This video was originally released on Patreon in 2020 - that version features a couple of extra entries that aren't here, mainly concerning good old Inoki - I want to revisit his various mock shoots and real shoots some day. Hopefully you enjoy this if you've not seen it! Some audio had to be redone, so the quality may vary a little.
I died laughing when you used the footage of Larry Holmes dropkicking Trevor Berbick off the hood of a car while you were giving his background. That's legendary boxing video.
40:40 I think Sakuraba's success is more due in part to what he learned from Billy Robinson than Takada. Also, it should always be stressed that Sakuraba didn't hunt the Gracies, they hunted HIM.
All these years people have assumed that Joe bruiser from WCW nWo World Tour was Muhammad Ali, but watching your documentary it's clear they based his taunt actions on Trevor Berbick from his match with Takada. The Taunts are him complaining about the low blows!
He also has some elements from another boxer, I can't remember his name but he did some "shoot" fights in WAR. However in the code for WCW/NWO world tour Joe Bruiser's name is Saidai - which is what Ali was known as in Japan. I suspect AKI, being made up solely of wrestling fans, added in elements of all the boxers they were most familiar with to make the "ultimate" one.
Hi Kim I’m a huge fan of your videos but I was wondering if you could make a video about the long title reign that Toshiaki Kawada had with the AJPW triple crown around the same time as Kenta Kobashi GHC title run.
Maeda’s kick on Chosyu was actually a planned spot according to Maeda. He tapped him on the back just before the kick which was Chosyu’s cue to cover his face, but he didn’t.
Imagine if Bret "Hit Man" Hart had joined UWFi in late 1993 when his WWF contract was up? Bulldog was supposed to go to UWFi in early-to-mid 1993, until Giant Baba and WCW came calling.
An irony about Maeda and Saiyama is that early in their careers when they wrestled for their first times in Britain and the USA, they were typically billed as being brothers - Saiyama sometimes as “Sammy Lee,” and Maeda as “Kwik kick Lee.”
Fascinating look at things I've only heard in passing, and hey, I learned "Going Cement". Quickly my favorite wrestling content creator, loving these videos!
Maeda may be important, influential, tough as nails etc. But kicking a guy hard in the face when he can't see it coming is a cowardly move that substantially lowers my opinion of him. Punk move. Dropping the act and going after someone not expecting it will never NOT be a punk move. Memorable, but cowardly as fuck.
Maeda says the kick was planned and Choshu didn't protect himself. That seems likely as Choshu DIDN'T want Maeda to be fired and even petitioned for an angle. The firing was likely Inoki's way of sticking it to Maeda and to protect Inoki without running the risk of getting shot own.
"Expose the business in a way that would make Jim Cornette have a frickin' coronary over a decade before Russomania." If there's ever been a line that is so hilarious while so understated... that's it's. That's the line right there. Added aside: Think about this: Andre was brought in to take on Maeda because he was "considered" one of if not the toughest man in wrestling. Then you remember the quote from Bobby Heenan: "There was only 2 people Andre feared pissing off: Harley Race and Haku." ................................ makes one wonder what Maeda vs. Haku woulda looked like with both in their prime. Mr. Sneak Attack Badass OR The Man who inhales mace and fought an ENTIRE POLICE FORCE... FROM BALTIMORE. ((Which, for any non-Americans that don't understand the severity of the statement, is a VERY VERY VERY Violent town.))
I'm a life long pro wrestling fan. I grew up in Texas during the territory days. This was a terrifically done video. I rarely enjoy a wrestling video asuch as this one. Great job.
The greatest thing the first UWF did was no more count out finishes and no more top guys being protected. Every finish is clean and by doing that Baba did the same and so did inoki. Also that original UWF vs New Japan feud was brilliant.
This type of video is PRECISELY why I subscribed to this channel. Absolutely well done on every level. Cheers, and keep up the great work. Every time one of your new videos pops up and get hype. Nice work.
Love these puro deep dives! I don't like Choshu for what he did to Atsushi Onita, but I certainly respect his toughness as he didn't go down that blindside kick to the face.
