Into the Indies 01.04.10: The Top News Stories of 2010! (Part 2)

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Into the indies, the column welcoming in the new decade.

For those of you who may have missed it, last week I kicked off our very own I2I “Year in Review” column, in which I decided that I would take a look at the top ten news stories from Japanese independent wrestling in 2010. In the first installment of the column, I counted down moments ten through six, and I’m back this week to take an in-depth look at numbers five through one.

If you skipped last week’s column and don’t feel like clicking the link above, here is a quick recap of the five stories that have already made our list:

10. Ryota Hama, Akebono, and Yutaka Yoshie form the LARD WARRIORS
9. Big Japan Wrestling celebrates its fifteenth anniversary.
8. Sanshiro Takagi & Munenori Sawa have an awesome tag title reign in DDT.
7. The formation and rise of SMASH.
6. Ayumi Kurihara, Misaki Ohata, Hiroyo Matsumoto, & Tomoka Nakagawa make their US debuts for SHIMMER & Jersey All Pro.

With the introduction out of the way, I’m sure that most of you can’t wait for the top half of the list to be unveiled . . . so let’s get into it!

Osaka Pro Wrestling has been an active company since 1998. However, despite their longevity, they’ve never gotten a ton of recognition on a national or international level. Part of that is by design, as they’ve intentionally established a business model that makes them a regional promotion, almost never running outside of the city of Osaka. However, despite the fact that they’re not heavily covered and despite the fact that their average attendance is only a couple of hundred fans, there are some very talented wrestlers who have passed through and are currently in O-Pro. It’s always great for some of those talented wrestlers to get an opportunity to shine on larger stages, and that’s exactly what happened this year when an inter-promotional rivalry developed between Osaka Pro and Dragon Gate, one of the hottest wrestling promotions in Japan today. It all began with Gamma, an Osaka Pro alumnus who left the company and signed with DG approximately five years ago. He and regular Dragon Gate tag partner CIMA made some disparaging remarks about Gamma’s former promotion in a magazine interview, which ignited a war of the words that later spawned an appearance by Gamma and DG’s Super Shisa on O-Pro’s February “Hurricane” show. What most thought would be a one-off tag match between Gamma & Shisa and Osaka’s Black Buffalo & Tigers Mask ended as something different, as the Dragon Gate wrestlers went after Tigers Mask’s mask (say that three times fast), getting themselves disqualified and setting of a big old brawl. Things escalated throughout the year, with CIMA eventually making his appearance in O-Pro, Buffalo & Tigers appearing on Dragon Gate shows, Tigers Mask defeating Super Shisa for DG’s Open the Brave Gate Title and CIMA defeating Billy Ken Kid for the Osaka Pro Singles Title. The two titles were ultimately returned to their original companies, but, unfortunately, for reasons that nobody seems to be sure of, the feud seems like it was dropped prematurely without a satisfying conclusion. However, despite the finish, the beginning and the middle of the story produced some very entertaining moments, including one full-on inter-promotional show held on June 18 featuring the aforementioned CIMA-BKK title match, an elimination tag pitting DG’s Warriors stable against Osaka’s LOV faction, and many more entertaining matches.

To represent the Osaka Pro vs. Dragon Gate action that we got this year, I present to you a match from June 27, pitting DG’s Masaaki Mochizuki & Don Fuji against top Osaka tag team Hideyoshi & Masamune.

