NJPW POWER STRUGGLE 2016

New Japan Pro Wrestling
Power Struggle
Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka
5th November 2016

About a week ago here in my home country of the United Kingdom (not merely England) there was a taping of another attempt at rebooting the old ITV wrestling show known to most as World of Sport (though of course World of Sport was the name of a sports show of which wrestling was one of many delightful cultural strands alongside football, hockey, lacrosse, motorsport, and weird stunts like jumping over barrels. For some reason World of Sport has become synonymous with the wrestling alone). The previous attempt I sort of remember in the early part of the previous decade, where ITV2 (to my overseas readers, ITV is one of the original 5 channels UK viewers received on the basic package of the analogue era. It is mostly entirely filled to the brim with steaming hot piss. ITV2 is even worse) took over the FWA or maybe IWA:UK promotion, one of the ones that had Alex Shane and that Hammerlock guy who trained Devitt, and tried to tack on the old aesthetics of rounds and slightly camp grappling to the modern style of jumping and flipping and leaping. Needless to say it was a miserable failure on several levels (bored commentator roped in from real sports duty, set that looked like a bouncy castle, tiny joke ring) and cancelled so quickly that I can barely find trace of its existence online to the point where I feel I may have dreamed it.

The way we were

Regardless of the success of the new show (and I wish it well) the producers of the new show have drawn a firm line in the sand that I applaud. Here is someone on reddit who wrote out as a short one-act play of an interaction that they saw as a problem that is, to my mind, a big plus:

Masakatsu Funaki vs. Tatsuo Nakano and life.

So last month a project was vaunted in which people would write articles about one wrestling match which they felt somehow summed up life and meaning within its parameters, the results of which would be collated somehow and sold. This created a bit of a ruck in some quarters of the online content provision quarters, with some feeling that recompense automatically be granted to anyone who stumps up the requisite insight and wordcount.

What those moaners did not grasp is that this project was to benefit the great Terry Brunk, known to you and I as wrestling (I hesitate to use this word sometimes but it is applicable) legend Sabu. This man who has undoubtedly sacrificed everything in his body for our amusement/bemusement has hit hard times and it was to be our way of paying back.

As things are wont, the project went south. Nonetheless, I wrote an article I think I may as well share. If you'd like to donate something, anything, to Sabu, then follow this link.

And without further ado...

MASAKATSU FUNAKI vs. TATSUO NAKANO
UWF Fighting Square Hakata, Fukuoka
July 1989
watch

Where carefully-cultivated fakeness exists and overwhelms, the insertion of violent reality (or the illusion of said) is the most thrilling thing. In wrestling, The Montreal Screwjob, CM Punk and his pipebomb, or Andy Kaufman getting slapped across the chops by Jerry Lawler may spring to mind.

G1 CLIMAX 25: FINAL

G1 CLIMAX 25: FINAL
Ryōgoku Kokugikan, Tokyo
16th August 2015
 

Let's very quickly do the negatives because the positives at the outset of this night are overwhelming and - minor spoiler alert - are set to grow. The tournament was just too long in terms of nights and the lowering of prestige of any one night contributed to not just my general fatigue but lower attendances. Perhaps some workers have hit the point in their careers where they can't quite do a long tour of intense matches. Lastly I thought it was a little cruel to have the workers whose block was not on schedule wrestle in the lower card. You wouldn't make Floyd Mayweather run laps around the arena when two potential contenders for his streak are set to duke it out later.

ACE OF THE CENTURY vs. KING OF STRONG STYLE

Now that's out of the way I think that we can mostly agree that it's been a successful 19 days in the main. There have been lots of great matches, hot crowds, and the stars of Michael Elgin, Tetsuya Naito and a few others have risen significantly whilst no one's stock has overtly diminished. That seems like a real testament to a hard-working team of wrestlers, bookers and production staff who have a feel for delivering a visceral, smart and coherent piece of entertainment that works in the immediacy of viewing as well as in long-form. Not every match was great, but it never will be, and arguably nor should it be.

G1 CLIMAX 25: DAYS 17 and 18

Oh yes it's block final night(s) and the feeling's right oh yes it's (block) final night oh what a night (ooh what a night). Welcome to the security blanket of Sumo Hall, noticeably smaller than the Seibu Dome, though spread over three nights perhaps not that different. We'll do a big assessment of how this tour has gone on the post that heralds the official final this coming Sunday, in which all of the night will be covered as there are many interesting bouts set to occur including the return of BUSHI from injury, the return of Ricochet from underneath a mask purloined from an underground temple in Boyle Heights and a match between Young Bucks and reDRagon, which is a regular occurrence but always FUN.

Look at this awesome image I forgot to use the other day because I was in such a rush! Look at it! This is incredible. For this and more, go and look at Punkrockbigmouth's Tumblr bcs you will not be disappointed. I mean in life you will be disappointed, that is inevitable, but briefly it will be allayed.

