Aloha,
You may, like my girlfriend, be instantly put off by the fact I’ve said I like wrestling in my previous “getting to know me” post. You shouldn’t be. The wrestling I like is not the glitz and glamour and rubbish that the WWE puts out on such a regular basis (although I still watch the odd show of theirs, i.e. WrestleMania). The wrestling I like is puroresu, short for purofesshonaru resuringu. That’s Japanese for professional wrestling by the way. Seriously, Japanese is easy. Takeshi = Taxi, Resoturan = Restaurant, Biiru = Beer, Shiidi puraya = CD player. See, easy.
Anyhoo, puroresu is very different from American wrestling, or Sports Entertainment. It’s generally slower and is harder hitting, known as Strong Style. It’s a varied mix of wrestling and martial arts and concentrates far more on in-ring action and doesn’t normally have storylines. Puroresu is viewed very differently in Japan and I think this view sums it up brilliantly:
“the Japanese view it as a legitimate athletic event even though it is understood that the outcome is predetermined. If that’s hard to understand, imagine it this way: we watch Pairs Figure Skating and enjoy it as a legitimate athletic spectacle, even though it is a carefully rehearsed event. The same can be said for how the Japanese view Puro.” – http://sigilistic.wordpress.com
If you’re not sure about wrestling, thinking you’ve seen it all before, check out a few of the below companies, matches or wrestlers on YouTube or torrent sites. I’ve listed the ones that are personal favourites of mine. You might be surprised by what you see. Same goes if you’re a strict WWE or TNA fan, take some time to look into these alternatives and I’m sure you’ll find something you’ll love.
Pro-Wrestling NOAH
There is a lot of great talent in NOAH in both their Heavyweight and Junior-Heavyweight divisions, and they also have appearances from Ring of Honor stars and other independent wrestlers from America.
NOAH features probably the most hard-hitting wrestling you’re likely to see. Stars such as Kenta Kobashi, Go Shiosaki, Jun Akiyama (current GHC Champion), Takeshi Morishima, Bison Smith and Kensuke Sasaki are all known for their hard hitting styles. I feel sorry for anyone on the receiving end of a Kobashi chop to the chest, an elbow from Misawa or a Morishima back drop! Misawa vs. Kobashi is one of the better, if older, matches you could watch, they’re the two big names in NOAH and if you like them you’ll like the rest of the company.
NOAH also has a great juniors division which includes KENTA, Naomichi Marafuji, Katsuhiko Nakajima and Yoshinobu Kanemaru to name but a few. These are all skilful, speedy and risk taking individuals who continue to amaze me with some of the things they can do in the ring. I never tire of seeing Marafuji leap the entire length of the ring in one go and KENTA is the king of the “Go 2 Sleep” which is a move that has since been picked up and used in the WWE. If you can, watch a KENTA vs. Marafuji match for the best example of NOAH juniors in action.
NOAH did a European tour last June, which I would have gone to if only two of my best friends didn’t get married on the same day! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they come back again some time soon. But from what I hear recently they have lost their TV deal, the network cited cost cutting due to the current financial crisis as the reason. Hopefully this doesn’t stop the bigger shows appearing online for the rest of the world to watch.
Dragon Gate
Dragon Gate operates a mix of traditional Junior Heavyweight style wrestling with Lucha Libre (more on that later). They have lots of great fast-paced and high flying action. One little quirk I like about Dragon Gate is that when someone becomes the #1 contender for the Open the Dream Gate title they are given a key. If they then win the title they use the key to open a compartment on the belt itself which has the champions name in, so they take out the old name and put theirs in. If the champion defends the title successfully they hang the key on the belt. So if you see someone with lots of keys on their belt you know they’ve defended the title a lot.
They also have a title called the Open the Owarai Gate title. This is different from any other belt in wrestling; Owarai is Japanese for Comedy, and the winner of the belt is the person who gets the most applause/laughter from the crowd.
One match you MUST watch from Dragon Gate actually happened on a Ring of Honor show, Supercard of Honor on 31st March 2006. It was a six-man match pitting rival groups Blood Generation (CIMA, Naruki Doi, and Masato Yoshino) and Do-Fixer (Dragon Kid, Genki Horiguchi, and Ryo Saito) against each other. It’s the best example of Dragon Gate you’re likely to find. Other DG stars to look out for are BxB Hulk and Shingo Takagi.
