The Law
June 7th, 2013, 11:45 PM
So I've been a wrestling fan for 15 years now. I consider myself more or a less an expert on WWE, WCW, and more-or-less ECW. I have a decent idea of what's gone on in TNA and Ring of Honor over the years. But I always want to learn more. I want to learn about wrestling in Japan, and Mexico, and Europe. It's just kind of a daunting task, especially in the case of Japan. So many ***** matches. So many names I can't pronounce.
So the point of this thread is for people to come to learn about wrestling that they are not familiar with. I'm sure combined we have tremendous knowledge of professional wrestling. Surely someone knows Japan, someone knows Mexico, someone knows Europe. I can help anyone looking for recommendations on WCW matches, moments, and other stuff. I'd love to get people doing recommendations for U.S. territory stuff. There's such a breadth of wrestling out there, and with the internet it's possible to find just about anything.
Things can start basic and get more complicated from there. Like, what is wrestling like in certain places? Who are the important names? What are the most important matches and moments? What matches would you recommend watching? What is similar and different to current American wrestling? I hope that this thread can allow me and others to become better, more educated wrestling fans.
Kyle_242
June 8th, 2013, 1:12 PM
Does anyone still have that Puro primer I was sending out for awhile?
I'll finish it one day, I swear... :shifty:
Its just like a guided tour of some of the finer sights in Puro from the 80s to today. Its intended to be part 1 of a series. Here:
Alright, here it goes. This is crazy intensive, and if you can find downloads of these matches, it'll probably be better to watch that way, but i'm just going to try to point the way.
First we'll start way back. Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask. They had some matches that were considered to be some of the greatest of all time, and being familiar with Tiger Mask will serve you well in the future as we're still talking about Tiger Mask (Tiger Mask IV now) these days.
Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask Part 1 (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7gajv_01-njpw-dynamite-kid-vs-tiger-mask_sport)
Dynamite Kid vs. Tiger Mask Part 2 (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7gaqo_01-njpw-dynamite-kid-vs-tiger-mask_sport)
The next name you need to know, and a name you could basically google and watch any match of and it would be the shit, is Mitsuharu Misawa (who was Tiger Mask 2, funnily enough). I could direct you to a bazillion matches of his, but i'll settle for one. The match is against his arch rival and nemesis Toshiaki Kawada and the backstory behind it is extensive. What resulted was what many consider to be the greatest wrestling match of all time, and its possibly the greatest feud of all time. Here, i'll let some guy long windedly explain it:
The History of the Misawa-Kawada Feud (Long read)
As the title suggests, this is a fairly long read. However, if you're into Puro or are wishing to get into Puro, then this is a must read. Misawa vs Kawada is arguably the top feud in Japanese Wrestling history, but as you'll see, their feud isn't strictly confined to the squared circle.
The History Of The Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada feud.
Toshiaki Kawada and Mitsuharu Misawa are two of the greatest performing wrestlers the world has ever seen. Their story is one that begins in childhood, is littered with literally hundreds of world-class matches, but ends in resentment.
The long-running pro wrestling, personal and professional feud between Toshiaki Kawada and Mitsuharu Misawa in terms of both great matches and good business must be remembered as one of the greatest feuds in the history of pro wrestling. Over the eight times Misawa and Kawada competed in the ring with All Japan's coveted Triple Crown on the line, they drew six Tokyo Nippon Budokan sell-outs, one sell-out of the Osaka Furitsu (Prefectural) Gym and a mass of over 50,000 people (though some got in for free) inside the Tokyo Dome. For those eight matches, that would be an estimated total of 153,100 people, paying a total of what must be well over $10 million.
Understanding the professional competitive spirit between Misawa and Kawada in the ring is simple. However, looking deeper and trying to figure out their eventual personal conflict is far more complicated. One of the reasons for this is that the man, Toshiaki Kawada was and is a complicated man.
