QUEBRADA
NEWS ARCHIVE
Zen
Nihon Puroresu
All Japan Pro-Wrestling
7/9:
7/9 Tokyo Korakuen
Hall 2,100 sellout The rest of the 7/23 Tokyo Nippon Budokan card was announced. The semifinal will be Jinsei Shinzaki vs. Steve Williams and the other "big" match is Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Johnny Smith. For whatever reason, it looks like Masa Fuchi vs. Shigeo Okumura will be the opening match. Given the guys they have available, they are giving away a lot here. They probably have to though because of the guys they have available, especially since they almost never have a tag match headline Budokan (aside from the tag finals), especially not with the likes of Mossman involved. |
7/8: Kawada & Tenryu Plan To Take Best Bout Award With Tokyo Dome Match
7/8 Tochigi Koyama
Yuuenchi American Village 1,700 Toshiaki Kawada and his former "teacher" Genichiru Tenryu are planning to have a classic singles match in the Tokyo Dome. Right now no date has been set, but it seems that they are trying to stir up interest in the bout by saying if they are able to take out the Tokyo Dome for the match, it'll win best bout. The main event will have to be a classic because the undercard really wouldn't have anything to offer, but the previous Tokyo Dome shows and the Budokan shows from 1997 on have been that way anyway, although we'd assume to a much lesser extent. More important than the lack of talent depth is that previously NTV paid All Japan's costs in running the Dome, while right now they don't even have their own network TV show to plug their upcoming events. I'm sure Motoko has the money to promote the show on her own, but there's a far bigger risk in running the Tokyo Dome than there ever was before at the same time there's almost no chance of them coming close to matching their previous crowds of over 55,000. The question really is if it will be more beneficial to the company to take out the Dome for a show that could easily wind up drawing in the 20,000-30,000 range (I mean legit, I don't expect them to claim less than 40,000 no matter what) than it would be to just put the matcdh at Budokan for the 16,300 sellout. |
7/7:
Genichiru Tenryu will be working in All Japan regularly starting with the next tour. Tenryu is a good fit with the new style because he agrees with Kawada that the theme of the league should be itami no wakaru puroresu (pro wrestling that understands pain). |
7/6:
7/6 Yamagata Tsuoka
Shi Taiikukan 1,200 |
7/5:
7/5 Yamagata Shi
Sogo Sports Center 1,500 sellout Hiroshi Hase won a seat representing the 1st Ward of Ishikawa in the lower house of the Diet on 6/25. The lower house has more power than the upper house, and no wrestler has ever served a term there. Since Hase has been busy with his campaign, he's out of wrestling shape (he said he'd have to train for 2 months to get back into shape) and hasn't worried himself with deciding which company he'll work for when he has some down time. He talked to Tatsumi Fujinami & Motoko Baba today. Fujinami invited him to wrestle in New Japan, but that probably won't happen. |
7/4:
7/4 Shizuoka Kira
Messe Numatsu 1,550 Steve Williams challenged Mitsuharu Misawa to a singles match on one of the four sold shows that Misawa is appearing on during the current tour. Williams is pissed at Misawa for turning his back on the Baba's and wants to kick his ass in their name. Misawa had no comment and it's not going to happen, but it's one of those things that's done to make the opposition look bad. All Japan applied to NTV for coverage of the 7/23 Tokyo Nippon Budokan show, but since they just cancelled the show in favor of covering NOAH it's highly unlikely that they'll change their mind before they even have one NOAH TV show. It's probably just a way to further piss their fans off at the evil network. |
7/2: Mr. Puroresu Returns To All Japan
7/2 Tokyo Korakuen
Hall 2,100 sellout TV Asahi, the network that shows New Japan, will broadcast some clips of matches from the 7/1 & 7/2 shows on 7/3 at 23:55-24:50. |
7/1: All Japan vs. New Japan Is Off Again
7/1 Tokyo DIFFER
Ariake 1,500 sellout Masa Fuchi met with New Japan Director Katsuji Nagashima about the proposal of an interpromotional feud. Even though they lost virtually everyone, All Japan still wanted the feud to be booked as if they were equals. New Japan assumed that All Japan would be more desperate than they are acting. Obviously New Japan has no reason to agree to do it the way All Japan wants. Thus, they either won't work together at all or later on All Japan will make some concessions and something will be put together. |
6/30: Johhny Gives Up Chance To Finally Be An All Japan Ace
