AJPW on Nippon TV – May 2000

Previously In AJPW…

The penultimate month continues!

Weekly Fight Magazine in Japan reported that this promotion would be splitting into two groups, as has been talked about inside for months as a possibility, after the next tour because Motoko Baba, who owns 85% of the company (the other 15 percent is owned by Nippon TV, none of the wrestlers own any stock in the company), and Mitsuharu Misawa, the company President, aren’t on the same page.

Our own sources expect Misawa to resign as President at the end of May. Misawa’s complaint is that Motoko Baba never even comes to the shows anymore, but still won’t give up her decision making power. Misawa wants to start his new promotion in the summer and people expect it will get ugly. It is said that right now internally, every Japanese wrestler in the company with the exception of Mitsuo Momota, who has been with the company basically since its inception in 1972, is said to be siding with Misawa.

The foreign wrestlers, because of their loyalty to Shohei Baba, have as a general rule been more siding toward Motoko Baba. However, when push comes to shove in wrestling, loyalties change. All you have to do is look at when 15-20 wrestlers were going to stick together to get Kevin Sullivan out as booker in WCW in January, and the number at the end ended up being six, one of whom then backed out by the end of the night because they promised him a push. When Misawa has been asked by the press over the past week about the story of a promotional break-up, his answer has been no comment

2000/05/03

Champion Carnival review

We get to see highlights of Omori vs. Akiyama, Taue vs. Williams, Misawa vs. Kawada, Misawa vs. Vader, Kobashi vs. Smith, and Omori vs. Williams. Works as a nice summary of a tournament, bit unsure why you’d air this after the finals have already aired.

The 5/24 Niigata show has Kenta Kobashi vs. Yoshihiro Takayama for the Triple Crown in what undoubtedly will be Kobashi’s biggest test in a long time. I don’t know if Shawn Michaels could have carried Van Hammer to a four-star match without using any gimmicks, but that’s basically the test here.

What do you mean, Takayama gets a Triple Crown title shot? Jun Akiyama has been waiting two months for his shot!

Misawa said that Takeshi Morishima would be joining the Champion Carnival tournament next year

Yeah that wouldn’t happen because of…well, you know.

2000/05/10

Champion Carnival review

Even more highlights of things that have already aired: Misawa vs. Kobashi, that Mossman/Akiyama tag match, Ogawa vs. Misawa, and then Kobashi vs. Omori. It all looks nice but again, the tournament is over and this feels like filler for a show that’s only thirty minutes long.

Hopefully the company has something big for next week.

2000/05/17

Jumbo Tsuruta Memorial Tribute

Oh.

I’m going to be lazier than the people running the TV show and copy paste Meltzer’s recap:

This was a Jumbo Tsuruta special combined with a shot designed showing training and other footage to build up the Kenta Kobashi vs. Yoshihiro Takayama Triple Crown title match. It was really sad at the beginning as they went from footage showing Mitsuharu Misawa seeing Tsuruta and his family off at the airport when they moved to the United States last year, and then jumped to just over one year later with Misawa at the airport and seeing his wife and three young children come back from the Philippines. It’s very sad because Tsuruta’s youngest boy looked to be about 3 and was clearly far too young to understand the situation.

They had a lot of career match clips of Tsuruta, concentrating on a 1977 match with Billy Robinson (the famous 70:00 draw and even though Robinson was probably a few years past his peak by then, you can see he was something really special in the ring), a 1980 Champion Carnival final where he won the tournament for the first time over Dick Slater (a good match, shown more for it being Jumbo’s first Carnival win, Slater at that point can be described as a less charismatic version of Terry Funk) and a 1989 match with Genichiro Tenryu. This match blew away, and I mean totally blew away, any match in pro wrestling this year. It was also interesting to see Tatsumi Fujinami and Tenryu on the All Japan TV show for the Tsuruta tribute. It would be the equivalent of during the Owen Hart tribute show on Raw, airing clips of Chris Benoit doing an interview when he worked for WCW. With Tenryu, it’s even worse, because he left All Japan on the worst terms possible, taking a lot of the talent with him, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Kobashi and Toshiaki Kawada were really able to step up to the plate and become superstars when thrust into the position many years earlier then would have been done (and in hindsight, it was the greatest thing ever for the promotion), the company could have been in real trouble.

Fujinami and Tsuruta, even though they never wrestled each other and only teamed together once, are in most fans from the early 80s linked together since Fujinami was the better wrestler than Inoki but Inoki was the top star in the company, just as Tsuruta was the better wrestler than Baba, although of the two, Tsuruta was more successful when put in the position to carry the company after the big star stepped down. They showed a brief clip of the 1979 match where Tsuruta & Fujinami & Mil Mascaras teamed, with a lot of double dropkick spots. They also showed All Japan’s first house show after Tsuruta’s death, with the wrestlers in every match, bowing respectfully to a photo of Tsuruta after their match and particularly highlighting Jun Akiyama when he did the jumping knee, a move popularized in Japan by Tsuruta. They then replayed a lot of the Tsuruta special that aired last year with Tsuruta himself talking about some of his famous matches.

The episode ends with a montage of Jumbo winning matches set to Sinatra’s My Way to really get the onions cutting.

Also you can tell AJPW still has it out for Tenryu as they show the match where Jumbo accidentally shoot-KOs him with a Powerbomb onto his head then start talking about SWS. One last twist of the knife (before they call him up to return a month later).

5/17 TV show drew a 3.4 rating, which is way up from the previous shows since the time shift to Wednesday after midnight as the best rating All Japan had previously done in the slot was a 1.3. The huge difference is because the 5/17 was a career retrospective of Jumbo Tsuruta.

