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1glitch0 posted:I was just wondering about Taker. At the very least, Andre seemed to like him. I doubt there would have been any jealousy problems since at the beginning, he was no different from any other unstoppable monster gimmick. He was going to eventually lose his mystique from feuding with guys like Hogan and Warrior and slide down the card. It just so happened that he got really over and when it was apparent that Vince wanted him to remain a major player, a lot of the old guard were out the door. Of course, Hogan did pull some bullshit on him.
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Aug 22, 2023 00:51
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When was Noah's peak and how big was it? Especially compared to New Japan and All Japan. I've always assumed it was the early 2000s when Kobashi/Taue/Akiyama/Misawa(?) could still go but I don't actually know how successful it was.
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Aug 22, 2023 09:43
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Taffy Torpedo posted:When was Noah's peak and how big was it? Especially compared to New Japan and All Japan. Yes, NOAHs peak years business wise were from the launch in August 2000 until...well I'd say it was downhill from their 2nd Tokyo Dome show, Destiny 2005, July '05. By the summer of 2006 you have Kobashi out with cancer, Taue has basically stopped doing singles matches, the new generation just don't get over for reasons unrelated to their talent, and Misawa ends up wrestling while breaking down and carries the company on his back until it kills him. There were also issues with their TV in the backhalf of the decade, they were still on NTV but IIRC the timeslot gets worse and worse until it's the middle of the night. Hard to create new draws when everyone sleeps through your TV. How big were they? Probably the biggest company in Japan, but that was because New Japan kept shooting itself in the foot because of MMA obsessions, kneecapping Nagata hard and forcing Kojima to walkout with Mutoh and some others. All Japan had to build back from basically nothing after the split, they ended up working with New Japan guys and Mutoh ended up running the company for a decade. They also lost their main TV deal as NTV went with Misawa. So you could see AJPW if you had Gaora Sports (also broadcast Toryumon/Dragongate & some other stuff) but it's a subscription channel which limits the audience dramatically. So yeah, NOAH was #1 in the country for a while, they claimed over 60,000 in the Tokyo Dome for Destiny '05, obviously a worked number but certainly implies somewhere in the region of 30-40k.
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Aug 22, 2023 10:14
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Yeah, I thought I remembered NOAH being the biggest Japanese company but I kinda thought they were just the best of the early-2000s slump. It sounds like they were actually getting decent numbers though?
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Aug 22, 2023 13:42
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Dr. Quarex posted:Childhood trauma memories unlocked of throwing up at least once on literally every single international flight when smoking was still allowed, and throwing up precisely zero times on flights ever since it was banned At least then you're inhaling smoke through a filter.
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Aug 22, 2023 14:48
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It doesn't look like Wrestle-Universe has much of an archive, which is kind of a bummer. I guess all the stuff from that era is up on YouTube and other non-official channels?
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Aug 22, 2023 14:52
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1glitch0 posted:I was just wondering about Taker. Also if you look at the first year of Undertaker's career in WWF (leading to Hogan beating him), the guys he never lost and never sold to were: Mario Mancini, Rick Sampson, Tugboat, Ray Hammer, Terry Davis, Sonny Blaze, Randy Hunter, William Ford, Shane Douglas, Alan Reynolds, Jimmy Snuka, Bossman, Tommy Angel, David Isley, Jim Duggan, Pat Armstrong, Jim Powers, Dale Wolfe, Major Yates, Larry Ludden, Stephen DeLeon, Buck Zumhofe, Dan Robbins, Jim Evans, Scott Bazo, Terry Zeller, Bob Allan, Jim Gorman, Ray Williams, Brian Jewel, etc. He was fighting almost exclusively jobbers on TV/house shows, with a few name guys thrown in. When he wrestled on house shows against real stars like Savage or Piper or the Ultimate Warrior, Undertaker almost always lost via DQ, countout, or botched interference leading to Undertaker being put into the casket or bodybag. After he lost to Hogan in December 1991, he pretty quickly turned babyface and spent the next period of his career fighting the same Monsters of the Week he was introduced as, guys like Giant Gonzales, Kamala, Fake Undertaker, etc. He was kind of off in his own Special Attraction world. Post-1991 he didn't get another world title shot until the Royal Rumble 1994, where he was defeated in a world title casket match by like ten people and the casket exploded and he ascended into heaven to set up his eventual return against himself. After that, his next title match was against Bret Hart at the 1996 Rumble. By the time he started regularly appearing in main events against other main eventers, he'd been firmly established as a big star/locker room veteran and there wasn't really anyone around to complain about him to.
