The Surreal Rise and Fall of HUSTLE - From Sumo Babies to Mad Generals 

Pride FC and puroresu fan here. Great video but there are some details that are needed to provide added context. The seeds for Dream Stage Entertainment's demise started when company president Naoto Morishita was found dead hanging in his hotel bathroom in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo after a major announcement about future PRIDE FC cards earlier in the week and the company taking a pretty nasty cost overrun for their co promoted Dynamite! show with K-1. When Morishita was found, his death was ruled as a "suicide", despite the fact that officers noted that the details given didn't point to such a thing even being possible based on the crime scene. According to Sakakibara, Morishita died because of being outed for having a mistress. It should also be noted that at the time, the Yamaguchi-gumi were in the midst of an internal power struggle and DSE had members of the board in both factions. Not to mention that four years after this incident, the Yamaguchi-gumi got in hot water after senior member Tetsuya Shiroo was arrested for organizing the assassination of then-mayor of Nagasaki Iccho Itoh over a parking dispute. Take that for what you will. When Sakakibara took over, DSE sold their block ticket distribution rights to a yakuza front organization involved with the Yamaguchi-gumi ran by a man named Kim-Dok Soo, who also the middle man pumping Yakuza money into DSE and was the one helping the Yakuza skim money off the bookies, live betting, and gate revenues for all of PRIDE FC's events. This high level of involvement also allowed them to further be involved in fight booking through a surrogate named Seiya Kawamata. Now Kawamata is interesting because, after he botched the booking for Inoki's 2003 Bom-Bae-Ye show and pissed off Sakakibara in the process by putting Fedor on the card despite it violating his DSE contract, he immediately started getting death threats from Yamaguchi-gumi thugs allegedly affiliated with Sakakibara. In 2005, Kawamata tried win a power struggle with DSE by filing a police report to Kanagawa police and sold his story to Shukan Gendai to get Pride FC, and by extension HUSTLE, taken off of Fuji TV. The report to Kanagawa police filed by Kawamata went nowhere, despite the fact that it revealed that the main man behind the threats was Pride's secret financier from the Yakuza, Kim-Dok Soo. When Soo was identified, he allegedly fled to his native South Korea to avoid the charges. And once Soo and Yamaguchi-gumi were identified as the financier of DSE, shit went pear shaped. This was the kernel of truth that finally gave credibility to Shukan Gendai's hit campaign from Kawamata and spooked Fuji TV and all of Pride's major sponsors to back out immediately and, like you pointed out, got all DSE properties blacklisted and stuck only on PPV. This four year whirlwind is what ultimately killed Dream Stage Entertainment, Pride FC, and by extension HUSTLE.

I just can't imagine a monster of a man like Toshiaki Kawada doing a comedy gimmick,but apparently he did and it somehow worked. Understandable why he retired when he did, he was quickly losing his passion for Wrestling, and the loss of Misawa was the final straw.

This is the best wrestling commentary channel on RU-vid. No smark bullshit, no navel-gazing fantasy booking, no this-vs-that, them-vs-us. Just love for wrestling. It’s very hard to find a channel that talks so extensively about puro without being the least bit stuck up or tribalistic about it. Good on you, man. Keep up the excellent content.

It should be noted that, in the case of Razor Ramon HG, he actually WAS trained as a wrestler before he adopted the Razor Ramon HG character as a whole (in fact, there's a possibility he may have worked shows alongside none other than Hiroshi Tanahashi himself), so he knew what he was getting himself into. He just... wound up finding more success as a comedian than as a wrestler.

When I see RR Hard Gay in a thumbnail I know this is gonna be a good one!

I think Takada proved himself perhaps the best pro wrestler of the shoot style wrestlers, other than Minoru Suzuki, when it came to fully embracing the absurdity of the business in HUSTLE. Also, just imagining Stone Cold’s interactions with Kawada, Hashimoto, or Takada himself is just too good.

Someone get Sean Oliver's attention to show Kevin Nash some footage of Razor Ramon HG. Lol.

