Free Wrestling in the Time of Coronavirus

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > The Hammer House: Stinger Splash Zone > Free Wrestling in the Time of Coronavirus

Venomous: Nov 7, 2011

I'd post Ditch's Japanese wrestling video website, but he has a big bold disclaimer not to do that without asking him on the front page, and I'm a lazy bastard so I won't do that

so you know this big list of the best matches ever on Cagematch? I just made a playlist of the stuff I can find on YouTube. It's pretty much all AJPW and NOAH stuff at the moment, but considering it's from some of the greatest wrestlers of all time, I'm not exactly bothered tbh

I've only listed what I can find from the first page so far, but you can find it here, and I guess the following is the final five matches on the playlist at the time of writing, because it's a good incentive to watch the others
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lurEXADlboY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TPEqy4ladI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJHqvmqrdf4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLooX2nje80
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPTemrD73-w

# ¿ Mar 24, 2020 00:31

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 17:24

Venomous: Nov 7, 2011

Big Dave posted:

every match big mouth loud ever put on, plus shibata, murakami, and usuda compilations
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNOfKmK5nZIurQ8fUk26GcA/featured

OH poo poo. I NEVER KNEW SASAKI FOUGHT MURAKAMI. I loving LOVE MURAKAMI. HERE WE loving GO

e: guess I should link it for the purposes of the thread bUT HOLY loving poo poo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzJuNbspeGU

# ¿ Mar 24, 2020 01:04

Venomous: Nov 7, 2011

Venomous posted:

OH poo poo. I NEVER KNEW SASAKI FOUGHT MURAKAMI. I loving LOVE MURAKAMI. HERE WE loving GO

e: guess I should link it for the purposes of the thread bUT HOLY loving poo poo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzJuNbspeGU

...so that match was a bit of a squash. It ruled for what it was, but it was too short to give someone a good impression of the Heisei Terrorist. Tell you what, why don't I link the best Kazunari Murakami match I've ever seen, for your viewing pleasure?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOIc8qn1r0Y

# ¿ Mar 24, 2020 12:08

Venomous: Nov 7, 2011

IIRC the reason for the Wrestle-1 exodus was one of the most stupid things in the history of wrestling. Mutoh had sold AJPW to some computer company with the tacit expectation that he'd become president of the company at the end of it all. However, the head of said computer company, who had zero experience running a wrestling company before, said 'gently caress it, I wanna be president' and crowned himself president instead of Mutoh. It was so stupid and blatantly disrespectful that not only did Mutoh take his guys and walk out to form W-1, Mrs. Baba demanded the original Triple Crown belts back. Apart from special occasions, like the Giant Baba tribute show last year where Kento technically beat Tanahashi, the Triple Crown has been represented by a single belt ever since, and the originals are held by the Baba family to this day.

There's an interesting alternate timeline where Mutoh became president as expected, but hell if I know what it's like.

e: This article is a really good wee primer on AJPW up to 2017, and it helps fill in the gaps that forkboy missed above.

iGuure posted:

On June 7, 2011, Mutoh announced that he was stepping down as president, but would remain on the board and on the roster. The resignation stemmed from a backstage assault on May 29 of the same year, where Yoshikazu Taru assaulted Nobukazu Hirai backstage, leaving Hirai with a blod clot in his brain, which burst after his match later that night, giving Hirai a stroke and leaving him in a coma. He’s since awoken from the coma, but has not recovered enough to return to wrestling. Mutoh took personal blame for the whole ordeal, and resigned. Mutoh dropped to the midcard, and kept chugging along, with his handpicked successor Masayuki Uchida taking his top spot in the office.

However, in 2012, Mutoh decided to sell his 85% shares to Speed Partners, an IT company, for 200 million yen, or just a bit over 2 million US dollars. Mutoh remained as a wrestler, while Speed Partners president Nobuo Shiraishi took control. In January 2013, AJPW signed former NOAH stars Atsushi Aoki, Go Shiozaki, Jun Akiyama, Kotaru Suzuki, and Yoshinobu Kanemaru to freelance deals. They’d left NOAH due to the poor treatment of Kenta Kobashi, who was about to retire but was not being given a position in the office to run the sinking company alongside Akira Taue, who became president after Misawa’s death in 2009. Kobashi would also return to AJPW, becoming the new president of the PWF after Hiroshi Hase, Hansen’s successor, left to focus on his political career.

Shortly after the sale was made public in early 2013, Uchida and Shiraishi were negotiating to get Mutoh back into the presidency by the end of May. But there was treachery afoot, as Shiraishi betrayed Uchida and Mutoh by naming himself president of the promotuon, despite having no knowledge of how to run a wrestling promotion.

Mutoh quit in protest, as he and Uchida were in Canada and could not fight the hostile takeover at all, and a number of talents loyal to him followed him out of the promotion, with names like Masukatsu Funaki, former Triple Crown champion Ryota Hama, Seiya Sanada, and Koji Kanemoto walking out. Mutoh and Uchida, as well as Mutoh’s business partners that received part of the AJPW stock buyout, pooled their money together to start Wrestle-1 under Mutoh’s direction and with the departed All Japan talent to fill the roster.

A company founded amidst an exodus had just gone througha third exodus of it’’s own, and they looked in rough shape.

Shiraishi’s ego had doomed his company, as fan support for All Japan dropped immensely, with the company going into the red for the first time shortly after the Wrestle-1 departure. Mokoto Baba, disgusted by the idiocy of Shiraishi, demanded that the AJPW title belts be returned to her family. All Japan replaced the three belts of the Triple Crown with a single new belt, and the three belts were returned to Baba. The big NOAH departures were re-upped on exclusive deals, and the company was renamed to Zen Nihon Puroresu Systems. Shiraishi soon stepped down, with his corporate men Hirota Inoue became the president, although he would step down before he’d even been the president for a year.

Venomous fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Jun 8, 2020

# ¿ Jun 8, 2020 00:01

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > The Hammer House: Stinger Splash Zone > Free Wrestling in the Time of Coronavirus