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Aug 22, 2023 14:56
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Taffy Torpedo posted:When was Noah's peak and how big was it? Especially compared to New Japan and All Japan. NOAH got off to a slow start, their first two years were not super strong business wise. Once Kobashi returned from his knee injuries in 2002 the promotion started to take off and its peak was 2003-2005 centered around Kobashi's GHC title reign. Business stayed pretty good into 2006 but the Marufuji/KENTA Budokan show did not do well in October of 06, and Kobashi's cancer treatment in 2007 signaled the end of NOAH's strong period. They were probably the #1 company in Japan from 2003-early 2007 but it's hard to say because NOAH was extremely strong in Tokyo but weak elsewhere while New Japan's business outside of Tokyo was stronger than NOAH's. apophenium posted:It doesn't look like Wrestle-Universe has much of an archive, which is kind of a bummer. I guess all the stuff from that era is up on YouTube and other non-official channels? Like with any Japanese promotion that had a network TV deal the rights were owned by the networks so you get to watch it for free on youtube because if they aren't profiting off the promotion they forget it exists.
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Aug 22, 2023 15:06
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MassRafTer posted:Like with any Japanese promotion that had a network TV deal the rights were owned by the networks so you get to watch it for free on youtube because if they aren't profiting off the promotion they forget it exists. Although some matches seem to have had copyright strikes against them that NTV had the rights to. The full Can Ams Kobashi & Kikuchi Tag from 1992 that Meltzer went ***** seems to have vanished from Youtube. It is still up in other spots but a bit of a shame if we lose all that great AJPW & NOAH stuff being easy to share with people.
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Aug 22, 2023 15:22
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Shard posted:Sounds like the only way to have a decent time and be world champion back then was to not be married, not have kids, have someone to book all your travel arrangements and not like to sleep. This does a lot to explain the prevalence of cocaine in the era.
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Aug 22, 2023 16:28
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MassRafTer posted:NOAH got off to a slow start, their first two years were not super strong business wise. Once Kobashi returned from his knee injuries in 2002 the promotion started to take off and its peak was 2003-2005 centered around Kobashi's GHC title reign. Business stayed pretty good into 2006 but the Marufuji/KENTA Budokan show did not do well in October of 06, and Kobashi's cancer treatment in 2007 signaled the end of NOAH's strong period. They were probably the #1 company in Japan from 2003-early 2007 but it's hard to say because NOAH was extremely strong in Tokyo but weak elsewhere while New Japan's business outside of Tokyo was stronger than NOAH's. Wasn't one of the big problems NOAH had that they could duplicate the spot show business All Japan could do in smaller towns with Baba and outside of Tokyo none of the new talent got over? quote:Like with any Japanese promotion that had a network TV deal the rights were owned by the networks so you get to watch it for free on youtube because if they aren't profiting off the promotion they forget it exists. This does not apply to anything TV Asahi sadly 
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Aug 22, 2023 16:46
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I wish there was at least a way to easily watch the DDT Peter Pan shows from 2010 and 2012
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Aug 22, 2023 16:51
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SatoshiMiwa posted:Wasn't one of the big problems NOAH had that they could duplicate the spot show business All Japan could do in smaller towns with Baba and outside of Tokyo none of the new talent got over? The issue with the spot shows that I heard was they were sold shows and the businessmen paying for the shows were big fans of 90s All Japan so they wanted Misawa, etc. With the etc all on the shelf, Misawa felt it was incumbent upon himself to keep going well past his expiration date.
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Aug 22, 2023 17:23
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MassRafTer posted:The issue with the spot shows that I heard was they were sold shows and the businessmen paying for the shows were big fans of 90s All Japan so they wanted Misawa, etc. With the etc all on the shelf, Misawa felt it was incumbent upon himself to keep going well past his expiration date. This is also what I've heard, yeah. Really Misawa should've done what Baba did & restrict himself to the comedy opener with Haruka Eigen, Rusher Kimura, Mitsuo Momota, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & that crew (Kimura & Eigen may have retired by 2006 or '07, but the general type of match). Ultimately the people in the spot shows just wanted to see Misawa, they didn't need to see him, to pick a random example from Cagematch, main event in a 23 minute match in '05 with Dick Slinger & Ogawa vs Bison Smith, Akitoshi Saito & SUWA in Morodomi, or another one from 2007 where he also goes over 20 minutes with Kotaro Suzuki & Ogawa vs the Briscoes & Nigel McGuinness in Hyogo.
