5-Star BOOK Reviews: Masanobu Fuchi’s Books, Parts IV & V

This section of Masanobu Fuchi’s books will cover more ground and will serve more as setup for the much bigger Four Heavenly Kings Era. As such I’ll be going over two chapters here since they go over more or less the same general topic, that being the Giant Baba’s growing focus on heavyweights and the impact of the feud between Jumbo Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu. There will be also some personal anecdotes from Fuchi about his experiences in one of the bigger angles of the decade and how he grew more and more trusted by AJPW’s power-brokers. So even though he’s not someone many people reading this are familiar with, hopefully by the end you’ll understand why he was so useful just a little bit more.

You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 3 here.

Chapter 4: Soaring Giants

Chapter 4 opens with a discussion on revolutionary changes happening in both New Japan and All Japan. In response to NJPW pushing forward with Tiger Mask, Baba pushes Tsuruta by making him change his costume to trademark black trunks and adopting Lou Thesz’s Greco-Roman Backdrop. Fuchi recalls two trainers teaching Fuchi and other aspiring wrestlers how to “shoot” if someone challenges them off the street. However, this is initially seen as a lose-lose situation: turning down a challenge would sully APJW’s and Baba’s reputations while winning the fight would lead to a public scandal. Tsuruta, being the genius that he is, finds a solution: he’d grab someone by the nape of the neck which would immobilize them. In one instance Tsuruta held Fuchi by the nape with one hand and drinks a glass of orange juice with the other. Even though Fuchi had gotten stronger and had bulked up from his training, he’s still powerless in this neck hold.

Fuchi shifts back and forth between expressing more admiration for both Baba and Tsuruta. In Baba’s case Fuchi recalls seeing Tsuruta submit to Baba’s body scissor hold almost instantly and hears tales of both Inoki and Kintaro Oki also submitting to it when they were all trainees in Rikidozan’s dojo. On the subject of Tsuruta Fuchi is once again awe-inspired by his power but notes that Tsuruta lacked expressiveness which hindered his popularity. Ironically, when Tsuruta gets married, Fuchi recalls seeing Tsuruta crying tears of joy.

The discussion shifts towards Tenryu, who was older than Tsuruta but far less experienced. Though he was more flexible and had confidence wrestling abroad, he was still nervous wrestling in Japanese rings. Because of this Tenryu goes on foreign excursion not once but thrice, with his first two leading to relatively poor evaluations. Initially Tenryu was convinced that “there was no place for him” in Japan but in the coming months he starts causing a stir. On one occasion Tenryu tags with Fuchi against Baba and Tsuruta and in that match Tenryu uses Inoki’s moves like the dragon screw and the octopus hold. But that stir ends up being nothing at all: the crowd was excited to see someone in an AJPW ring using moves no one else used and Baba isn’t bothered by this at all.

As the 80s wore on Tsuruta gradually becomes the new ace of All Japan while Fuchi…is stuck in place. After failing to win the NWA World Junior Championship from Chavo Guerrero Sr. (Chavo Classic) Fuchi finds himself lost in the midcard. To get through this slump, his mother and sister frequently send him books. At the same time Fuchi admits to not always being smart with his money: despite Baba, Tsuruta, and Motoko all encouraging him to save his money, Fuchi often spends his savings on drinking and other pleasures to be found in the Roppongi District. And since he also borrows money from the office, his money envelopes tend to get thinner over time.

The next big stir happens in 1984 and it involved Riki Choshu and his Japan Pro-Wrestling faction invading All Japan. Although Fuchi usually finds himself losing the matches, he notices that he usually finished matches in better condition, at least stamina-wise. As a result, both Baba and Motoko openly praise him for his reliability. Even the NTV representative who ran a lot of things for AJPW praised Fuchi for having interesting matches and gave him 100,000 yen as a reward. One reason for this was that NJPW’s revolutionary high-speed wrestling was being touted as the future but Fuchi observes that many of these wrestlers attack aggressively only to run out of stamina very quickly. However, Fuchi keeps these thoughts to himself since it wasn’t in Baba-style to speak ill of others. In hindsight, Fuchi notes that while those invading wrestlers didn’t necessarily lack stamina, from his perspective all of them save Choshu didn’t know how to use it.

However, Fuchi sort of defies his own promise at the start and speaks somewhat negatively about Road Warrior Animal. It was 1986 when The Road Warriors were invited to All Japan and were booked to face Baba & Fuchi. Fuchi recalls having previously interacted with Joe Laurinaitis and told him to just do what he did best in this new setting. But once the match starts things quickly fall apart. Fuchi takes a nasty landing off a Canadian Backbreaker and takes the impact on his head. This particularly damaging move causes Fuchi to lose his temper and he proceeds to stiff the shit out of both Road Warriors. Though Fuchi calms down enough to resume the match and lose as planned, backstage things remain heated. Joe Higuchi has to serve as the go-between due to his bilingualism and describes how the Hawk & Animal were leaving. Apparently Fuchi’s chops and kicks to the neck leave Animal feeling numbness. They were threatening to leave but Baba goes in and calms things down. Ultimately Baba never books Fuchi with the Warriors ever again but Fuchi isn’t reprimanded either. Baba even comments to him “they’re salty”. A few days later, Fuchi and Animal make amends anyway.

