Wrestle And Romance
Sendai, Miyagi, Japan
City Gymnasium
Attendance: 8,100
WAR continued their winning ways against NJPW with Takashi Ishikawa & Genichiro Tenryu pinning Tatsumi Fujinami & Riki Choshu in the main event of NJPW’s recent Hyper Battle, with Ishikawa being the one to lariat The Fuj and pin him, causing Choshu to vow revenge and finally bring Hashimoto into the interpromotional war on WAR’s home turf.
Pro Wrestling Crusaders
Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan
City Gymnasium
Attendance: 1,791 (lol)
PWC’s first show was overshadowed by actual dogs so let’s see if this one is any better. George Takano isn’t wrestling so it’s already looking like a “no.”
We start off and I take it back THERE’S MORE DOGS.
Network Of Wrestling
Chiba Park Gymnasium
Attendance: 3,070 (no way)
Well NOW now longer has The Takanos, Don Arakawa or Onita as apparently all the stars would rather eat barbed wire than appear on The Avenger Penguins to WAR’s Biker Mice From Mars.
Wrestle And Romance
Yokohama Cultural Gymnasium
Attendance: 4,900
Tenryu was asked to work Wrestlemania but he turned it down because WAR was running a tour on the same day. Yeah you know what would have helped WM IX? Tenryu vs. Kamala getting bumped off the card.
NOW Fire Endless Battle – Night 1
Tokyo Korakuen Hall
Tokyo, Japan
Attendance: 1,900
The good news is because PWC is now working with W*ING, Atsushi Onita is appearing tonight because FMW hates W*ING!
The bad news is that even with Onita, NOW was unable to sell out Korakuen Hall because they’re competing against WAR (drawing 11,800) and UWF-i (16,500) on the same day. I think we can sum up the company’s long-term chances with that fact alone.
Wrestle And Romance
Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium
Attendance: 11,800
To get us up to speed from last time: WWF sent The Berzerker and Double Trouble for the November/December tour. I think it would have been more polite if they just told WAR to get fucked.
Meltzer is currently predicting the downfall of WAR due to the low attendances, speculating the big stars would leave for NJPW soon. Maybe WAR would have been on the way out if it hadn’t been for the crazy heat generated during the NJPW feud, with the guest stars enabling WAR to sell out Korakuen Hall again in December and suddenly attendance and interest has dramatically increased. Let’s see if the same can be said for these posts!
Pro Wrestling Crusaders
Tokai, Aichi, Japan
Civic Gymnasium
Attendance: 1,956
Say hello to the newest puro company to hit Tokyo! Which makes it sixteen companies running the area, several of which are already on spaghetti legs so clearly this is the best time to be doing this. As a reminder, this is the company set up the the Takano brothers after leaving NOW because they weren’t allowed to do what they wanted.
So far PWC have announced the signing of Isao Takagi (who was fired from SWS for spending too much time gambling) and a selection of W*ING lads who aren’t good but need the work. I’m throbbing already, let’s check out the Marsupilami to NOW’s Bonkers.
Network Of Wrestling
Tokyo Ota Ward Gym
Tokyo, Japan
Attendance: 3,265
Uh nothing.
Network of Wrestling
Tokyo Korakuen Hall
Attendance 1,800
So The Takanos (NOW’s biggest draws) gave more details on their departure, telling a magazine that everyone who signed NOW contracts had it stipulated that they could never say anything bad publicly about either Tanaka or Megane Super Opticals. The Takanos have since announced the debut of their own promotion Pro Wrestling Crusaders, which will be making it’s debut in February 1993 and presumably the wrestlers will be able to badmouth it to their heart’s content.
Also NOW held their first angle involving Ishinriki (who they hope will be their big new star) getting attacked by 128 year old Umanosuke Ueda at a gym. I couldn’t find any photos of it as there’s virtually nothing archived online about NOW so here’s Ueda’s action figure instead to get you in the mood.
Wrestle And Romance
Korakuen Hall
Tokyo, Japan
Meltzer is speculating WAR is having financial issues and isn’t planning on bringing any big name WWF guys over any time soon. I’m not sure about that exactly, it may be just common sense after realising Animal, Undertaker, Flair and Paul F’n Diamond combined couldn’t sell out the Yokohama Arena so it may be a case of them not being worth the money.
On the other hand, Tenryu won a non-televised one man tournament at Korakuen Hall on 10/8 and only drew 1,000 fans so yeah maybe.