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Aug 22, 2023 17:43
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Those shows USED to be up on WU but when they migrated sites we lost a ton of good matches Like the beer garden FCA with Ibushi/Kenny And the Rojos can be hard to find (anybody have a link for apartment wrestling?)
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Aug 22, 2023 17:45
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forkboy84 posted:This is also what I've heard, yeah. Really Misawa should've done what Baba did & restrict himself to the comedy opener with Haruka Eigen, Rusher Kimura, Mitsuo Momota, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & that crew (Kimura & Eigen may have retired by 2006 or '07, but the general type of match). Ultimately the people in the spot shows just wanted to see Misawa, they didn't need to see him, to pick a random example from Cagematch, main event in a 23 minute match in '05 with Dick Slinger & Ogawa vs Bison Smith, Akitoshi Saito & SUWA in Morodomi, or another one from 2007 where he also goes over 20 minutes with Kotaro Suzuki & Ogawa vs the Briscoes & Nigel McGuinness in Hyogo. If I were a respectable Japanese businessman I would want to see that last match. I've seen so much NOAH, to the point I was collecting the DVDs they were releasing in the US and I have no memory of actually watching Dick Slinger in NOAH. He has one of the most fascinating careers because 99% of his career was in Japan. MassRafTer fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Aug 22, 2023 |
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Aug 22, 2023 17:46
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Misawa didn't even need to do full comedy, he could just be a hot tag with his elbows and get a pin/dominate the heels before tagging out. But he felt he had to give 100% I wonder does he feel the need to go as hard if Kobashi didn't have cancer
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Aug 22, 2023 19:13
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Thinking of the definitive torch-passing matches, did Misawa do a definitive "this is it, guys. This guy is now the guy, now" match with Marufuji like he got with Tsuruta?Taffy Torpedo posted:Yeah, I thought I remembered NOAH being the biggest Japanese company but I kinda thought they were just the best of the early-2000s slump. It sounds like they were actually getting decent numbers though? Yeah, as I recall, they were one of the few gaining an audience while everyone around them was seeing a significant decline in theirs. 05/06 sounds about right as to when the wheels started to fall off the NOAH wagon.
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Aug 22, 2023 20:08
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edogawa rando posted:Thinking of the definitive torch-passing matches, did Misawa do a definitive "this is it, guys. This guy is now the guy, now" match with Marufuji like he got with Tsuruta? No, Marufuji never got that. Heck he was the one who last the title to Misawa on Misawa's last reign The passing the torch match was Misawa/Kobashi for the GHC title and it was for awhile till Kobashi got Cancer
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Aug 22, 2023 21:54
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SatoshiMiwa posted:No, Marufuji never got that. Heck he was the one who last the title to Misawa on Misawa's last reign They tried with Rikio but he was not the right guy. They didn't put Marufuji over strongly enough when he beat Akiyama and Morishima was supposed to be the next big guy when he beat Misawa but it didn't work for a variety of reasons.
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Aug 22, 2023 21:58
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Whatever happened to Morishima? I watched a couple roh ppvs back in the day where he was a big deal and then I never heard of him again.
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Aug 22, 2023 22:04
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Sandman McMahon posted:Whatever happened to Morishima? I watched a couple roh ppvs back in the day where he was a big deal and then I never heard of him again. depression+ his body breaking down. really sad honestly cause he ruled
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Aug 22, 2023 22:07
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Sandman McMahon posted:Whatever happened to Morishima? I watched a couple roh ppvs back in the day where he was a big deal and then I never heard of him again. Here's a good video I watched on him the other day, it's a bit long but as someone who had the same question going in it kept me hooked the whole way through https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs1qYaNH9Nk
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Aug 22, 2023 22:15
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Rikio 100% wasn't the guy but also NOAH did him no favors by having his Dome title defense be against 2005 Hiroshi Tanahashi in the middle of the card. They 100% should of got the belt of him before than cause at least he could be rebuilt in the future instead of his match just highlighting the weakness of his reign
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Aug 22, 2023 23:27
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Not sure Misawa was a very good booker on the whole.
