A Journey Into Japanese Wrasslin

Awrite? my names Martin John Smith. I'm 24 years old, about 5 foot 8 and I have a confession tae make.

A week ago I didn't know who Shinsuke Nakamura was.

Just incase there's any confused fitba fans reading this, I don't mean the ex-Celtic winger Shunsuke Nakamura. I know fine well who he is, and he's actually a bit of a hero of mine. Naw I'm talking about the Japanese wrassler with the one letter of a difference in his first name. Shinsuke Nakamura. It's not something I'm proud of, to call myself a wrestling fan, even to have the gall to be writing about the subject on a regular basis having never heard of easily one of the top 5 active wrestlers in the world right now. My lack of knowledge on him only scratches the surface on how utterly inept my Japanese Wrasslin knowledge is though. Until a week ago I had maybe seen 10 Japanese Wrasslin matches at the most. Spread over at least 15 years. An extremely vague, but still utterly shameful stat. The only real reason behind it is just laziness. I had a "I'll get to it at some point" attitude about fuckin everything, and I was getting to fuck all. Doing nothing. All of a sudden one day I wanted to do everything. Tick aw these things off the list, and one day last week, after filling in a fair amount of knowledge gaps regarding American Wrestling, I decided to fuckin get in amongst it. A playlist of 50 matches was compiled (that wasn't deliberate, I stopped at 47 naturally but decided to fill it out to 50 cause of OCD n that) The first name on that list was Shinsuke Nakamura.

Shinsuke Nakamura is something special. A truly unique performer. No disrespect to Dean Ambrose, who I am a huge fan of. But it becomes apparent fairly quickly that he has lifted a lot of his character and in-ring traits from Nakamura. Same menacing demeanor, same far away, almost vacant, but still scheming look in the eyes. A man who you never really think is truly a bad guy, but definitely unhinged. If he stumbled across you getting yer shit ruined in a bar fight, you'd never be certain if he'd jump in and gie ye hauners, and get the steel toe cap boots on and join in the fun. His matches are just a feast for the eyes. Stiff as fuck, frenetically paced and each one is a story of its own. Each finish is something fresh and original. My personal favourite of his matches I seen was a tag match between Nakamura/Kirooki Goto and Mistaharu Misawa/Takashi Suguira. Not only was the match stunning, but as a complete newcomer to Japanese wrestling, it was genuinely breathtaking to hear the earth trembling pop which ensued after Misawa and Nakamura locked up. Old guard vs new. Hairs on the back of the neck stand to attention. The action between them was brief, but special. Although the finish didn't involve Misawa, as Nakamura made Suguira tap to the cross armbreaker. A clear indicator that Misawa didn't think he was finished yet, and knew being made to tap to the new kid on the block would be damaging to him. We'd never get to see if Misawa have one more iconic run in him as he was tragically taken from us in 2009 following complications from an in-ring injury. Another tragic blot on the wrasslin copybook. It saddened me greatly that I didn't discover he was such a legendary figure in this business until it was too late, but his matches were next on my list, and I gained a strong understanding of why he is so highly thought of pretty quickly.

I had at least 10-15 Misawa matches on the list, but the one which caught my eye first was a match with Samoa Joe. Naturally our brains are drawn towards familiarity, and as I am very familiar with Joe it felt like a good starting point. Ultimately, as enjoyable as that match was, it would prove to be one of the least impressive of the Misawa matches I seen. At this stage (2007) I think Misawa was perhaps past his prime, and didn't have a particularly great understanding with Joe. The match was still excellent btw, I'm not knocking it, but it was blown clean out the water by the matches I watched next. Three utterly captivating contests between two men who now quite easily slot in to my top 10 of all time. Mitsharu Misawa and Kenta Kobashi. Consider this. These matches were from 1995, 1998 and 2003 respectively. Over an 8 year period, where both changed quite dramatically as men and as professional wrestlers, to the point where only Misawas trademark green and silver tights were the only constant, yet the matches all felt instantly familiar if that makes sense. They all felt like they were telling stories that I had been waiting to see all my life. Each one different, but each one just felt right.

