5-Star BOOK Reviews: Masanobu Fuchi’s Books, Part II

Masanobu Fuchi might not be the biggest wrestler by any means but he’s a longstanding veteran with over forty years’ experience. He has a lot of interesting knowledge and wisdom to impart, some of it wrestling-related and some of it more universal. While in the last section I introduced him as the guy who helped build the generation that came after him, this next section will largely cover his recollections of the people that came before him.

You can read part 1 here.

Chapter 2: The Youth of the Dojo, and “Coup d’état Unfinished”

After dealing with his ‘punishment’ for ‘breaking the other wrestlers’ trust’, Fuchi works hard until he’s allowed to have his debut match. Said debut is booked for April 1974 during the Champion Carnival. But before he steps in the ring Fuchi is ordered to greet Baba about his progress. So Fuchi meets his idol in his first class seat on a ferry and tells Baba he’s going to debut. Baba responds “is that so?”, motions for him to approach, and chops Fuchi so hard it knocks him backwards. Fuchi, bewildered, does the typical thanks from his boss not knowing what’s going on. Unsatisfied, Baba chops him again and this time makes him brace for it. This ends up being a lesson of sorts with Baba asking Fuchi which one hurt more, the one he wasn’t expecting or the one he braced for. To Fuchi, both hurt equally. But more importantly Fuchi didn’t fall with the second one. Fuchi uses this as a sort of explanation for the essence of pro-wrestling, about always being on your guard and maintaining a sense of tension no matter what you’re expecting to be thrown your way.

Eventually the day came and Fuchi had his debut match. Having never experienced anything besides battle royals, both he and Onita, who had his debut match only two weeks earlier, were nervous as hell as they were in the opening bout in front of 4,500 people. Their senior, Masio Koma, encouraged them to take it easy, but when they got back he described them as “two robots wrestling”. Fuchi also noted that during these early matches had much worse stamina and could only go for about six minutes max before losing his breath.

Around the same time a promotional war began between New Japan and All Japan (APOD: In many ways this war never ended. What most of us remember from the Monday Night Wars – stealing talent, outrageous public statements, counter-programming, and constant attempts at one-upmanship between the two company owners – was just a sample of what went on between Inoki and Baba for decades in Japan). However, Baba demanded that the public fracas remain one-sided and instructed all of his wrestlers not to comment or respond to any public statements made by NJPW.

Fuchi describes his wrestling training as “unglamorous” and describes it as being mostly comprised of “ukemi”, which means practicing breakfalls. This was central to Baba’s way of thinking about wrestling (APOD: Though it has its drawbacks: TAJIRI’s book is filled with notes on how the human body is far more finite and isn’t built for repetitive stress so practicing bumping is, in his view, counterproductive to keeping a wrestler’s body intact for the actual matches that matter). At the same time it is also beyond rigorous: Fuchi notes that one time he was in a group of a dozen aspiring trainees and once they began training they started dropping like flies. One left after only 30 minutes. In the end only three remained: Fuchi, Onita, and Haru Sonoda. Coincidentally all three of them were from the same general region so their nickname became “The Three Idiots of Kyushu”.

During the off-season between tours Fuchi’s training starts with join locks and running the ropes. Because he’s skinny hitting the ropes usually leaves him bruised on his sides and back. If he can’t grab them properly he hits them with enough impact to break a rib. Once that’s done it’s time to practice breakfalls and being slammed over and over, this time only up to twenty and not one hundred. Once that’s over it’s time for 500 hindu squats and 100 jumping squats. Sometimes Tsuruta would take Fuchi and practice neck bridges with him which is extremely hard to do with his knees wobbling. Fuchi also takes the time to address a longstanding rumor about Tsuruta never training (APOD: which was a common sight recorded by all of the Four Heavenly Kings. Tsuruta almost always did his own thing and Kobashi, a noted training maniac, noticed that Tsuruta would keep in shape by playing basketball or volleyball and seemed to always ‘train’ in a more leisurely way). As someone who trained and exercised with Tsuruta often and diligently, he concludes that any rumors about Tsuruta not training were completely baseless.