In Japan especially Baba's All Japan wrestlers' characters in the ring were often very similar to themselves. There weren't any outlandish gimmicks in Baba's All Japan in that time period. A great personality was not always necessary to be a star. No example may be better than Toshiaki Kawada. He was always a very stoic and reserved man. Though, this is not to say Kawada didn't have charisma or an ability to connect with the fans. He absolutely did, but connected in ways most unique ways pro wrestling probably hadn't ever seen up to that point. His most heated moments in the ring seemed to always be based around finally losing his temper and teeing off or trading frightening strikes with his opponent. This happened much more than once when he was in the ring with Mitsuharu Misawa.
It was also rumored that Kawada never cared much for foreigners and rarely even shook hands with them. The only two memorable incidences where Kawada shook hands with a foreigner in the ring was at Stan Hansen's retirement ceremony on January 28, 2001 and after winning the Champion Carnival 1994 over Steve Williams on April 16, 1994 after Lord James Blears gestured for a handshake. "Kawada and me never hit it off. We hated each other," although he and Kawada respected each other after the infamous All Japan split, Williams compared their relationship to that of polarized magnets in a shoot interview with RF Video, "[We] were like a magnet. You could never get [us] stuck. We'd slide right off each other."
From their very beginnings in All Japan, Kawada and Misawa were different wrestlers. In 1984, three years after Misawa's debut, Giant Baba purchased the Tiger Mask gimmick from Antonio Inoki and gave the famous mask to Misawa. Meanwhile, Kawada was still working hard, trying to make his way up the card, often being sent to Canada and the US to gain experience. "I was working for Verne [Gagne], and [Kawada] was still stuck in Canada
He was upset because he was making no money and had no place to go. It was too soon for Baba to let him come back. Or was Baba making it deliberately tough as part of the training? Who knows?" Tom Zenk wrote about Kawada looking back on 1987, "Kawada knew his face was not like Misawa's (handsome) but being Tiger Mask no one would have known under the hood anyway. Yet someone planted the seed of doubt in Kawada about his looks and body," as Zenk told the story of Kawada's curiosity about working out and using steroids.
But if you begin there when examining the relationship between Toshiaki Kawada and Mitsuharu Misawa, you're not going back far enough.
It begins in the late 70s as both attended Ashikaga-kodai High School Misawa enrolling in 1978; Kawada enrolling in 1979. Both were excellent wrestlers as part of the high school wrestling team (Kawada at 75kg; Misawa at 87kg). And both had long desired to become professional wrestlers. Misawa competed at the inter-high school Shiga National Athletic Meet in amateur wrestling and won at 87kg. Misawa, who was a grade ahead of Kawada, then graduated and entered All Japan in March 1981. In his senior year, Kawada too became a champion, winning the championship at 75kg at the same national meet that Misawa had won at the year before. The next year, Kawada followed Misawa, joining All Japan after he left the same high school in March 1982.
In the mid- and early-80s, as great, young, promising wrestlers, Misawa (as Tiger Mask) and Kawada (as everything from a man supposedly from Seoul wrestling in Canada to one-half of the leopard skin-wearing "Footloose" tag team with Hiromichi "Samson" Fuyuki) were battling their ways up the All Japan ranks particularly Misawa. And by the time the 1990s had begun, Giant Baba realized that the junior heavyweight he had given the famed Tiger Mask name to nearly six years ago was going to become his next heavyweight superstar.
In a match teamed with Toshiaki Kawada against Riki Choshu and Yoshiaki Yatsu, Mitsuharu Misawa dramatically threw down the Tiger Mask gimmick on May 14, 1990. Wearing his long blue tights and white boots, Kawada assisted Misawa in untying his mask as Misawa rifled the mask out of the ring, and with a huge upset victory over Jumbo Tsuruta 24 days later, the "super-generation army" that would rule All Japan for the next 10 years was born.
The Beginning
We begin on July 24, 1991, with the end of the match where, in the still blue and red All Japan ring, Misawa and Kawada upset Terry Gordy and Steve Williams to take the first big step for the super-generation army, becoming World Tag Team Champions.