I remember that I had friends who thought this was great but I was feeling really terrible that Japan had apparently become such a bad market for wrestling that the promoters were resorting to copying WWF. Still can't get over Yinling the Erotic Terrorist, which I do consider the best trashy storyline for a women in wrestling of all time, and put above Razor Ramon Hard Gay as the best gimmick they came up with. It's supposed to be distasteful and shocking, but somehow, she had more agency in her story arc than the Divas had under the WWE in this time frame

Another great Kim Justice video back on RU-vid, it's a good day.

A someone overlooked detail about Goldberg vs Naoya Ogawa was. Goldberg was in WWE at the time. So the match happening in the first place. Is honestly a bit of a surprise.

The only thing I know about HUSTLE was Kawada singing a song on stage. I think it about it all the time.

Love me some HUSTLE. Should be noted that the company actually had some decent wrestling, usually in the lower/mid card. Also the promotion showed that Kawada could actually be very funny when he wanted to.

I had actually completely forgotten about Razor Ramon Hard Gay until this video lol

For those who don't follow or know much about MMA - the accusations surrounding PRIDE were 100% true. It wasn't a _front_ per se, but it had deep ties to the Yamaguchi-gumi. The tabloid that made the accusations even did a short manga to better explain the series of events. Regardless, there was, and will never be, anything like PRIDE. PRIDE never die.

So glad you’ve been reuploading these again Kim! These were my go to comfort videos for a while that first go around

Love your videos. Could you make one about Asuka when she wrestled in Japan. Thank you

Great video, thanks Kim! I wasn't a wrestling fan when this promotion was around but I saw so many videos of HG all over the place at the time, what a surprise to find out he was actually a wrestler from this video! Wonderful work 🙏🏻

Could be mistaken but I believe HG actually had a background in amateur wrestling.

Please cover the UWF

Love all your work be it gaming or wrestling, always so deeply researched and well put together, thank you for all your hard work

HUSTLE honestly felt pretty amazing when I was watching it when in high school. It was always great when a friend linked me a Dailymotion video or a link from XWT with a new HUSTLE show. It was wacky as hell, but the crowds seemed to be having great fun with it. It also helped me quite a bit as a bridge to look into more typical Japanese wrestling promotions that I likely wouldn't have bothered with as a teenager, due to not having the patience at the time to try to wrap my head around puroresu being far more serious and presented as a legitimate sport. It also introduced me to Razor Ramon HG as a character, who I still find amazing to this day.

All I can say about HUSTLE was that felt like I was watching a wrestling show on Acid, & I've never touched a drug in my life. It was as if the Acid they were on was affecting me. It still amazed me that Muta had a run there.

Great and much needed channel Joshi deserves more shine

Staying on the ground against Cro Cop probably saved Takada’s life to be honest.

Out of ALL people I'd EVER expect to run a promotion like Hustle, Nobuhiko Takada wouldn't even crack the top 100. What in the hellll!??!?!?

You have to talk the original wrestle 1 when you talk hustle. It’s most of the same people in Dream stage, The sports entertainment philosophy was born of that idea (W-1 was supposed to be in stark contrast to K-1) and most significantly hustle was a direct result of W-1 tanking after their Tokyo Dome card- since they were paying out the nose for Bill Goldberg, they needed to create a whole new promotion just to use his dates up.

I always thought his name was simply Hard Gay. Whats the correlation with Razor Ramon?

Absolutely loving the topics for your videos, and once again great work! You’re doing fantastic!

17:32 by God that’s Vic Romano! Don’t! Get! Eliminated!

Another great video sir. I used to watch Hustle videos to see which credible wrestlers would lower themselves chasing an easy payday

Love your work. Really hope you continue with this type of stuff, maybe even detaling big landmark shows. Irregardless isnt a word my friend

Wow, amazing. Do you happen to have the video of Ogawa and his Hustle music video? Where he is walking down the street singing and he confronts Takada who comes out of a Limo, and Yoshi or something ridiculous opens the door for Takada to let him out

The Esperanza was badass. Basically a robot version of The Undertaker. They killed him and he came back as a Samurai robot, lol.

13:50 the only other company besides as you said Noah really the only other promotion doing WELL around that time was Toryumon/DG but only really in Kobe and their Korakuen Hall Shows, took a year or so for them to really do well though; still shocks me how well Hustle did during that year, wonder how we can look today at DDT and compare it a bit to Hustle...

I still laugh at the fact that they have a wrestler with the ring name "Hard Gay".