Next Fuchi describes another lesson from Baba: how wrestling is about stamina above all else. Baba believes that wrestling technique should be beautiful or elegant. As such, he hated the sight of a wrestler sucking wind with his hands on his knees, along with any display of a wrestler losing balance. Fuchi suspects this emphasis on stamina came from a match Baba had with Gene Kiniski in 1967 which is often hailed as Baba’s best bout. Plus, considering that Baba regularly wrestled in one-hour broadways with guys like Dory Funk, Jr., Bruno Sammartino, and Harley Race, it’s no wonder Baba placed such a premium on being able to go the distance. To achieve these stamina requirements AJPW trainees were also taught breathing techniques that were almost imperceptible to the audience but made a big difference for the wrestlers in the ring:

“We new trainees were taught “breathing techniques” by Koma-san at the dojo. After several days and months, stamina naturally builds up. The balance for applying techniques also improves. Basically, you breathe in through your nose, hold it once, and exhale slowly through your mouth. When the opponent’s attack comes, you hold your breath tightly and tense your body. You don’t consciously do this breathing; you practice until it becomes natural. That way, you won’t get out of breath quickly, and you can endure the pain of attacks.” – Masanobu Fuchi

Fuchi also credits being at ringside for big matches as a way to learn wrestling. If you watch any AJPW, NJPW, NOAH, or other Japanese wrestling in general it isn’t hard to see a second, a much younger stablemate, or a trainee in a company tracksuit watching from ringside, usually right next to the ring. In Fuchi’s case he learned a lot from being in this position since it gave him a perspective that was different from his days as a fan. He learned when and how to conserve stamina and when it made the most sense to use it. He learned how to time this moment of unleashing energy to excite the crowd the most. He saw how Abdullah The Butcher would make a monstrous gesture that would excite/scare the audience when in fact he was opening his mouth to take deep breaths without showing signs of weakness. Using The Destroyer as an example, Fuchi describes how a smaller wrestler can take a defensive stance and creates a slight bit of distance from his opponent. Even if this takes only one or two seconds it’s enough for one to recover stamina and prepare for another strenuous encounter with a bigger opponent. Fuchi also notes that although Destroyer was shorter than him, Destroyer had such a commanding presence that despite standing only 5’10 he was able to hold his own against Baba.

Fuchi was always very excited to meet foreigners coming to Japan and eagerly helped Joe Higuchi take care of them when they came to wrestle (for) Baba. One person to help Fuchi out for all his help was Danny Hodge, who taught Fuchi his patented “wall push-up technique” which he has been using for a good forty years:

“The method is simple: stand about 70 centimeters away from the wall, spread your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width, and perform push-ups against the wall. First, exhale completely, then inhale deeply through the nose as you bend your arms in the push-up position, stopping when your face is about 1 centimeter from the wall, and then slowly exhale while extending your arms.Do 2 sets of 10 to 20 reps each. While doing this, keep your back straight and tighten your anus. It also exercises the shoulder blades, which are usually hard to train. Readers, why not give it a try?” – Fuchi on Danny Hodge’s wall push-up technique

Next Fuchi shifts gears to something called the “Attempted Coup Incident” which took place in 1977. According to Fuchi, Tomogutsu “Samson” Kutsuwada join AJPW and served as Baba’s third attendant. Shortly afterwards he tried to recruit Tsuruta to form a new wrestling company but was found out and expelled shortly afterwards. Baba tried to bury this forever but much later on The Great Kabuki spoke about it which led to the wrestling media finding out about it. All of that said, Fuchi believes that Kutsuwada’s plans were nothing more than a pipe dream. Fuchi thinks this situation would’ve been instantly downplayed and addressed more diplomatically if Koma was there but he wasn’t since he had been sent way at Baba’s behest because he was suffering from several physical ailments. Sadly things took a drastic turn for the worse as Masio Koma died at 35 due to uremia caused by kidney failure.

However, talks of “a new organization” didn’t cease. Fuchi recalls Tsuruta receiving many offers from other sponsors who wanted to make him into a bigger star. However, Fuchi was convinced Tsuruta would lever betray Baba, if for no other reason than because doing so would also mean betraying Ichiro Hatta, who was chairman of the Japan Wrestling Association with whom Baba held a very close professional relationship. Baba and Hatta worked a shared belief of amateur wrestling and professional wrestling thriving together and so they didn’t want that symbiosis broken by any outside forces.

