Promotion: Wrestle-1 (W-1)
Event watched: Wrestle-1 Tour "Cherry Blossom", Tokyo Dome City Hall, 4th April 2014.
What did I know about the promotion going in?: Not a significant amount. Head honcho of the promotion is the great Keiji Mutoh aka The Great Muta and many of the workers are taken from the AJPW exodus v2.0, with a sprinkling of talent from W-1's recent annexation of TAJIRI's WNC promotion and a variety of foreigners on excursion from other feds, most notably TNA.
The company has not yet developed its own championships, though it features title matches for affiliate promotion titles, such as Leon van Gasteren's obscure EWP Intercontinental Title, which is defended in 12 x 3 minute rounds like something from ITV World of Sport. Top guys are Seiya Sanada, KAI and Manabu Soya, though only Sanada is a guy I could have picked out of a line-up as of 6 months ago.
What is the history of the promotion?: Mutoh, to preserve honour, resigned as president of AJPW in 2011 after a vicious beating incident happened under his command, leaving the company altogether in 2012 after being bought out by Speed Partners. Commanding immense loyalty, much of the dressing room followed Mutoh just as soon as their contracts were up.
Less than one year on from their debut show at the time of writing (June 2014), the company has an internationalist, partnership-orientated vision and has already established a training programme for future homegrown talent. Not a great deal has happened: the company has established, set out an expansion plan and put on a number of shows with a wide-ranging aesthetic in terms of wrestling styles.
And how was the event?: Hmmmm.
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| Company owner Keiji Mutoh |
Excellent production values, with the arena decked out to look more like a TV set than a wrestling arena - the crowd are pushed back, black curtains drape around the extent of the room with the ring and entrance way illuminated strongly, creating a sharp contrast. As a personal preference I like companies to try and bring as much of the live experience through the TV so I can respond along with the crowd noise and the reaction of the people in situ. However, it's a bold and different enough look to begin with for the average puro fan not to write it off as just another not-NJPW promotion.
The opening contest is a six-man tag team between Andy Wu, Daiki Inaba and Koji Kanemoto, who take on Kaz Hayashi, MAZADA and Shuji Kondo. If you recall from my ZERO1 report (which takes place after this event), there is the beginnings of a feud between the two companies as well as a whole pool of freelancers who zoom in and out of every company without so much as a by-your-leave. So if it seems like I'm repeating names from other reports, it's done on purpose. A fine (if brief) opener, with Kondo scoring the win over Inaba with a lariat after a lot of flipping and jumping and diving.
A comedy match followed between Kazushi Miyamoto - who is attempting to 'do' Million Dollar Man-era Ted DiBiase but coming off more like Mike from The Young Ones - and Kikutaro, who wears a mask that looks like a pig trying to be DEVO's famed Booji Boy character. It was pretty funny, with Kikutaro goofing on some of Keiji Mutoh's poses and moves, though Miyamoto won. What relation this bore to a pre-match segment where Miyamoto gave Kikutaro some money I cannot say.
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| Kikutaru |
A junior singles match between the well-travelled Minoru Tanaka and HUB followed, with the latter worker displaying an odd unique selling point of a lengthy tail protruding from the rear of his mask which he would occasionally utilise to administer whippings to Tanaka. In fairness, it was probably needed, with the 'Black Prince' looking disinterested until the final stretch. A picture-perfect Fireball Splash (450) gained Tanaka the win in a listless contest.
I've raved about Daisuke Sekimoto previously and am glad that he seems to be getting solid work from everywhere but the big two companies, but his singles match on this card was forgettable. In Sekimoto's defence, his opponent was ex-sumo wrestler Ryota Hama, who moves incredibly slowly and can only perform the same arse-avalanche moves that Rikishi once featured in his moveset. Sekimoto downed Hama after a series of lariats but the show is stuck in first gear.
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| "y u no like me Fujiwara?" |
With W-1 having no titles of its own, it showcases other companies in championship matches. This event saw Yuji Hino and HIROKI put the Kaientai Dojo Tag Team Titles on the line against Seiki Yoshioka and Yasufume Nakanoue in a bout that flirted with being passionately contested but found itself wallowing in the heatless dirge of the W-1 crowd. HIROKI looks a little bit ECW, wearing his scruffy grey vest throughout. The champs defend solidly, but the show is becoming difficult to enjoy at this point and their victory is moot.
The highlight of the show came during match six, which pitted three of the Desperado stable (Ryouji Sai, KAZMA SAKAMOTO and Masayuki Kono) against six-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion Tatsumi Fujinami, his son LEONA and the stiff-as-fuck Pancrase co-founder Masakatsu Funaki. The match was pretty mediocre, but Funaki's kicks are generally worth the entrance fee alone. Funaki pinned KAZMA after destroying him with the Hybrid Blaster as both Fujinamis applied simultaneous submissions to the remaining Desperados.
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| Leon van Gasteren: EWP Intercontinental Champion, don't you know? |
A comprehensive video package introduced the alleged importance and legacy of the EWP Intercontinental Championship, imported from Germany on the shoulder of proud wearer Leon van Gasteren. The Dutchman, whose entrance music is that style of mono-melodic trance music beloved of darts players, defends the strap against Hiroshi Yamato in a contest comprising 3 minute rounds. This was a novel idea back when wrestling was desperate to prove that it was real but in reality robs matches of momentum and transition between phases.