Fast-forward to a year later, when on August 22, 1992, Mitsuharu Misawa defeats Stan Hansen to become Triple Crown champion. It would be the beginning of the longest title reign in the Triple Crown's history a record that still stands, a decade later. So to determine Misawa's first challenger, Kawada and Akira Taue are pitted against each other on September 9 in Nippon Budokan. With Misawa quietly watching from the back of the arena, Kawada submits Taue, meaning the two tag team partners would collide at All Japan's 20th anniversary show on October 21, 1992.
Triple Crown: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (Tokyo Nippon Budokan - 10/21/92)
In 1992, in a time when world titles were gradually meaning less and less, All Japan's Triple Crown refused to be tarnished or devalued. As Lord James Blears reads the certificate for the three belts that, together, would soon become (if they weren't already at that point) the most prized and respected title in the game.
While Misawa vs. Jumbo Tsuruta (6/8/90) marked the beginning of a new generation for All Japan, this match would set the standard and the example for dozens of classic All Japan main events to come matches filled with a million high spots, stiff elbows, chops, kicks and lethal suplexes, yet somehow matches that were still careful and strategic. All Japan of course had great, classic matches before this, but those were great wrestling matches; these were great All Japan wrestling matches.
Triple Crown: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (Tokyo Nippon Budokan - 7/29/93)
Still Triple Crown champion, Misawa defends his title against Kawada once again. By this point, Misawa and Kawada had since ended their tag team when their second World Tag Team Title reign was ended by Terry Gordy and Steve Williams on January 30, 1993. Since then, Kawada had won the tag title as the leader of his own team with Akira Taue. On June 1, 1993, Taue and Kawada even defended and defeated Misawa with his new tag team partner, Kenta Kobashi.
This match would be like the match from the previous October, which was more or less a friendly, but competitive match between partners. This would be that but without the friendly part. Here is where we see some of Kawada's trademark "punking out," somehow using his strikes and kicks in a subtly arrogant manner. Misawa even answers this at one point, where Kawada does his signature step kicks, only for Misawa to stand back up and pull him down for the same thing. At some point in the match, everyone knows Misawa is going to win, but Kawada is so valiant he continues to kickout and tries endlessly to stumble to his feet after getting dumped on his head for the umpteenth time. But it becomes only a question of what will it take to finally put Kawada away..
World Tag League: Akira Taue/Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi/Mitsuharu Misawa (Tokyo Nippon Budokan - 12/3/93)
Although All Japan had yet to establish a separate final round of their annual December tag league (they wouldn't until 1995), on the last day of the tournament, in the Budokan, both teams had 11 points. Giant Baba and Stan Hansen had won their match earlier in the night to put them up to 12 points. So either team needed a victory to become World Tag Team Champions. A draw in this 30-minute time-limit match would only have the tournament end in a three-way tie.
Kawada and Taue were about as over as heels as two Japanese guys could be in this period. Kawada was a masterful heel in his own way, evident when he toys with the fallen Kobashi, casually swatting him in the head with kicks. Kobashi starts to fight back, resulting in Kobashi laying a kick to Kawada's bad knee. That causes the usually stoic Kawada to lose his temper and really let Kobashi have it, including labeling him with flurries of knees and closed-fist punches. Kobashi realizes he's found a weakness, grounds Kawada and relentlessly punches Kawada's leg. And a large part of the ground-work for this match is laid.
On April 16, 1994, Kawada got the biggest win of his life in defeating "Dr. Death" Steve Williams in the Champion Carnival final. If he wasn't already, that match firmly established him as All Japan's number-two wrestler behind Misawa. And as it traditionally happened, if the winner of the Champion Carnival was not the Triple Crown champion, he would be given a title match on the next tour. So the third Triple Crown match between Misawa and Kawada was scheduled for June 3, 1994 in Nippon Budokan
World Tag Team Title: Akira Taue/Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi/Mitsuharu Misawa (Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center - 5/21/94)
But before that match, there would be this one: a rematch of the dramatic tag league match six months ago. And for effect of how that match ended, Kobashi and Kawada enter the ring first, beginning this match where that one left off.