Years go by with Fuchi finding himself balancing between heavyweight tag matches and both singles and tag pushes in the junior heavyweight division. Throughout the 80s Fuchi finds himself either teaming with or wrestling against Dynamite Kid, Kunkiaki Kobayashi, Johnny Smith, and Tiger Mask II (a.k.a. Misawa). Fuchi closes this section by noting that AJPW’s broadcasted TV show return to “Golden Time”, i.e. primetime TV, which I believe is 8pm Saturday night. Though Fuchi’s matches aren’t the most important he does notice that at live events fans would chant his name more loudly as time went on.

Chapter 5: Exciting Heavyweight Scene

Chapter 5 continues this discussion on heavyweights with the addition of Hiroshi Wajima. Wajima was extremely popular and served as an immense boost to AJPW’s ratings. He also ends up being a particularly important rival for Tenryu who uses Wajima’s status and popularity as a motivating factor to keep improving. Tenryu also has an advantage Wajima doesn’t: Tenryu learns how to take breakfalls and fall onto his back while Wajima couldn’t. In fact, Wajima couldn’t even drop to his knees to recover since that was never done in sumo. That said, Wajima never complained, even when he suffered unintentional injuries in the ring. As for Fuchi, he becomes Wajima’s regular drinking buddy and Wajima even hosts a celebration for Fuchi when Fuchi wins the junior heavyweight title. However, Wajima abruptly leaves All Japan to teach American football and when Fuchi meets up with him one night Wajima keeps repeating “I feel so bad for Baba-san”.

After Choshu and his Japan Pro Wrestling group finishes their feud with AJPW some of them return to NJPW but some stay with All Japan. Those who stay include Isao Takagi and Yoshiaki Yatsu, the latter being another Olympic-level athlete. In response to this talent shift Tenryu looks to get his own push and so he tags with Ashura Hara to form the Tenryu Revolution group with the intention of “revitalizing the All Japan mat”. However, their earlier matches are described by Fuchi as “intense and grueling”. In many of these four-and-six-man tag matches Fuchi ends up in the match the longest and, as a result of his superior conditioning, he makes both Tenryu and Hara work harder when on offense. After these matches, Mighty Inoue, one of Fuchi’s usual partners, notes that Tenryu & Hara were getting better by being on offense more. In other words, Fuchi brings more out of Tenryu & Hara by just soaking up damage and outlasting them with his conditioning.

As the Tenryu Revolution progresses the matches grew more intense and started to include other wrestlers as well including Akira Taue and Toshiaki Kawada. These clashes grew more exciting, often at the cost of more long-term physical toll. But Fuchi is reminded of important lessons from Masio Koma: “Envy and jealousy aren’t things you should voice. It makes you small as a person. If you feel jealous, channel it into the match.” Fuchi adopts this principle and soon after others in AJPW followed suit, including some foreigners like Hansen and Brody and even Baba, which affected all of their health in later years. Over time Tenryu’s more passionate matches start to get over with the crowd which helps boost his popularity until he found himself nipping at Tsuruta’s heels.

Soon AJPW becomes this magnet for top talent and leads to more people coming in. This includes Brody, who tries to make his return after being affiliated with NJPW for several years. Though he changes his look and style to be more in line with Baba’s style Baba initially turns him down, noting that Brody would reach out again. Sure enough he does and Baba negotiates Brody’s tour and sees him paid the same as before so that he could prove himself before earning higher pay. Baba is stern but fair as a promoter: he doesn’t lower Brody’s salary but pays him the same as before so that Brody’s pride wouldn’t be wounded. Similar conditions were also offered to Billy Robinson and Abdullah The Butcher since they had been loyal to Baba for many years.

Unfortunately, tragedy strikes when Brody is killed in Puerto Rico. Not only does this event shake immediate cards in which Brody was directly related but it also affects other affiliated matches including a proposed Tsuruta/Tenryu dream match that never comes to pass. According to Fuchi there were plans for Tsuruta & Tenryu were to team with Brody & Hansen.

In response AJPW pivots to center the world title on three people: Tsuruta, Tenryu, & Hansen. Together these three wrestlers fight to unify the three titles that created the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship. Over the course of 1988, 1989, and early 1990, Tsuruta and Tenryu have this constant back-and-forth that was built on Tenryu trying to reach Tsuruta’s level. Though he has great matches, Fuchi still thinks that Tsuruta was simply too special and exceptional for Tenryu to reach. Fuchi concludes with noting that this rivalry was ‘magnificent’.

APOD: This section was a bit repetitive and monotonous but still mildly interesting in its own right. Fuchi didn’t provide anything truly groundbreaking and spent most of it praising Tsuruta more and more. Though to his credit Tsuruta did deserve a lot of that given that he wasn’t just an exceptional physical specimen but he was also one of the smartest wrestlers in decades. We’ll see more of that when I cover Tsuruta’s books especially his first one which is VERY CLEARLY written by someone with a polished and academic vocabulary. Still, this section still comes across as context for what comes next and lacks anything really meaningful to it beyond Fuchi tooting his own horn in a few places. But if you ask me the really exciting part is coming up next when Fuchi takes a much stronger role in matchmaking and ends up being arguably the single most important person behind AJPW’s golden decade of the 1990s.

Thanks for reading.