2:16 AKI Games KO animation

DVD forums never forget the sleeze thread LOL

Should do a video series on the Inoki bom ba ye shows 😁

also to answer the question at the end of the video... consider Actwres Girl'z for a while half of their tallent aren't even Wrestlers yet they get over(yeah it's a niche market but still); at least we can look back fondly on HUSTLE and what it proved can be done in wrestling in japan, just sad how it ended but in a way we kinda knew it had to end that way

Inokiism is something I'm always super interested in and I think would be a great video (I know the copyright would probably kill it)

I'd love a video on UWF/RINGS

The Outsiders Hustle Entrance is legendary

I didn’t hear him cover the HUSTLE Kamen Rangers. That was my favorite part. Yoshitsune was the Red Ranger.

Goldberg is a MASSIVE Muay Thai hobbyist and a Japanese JJ black belt

I love your videos. I find a lot of people who talk puro to be annoying due to their elitist attitude, however this and other videos help give a more clear vision of japans companies, successes, and failures without it seeming like I’m hating by asking these questions

I really liked how unhinged HUSTLE was but fuck me it really fell off quick,shame as there were so many interesting things with it like the Generalisimo stuff and the very odd one offs (Kawada vs Cactus Jack was great)

I hope they put HUSTLE on streaming

I never heard or this wrestling promotion, and I wish that I did, so i can witness the weirdness of it.

What happened to Tajiri's eye?

what went wrong with HUSTLE? *hears DSE was involved* oh...that.

It's been almost 2 months since the last upload. When is the next video gonna drop?

16:00; I guess Akebono really needed the money after he left sumo.

21:20 The EMPRESS!!!

Taijiri’s involvement makes this okay in my book. Whatever the goat does, he makes cool.

I just learned of Hustle today from an article about Mutas Sumo egg baby and my god I LOVE IT 🥺 So dumb but sooooo good 😂

This promotion feels so weird. According to takada his weird ideas came from nintendo inspiration like mario

This promotion is so wild and I love it, lol. Hustle was different at the time. Takada try to do some groundbreaking. I always found interesting japan wrestling promotions life cycle keep on failure. However, I think today Japanese wrestling is doing alot better

Seeing Kawada in HUSTLE is doing me a confuse. He seems too...serious for HUSTLE.

Was that masato Tanaka theme?

21:15 Asuka?

What video did u cover Takada?

LOL. Suddenly, Hard Gay. What a true classic.

HUSTLE was definitely interesting and it's okay to think it sucked, but you gotta understand that it's subjective and it all comes down to personal taste because the Japanese audiences for example are always very receptive to comedy no matter how ridiculous it gets as their sense of humor is different, that's why DDT has been able to stay alive for over 25 years. I myself am honestly not too big on the extreme side of sports entertainment because I'm more so a pro wrestling fan first and foremost, but I do love a good comedy segment when it's done right and if it's a funny kind of absurd that I'm seeing when it goes that far, I've got no problem with it.

A character like like RR Hard Gay would only ever work in Japan.

I post on Blog of Doom and you might be surprised as to what the folks enjoy on there

Me and my buddy used to love HUSTLE

In my opinion, I think DDT does the whole "sports entertainment in Japan" thing a whole lot better. But then again, that's just me. I don't know if Kim or anyone else would agree, but again, it's my opinion.

Man I loved hustle and then smash thank you for this video a

Not going to lie. I love Hustle. it was insane but fun.

Yoji Anjoh was an odd bloke

The Suweal Wise and Fawl of Huwstle

0:04 that you Jeff Jarret? slapnuts

The British Elmer Fudd puts out another great video. Thank you " u silly wabbit".

Hoooooooooo

Hard Gay. Wa foo!😂

HG, what a legend!

why wwe has not signed hard gay he's good on the stick hey ooooooo he's a 5 out of 10 in the ring he got a catch faze what ever he says when dancing wooo hoooo and he's got his own dance the next gen Bad Guy Razor Ramon it would pop me but i though the Asian redneck jimmy wang yang was comic gold man what a team

pride rigged , pancreas rigged and strike force rigged . Japanese mma from this time is a joke very few legit bouts. the fact you keep talking about them like they are legit brings down your otherwise near perfect narrations