@@blitzerblazinoah6838 they wrestled in a No Rope Exploding Barbed Wire match in New Japan, and Choshu gave Onita NOTHING. He completely dominated him as if he were a rookie and I don't know if he took a single bump for Onita. Love him or hate him, Onita is a legend. But I also lost a lot of respect for Onita for allowing Choshu to walk all over him like he did.
While Kitao and Tenta is the more famous incident, the more influential to shoot style was the week before in sws imo. The Minoru Suzuki and Apollo Sugawara non match played a lot into Pancrase.
Rickson was not considered one of MMA's lethal fighters at any time.. in BJJ he's definitely regarded highly. Infact he's a myth of fighters with a "400-0" record lol. His only wins in legit mma organizations are Funaki, Nakai and Yamamoto. Rickson routinely priced himself out of the major fights that should have happened IE; the Shamrocks, Rutten, Marco Ruas etc... Even up to the late 2000s, Rickson would talk about how the champions had no spirit and he would beat them. The hubris was almost as big as the myth around Rickson. I will say though that Rickson's son's death was a legit reason not to face anyone at that time.
To be fair, Rickson's time as a fighter was in the 80's in the Vale Tulo in Brazil. His reputation, even then, was that where Chuck Norris (who was at the top of Martial Arts *legit* more-so than as an actor or meme at the time) met him and got owned. No, it isn't THAT footage people talk about, that happened later at a seminar where Chuck invited Rickson to teach and that was a demonstration. It also wasn't about hatred, it was always two guys discussing and comparing ideas. By the time PRIDE 1 happened, it was Royce and Renzo as the major fighters on MMA with Rickson already being a legend and a special attraction in Martial Arts. Fun fact, YEARS later, Takada now has a Purple Bet in BJJ under Rickson. Any ill will was towards Anjo and I don't believe that exists.
Get to see the origins of at least a couple of AKI wrestling game animations. 29:21 is the front facing KO animation. 33:22 is the "Joe Bruiser" taunt animation.
I just recently finished one of your excellent video game lists (Top 100 PS1) and it was a brilliant watch, during it i couldn't help but wonder what your top 100 favourite wrestlers are , hope you let us know someday, that would be awesome.
I'm 10 minutes in and not one mention of Catch Wrestling or Karl Gotch although you showed him in a photo @ 4:05 . Hopefully you mention them later aswell as Billy Robinson.
Japan sports always feel the right way to represent how it should be. I always love Japan wrestling and combat sports. Shoot style was big back then. Alot of good fighters come from there
Hi, Kim! I noticed that you showed a clip of a show in Korea in the intro, from Korean pro wrestler Kim Minho's YT channel. May I ask why you put that clip in there while talking about puro? Was the match in the clip between Japanese wrestlers? Thanks! Also, speaking of Korean wrestling, I think it'd be interesting if you could do a video on Lee Wangpyo, the ace pupil of Kintaro Ohki(Kim Il) who ended up being the Korean Hulk Hogan and killed the Korean pro wrestling scene. He wasn't the sole reason Korean wrestling died of course, but he WAS a major contributor to the downfall. Pro wrestling is still around in South Korea, in the form of a few indie feds. Nowadays, Korean wrestling is somewhat like American wrestling where promos and character work are quite important. Hardcore matches are very rare because these feds are trying to improve the public opinion on wrestling, but they do furniture bumps sometimes
I appreciate what you said in the intro about how wrestling in perceived internationally, in particular the rose-tinted "orientalism" that westerners still keep subjecting Japan to. I think many of us in various nerdy subcultures went through a weeb phase (in varying degrees of extremity) and I recall how uncomplicatedly awe-inspiring Japan seemed back in the 90's and early 2000's as a young'un. There's obviously nothing wrong with liking and admiring a specific nation of course, there are a great many things hailing from Japan that I like. But Japan especially subjected lot of unwarranted praise from a certain kind of westerner (often an extremely lily white westerner ;p) who refuse to look at the country in an honest clear-eyed way, disregarding how complicated things actually are and how individual Japanese people themselves are. Instead they just want to perpetuate their ridiculous little fantasy of Japan being this futuristic utopia filled with happy and honour-bound little people, that has basically solved all social ills and whose attitudes towards women/LGBT/racial diversity etc. has yet to be "corrupted" by globalism - that latter point being one of the more glaringly obvious dog whistles unapologetic Nipponophiles betray about themselves
@@BigMacSoss I assumed it's because a lot of Japanese people are overworked and don't even own passports? I don't want to accuse you of proving my point for me, but... well... ;p
You can tell from the opening of Maeda vs. Sayama that the former was doing everything to make Super Tiger look bad; at the beginning, Maeda slaps Sayama as hard as he can; there's another moment in which Sayama tries his signature spinning kick, but Maeda steps forward so Sayama trips and falls flat onto the mat; and other instances in which Maeda gets up after having Sayama struggling on the mat, when it's quite clear that Maeda could've finished the match if he wanted to.