Johnny Ace is done with All Japan for the forseeable future because he agreed to join WCW, who works with rival New Japan. This is somewhat surprising because Ace was a favorite of Motoko Baba and was in charge of booking the gaijins onto the tours. Although the gaijin jobs in All Japan aren't the most stable right now, unless the company folded, it's doubtful that Ace would have ever lost his job there. WCW always pays more to do less though. Right now Ace is working as one of the bookers, in particular handling finishes since over the years of wrestling in All Japan, he learned how to make them exciting with all the near falls. George Hines will replace Ace on the current tour. |
6/27:
NTV sent All Japan a notice that the new pro wrestling and martial arts show Colisseo show that's replacing them won't give them any coverage. The show is supposed to have news, which is where the All Japan coverage would come in, but since it's mainly there to promote NOAH they are going to act like All Japan no longer exists. |
6/26:
Since the breakup, All Japan has received letters from 10 young natives that want to be trained to wrestle there. Since they are in need of young wrestlers, Kawada & Fuchi are testing them to see if they are worth training. |
6/25: Onita In All Japan?
Motoko Baba & Atsushi Onita had a conversation over the phone about Onita wrestling on All Japan shows. His name value would be a big help, but his style is totally different from what All Japan has been promoting. In order for Onita to be valuable, they'd have to revert back to the dark days of blood and crappy brawling in All Japan, and even in those days when Abdullah was Butchering match quality, they never had any death matches or anything like that. It's obvious that All Japan are really desperate, but there are really no opponents for Onita in All Japan. I just can't picture Kawada fans wanting to see him have a big match with a guy that can't wrestle to save his life. |
6/22:
Toshiaki Kawada said he'd defend All Japan to his death and plans for the group to be around for their 30th Anniversary in 2002. With the exception of the major show on 7/23 at Tokyo Nippon Budokan, the lineups for '00 Summer Action Series tour were announced. They don't look like something many people will pay for or something that will produce particularly good matches, but I guess they deserve credit for trying. An agreement was reached for Misawa and co. to work the 7/13, 7/15, 7/17, & 7/20 shows because they were sold shows to local promoters who were expecting to be able to promote a real All Japan show with a full crew when they paid. There won't be any interpromotional matches though, and this is just a one time thing to fulfill a previous committment. The roster for the
whole tour is as follows: Wrestlers appearing
on certain dates are as follows: The "big"
matches on the tour are |
6/19: All Japan & New Japan May Really Work Together This Time
Toshiaki Kawada spoke publicaly about the possibility of exchanging talent with New Japan for the first time. Obviously All Japan vs. New Japan doesn't have the same luster it did a few years ago, but New Japan could probably do what they wanted with All Japan since they are desperate now, which is the way New Japan likes it. If Kawada was used right, he could draw several large houses for New Japan for dream matches with wrestlers he's never faced before such as Hashimoto, Muto, and Chono. The problem with going to New Japan to bail them out is that history shows they'll always leave the smaller promotion in a position where they cannot succeed, in certain cases even at the expense of their own business. The thing is, All Japan really has nothing going for them now, so it's probably a situation where Kawada can be a big deal for the last few years of his active career with New Japan's help or be strugging to draw 2,000 without it. NTV officially cancelled All Japan's TV show, ending a 27-year relationship with the company. |
6/18:
A public funeral was held for Jumbo Tsuruta at Aoyama Saijo (funeral hall) in Aoyama, Tokyo. 4,600 people attended, making it one of the most attended sports celebrity funerals in the history of Japan. Wrestling personalities attending included virtually everyone from All Japan and NOAH, Tatsumi Fujinami, Seiji Sakaguchi, Shinya Hashimoto, Atsushi Onita, & Tarzan Goto. All Japan announced that Michinoku Puroresu's Jinsei Shinzaki, who made several appearances for All Japan from 97-99, would be working the '00 Summer Action Series tour. |
6/17:
Motoko Baba has
asked all the guys that left for NOAH to appear on the '00 Summer Action
Series tour since tickets have already been sold for these shows when
fans were under the impression that they would be seeing the full crew
as always. I'm sure Baba knows that Misawa won't agree to this, but
it makes Misawa look "evil" for "not thinking of the
fans." If Misawa agreed, they probably would have run one last
Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada match to close out the legendary rivalry
that goes back 20 plus year to when they were high school wrestlers.