G1 CLIMAX 25: DAYS 10 to 16

To my regular clientele this will be a disappointing entry but to those looking for RATINGZ step inside as I have to review 35 matches ahead of the final trio of shows at Sumo Hall and the energy to write them all up as overly-verbiaged artistic assessments is not quite in me. I have acquired a temporary job that requires me to listen to mostly-decent but occasionally-vitriolic people yell about matters that to we in the higher pantheon of the arts (wrestling) seem trivial but to some are life and death. I then have to type up summaries of these lengthy diatribes. It saps me of my will to do anything but sit there and enjoy the raw spectacle of the two blokes paid to hit each other for my amusement. Sorry! Normal service will be resumed after the final shows of each block as well as a dedicated post for the G1 Final. 

But for who? Find out at the end!

Brevity wins out here. Winner's name first.

G1 CLIMAX 25: DAY TEN
Sun Plaza, Sendai 
4th August 2015

G1 CLIMAX 25: DAYS 6 to 9

Not even halfway. We've seen 9 days of wrestling and the tournament is not even halfway done. Tours of old were longer, yes, but the wrestling wasn't as impactful and it wasn't all deigned important enough to broadcast. It's tough to keep with though fortunately I have a window of time after work that allows for viewing the tournament matches only. 

Should they maintain this format in years to come, it is difficult to see how anybody but the most ardent of fans can keep pace. Not to mention the wrestlers, many of whom are taped up, bandaged, and moving a little more wearily. That said, maintenance of kayfabe is a reason I like New Japan and I'd be surprised if there was no element of a 'work'. Not to say they're not banged up in myriad ways.

This post follows on from my last in terms of style; most matches will get a paragraph, though noteworthy bouts will get a bit of exposition and exegesis. A propos of nothing, I'd like to thank Cagematch for making this process possible. I don't take notes and can't remember bios and past matches without having my mind jogged. Take a look at this excellent site today!

It's that thing sticking up

G1 CLIMAX 25: DAYS 2 to 5

Fujiwara Armbar is a professional man with a filofax and many meetings to take and right now does not have time to provide premium express content solutions on the matter of New Japan Pro Wrestling's annual heavyweight wrestling tournament. However he was good to fax me the following comments on the back of what appears to be the invoice for 365 pairs of size M black underpants with a note made out to 'John at Bearhugger'.

G1 CLIMAX 25: DAY TWO
Twin Messe, Shizuoka
23rd July 2015

The opening round of Block B fixtures are being presented by a single camera with no commentary in a venue with little atmosphere. Hmm. As much as some may say this is more of a pure experience, I return with i. fuck purity and ii. the televisual production is what replaces the atmosphere of being there. This feels more like standing near the hard camera wearing ear defenders.

G1 CLIMAX 25: DAY 1

G1 CLIMAX 25: DAY ONE
Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Centre, Sapporo
20th July 2015

Press conferences watched, alarm clock beeps at 7.30am, coffee is made, where is the bread, where IS my sodding bread? I'll do this on an empty stomach then. Assholes. ANYWAY. 364 days after the commencement of last year's tournament, in the same venue, the enlarged charabanc containing the New Japan roster rolls back into Sapporo to commence another edition of the greatest wrestling tournament shut UP PWG fans. 

This review should be a rather short entry in the canon. The new format of the G1 has taken the sting out of the chances of any one night being completely blow-away awesome. At first I received the idea well, because I do believe it is important to spread these guys' workload out and let everyone recover, talk about what they're going to do out there and generally give everyone a great time. But they're all working every night, half of the time in tag matches, so it feels almost like a cruel joke.

G1 CLIMAX 25 PREVIEW

One year ago the beginning of the greatest wrestling thing that has happened in my experience of watching this sometimes baffling pseudo-sport began: the tournament to top all tournaments, 111 beautiful golden memories culminating in a pulsating, trouser-rendering final that left me giddy and bereft of three weeks of my life but also strangely elated beyond any place art or sport had taken me before.

2014 winner Kazuchika Okada

All of this madness was simply for the right for one guy to go to Wrestle Kingdom 9 with a gaudy briefcase containing a contract stating his legitimacy as title challenger, which he promptly lost, bursting into tears having shinned up the biggest mountain in sight and finding, after several exasperating months, that it was a mere foothill.

NOAH Great Voyage in Tokyo

Pro-Wrestling NOAH
Great Voyage in Tokyo
15th March 2015
Ariake Colosseum, Tokyo

Invasion and takeover angles aren't all they've cracked up to be. At best they have lost their potency in the greying of the years. Many of the famous storylines of outsider force tackling monolith company, in addition to the countless ones run by collaborating small independent companies on any given weekend, approximately end with the mild disturbance in their midst eventually reset, the foes vanquished and reduced and the order restored (counterpoint: a great deal of cinema does). Which is sort of stupid. Why would the sanctioning body allow it?

As much as UWF vs New Japan, nWo vs. WCW and WWF vs WCW/ECW may have set tongues wagging, nearly all petered out after the initial hot shot, unable to sustain momentum. In many cases these fissures between the lines of real and storyline inadvertently lifted the lid on the falseness inherent and in their own scramble to do big business, end up half-throttling it. Let us now pour one out onto the kerb for UWFi.