ProWresBlog: NJPW Wrestling World 1996 1/4/1996

NJPW Wrestling World 1996 1/4/1996

1996年1.4 東京ﾄﾞｰﾑ
新日本プロレスＷＲＥＳＴＬＩＮＧ　ＷＯＲＬＤ　ｉｎ闘強導夢

Let's do a little backstory here before we get into the review. NJPW has held shows at the Tokyo Dome every year on January 4th since 1992. That day in Japan is usually one of the last days of the New Year's break so in theory, more people can come.

UWFi has a messy backstory. They formed in 1984 under the name of UWF. The promotion was formed out of NJPW as many of its wrestlers like Akira Maeda, Tiger Mask, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Nobuhiko Takada and Kazuo Yamazaki wanted to be more realistic in the ring. The UWF was extremely popular but also short lived. Akira Meada wanted a more submission based style and Tiger Mask aka Satoru Sayama wanted to focus on kicks. Those two ended up shooting on each other during a match 1985 and then again later that year. This caused Akira Maeda to get fired from UWF and caused Tiger to leave, pretty much ending the promotion. Sayama formed Shooto after this.

Some of the UWF guys were able to get their jobs back in NJPW which led to a famous and very good UWF vs NJPW war. There's a great Akira Maeda vs Tatsumi Fujinami match from it as well as a very good 10-man tag. This all lasted until about 1988 when Akira Maeda decided to throw a shoot kick at Riki Choshu breaking his orbital bone and causing himself to get fired. Again, Maeda got Takada, Yamazaki and Fujiwara to leave with him along. After Fujiwara left, they got his trainees Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki to leave with him as well.

This is UWF, so again, they ended up splitting. They ended up running the first ever Tokyo Dome wrestling/fighting show for any promotion ever during their two year open period. However, when they split in 1990, the split ended up being much worse. Fujiwara left and formed Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi, Funaki and Suzuki left to form Pancrase, Maeda formed RINGS and Takada formed UWFi. These four promotions along with the other two UWF's created MMA in Japan which in different ways led to K-1, PRIDE and UFC in the United States.

UWFi formed in 1991 with Nobuhiko Takada as the main man. He beat pretty much everybody until Big Van Vader and Gary Albright came around. In a way, he killed his own promotion because nobody believed that anyone else could take him. UWFi died in 1995 and with all of the guys needing some work and NJPW's booker Riki Choshu sensing weakness, a UWFi vs NJPW feud was created leading to this. Choshu jobbed out most of the UWFi guys, making their "real wrestling" look worthless. This is the second of the UWFi vs NJPW dome shows and in the future, I will do all three. Eric Bischoff happened to see this feud and later used the idea to create the NWO, changing wrestling forever. Amazing how a handful of guys leaving NJPW in 1984 changed wrestling and fighting as we know it, eh?

This is live from the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan in front of 54,000 fans drawing $5,400,000. This is part of a three dome show series that drew 196,000 fans in total, making it the most profitable wrestling feud in history.

So without further ado, let's go to the ring!

Team UWFi

Team NJPW

UWFi vs NJPW - Kazushi Sakuraba, Hiromitsu Kanehara and Kenichi Yamamoto vs Yuji Nagata, Shinjiro Ohtani and Tokimitsu Ishizawa

Yuji Nagata beat Kenichi Yamamoto with an armbar at 10:15. They hit a total of three moves in 10 minutes. Three Moves. It was all shoot in, rope break, repeat. Really stupid and pointless match.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title: Jushin Thunder Liger vs Koji Kanemoto
Koji Kanemoto was the 3rd Tiger Mask but ended up being unmasked by Liger in a Mask vs Title match, so there's no love loss here.

A release side german suplex. Ouch.