If I was Berbick or however you pronounce it , I would have taken my boxing gloves off and said " Ok ! NOW lets fight ! , throw them kicks ! " . Takada probably would have still kicked his ass at this point . But it would have been more fair .
A bit of a Correction here. 24:40 Koji wasn't mad he had to Job to Tenta. He was mad he had to job to him TWICE. They fought the Previous Day and he already Jobbed To Tenta Clean with no incident. He was then told to do it again. Overall Point still stand about him being a dick, but yeah...
I'm the biggest Andre fan ever, but I don't think that Andre was ever really a "badass". I don't think he's got it in him. He's a big teddy bear. Don't get me wrong I'm sure a young, mad Giant would be tough to deal with. He was laying down trying to prevent more damage and from getting shoot punched or kicked in the face. If Maeda would have sucker punched him, Vince would have sent the calvary after his ass..
Did a quick Google on this, the first few things I saw indicated strong style is a marketing term invented by Antonio inoki which is functionally the same as shoot style. Think Vince's "sports entertainment" vs wrestling
Strong style is a stiff entertainment style. It's still supposed to look like pro wrestling but it's supposed to look harder hitting. You still get flashy elements but matches are faster, they hit very hard and they tend to build towards theatrical elements rather than them being present throughout. King's Road is a form of strong style that takes out the flashy moves and adapts it to a much harder, much longer form, much slower form of pro wrestling. Tends to target the neck and head. Is very, very hard hitting, relies strongly on throws and suplex style moves. Shoot style is intended to look like a fight, relies heavily on strikes and grappling on the mat. Matches are often short, and are supposed to be mimicking multi discipline real fights within a framework of (often unspoken) rules. Hope that helps. I know you didn't ask about kings road, but it's kind of the middle piece of the shoot style puzzle.
Andre was definitely drunk in that match against Maeda, there are quite a few matches ( some of them here on RU-vid ) where Andre is wrestling completely blotto in Japan. I've never seen a single match in America were Andre wrestled drunk, my theory is that Andre was getting sick of wrestling in Japan, he was in horrible shape ( much worse than 87 88 and 89 ) and he was probably sick of annoying fans and small cars.
I've come to really enjoy these videos and gain even more knowledge on wrestling in Japan. However, I have to disagree with your assumption of our little rebel here hurting Andre. I mean think about it. If he really pissed of the giant or hurt him with those leg kicks, andre would of most likely grabbed him in a bear hug or gone to the ground and just lay on him. What's he gonna do under 500+ pounds? I think you are incredibly underselling Andre here. Sure he was going downhill and fast by this point but I just don't buy into this assumption. It would of been much bigger news, even without the internet, than a mere footnote lost to most outside of the Japanese wrestling scene. Andre "could of" also been testing him. Andre was known to do this. He wouldn't respect you if you didn't stand up for yourself. Perhaps maybe Andre was doing this but things got lost in communication and turned into a disaster. Thus Andre just laying there frustrated. A good example of this was Andre working Jake Roberts. Andre ragdolled him one night. This pissed Jake off so he confronted him about it backstage. Andre padded him on the shoulder and said now we make money. Jake earned the giant's respect for standing up for himself. When you didn't then he would continue to ragdoll you in the ring. Like he did to Randy Savage. Randy never confronted or fought back. It's just an old school mentality.