This story actually started in late 2009, when New Japan Pro Wrestling decided to host the “Fifth Stage” of the Super J Cup tournament, the junior heavyweight competition that created a couple of the best top-to-bottom shows in wrestling history in 1994 and also had a very strong 1995 installment before becoming significantly less important when it resurfaced in 2000 and 2004. In true J Cup fashion, New Japan reached out to various promotions to create its talent lineup from the tournament, and the result was a relationship between NJPW and several key pieces of indy talent which lead to them coming back through 2010 and performing in a way that really spiced up the New Japan product. Osaka Pro’s Tigers Mask, GENTARO from FREEDOMS, Fujita “Jr.” Hayato from Michinoku Pro, and Danshoku Dino & Kota Ibushi of DDT were all in for that tournament. GENTARO, Fujita, and Ibushi were all back for more guest appearances in 2010, especially when additional junior heavyweight tournaments were held. Numerous other independent wrestlers popped up outside of the Super J Cup crew, including SMASH’s Tajiri and his protege KUSHIDA to team with former Tajiri rival Hiroshi Tanahashi, M-Pro’s Taro Nohashi to pair with Fujita Hayato in tag action, ZERO1’s Masato Tanaka who had a lengthy feud with Togi Makabe, and even the crew from the tiny Okinawa Pro Wrestling who competed in eight man tag team action when a New Japan tour touched down in Okinawa. Almost all of these men were impressive in their matches for the big leagues, but, of the entire indy crew to head in during 2010, none of them made a bigger impact than the aforementioned Kota Ibushi and his regular tag partner Kenny Omega, who brought their team the “Golden Lovers” to New Japan Pro Wrestling. The Lovers had some excellent matches throughout the year, and they have been amply rewarded for their hard work, especially on October 11 when Omega & Ibushi defeated the Apollo 55 team of Prince Devitt & Rysuke Taguchi to become the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Titles. Since that time, the Golden Lovers have essentially held the junior tag belts hostage, refusing to defend them on New Japan shows and forcing NJPW wrestlers to come to their home promotion of DDT if they want a shot. Maintaining the home field advantage has been a strategy that worked for the Lovers, as they have been successful in their two defenses of the straps to date, first defeating the former champions Devitt & Taguchi in a rematch in November and then going over New Japan veterans Jado & Gedo the day after Christmas. Now Kota Ibushi has been given the opportunity to add more gold to his mantle, as he is paired up against the singles IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion, Prince Devitt, in a title match on NJPW’s January 4 WrestleKingdom show. (The results of which are probably up by the time most of you are reading this, though they were not available as of press time.) All in all, New Japan has had a ridiculously fun year in the ring and I don’t think that things would have been nearly as entertaining if not for the numerous independent wrestlers who helped to round out the promotion’s undercards.

Want proof of that? I give to you the excellent October 11 match pitting the Golden Lovers against Rysuke Taguchi & Prince Devitt:

One of the most surprising news stories of 2009 was independent promotion DDT, which normally plays to no more than 2,000 fans, announcing that it was going to run one show in Tokyo’s Ryogoku Kokugikan, which can pack in over 8,000 audience members. More amazing still was the fact that, when the show eventually took place, it SOLD OUT, with fans “literally hanging from the rafters” (to use a Gorilla Monsoon-ism) to see a show headlined by Kota Ibushi challenging for the KO-D Openweight Title against HARASHIMA. When the 2009 show took place, I was a bit surprised that the sell out happened, as, even though I’m a big fan of what DDT’s product, I wasn’t sure that they’d have the exposure necessary to pack such a big house. I was significantly more surprised when I learned that the promotion planned to run a second show in the same venue in 2010, as I figured that the 2009 house was drawn in large part due to novelty value and that a second show wouldn’t have the same appeal. Don’t get me wrong, the card for the 2010 show looked very strong on paper, with matches such as the champion coming into the 2009 card, HARASHIMA, attempting to get his KO-D title back from Big Japan invader Daisuke Sekimoto, DDT’s resident homosexual Danshoku Dino going up against gay comedy act and former HUSTLE star Razor Ramon Hard Gay, and guest appearances from NOAH’s Naomichi Marufuji and New Japan’s Manabu Nakanishi. A fun card, I thought to myself, but not one that will come anywhere near as close to last year’s edition in terms of numbers. In fact, at one point I was fairly convinced that DDT would only get half of last year’s audience. Lo and behold, I was incredibly surprised when reports indicated that the same 8,800 fans who attended last year’s “Ryogoku Peter Pan” show turned out for the 2010 installment. For comparison’s sake, that’s the same number of fans who came to Pro Wrestling NOAH’s biggest Budokan Hall shows of 2010 and twice as many as two of New Japan’s Sumo Hall shows from this year. That’s an incredible accomplishment for any independent promotion, let alone one that had a similar show last year that many people thought would be a one-time only gimmick. It looks like DDT is here to stay, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Ryogoku Peter Pan continues to do similar numbers for several years if it continues to be a once-a-year event.

So that everybody can experience a little bit of the Ryogoku Peter Pan magic, here’s the main event of Daisuke Sekimoto against HARASHIMA:

Long-time readers of this column will be able to tell you that the promotion which first got me into watching Japanese independent wrestling was Michinoku Pro. M-Pro was producing some highly touted professional wrestling in the early and mid 1990’s, primarily focused on the stable of Kaientai Deluxe doing battle with a crew of babyfaces including the likes of Great Sasuke, Super Delfin, and Gran Naniwa. After some time on top of Michinoku and event a stint in the World Wrestling Federation, Kaientai was out of commission as a faction by the early part of this past decade. All of its core members – Dick Togo, Sho Funaki, Mens Teioh, TAKA Michinoku, & Kaz “Shiryu” Hayashi – remained active in professional wrestling, though, going their separate ways and wrestling with a variety of different promotions in Japan and even occasionally the United States. There were sporadic reunions of the faction, albeit never for an extended run, and then Dick Togo announced that, in June 2011, he would be retiring from professional wrestling and heading off to live the good life in South America. However, Dick Togo’s friends in KDX weren’t going to let him step away from the world of professional wrestling (and the entire Asian continent) without a few last matches. Thus began the Kaientai DX Final Countdown series, beginning with a match in TAKA’s Kaientai Dojo promotion on October 11 that pitted Togo, TAKA, and Teioh against K-Dojo regulars Yuji Hino, Makoto Oishi, & Shiori Asahi. A second match in the series saw the best-remembered WWF version of Kaientai, TAKA Michinoku & Sho Funaki, defeat Taishi Takizawa & Kaiji Tomato on October 17. Meanwhile, Togo’s singles career was still advancing elsewhere, and it got a big boost on November 28 when he defeated Hikaru Sato to win DDT’s KO-D Openweight Title to start a run that no doubt would have been a great last hurrah for Togo in the promotion. However, not long after winning the championship and not long before the last match of the Final Countdown Tour was to begin, Dick Togo suffered a surprising injury when he shattered his coccyx. DDT almost immediately held a match to crown an interim KO-D Champion, which was won by Antonio Honda. Meanwhile, the third match in the Kaientai DX farewell tour still went on, with TAKA, Funaki, Teioh, and Shiryu defeating Great Sasuke, Minoru Fujita, Kesen Numajiro, and Kazuya Yuasa. However, before the bout, it was announced that it would no longer be the series finale, with a fourth match to be scheduled as soon as Togo was healthy and ready to rejoin his partners. There was to be much emotion surrounding the retirement of Dick Togo and the last go-round for Kaientai DX, but things were made significantly more interesting by Togo’s title win, his injury, and the speculation as to how things will now play out once he has healed.

Since this news story was all about reflection and nostalgia, let’s take a look at a classic Kaientai match from 1996:

As noted above, Michinoku Pro Wrestling in the 1990’s was the promotion that got me into the Japanese indies. At the time I was watching the company, one of the biggest up-and-coming young babyfaces was a guy by the name of Gran Naniwa. He had quite the cult following both in Japan and among American fans who were following Japanese wrestling during that decade, and, despite largely having a comedy gimmick, he showed flashes of brilliance that proved, underneath it all, he was a hell of a professional wrestler. Though he had almost completely stepped away from professional wrestling in 2010, many were still shocked when it was announced that he passed away this year from what was reportedly a heart condition. It was not just his death which was surprising, though. There were several facts that came out about the man behind the crab mask after his death that were surprising in their own right. First of all, people were caught off guard by the fact that, though he passed away on October 6, absolutely nothing was said about it publicly until November 21. Though unusual to those hearing the news in the United States, it was easily explained, as apparently his family belongs to a Buddhist sect in which it is traditional to not make a death known to the outside world until several weeks afterwards, when a memorial service is held. The other surprise was Naniwa’s age, as he was apparently only 33 years old when he passed. Many fans were stunned by this fact, expecting him to be much older, as being 33 in 2010 meant that he made his pro wrestling debut just a month after his 16th birthday and was competing in some very memorable, high level matches at the ages of 17 and 18. His age also made the story of his death unusual as, even though young deaths are tragically common among wrestlers in the United States, they are virtually unheard of in Japan. Also surprising and unfortunate were stories that came out about Naniwa’s life just prior to his death, as there were vague comments about how he was not doing well generally and one specific story about how, not long before his passing, a wrestling promoter trying to arrange a booking for him received a telephone call from local police who had found Naniwa passed out and intoxicated and called the promoter to pick him up because it was the promoter’s number that appeared first in the list of recent calls on the former wrestler’s phone. Despite his sad ending, the men and women who worked with Gran Naniwa throughout his career took time to remember him fondly as 2010 came to a close, with memorial ceremonies being held in three separate promotions, namely Okinawa Pro Wrestling, Kaientai Dojo, and Naniwa’s old stomping grounds of Michinoku Pro.

It’s an unfortunate story, but hopefully independent fans will be able to remember Naniwa for who he was in his glory days, and hopefully new generations of fans will be able to continue to enjoy his work, including this 1995 match against “Gorgon Cross,” who is better known stateside as Jerry Lynn:

And that will do it for I2I’s countdown of the top ten news stories in Japanese indy wrestling for the year 2010. Here’s to hoping that 2011 is even more memorable.

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See you all next week!