No wonder so many wrestlers were dying in the 2000s, it was great for ratings.

2000/05/24

Jumbo Tsuruta Memorial Tribute

More old matches and talking heads make for a worthy tribute to one of the company’s biggest stars but don’t make for a good recap from a non-Japanese talking baka like myself. Go read ‘s Alex Podgorski’s translations of the Jumbo books instead.

The TV ratings have gone to hell in the new Wednesday past midnight time slot. On 5/3, the show did a 1.3 rating, and on 5/10, with a digest version of the Carnival and no new material, it fell all the way to 0.7. There is actually fear of a cancellation of the show due to the audience dropping so severely with the move to Wednesday, after it being a staple of NTV programming, including some of the highest rated shows in the history of the network (in particular Rikidozan’s matches against Lou Thesz and The Destroyer), going back 46 years dating back to Rikidozan’s first main events at Sumo Hall.

Without the network exposure and network TV money, All Japan would be no more than another indie promotion.

I’m sure everything’s fine.

2000/05/31

Kenta Kobashi vs. Yoshihiro Takayama 05/06/2000

Kobashi’s only defence of the Triple Crown after beating Vader in February. Three months in between defending your title? Yeah alright, Tribal Chief.

Takayama big boots Kobashi as the ref is checking his gear for weapons. Big heat for that, with the ref inexcusably ringing the bell while Kobashi is sat up with his eyes glazed over. So Takayama nearly wins in seconds with a running low kick but Kenta is able to kick out because come on now, he’s not Akiyama. Kobashi is pissed and chops Takayama out the ring and over the guard rail. A DDT onto the concrete lets us all know Kobashi is not in the mood, and kicks to the back of Takayama’s head while he’s draped over the guard rail remind us in case we forgot. Kobashi continues to smother Takayama with those ever-popular submission holds. Kobashi gets a reaction from the crowd though because his face and yelling makes it clear he does not like this man. He may even hate him more than Dave does. Takayama escapes a test of strength to kick Kobashi in the back, with Kenta makes clear he does not want to happen. Takayama takes Kobashi down and starts clobbering strikes to his face like Taz in his prime, before threatening arm submissions while the ref explains what a rope break is.

Takayama works away on Kobashi as the crowd continue to boo his existence. Takayama’s increasingly disrespectful kicks to the face further motivate Kobashi into standing up and glaring maniacally. Kobashi chops Takayama in the corner so many times that Omori jumps up on the apron to protest. Kobashi chops him off the apron, which leaves him open to a massive knee to the gut from Takayama. Takayama’s armbar makes Kobashi’s feet stamp the mat like he’s Mr. Bojangles so the crowd starts getting worried about a submission hold as Baba grunts miserably from wherever he’s at.

Takayama has 100% control so it’s annoying that he keeps on switching between working the legs and arms. It’s his bad knees mate, his famously bad knees. Does he need yellow paint like modern gaming? Kobashi tries to come back but Takayama knees him back into the corner with ease. Those knees do look grand in fairness.

A drenched Kobashi finally manages a Superplex and a running Fameasser. The Kobashi DDT only gets two because he didn’t do the finger gun taunt afterwards. Takayama armbars out of a back suplex but Kobashi is so mad that his arm got hit that he immediately uses it for a lariat. Crowd exploding now, just in time for them to see Kobashi fly half way across the ring from a bridging German Suplex. Only got two but crowd are very worried now. Kobashi is half-man half-ocean as they trade strikes in the middle of the ring and it looks like they’re fighting in the rain. Kobashi desperately wins the strikes by using his left hand while the other dangles by his side.

The strikes are enough to floor Takayama so the ref has to stop Kobashi so he can check he’s still with us. Takayama lands another cheeky big boot while Kobashi is waiting, taking another release German Suplex to lower the crowd’s mood. Kobashi bounces him off the ropes with a lariat to set up the match-ending burning Lariat as he returns at 21:20.

A different feel than most Kobashi matches. You didn’t think Takayama could win but it was fun to see how mad he could make Kobashi before losing. Like a bigger, hairier Ogawa. As a result I enjoyed this as much as the Omori match from last month but in a different way, because Takayama’s offence really worried the crowd something fierce while Kobashi sold his tiny beard off for the lumbering striker guy.

There will be a one-night tag team tournament on the 6/9 Budokan Hall card for the vacant Double tag team titles that are vacant due to Vader’s (who teamed with Steve Williams to win the belts from Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama) elbow surgery. The four teams will have first round matches of Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Johnny Ace & Mike Barton and Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Yoshihiro Takayama & Takao Omori and come back for a championship match.

Wait 6/9 is when Akiyama is supposed to be getting his title shot finally? Why’s he in a tag team?

If that’s the case, it would seemingly make for a Kobashi vs. Akiyama Triple Crown main event although maybe not since they are doing an angle where Akiyama said he doesn’t respect Kobashi as a world champion and doesn’t want to challenge for the title until Misawa gets it back.

Oh I see. Well you deserved that one mate.

Overall: Very odd month. Two weeks of Carnival recap, two weeks of tribute for Jumbo and then one new match. I understand the Jumbo tributes but why AJPW felt the need to recap what they’d already aired as opposed to the tons of unaired matches they must have lying around is beyond me.

Highlight Of The Month: Believe it or not, it’s the only new match this month. Takayama annoying Kobashi into hitting him with his bad arm is a good use of twenty minutes.

I’ve been Maffew, see you next time for the last time.