Ok so Tenta refused to remove the tiger tattoo but in WCW he agreed to change it to an ugly 'shark' tattoo because of that Dungeon of Doom gimmick... Yeah, makes complete sense, a legit sports company can't make him remove it but Hulk Hogan can 😅
I guess cause joshi wrestling is considered a separate sport from the mens scene, and the Yoshiko/Act shoot didn't really have a martial arts grounding (although Yoshiko did lose an MMA fight for Road FC later on). If he included the women's side it would have made sense to talk about the Jackie Sato vs. Shinobu Kandori shoot, which was around the same time frame as the matches in this video (late 80s), plus Kandori was a legit judoka who had a similar superiority complex as Maeda.
@@duckmercy11 literally makes no difference to you, it's just a little tiny bit of respect for someone but I guess being a terrible person almost passes as a personality when you haven't go one.
@@medes5597 I'll say this as simply and nicely as I can because I absolutely respect KJ for making these videos and don't want to deviate from the topic of wrestling. *Compelled speech is intolerable.* Shaming someone into using preferred pronouns then denouncing them as a horrible person when they won't is silly. Not everyone accepts gender fluidity as a valid concept.
16:24 I don't understand the big deal about the Maeda -> Choshu kick. Yes it was a stiff kick resulting in a severe injury, but these things happen when wrestlers work stiff. E.g. on April 6th, 1995, Toshiaki Kawada broke Mitsuharu Misawas orbital bone with a kick, the same injury Coshu suffered here. Unlike Choshu, Misawa didnt take any time off, wrestled again two days later, before finishing the tour by winning the Champion Carnival 1995. Misawa = GOAT.
It's not the working stiff or the style that's the issue. Or even the injury. It's that the way Maeda did it, Choshu has not way of defending himself. Even people who liked Maeda thought it was cowardly. Maeda lost a lot of ground because of it.
@@medes5597 Um, thats whats called Pro Wrestling. You put your body in the hands of your opponent, there is no such thing as "defending" a high kick, backdrop, brainbuster etc.
@@swr3092 dude it's the fact he kicked him whilst he was unaware of what was going on, not expecting it and not able to respond. Even Maeda has commented he picked the wrong moment to do it. If Maeda had kicked him when they were facing each other, in the midst of striking or whatever, nothing would have been said and it wouldn't have been an issue. This was so bad that multiple MMA promotions at the time called Maeda a thug and said they wouldn't let him work there. And yeah, you're kind of getting it. He did put his trust into Maeda. And Maeda waited til he was at no risk, when Choshu is distracted by other things and Maeda takes a sneaky shot that he couldn't see coming and then retreats before anything can happen. That's part of why it was so controversial. It wasn't like Maeda struck in the spirit of fairness. You're forgetting a hell of a lot about the idea of trust in pro wrestling and how honour based even legitimate combat sports are in Japan (think about how the Gracies were damaged for several years in Japan when they pulled out of fighting Shamrock in one of the early UFCs because it was seen as dishonorable cowardice for example)
@@medes5597 You obviously don't know what you are talking about. First, there are numerous spots, where someone is being kicked while holding someone in a boston crab. There is no way "defending" this. If someone runs into a Stan Hansen Lariat, he knows what is coming, yet he does not "defend" this by ducking or holding up his arms. He runs straight into the lariat, expecting the worst and hoping for the best. This is pro wrestling, thats why these men are legends and you are....well....you.
@@swr3092 if you cannot tell the difference between the spots you list and Maeda throwing in a cheap shoot kick from an oblique angle, while his opponent was distracted that everyone thought was cowardly and unfair, that even Maeda admits wasn't the way to do it, then I cannot help you. I have no idea why you can't understand the difference, or why you don't see a difference between Hansens brutal lariat to the face - which is delivered to the face in the midst of what is ostensibly a fight - or a heel heat spot that I've only ever seen used to show how cowardly and brutal a pair of heels are but you seem intent on not doing so. If I'm facing Hansen and running the ropes before the lariat, in theory we both have equal chance of falling victim to the others next move, correct? Hansen is as vulnerable as me, he has to be equally exposed to being struck in order to get his shot in. The heat spot with the boston crab is literally generating heat from the same thing Maeda did, that spot works by having two heels mercilessly attack a helpless babyface, the whole situation is unfair. If you can understand why the boston crab spot is a heel move to get heat, you should be able to understand why Maeda's cheap shot was so damaging to him and caused such outrage.