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Aug 22, 2023 23:33
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Misawa definitely seemed to get the wrong lessons from his victory over Jumbo (thinking a big win will make you a Superstar forgetting the crowd 100% wanted him to win)
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Aug 23, 2023 00:10
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Rikio's GHC reign was kind of in trouble even before his first bout, to be honest. Ticket sales for his 1st Budokan defense against Akitoshi Saito were slow, so NOAH decided to use the card to set up Destiny's big matches, including the final meeting between Kawada and Misawa -- when it became clear a few days before the show that Kawada was going to be there, they got the sell out. So that completely overshadowed anything Rikio did, then Misawa flatout said Rikio wasn't going to be main eventing the Dome (going against all tradition of the champion closing the show) and...yeah, it became clear pretty quick that Rikio wasn't going to be a big deal at the top. He barely stood a chance, although he was hardly alone there -- everyone else after Kobashi also struggled. Rikio was totally fine and never really deserved the bad rap he got for a weak title reign, he just wasn't freaking Kobashi. That and his relatively short career means he doesn't have that big a body of work.
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Aug 23, 2023 13:25
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Kim Justice posted:Rikio's GHC reign was kind of in trouble even before his first bout, to be honest. Ticket sales for his 1st Budokan defense against Akitoshi Saito were slow, so NOAH decided to use the card to set up Destiny's big matches, including the final meeting between Kawada and Misawa -- when it became clear a few days before the show that Kawada was going to be there, they got the sell out. So that completely overshadowed anything Rikio did, then Misawa flatout said Rikio wasn't going to be main eventing the Dome (going against all tradition of the champion closing the show) and...yeah, it became clear pretty quick that Rikio wasn't going to be a big deal at the top. He barely stood a chance, although he was hardly alone there -- everyone else after Kobashi also struggled. Rikio was totally fine and never really deserved the bad rap he got for a weak title reign, he just wasn't freaking Kobashi. That and his relatively short career means he doesn't have that big a body of work. To be fair, having someone's first title defence being against Akitoshi Saito is never going to be a draw. Even when he was facing Kobashi in his legendary title reign the match was at the EDION Arena/Osaka Prefectural Gym & did 5,200 in a building that can hold 8,000 according to Wikipedia. And that's from an era where we know NOAH released exaggerated/worked attendance figures! It definitely wasn't on Rikio, I agree with that. I just don't think Misawa was a good booker when it came to creating new stars. Go Shiozaki didn't get over like that until after he returned from All Japan after the Kobashi retirement fiasco, they whiffed on Morishima, & guys like KENTA, Marufuji, even Sugiura didn't get over the Junior "stench". Part of that is less on Misawa than on Baba, in that NOAH inherited All Japan fans & All Japan barely even treated the Juniors like an afterthought, but Misawa had 5 years in which to get over that the Juniors were as good or even better than the Heavyweights. But that was wrestling in the time period, unless you were a luchraresu promotion weight classes mattered way more than they do now.
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Aug 23, 2023 14:02
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NOAH really needed something like a G1/Champions Carnival where they could give a young a push and get momentum while not having them be the champion right away
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Aug 23, 2023 15:00
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forkboy84 posted:To be fair, having someone's first title defence being against Akitoshi Saito is never going to be a draw. Even when he was facing Kobashi in his legendary title reign the match was at the EDION Arena/Osaka Prefectural Gym & did 5,200 in a building that can hold 8,000 according to Wikipedia. And that's from an era where we know NOAH released exaggerated/worked attendance figures! NOAH for all its booking worries had the best junior division in the early 00s. The chances to make the stars, however, were more or less pushed aside as the company wanted to stay afloat. Tokyo and Osaka (for the most part) received the new talents somewhat warmly, but it was a completely different thing in the rural areas. The local promoters and sponsors wanted big names, so Misawa complied. Kobashi, Misawa, Taue were all put on the top as they has the All Japan prestige. They were pushed front and center for these sold shows, while the younger talents languished in the undercard. The sold shows brought money to the promotion so they could keep the boys paid. This was one of the key factors in 2009 when Misawa was still main eventing shows especially after losing the NTV deal.