Luckily they have a lifeline labelled “NJPW”…
Wrestle And Romance
Yokohama Arena
Kanagawa, Japan
Attendance: 12,000 (7,000 paid)
Wait it’s the same event as last week? What’s going on?
Wrestle And Romance
Yokohama Arena
Kanagawa, Japan
Attendance: 12,000 (7,000 paid)
Network Of Wrestling
Korakuen Hall
Tokyo, Japan
Attendance: 2,000
Two weeks after WAR’s debut, it’s time for the ugly little stepbrother to show what it can do with a much smaller talent pool and budget. Let’s remain optimistic and pretend it didn’t last two years.
Wrestle And Romance
Korakuen Hall
Tokyo, Japan
Attendance: 2,200 (sell-out both nights)
SWS is deader than Yuji Naka’s career but Tenryu ended up with Ultimo Dragon, King Haku, Masao Orihara, Tatsumi Kitahara, The Great Kabuki, Koki Kitahara, Samson Fuyuki, Ashura Hara, Takashi Ishikawa & Yuji Yasuraoka (as well as retaining the old WWF and CMLL deals) so WAR is very much alive. Hell you could make the argument that on paper, the split was the best thing to happen to SWS. No more Goro or Shunji Takano!
But even Fake Razor seemed like a good idea on paper, so let’s see what the debut weekend of WAR ended up looking like:
Super World Sports Declaration Of War 06/16/92
Nagasaki International Gymnasium
Nagasaki, Japan
Attendance: 3,860
SWS is dead, guys!
Super World Sports Korakuen Hall 06/05/92
Korakuen Hall
Tokyo, Japan
Attendance: “1,980”
Oh there’s way too much here to sneak into a cheeky preview. Click more to find out about how SWS dies!
Super World Sports Ishikawa-ken Sangyo Tenjikan 05/20/92
Ishikawa Industrial Exhibition Hall
Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan
Broadcast date: 05/26/92
Attendance: “3,050”
PWFG drew 9,600 to see ROBERTO DURAN fight Masakatsu Funaki. Sadly it sounds way cooler than it ended up being as Duran showed up out-of-shape and wearing a shirt to lose via armbar in the third round. As Quebrada put it: “At some point, Duran decided if he cant beat Sugar, he’ll just eat sugar.” Still, cool that it happened.
UWF-i responded with Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Mathew Saad Mohammed in a real shoot (that didn’t last long) along with Koji Kitao returning to combat against Kazuo Yamazaki to draw 16,300 at Yokohama. So it’s a really good time to be a worky-shooty-shooty-worky company but not so good to be a wrestling company based around money…
Super World Sports The Battle Of Kings 04/18/92
Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium
Tokyo, Japan
Broadcast date: 28/04/92
Attendance: 9,019
After losing their TV deal with WOWOW, SWS are now airing on TV Tokyo for a monthly one-hour show.
This would end up being the last bit of positive news the company would receive.
Super World Sports Battle Message Night 1 & 2 04/16/92 – 04/17/92
Bad news as SWS’s TV slot on WOWOW is over as the company declined to renew their deal, due to Akira Maeda’s RINGS getting better ratings despite the alleged names associated with Straight & Strong.
PWFG made their USA debut in Miami drawing 2,300 for a main event featuring Bart Vale defeating Fujiwara. PWFG continues to outdraw SWS even in countries with no access to their product.
I’m not saying SWS is getting it’s arse handed to it by shoot-style companies but PWFG’s Duran vs. Funaki show is reportedly outselling Flair vs. Tenryu Title Match (happening the day afterwards) by nearly a 10-to-1 margin.
Super World Sports Kyoto Prefectural Gymnasium 02/14/92
Kyoto, Japan
Kyoto Prefectural Gymnasium
Attendance: 5,720
Hulk Hogan vs. Genichiro Tenryu was named as 1991’s MOTY, which was the only thing Tenryu had a chance of winning in that match.
However, Weekly Pro Wrestling’s 1991 Fan Awards saw…absolutely no SWS nominations. Whether this was due to SWS banning the publication or none of the voters buying what they were selling is debatable.
Seiji Sakaguchi of New Japan met with Hachiro Tanaka of SWS to try and settle out-of-court on the lawsuit New Japan has against SWS for raiding Naoki Sano and George Takano. Part of the settlement may include doing a co-promotion show (or they could just wait a few months and just book Tenryu).
UWF-i sold out Korakuen Hall on 01/09 and PWFG drew 4,120 at Yokohama Bunka Gymnasium on 01/15 as shoot-style continues to get bigger every month. SWS representative defeated Goldberg’s favourite Jerry Flynn which explains the big number.