Instead of a fluid contest we get one round in which the two competitors trade impressive catch-wrestling skills followed by two and a half rounds of a modern shoot-the-ropes wrestling contest. When van Gasteren is on top, the room is completely silent. It is odd to see someone perform a tope and have no response, not even boos or exhalation, but somehow this match manages to do that. The champion retains and tells Yamato that he can have a rematch if he wants to. Err, ok.
TNA imports Frankie Kazarian and Abyss stride out to muted reactions ahead of their contest with TAJIRI and The Great Muta. What would a fledgling Japanese wrestling promotion be without its owner attempting to hog the limelight? The crowd, aside from a trio of older ladies on the front row who interact with everybody in this match, are completely dead for this less-than-compelling outing. It is eventually won by the home favourites after various shades of mist to the face and Abyss mistakenly hitting Kazarian with a Black Hole Slam into a pool of thumb-tacks. Ugh. I like pretty much everyone in this ring yet this show just is not good.
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| "hope u still like us Fujiwara" (Abyss (l), Kazarian (r)) |
The main-event at least has a story attached with a cool and easy-to-follow video package. KAI insists that he is the ace of the company (I always thought that the role of 'Company Ace' was a backstage/management thing) but Manabu Soya disagrees. This disagreement is of particular relevance to KAI because Soya is the company matchmaker. A heated showdown occurred in which it was agreed that should KAI lose, he would leave Wrestle-1. Should the gruff Soya lose, he would be forced to resign as matchmaker. Who would accept these terms but proud men at the end of their tether. This entire montage bafflingly played out to 'Viva la Vida' by Coldplay.
Soya, who hasn't particularly impressed me either time that I've caught his act, upped his game and tried to insert some sorely-lacking passion into the match. KAI, on the other hand, did not seem like a man fighting for his job. Perhaps the stipulations telegraphed the ending too much but that doesn't let KAI off the hook. The match they had was not a bad one at all, a fine TV main event with exciting near-falls and good wrestling, but one that could have been better with a more charged-up KAI and a crowd who weren't looking at their watches all the while.
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| Pictures of happier times: KAI (l) and Manabu Soya (r) |
KAI won and cut a promo on Soya, but was then railroaded by Yuji Hino, effectively stating that it is indeed Hino that is the real ace of Wrestle-1 (GET SOME BELTS TO PROVE IT, GUYS). Masayuki Kono of the Desperado faction ran in to help KAI to the back and we leave, all the while 'Chasing Cars' by Snow Patrol is playing. What IS it with Mutoh and shit indie rock?
What did you think?: That wasn't particularly very good.
Sometimes you get bad crowds and sometimes matches just don't light on fire. I get that and am pretty much fine to wade through a couple of dull shows if I sense there's better to come. It happens to WWE, New Japan and Ring of Honor. Expansion and travelling can be really tough.
However, I just don't see much about Wrestle-1 that sets it apart in a positive light. With the AJPW guys that followed Mutoh, you have a bastardised version of a not-particularly-classic era of that promotion mixing it up with freelancers you can see by throwing a dart into the Korakuen schedule, ex-shooters and international imports that the audience couldn't care less about.
Only one of these matches is worth considering for a re-watch (Soya vs KAI). The rest are barely house show standard. You can see work just as good as this locally, within reason. It wasn't garbage, absolutely not, and some of the guys really tried to not just 'mail it in'. But the whole thing seemed like a bad night on the job.
Would you watch again?: Yes.
That might seem like a surprising answer give the criticism I just doled out. The company is in its infancy and has no championships of its own to book around. There is a large element of the company trying to develop the kind of workers required to tell stories and perform the kind of match that will hook regular audiences. Fortunately, Mutoh's star power buys a lot of good will and extra time.
Some of its international connections are promising: a link with TNA could perhaps bring the best out of both companies, with TNA having a solid bank of workers but a cookie-cutter production and weak stories, whilst W-1 could use some better workers but offer a compelling and different style to recast TNA's stars.
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| Seiya Sanada with the TNA X Division Title |
This said, as of today (6th July 2014), it appears that Seiya Sanada may have set the wheels in motion for a surprising return to All Japan Pro Wrestling. Sanada, the real company ace, regardless of storyline, was the star of the TNA link-up and began to get over within the well-liked X Division. However, with AJPW's divisive former owner out of the picture, it could prove the case that loyalty to AJPW and Jun Akiyama trumps loyalty to Keiji Mutoh. Hiroshi Yamato was said to have cried upon leaving AJPW, for instance.
W-1's selections of partner companies are perhaps not the best choices, either. TNA appears on its knees and EWP is no longer really a cohesive thing (like the NWA). A recent connection with British promotion All Star Wrestling shows an example of seniority trumping relevance as ASW perform seaside shows to kids during the summer breaks whilst younger companies such as PCW, ICW and PROGRESS carry some degree of credibility amongst discerning fans likely to tune into a Japanese promotion.
NEXT: JWP (Joshi Puroresu)
NEXT: JWP (Joshi Puroresu)
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