Next Fuchi segues to probably the biggest fight that never happened: Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki Jumbo Tsuruta. According to Fuchi, Chairman Hatta had a relationship with Rocky Aoki, an ex-wrestler who found business success in America with ‘Benihana’. It was through these two business acquaintances that Baba was approached with the idea of Tsuruta fighting Ali. However, Baba shot it down immediately: not just because of the political concessions that would’ve had to have been made, but because agreeing to that one fight would throw Baba’s meticulously organized schedule and his ability to pay foreign wrestlers into disarray. Despite the possibility of a HUGE payday, Baba didn’t want to lose credibility with people he was already working with. In hindsight, Fuchi recalls having a conversation with Tsuruta about this theoretical fight and Tsuruta implies that Baba didn’t want Tsuruta to become more popular than himself:

Tsuruta: “If I had fought Ali, my popularity would surpass Mr. Baba’s. That wouldn’t be allowed.”
Fuchi: “But if Mr. Tsuruta had fought Ali, wouldn’t you have been able to have a better match?”
Tsuruta: “Well, that depends on Ali. He seems to like pro wrestling.”

From there discussion shifts to matters of succession. At the time there was an internal belief that Tsuruta would inherit AJPW from Baba. After all, he was already in charge of B&J, an internal subsidiary that handled AJPW’s merchandising. Even Matsukane Mitsuo, an NTV representative who served as president of AJPW for a few years while Baba served as chairman, saw himself as nothing but a stepping stone for Tsuruta to take over. However Tsuruta seemed hesitant to go along with these plans, especially with there being so many seniors around him.

Fuchi circles back to the interpromotional stuff to address an obvious question: why didn’t Baba ever fire back against Inoki’s comments? After all, from the public’s perspective it was easy to interpret Baba’s silence as cowardice. But Baba wanted to maintain a mature and dignified aura and not respond at all. To him the two companies were separate and there was no need to entertain Inoki’s big boasting. And yet Baba secretly entertained the idea in a different way: in 1975 Baba proposed a World Open Championship and invited the following people to participate: Tsuruta, Dory Funk, Jr., Harley Race, Abdullah the Butcher, Dusty Rhodes, Anton Geesink, Rusher Kimura, Great Kusatsu, Mighty Inoue, ‘Mr. Kobayashi’ (APOD: I’m not sure if this is Kuniaki Kobayashi the junior or Strong Kobayashi the heavyweight) and both Seiji Sakaguchi and Inoki himself. But Inoki never participated despite Baba giving him a taste of his own medicine in the form of a public open invitation.

Contrary to the public image of Baba and Inoki being fire and water, the two got along decently well enough backstage. There was a combined AJPW/NJPW/IWE event on August 26, 2979 that saw Baba and Inoki team together against Abby and Tiger Jeet Singh. Fuchi was in the locker room and saw that the atmosphere was quite relaxed with Inoki chatting to Baba and Tsuruta about golf. (APOD: I also remember reading Bret Hart’s book and he recalls attending an NWA meeting in the early 1980s before Vince began his expansion and Bret observed Baba and Inoki “talking cordially”.) After the match Inoki grabbed the house mic and playfully challenged Baba to a fight and Baba accepted. Unfortunately that match never happened.

Fuchi concludes this section with a change in how training went. In 1976 Jumbo Tsuruta purchased a property in Setagaya which he turned into AJPW’s new training camp. This one had much more room and each of the trainees (Fuchi, Onita, Sonada) had his own room. The trainees now needed less time to travel to the old Ebisu gym lugging heavy training equipment. The new place was also furnished with a living room, kitchen, and clean shower room, so after they were done training they could hang out and relax a bit. On many occasions the three of them went out with Tsuruta to enjoy the nightlife, often as secondhand beneficiaries of Tsuruta’s celebrity status as a single, wealthy, college-educated wrestling standout. Lastly, Fuchi notes that with Tsuruta overseeing training there were many changes in how it was structures. Tsuruta halved the training time but doubled its intensity. He put a new focus on running to build stamina. Instead of doing knee-crushing Hindu squats Tsuruta suggested dumbbell squats. Breakfalls were complemented with rolling. The results were that all of the trainees experienced major gains in their stamina (APOD: We’ll go into this stuff more when I cover Tsuruta’s books since his first one is more of a body guide for wrestlers than a typical wrestler autobiography).

APOD: This was a fun little section with Fuchi sort of pulling back the curtain. He described his firsthand experiences and what he saw in locker rooms all over the country. There wasn’t much in the way of drama save for the bits about Baba and Inoki interacting with one another. And yet it wasn’t the fireworks display most people expected it to be; if anything from Fuchi’s perspective it really underscored the idea that the public-facing parts were more of a façade for headlines than anything else. Though in Chapter 1 Fuchi established that he held deep admiration for Baba, in this chapter that admiration became a bit muted since he became enveloped in his training. But that larger-than-life presence/aura of Baba’s will come up again in the next section when Fuchi leaves on excursion and learns the value of being introduced as “Baba’s boy”.

Thanks for reading.