My personal favourite was the 40 minute epic from 1998, which included some eye popping spots. Whilst it wasn't the most visually impressive my personal favourite was Kobashi planting Misawa with a powerbomb on the turnbuckle. The most aesthetically pleasing one was Misawa nailing Kobashi with a Tiger Bomb from the apron out on to the floor. An educated eye could actually see the brain matter escaping in puffs of green smoke from Kentas ears, as his skull was planted on the mat with such impact. My favourite thing about this match, and Japanese wrasslin generally was the uniqueness of the finish. After 40 minutes of stiff, high impact moves, muscle tearing submissions and death defying spots, the match ends with a clothesline and 3 huge forearm smashes from Misawa. Having been brought up to believe that any finish without a traditional finisher is something unusual, it was an eye opener to see such a titanic battle end with something as non-descript as forarm smashes. Simple but beautiful. Perfection.
The 2003 encounter was my least favourite of the 3, but still utterly capitvating. Still easily one the top 15 matches I've seen all time, but it felt like two old pals who had one last story to tell us before they bowed out. It was a story that its unquestionably essential that you see, but not one that you'd have any regrets about not seeing if a bus hit ye the morra. Although you'd probably be incapable of regret because of like....death n that.
The 1995 battle between the two was exactly what you'd expect from two legends just entering their prime.They both wanted to put on a show first and foremost, and they certainly didn't fail us in that regard. This match contained my favourite move of all the matches I watched and perhaps my favourite move of all time. It was just that good/unexpected. Kobashi gets Misawa up for what looks like a standard suplex, and all of a sudden he's flipped him in mid air and hit a tiger bomb with unerring perfection. These are two huge men btw. At least 250-260 pounds each, and Kenta Kobashi gets Misawa up straight for the suplex and flips his body all the way around to hit the fuckin tiger bomb. I just.....couldn't fathom it. How could anyone? these are things the human body shouldn't be able to do by rights, but such was the level of trust between the two, and commitment to telling the story together, that they put their trust in one and other enough to go for it. This was the moment when I was sold on Japanese wrasslin for life. No question. Compare what these men were doing in Japan in 1995, to what Vince Mcmahon was doing with supposedly the most important wrestling promotion in the world. The Wrestlemania main event that year was an American Football player booked to beat one of the best Big men of all time in Bam Bam Bigelow. An utter disgrace to Wrestling, designed to maximise short term profit. When I hear people saying in interviews about Vince McMahons love for wrestling, it always makes me laugh. Vince McMahon loves fuck all but money. That's it. If wrestling didn't make Vince Mcmahon a fortune, he wouldn't bother his fuckin arse about it. If the man truly "loved" wrestling, he wouldn't be responsible for so many of the unpalatable incidents that have occurred in the business. I bet he sleeps like a fuckin baby aswell, on a mound of pillows made of 100 dollar bills and the tears of aw the wrestlers who have been broken by the soul crushing workload he puts them under, with no regard for their physical or mental well being. How the fuck did this turn into a McMahon rant eh? off on a wee tangent there, but the point is. You don't fully understand just how vacuous his product is until you expose yourself to something better. Japanese wrestling is that thing. That thing which operates on a higher level.It was only beginning to educate myself on the ways of the Japanese which made me realise this. There's a commitment to the craft that you just don't see from many of the current "stars" a commitment to telling the story TOGETHER and putting your trust in your opponent 100%, no matter how you feel about the them on a personal level. I'd watch any of these 50 matches 100 times over, before I'd watch an old Randy Orton match. I'll tell you that 100% truthfully, and that's not because I dislike him at all. His work is just selfish, and always has been. Unless it will further his own career, he wont put ANYONE over. No one. Nae cunt. He just wont do it. Even is his matches look like utter shite, as long as he gets his 7 or 8 moves in and looks good in the process, he couldn't give a modicum of a fuck. He tells his own story most of the time, unless his opponent brings something else out of him. A loner in a business where comradery, and mutual respect should be king. If someone was to tell him Kenta Kobashi wanted to come out of retirement for one last match, and Orton was his chosen opponent, I'm willing to bet the first thing he's ask would be along the lines of "will he put me over?"


Kobashi was perhaps the man I was most familiar with before starting this education. I had already seen his retirement match from earlier this year (an unbelievable 8 man tag which went well over 70 mins) and one of his matches with Vader. I watched both of those again, and another battle with Vader, which was one of the most brutal matches I had ever seen, and I was just blown away by Kobashi. As much as Nakamura, and Misawa had firmly planted themselves in my Top 10 wrasslers of all time, Kobashi was gunning for number 1. He is just that good. I honestly believe that if Hulk Hogan couldn't get Andre up for that slam all those years ago, they could have got Kenta Kobashi over the next year to legitimately take the big man off his feet with one chop. He has an exchange of chops with KENTA (his protege) in the retirement match that honestly made my eyes water. They must have stood there for 2-3 minutes easily, just fuckin leathering each other. over and over. Until KENTAs solar plexus jumped oot his gub and asked Kenta Kobashi to "fuckin wrap that in big yin, that's agony so it is" I could fawn about his work for days, but I'll wrap it up with this. There wasn't one move that Kobashi attempted in the matches I seen that I didn't believe. Not one step out of place. Everything was in his comfort zone, and some of those things were remarkable for a man his size. This is why I don't buy any theories of why guys such as Cena are limited because of how their bodies are shaped. The reason Cena cant execute a hurricanrana properly, or apply an STF with any kind of proficiency is because he's too top heavy. Is it fuck. He just cant do it. Simple as that. Some people just aren't built to do certain things. That doesn't make John Cena a bad wrestler, and it doesn't mean he lacks commitment, it just means he cant fuckin do it. Kenta Kobashi could. You could blindfold Kenta Kobashi and make him moonsault out of a moving aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean, and I bet you he'd land on the one guy stranded in the middle waiting for a rescue. Some people just have the gift, and they work unbelievably hard to turn that gift into a storied career.