I’m really looking forward to Dragon Gate coming to the UK in October of this year; I’ll definitely be making a trip to see that show. Also, for those of you in the US, check out www.DGUSA.tv because Dragon Gate USA has officially been announced! They’re going to run bi-monthly shows in the US with the emphasis on quality not quantity. Sounds good!
New Japan Pro-Wrestling
Is arguably still the biggest wrestling promotion in Japan. I don’t watch too much NJPW; I just catch the odd match here and there. They often have TNA stars on their shows and both sets of their tag-team titles are currently held by TNA stars, Team 3D are the IWGP Tag-Team Champions and the Motor City Machine Guns are the IWGP Junior-Heavyweight Tag-Team Champions. The NJPW roster includes stars such as Masahiro Chono, Jyushin “Thunder” Lyger, Yuji Nagata, Tiger Mask IV, Shinsuke Nakamura, Hirooki Goto and Hiroshi Tanahashi to name a few.
Older NJPW matches can be very cool too, Eddie Guerrero competed there under the name Black Tiger and Chris Benoit went by the name Pegasus Kid. If you ever get a chance to see their match against each other in NJPW’s Super Junior Tournament then you’re in for a treat. I also just watched an old Tiger Mask II vs. Ricky Steamboat match from NJPW and it’s another classic.
All Japan Pro-Wrestling
AJPW is another promotion that I don’t watch too much of. But stars like Keiji Mutoh/Great Muta, Toshiaki Kawada, “Brother” YASSHI, NOSAWA Rongai, Yoshihiro Takayama and Satoshi Kojima are ones to keep an eye out for. The recent match between Kaz Hayashi and Minoru is one of the best junior heavyweight matches I’ve seen so far this year, you’d do well to check it out.
Ring of Honor
Ok, not a Japanese promotion, but an American one which runs a less Sports Entertainment style with much more in-ring action. They used to have close ties to Dragon Gate and now have an allegiance with NOAH, so they often have some top Japanese talent working on their shows. Make sure you check out their “Dragon Gate Challenge” shows for some great matches. And look out for Kenta Kobashi vs. Samoa Joe, KENTA vs. Bryan Danielson, Naomichi Marifuji vs. Nigel McGuiness and Takeshi Morishima vs. Bryan Danielson as good examples of ROH stars against NOAH stars.
ROH recently signed a TV deal in the US, as well as having a few pay-pre-view events here and there. To be honest ROH’s new TV show on HDNet isn’t the best example of their product, in fact the product itself isn’t as strong as it has been in recent years (I mean, really, Jerry Lynn as World Champion?), but there’s a lot of great stuff of theirs out there. I’ve had the honour (pun intended) of attending two of their shows here in the UK and they were easily the best shows I’ve ever attended.
For those of you into TNA and WWE you’ll do well to look at some older ROH shows to see stars like Samoa Joe, CM Punk, Matt Sydal (Evan Bourne), Christopher Daniels and Homicide before they made the switch to the “big leagues” of TNA & WWE. Look out for matches such as Colt Cabana vs. Homicide, Samoa Joe vs. CM Punk, Nigel McGuiness vs. Bryan Danielson and The Briscoes vs. Austin Aries & Roderick Strong. Those are some of my favourite ROH matches and I believe you should watch them all!
There are actually lots of other promotions in Japan, but I’ve not seen much, if any, of them. There’s DDT, HUSTLE and Zero-1 to name a few. Now I don’t pretend to be an oracle on this particular subject, these are just the opinions of someone who only really got into it himself early last year. If you want to talk to the real experts, head over to Strong Style Symphony at www.purosufan.com/forums. Purosufan.com itself is a great website for the latest Puro news and show results.
And if after all this Puro you still want a fix of different wrestling, maybe try Lucha Libre. Lucha Libre is Spanish for “free wrestling” and is mainly found in Mexico. Mexican wrestling is quicker, higher-flying and the majority of luchadores (wrestlers) wear masks. WWE stars like Rey Mysterio and the late, great Eddie Guerrero are more famous examples of luchadores. I’m not really into Lucha Libre myself (although Dragon Gate is kind of Lucha style) but search for matches from Mexico’s AAA and CMLL if you’re interested.
Anyways, I’ll leave my pro-wrestling lesson there for now. I expect that I’ll mention it now and then as I write on here. More likely in passing as I mention what good matches I’ve seen recently. My next post may well be about my other sporting passion, Southampton Football Club. Yes, I know, poor me. Please, spare me the jokes and the pity. But if you have a few spare quid, send it their way will ya?
Until then, arivaderci!