (Kanemoto’s from behind and Otani’s dropkick off the top from the front). TAKA finally enters the match. He whips Samurai into the corner and displays his tremendous agility by high kneeing Samurai and instead of landing in the ring, flies right over the top rope and turns so he is in perfect position to follow up with a springboard version of Takako Inoue’s destiny hammer (flying knee to the temple) for a near fall. It’s impossible to translate the grace, speed, and timing of that spot on paper. TAKA attempts a move off the top, but Samurai dropkicks him while his is in midair. Samurai hit his diving headbutt off the top. Samurai’s powerbomb on TAKA was assisted by Liger and Hamada who spiked. TAKA escaped at 2 3/4. Samurai went for his ThunderFire powerbomb, but TAKA rolled through then hit his springboard dropkick. Everyone was fighting in the ring until Kanemoto and Otani knocked Liger and Hamada to the floor. Kanemoto and Otani did simultaneous planchas on Liger and Hamada. This left TAKA and Samurai alone in the ring. TAKA used his Michinoku driver II (basically a bodyslam into a tombstone) on Samurai. Instead of going for the pin, TAKA picked Samurai up and delivered a second Michinoku Driver II for the pinfall. ****3/4

This match may have been the weakest of the ones I have reviewed, but that is far from a cut. I wish New Japan didn’t join it in progress because it makes things like TAKA not getting in until the last couple of minutes (which may or not have been the case) seem weird. Otani seems to improve with every match. He is truly the total package (let’s hope he doesn’t switch leagues, slam Koji Kitao, and tour the country in a bus). He really doesn’t have any weaknesses as he can work any style and work with any opponent. In two years, it would not surprise me if he was the best wrestler in the world.

Hamada is truly amazing. Consider the fact that he has been wrestling 25 years, is nearly 46 (possibly older), and has suffered several injuries. With that said, he wrestled this match with 5 of the 20 best workers in the sport (some of them ½ his age) and was not out of place at all. His style has evolved over the years and he does the latest moves (within reason). Hamada was already in his 30's by the time Sayama revolutionized the sport. Most wrestlers would have already been set in their ways and continued to work the traditional style. Instead Hamada became one of the most influential jr. wrestlers of all-time. He was one of the first to combine the Lucha Libre style with the Japanese jr. style. He ran and headlined Universal (a.k.a. Hamada’s UWF), the first Lucha Libre promotion in Japan. Consider that nearly all the prominent Jrs. of the early 1980's are retired. The ones that are still around like Perro Aguayo are still fighting the style they did at that time (exception to this rule granted to El Texano, though he's much more in tag working with the far superior Silver King). Sayama, who in my opinion is the most influential wrestler of all-time because he pretty much singlehandedly changed the style of sport, is no where near as good as Hamada is now even though he is 8 years younger. Sayama invented more moves than any wrester, but at this point he isn’t inventing anything new and is basically doing his spots that were out of this world when he retired in 1983. The problem for Sayama is that out of this world moves in 1983 are ordinary in 1996. For continually improving his workrate and evolving his style, it is hard to find anyone that is comparable to Haraoki "Gran" Hamada.