Speaking of storied careers, I'm yet to even scratch the surface when it comes to Jushin "Thunder" Liger. A globetrotting cruiser-weight who has been giving us nothing but classics for the best part of 30 years. Jushin Liger for me is what wrestling is all about. a man who has no doubt sacrificed a lot to just be a someone in wrestling. Not a major player, having never held a Heavyweight title in Japan, but the guy who you could unquestionably rely on to give you one of, if not the most exciting match of any card he was on. I saw him wrestle everyone from Ultimo Dragon, to Samoa Joe and even Owen Hart back in 1993. Each match something special. even in his mid 40s as he is now, the man hasn't lost a step. I saw a match of his from very recently against Pac (Adrian Neville in NXT) and HE was the one who set the pace, against one of the fittest young men in wrestling today. That was probably my favourite of his matches, although the one with Owen was special for number of reasons. Liger is the one who I have gotten familiar with who I got the impression time was never a big factor. He could go anything between 5 and 40 minutes and each match would be engaging in its own way. The pace he goes at would allow even a 2 minute squasher to look decent. That's a talent you cant teach no matter how hard you try. Into the bargain the guy does aw this amazing stuff, while dressed in a full body suit and a mask wae big horns on it. Must have been roastin for  the past 30 years.

Female wrasslin too. Its something else over there. I watched 3 or 4 Bull Nakano matches before I started this playlist, and they were all unreal. A cage match in particular with Aja Kong, where they brutalised each other as much as any match I've seen. Kong was taking legit shots to the temple with nunchucks ffs. Real nunchucks. Clobbered wae them. I'll no lie and say I delved much more into the females than those few matches, but I most certainly will.

With Misawa gone too soon, Liger entering his career twilight and Kobashi retired it's important that Japanese wrestling has potential legends in the making ready to carry the torch, and there are certainly nae fears there. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchica Okada, KENTA and of course Nakamura appear to be the four who are doing the most impressive work at the moment, but there are plenty on the verge of reaching that level such as Go Shiozaki, and Irish import Prince Devitt. I saw a selection of matches between those mentioned, and while I'd pick my personal favourite (after the aforementioned Nakamura of course) as Tanahashi, they all bring something unique and engaging to the table. I had seen Devitt live twice before seeing any of his work in Japan, as he was booked in two stunning matches in my local promotion ICW, and i honestly had no idea just how talented he was. I assumed because no one in America had picked him up, that there was something missing, but that was naive of me. Truth is he just belongs in Japan. Belongs in a place where wrestling comes first, always. He looks like he's next in line for the IWGP belt, which Okada currently holds, and that's not because he's the biggest, or the most marketable at the moment, Its because he's one of the best and he's earned it. That's how it works over there. (The match where Okada took the belt from Tanahashi is undoubtedly the best one I've seen this year btw. Youtube it now if you haven't seen it) If any of the merry band of young stars step out of line, there are seasoned and fuckin stiff vets like Tomohiro Ishii and Minoru Suzuki waiting in the wings to knee some perspective into them. That's another thing btw. Age is not a factor in a wrestlers relevance in Japan. If it made sense to put the belt on the 45 year old Suzuki tomorrow, it would happen. Simple as that. Because it makes sense. Too much in American wrestling happens because poisonous voices in the company influence it. Figures who have become irrelevant over time forcing themselves into things because they cant let go of the limelight. They cant fathom a life without their name in lights.

Japanese Wrestling will undoubtedly still have people like that, but its never allowed to go against the greater good of the business, its never allowed to drag the product down.

Even with all the gushing about it which has taken place above, I still consider myself a complete. novice. I only know enough to know that I want to learn so much more, and I plan to over the coming weeks/months/years/rest of my life.

Japanese wrasslin ma man. Its fuckin braw.