Taue and Kawada really got dirty, getting Kobashi back for what they did to Kawada, destroying Kobashi's knee. Kobashi wears a soft brace on his right knee, but they go after his left, as Taue jams it in the guardrail door and Kawada tears down his kneepad. But everyone knows what kind of condition both knees would be in, in about six years. Misawa can only stand quietly on the apron for so long before he tries to get involved, but even then the disciplined Sapporo crowd (not to mention Kawada) lets him have it for that. Words (aside from maybe a random montage of expletives) cannot accurately describe some of the most heated and intense moments of this bout.
Triple Crown: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (Tokyo Nippon Budokan - 6/3/94)
For the third time in Mitsuharu Misawa's by now nearly two year reign as Triple Crown champion, Toshiaki Kawada is his challenger. Throughout these last few years, Kawada has been building himself up, slowly, step by step. On October 21, 1992, he was Misawa's partner. He and Misawa went their separate ways. Kawada took Taue; Misawa took Kobashi. On July 29, 1993, Kawada was and became Misawa's rival. And now on June 3, 1994, he hopes to become Misawa's defeatist. In their second battle, Kawada had the heart and ambition he didn't in their first. Now in their third title match, Kawada has the heart, he has the ambition, and he is a better fighter than ever before.
Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada - 1994 Part 1 (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xayvfq_mitsuharu-misawa-vs-toshiaki-kawada_sport)
Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada - 1994 Part 2 (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xayw41_mitsuharu-misawa-vs-toshiaki-kawada_sport)
Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada - 1994 Part 3 (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xaywsg_mitsuharu-misawa-vs-toshiaki-kawada_sport)
Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada - 1994 Part 4 (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xayxgb_mitsuharu-misawa-vs-toshiaki-kawada_sport)
Next, we'll fast forward way further to the 2000s, and i'll show you KENTA vs. Naomichi Marufuji (Defrost's favorite wrestler against mine). They came up as tag team partners, but when one of them won singles gold, the shit was ON. Probably one of my favorite matches of all time and crazy fast paced.
Naomichi Marufuji vs. KENTA - 2006 Part 1 (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3upfh_kenta-vs-naomichi-marufuji-part-1_sport)
Naomichi Marufuji vs. KENTA - 2006 Part 2 (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3uvss_kenta-vs-naomichi-marufuji-part-2_sport)
Naomichi Marufuji vs. KENTA - 2006 Part 3 (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3ux9g_kenta-vs-naomichi-marufuji-part-3_sport)
When people get into Japanese wrestling, they usually want to know who the big stars are, (more on that in a second), but what they usually fall in love with is, well, Dragon Gate. So here's some Dragon Gate. They're basically the Japanese version of Sports Entertainment and the action is fucking lightning fast and crazy.
Dragon Gate Eight Man Tag (Naruki Doi, Magnitude Kishiwada, Masato Yoshino, and Kevin Steen vs. BxB Hulk, Jushin "Thunder" Liger, Jack Evans, and Matt Sydal (Evan Bourne). (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB6q0OWnRtc)
Finally, i'll give you something more recent, between the two biggest stars in Japanese wrestling today, Shinsuke Nakamura and Hiroshi Tanahashi. They came up as a tag team also, but after they split they both came up through the ranks until they met at the top. Tanahashi is the pretty boy who all the women and children love and Nakamura is an MMA fighter who is 100% about breaking faces. When they met in the main event of Wrestle Kingdom (Japanese wrestlemania, again) for the IWGP Heavyweight Title, it was legendary. Basically Japanese Rock vs. Austin.
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Shinsuke Nakamura - 2010 - Part 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA8nBxeAIFM)
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Shinsuke Nakamura - 2010 - Part 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLNiKuQ7eOU)
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Shinsuke Nakamura - 2010 - Part 3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHZU8AYPtbE)
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Shinsuke Nakamura - 2010 - Part 4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdOglCmqCSY&feature=related)
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Shinsuke Nakamura - 2010 - Part 5 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73yZrL41v-8&feature=related)
And that should do for an introduction. Any questions?
HERE WE GO. PURO PRIMER II.
Alright, now last time I did one of these, I gave you Misawa and Kawada, arguably the greatest wrestling feud of all time, and two of the three men who were best known for creating and perfecting what is known as the "King's Road" style, which is what indy wrestling are trying sooooooo haaaaaard to replicate with their 20 minute matches and no selling. The third of those men, and my favorite is Kenta Kobashi and his story is very different than that of Misawa and Kawada.