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Aug 23, 2023 15:01
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So with the benefit of hindsight, how should NOAH have built its next generation? My first instinct is to say that they should've copied what NJPW were doing at the time with their new Three Musketeers and slowly built up a new Four Pillars, with Akiyama in Kawada's place I guess. Like, Baba got Misawa so astronomically over in 1990 by putting him over Jumbo, and then he made Jumbo the top heel for the next two years, built up Taue as his disciple, and built up Kawada and Kobashi as Misawa's comrades, so could they have replicated that in some way or another in the early days of NOAH? Like, let's see what young wrestlers they had around the time of the exodus: -Takeshi Morishima (only two years into his career at that point) -Naomichi Marufuji (likewise, also still a junior) -Makoto Hashi (likewise on both counts) -KENTA (three months into his career, still a junior, had yet to drop his surname) -Takeshi Rikio (likewise, but a heavyweight who kept both of his names, and as discussed already itt he was the wrong man at the wrong moment) -Yoshinobu Kanemaru (four years in, only 24, full of potential, but still a junior) -Daisuke Ikeda (seven years in, but he was 32, bearing in mind that Misawa was 28 when he had that match with Jumbo, so idk) -Kentaro Shiga (six years in, only 25, afaik he was very promising before the neck injury, still a junior) -Satoru Asako (nine years in, 29, but a junior) -Masao Inoue (lol. lmao) -Jun Akiyama (oh, wait) ...actually, yeah, I now see the problem: NOAH didn't have many young heavyweights at the time. Bearing in mind that Misawa had already been a heavyweight for four years before he unmasked and went over Jumbo, it really wasn't plausible for Misawa to promote a junior and immediately put them over. They had to rely on their established heavyweights, and they clearly didn't think Morishima was good enough yet to push him to the top, so idk. I dunno, I think we can all agree that pushing Rikio was a mistake, as was pushing Marufuji the year after, but I also think they were in between a rock and a hard place at that point.
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Aug 23, 2023 17:42
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I think as much as NOAH pushed having an excellent junior division, those guys needed a lot more in the way of victories against top heavyweights before they went out there and started winning the GHC title rather than it all happening so suddenly. Perhaps KENTA and Marufuji could have picked up a couple more wins in their trials. When Misawa as TM II started getting wins over guys like Ted DiBiase it was a big signifier of how far he was going. There's some other what ifs from those early years like Takao Omori being thought of as the guy who was going to be successful from NO FEAR, until he hosed it up by ending that Hashimoto match early and it all went to Takayama. Ogawa winning the title as well, which also didn't really end up coming off.
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Aug 23, 2023 18:48
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The funny thing is during Rikio's reign they seemed to be slow building Marafuji up to Heavyweight ranks properly. They had him at the dome teaming with Suzuki in a heavy tag title match and it's was a good team cause Suzuki isn't that much bigger than Marafuji and you can have Marafuji build up pins so the fans seem has a legit Heavyweight... But than they dropped that plan and went with him winning the title on a roll up cause they were super desperate for a new star
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Aug 23, 2023 19:09
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Every so often I remember that Go Shiozaki won his first World Title the literal day after he saw Misawa die in the ring, absolutely hosed. It's no wonder it didn't work out for him until years later
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Aug 23, 2023 19:36
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Its even crazier cause Akaiyama was the champ when Misawa died iirc got a check up and had a bunch of injuries including a back and ended up vacating
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Aug 23, 2023 21:59
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SatoshiMiwa posted:The funny thing is during Rikio's reign they seemed to be slow building Marafuji up to Heavyweight ranks properly. They had him at the dome teaming with Suzuki in a heavy tag title match and it's was a good team cause Suzuki isn't that much bigger than Marafuji and you can have Marafuji build up pins so the fans seem has a legit Heavyweight...
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Aug 24, 2023 13:01
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Can anybody remember the wacky tag team names of the PWG tango and cash invitational way back in the day?
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Aug 24, 2023 22:39
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Manwithastick posted:Can anybody remember the wacky tag team names of the PWG tango and cash invitational way back in the day? Danielson and Super Dragon were Double Dragon
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Aug 25, 2023 02:19
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Manwithastick posted:Can anybody remember the wacky tag team names of the PWG tango and cash invitational way back in the day? I was too tired to do this last night but I have loaded up the video Phoenix Star & Zokre - Cheech & Chong's The Corsican Brothers Chris Bosh & Quicksilver - Batman & Robin Joey Ryan & Scott Lost - Dumb & Dumber Jardi Frantz & Mdogg20 - Sidekicks Al Katrazz & Hardkore Kidd - Castaway Havana Pitbulls - Turner & Hooch Excalibur & Jonny Storm - Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein American Dragon & Super Dragon - Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Ballard Brothers - Twins Puma & Samoa Joe - Lilo & Stitch Disco Machine & Rising Son - Shanghai Knights B-Boy & Homicide - Friday Thomaselli Brothers - Blues Brothers 2000 (loving vicious) Apollo Kahn & Sara Del Ray - 48 Hours Christopher Daniels & The Messiah - We're No Angels Chris Hero & CM Punk - City Slickers 2: The Legend of Curly's Gold
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Aug 25, 2023 09:04
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Has Sting ever really been a heel?
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Aug 27, 2023 07:31
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