The finish

Jushin Thunder Liger beat Koji Kanemoto with a twisting moonsault to get the win. Good match here. The story of it was both men just not being able to finish off the other guy and having to go further and further to try to win. Tons of flying, a couple of head drops and overall, I'm a pretty happy camper. This was a little long but very enjoyable. Rating:***1/4

UWFi vs WAR - Yoji Anjoh vs Hiromichi Fuyuki with Jado and Gedo
Anjoh is one of the best jerk heels ever and is well known for getting his butt handed to him by Rickson Gracie after calling him out and challenging him at his gym. The results were not good for Mr. Anjoh.

Fuyuki started out in All Japan with Footloose and is most well known for being the head booker of FMW when they switched from their original hardcore roots to a WWF attitude era direction. At this point in time, Fuyuki was with the promotion WAR, Jado and Gedo.

UWFi feuded with WAR a little after this which led to two awesome Nobuhiko Takada vs Genricho Tenryu matches.

Jado sprays something at Fuyuki's armpit

Gedo tapes Yoji Anjoh's head

Hiromichi Fuyuki beat Yoji Anjoh with a lariat after interference. I don't think that this was No DQ, but the ref sure treated it as such with heels interfering right in front of the ref. Yamamoto from UWFi pointed this out to the ref but he gave a "oh well" type of motion. Naturally, Yamamoto, didn't help up his friend who was taking a gang beating. I believe the word ridiculous just about sums this up. Rating:1/2*

Riki Choshu vs Masahito Kakihara
Kakihara was a junior in UWFi and a great worker who never really got his due. He would later work for NJPW and other feds in the undercards.

Choshu is one of NJPW's biggest names ever and is one of the top stars of all time in Japanese wrestling. He also originated wrestling at a quicker pace which caught on big time in Japan. He may have also been the inventor of the Scorpion Deathlock/Sharpshooter. He was the booker of NJPW at this time.

Masahito Kakihara

Riki Choshu

Everyone needs to see a Riki Choshu entrance once in person. Nothing quite like hearing Power Hall in person along with "CHOSHUUUUU" chants.

The finish

Riki Choshu beat Masahito Kakihara with a sharpshooter in 5:46. This was all squash and all turd. Choshu didn't move at all and made Kakihara look like a total goof. This match was a terrible love letter from Riki Choshu to Riki Choshu with none of the fault going to Kakihara.

UWFi is now 0-3 here and 0-2 against NJPW.

IWGP Heavyweight Championship - Keiji Mutoh vs Nobuhiko Takada

IWGPヘビー級王座高田延彦 vs 武藤敬司

As I mentioned above, Nobuhiko Takada is the ace of UWFi and it's lead man. He was a big name in shoot style wrestling and became a famous martial artist as well fighting names like Mirko Cro Cop, Mark Coleman and Rickson Gracie. Nobuhiko Takada ended up becoming a pretty big celebrity in Japan and can usually be seen on all kinds of tv shows of various quality(Believe me, Japanese TV is 99% crap).

Keiji Mutoh is the alter ego of the Great Muta. He was a big star in WCW and a much bigger star in Japan. He's the current president of All Japan Pro Wrestling and still going strong today.

This is a rematch as Mutoh and Takada fought each other at the previous dome show. I won't spoil the winner for you though.

Antonio Inoki is bandaged up from his match with Big Van Vader. We will cover that in Part 2 of the review. The matches were shown out of order on the tape.

Nobuhiko Takada puts the heel hook on Keiji Mutoh

Nobuhiko Takada's wife Aki Mukai 向井亜紀 watches on. She was a gravure idol/model in the 1990's.

The finish

Nobuhiko Takada beat Keiji Mutoh with a cross armbreaker at 17:51. This match is overwhelmingly not that loved, but I've always really liked it. Takada controlled early on with kicks and with armwork until Mutoh made a comeback. They then traded figure fours and heel hooks until Takada finally sunk in the armbreaker for the win. This was technically sound and the match made alot of sense. The heat was phenomenal which is really saying something at the Tokyo Dome and it just felt like a big match. Both guys made good facials and showed alot of emotion in everything they did to make this feel like an epic. I'm sure I'm probably going to get ripped for praising it so much but I really liked it. Rating:*****