|
6/15:
Mitsuharu Misawa would like to start his new promotion at Tokyo DIFFER Ariake in the first 10 days of August. At least 23 wrestlers that were on All Japan's roster will be in this new league. |
6/14: Kawada Choses Sub President Job Over Separation
Toshiaki Kawada
opted to stay in All Japan rather than break away with Mitsuharu Misawa.
He was given the position of Director Sub-president in exchange for
renewing his contract, and the idea is to build whatever is left of
the company around him. Kawada said the main reason he's going to stay
and try to save the company is that he he wasn't able to throw away
the name that Baba made. The only other wrestlers whose contract was
renewed is Masanobu Fuchi, who was given the title of Director. Referee
Kyohei Wada's contract was renewed as well, but everyone else either
has already aligned themselves with Misawa or has the chance to. |
6/13: Key Players Back Misawa
All Japan lost their singles champion and one half of their tag champions today, as Kenta Kobashi and player president Akira Taue resigned from All Japan and announced they would be following Misawa. It's expected that most of the lesser natives will be joining Misawa's group in the days to come. Director Sub-president Mitsuo Momota, who also works the comedy matches, as well as directors Yoshinori Momota and Kenichi Oyagi also resigned and joined Misawa. Despite the defections, Motoko Baba said the next series, set to begin on 7/1, would go on as scheduled. More importantly, she's suspending all contract renewals, so basically everyone that was in All Japan is now a free agent. |
6/12: It's The End Of All Japan As We Know It
Although it was announced publicly that President, booker, and top star Mitsuharu Misawa resigned from All Japan (technically on 5/28, but it was kept secret as long as possible), he was actually voted out of power by the All Japan board on 5/26. Technically Misawa wasn't forced out of the league, just forced out of power in the league. I'm sure it's no surprise to those that got him out of power that he chose to leave the company rather than stay on as a wrestler with Motoko Baba, who he's never gotten along with, in power. Some of the things the officers criticized him for were the 5 single matches Budokan show on 9/4/99, specifically for putting Akiyama vs. Omori on last which wasn't a bad move because the idea was to make them seem more important so people would be more willing to pay for them in later Budokan mains, and making the Champion Carnival into a tournament. Misawa definitely stunk up the joint as a booker in every regard, rolling out a bunch of singles matches and special matches for little box office return instead of giving people roles and telling stories to make people want to pay for certain matches. In his defense, he wanted to try to modernize, but was forced by Motoko to stay pat for the most part even though the product was no longer successful at the box office with the exception of Budokan and Korakuen. Although there's been talk of Misawa leaving to get away from Motoko and forming his own league with much of the All Japan roster for some time, it seems like he had decided to stay and "defend Puroresu" because he didn't want the existence of the late Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta and the All Japan style of wrestling to be forgotten. What this means as far as the future of All Japan goes is uncertain, but speculation is that Misawa will form his own company and take many of the wrestlers with him. |
6/9:
6/9 Tokyo Nippon
Budokan 16,300 sellout |
6/7:
6/7 Akita Kenristu
Taiikukan 2,400 |
6/6:
6/6 Iwate Kitakami
Shi 1,600 sellout |
6/4:
6/4 Shizuoka Act
City Hamamatsu 2,100 sellout |
6/2:
6/2 Nagano Suwako
Sports Center 1,500 Jumbo Tsuruta's wife Yasuko is forming the Jumbo Foundation to help people who await internal organ transplants. The details of the foundation have yet to be determined, but patients will apply for it while awaiting a donor. |
See also: Contact
info
'99
Sekai Saikyo Tag Standings
All Japan &
New Japan Messages at The
Other Arena
All inquiries and orders should be e-mailed to M.L.Liger@juno.com.