While the men he will indellibly be linked with got their start together in the 80s, Kobashi was an atheltic phenom that debuted in the 90s. He was basically like the Japanese Brock Lesnar for the day. When he debuted they had him lose 100 matches in a row, each time getting closer and closer to winning. His first win became a source of public fascination, and bookies even took bets on who would be the first man he would beat. Finally he got a win and started tearing through the AJPW ranks before he came head to head with Misawa. Now Kobashi was an athletic bull of a man, towering over Misawa, but he was inexperienced, and for years no matter what he tried, he could never beat Misawa. He teamed with the man to learn from him and they engaged in some of the greatest tag matches ever concieved of against Kawada and Taue (The Holy Demon Army). Finally, though, he knew he needed to take the next step in his career and he challeneged his partner one more time. But this time he had an ace up his sleeve. A move he devised soley to beat Mitsuharu Misawa, forged after studying his weaknesses over years and years. The Burning Hammer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKCXYJyGDuw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u4Yw6Deun0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ld7CKnbcF4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-xvrQ-KIpU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0MhBOQTJ8w
Now i've given a lot of attention to All Japan in the 90s, and for good reason. But there's a lot of other things that were going on in Japan that I haven't even touched. The biggest, undoubtedly, possibly, was the feud between Masahiro Chono and Keiji Muto that, similar to Misawa and Kawada, had raged since they were both rookies teaming together. See, while All Japan had the Four Pillars of Heaven (Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi and Taue), New Japan had the Three Muskateers (Mutoh, Chono and Hashimoto). Together the three of them would stave off any invaders to their promotion and then face one another and these matches drew more money than any in wrestling history that did not involve Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant. We're talking about crowds of over 100,000.
Anyway, after several years of being friends and rivals, Masahiro Chono started acting strangely towards Muto and everyone else. It was because he was orchestrating an invasion of WCW's New World Order into New Japan with him as its leader, with the intent to destroy New Japan forever and leave him as the last standing of the Three Muskateers. The betrayal and anger that Mutoh felt over this caused him to transform back into The great Muta (whom he had been earlier in his career and swore would never become again. it's like the Incredible Hulk). The wars that Chono and Muto fought over this are probably the most famous Japanese matches of all time.
And the final moments of this one are something special.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb7wL9Qv2So
http://www.youtube.com/user/GreatMuta#p/u/40/89n1sPMJ-aI
Next up is Jushin Liger who I doubt needs any introduction. He hasn't had a ton of epic storylines or true rivals in his career, which is surprising given its length and success. So instead, here is very likely his best match ever, and possibly the best crusierweight match ever contested against the Great Sasuke in the semi finals of the 1994 Super J Cup, which is also considered by many to be the greatest wrestling show of all time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnzcGpYSPNQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4P4S3ObUPU&feature=related
And finally THE WOMEN.
I could sit down and talk to you about Joshi all fucking day. It was to women's wrestling today what bulldozers are to tricycles. But the key to this primer is to understand who the major players were. Now Aja Kong was probably the top heel in the history of women's wrestling and she was just a batshit crazy bruising monster heel who would fuck you up until you died and then keep on going. Manami Toyota was a beautiful woman who was beloved in both wrestling and by the public at large. She had a fire never seen before or since, and most importantly she and Kong fucking HATED each other. I mean this was less a rivalry and more a fucking nuclear conflict and it all came to a head in this match, the first woman's match ever to sell out the Tokyo Dome, and to this day the only women's match ever awarded 5 stars by the Wrestling Observer.
If this doesn't sell you on the idea that women are equal to men, nothing will.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdDkWdkbWZA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWxjPgCnHiI&feature=related
Whew, I think that one was actually longer than the other one. Any questions? I focused more on Puro history with this one, laying the groundwork for understanding how we got to where we are today. If you want ANOTHER one, it would focus on today. ;)
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2024 vBulletin Solutions Inc. All rights reserved.