quote:

Hustle president Nobuo Yamaguchi announced on 10/28 that the promotion was folding. He made the announcement that they were out of money, and could no longer pay the staff and the wrestlers. He said that the scheduled 10/29 show at Korakuen Hall was canceled, as are all the rest of the shows on the schedule.

Hustle, which called itself a wrestling opera, was a wacky promotion that had big money behind it at first from the same promotion that ran the Pride Fighting Championships. The promotion was at one time strong enough to sign Bill Goldberg for a $125,000 per match deal, and at another point was in negotiations for Steve Austin. Even a few months back, they were paying Bob Sapp $35,000 per week, but as money got tight, they jobbed him out.

They had a cult following, but never were drawing enough to justify the money they were spending. Since Nobuhiko Takada left the promotion as the top heel, interest had gone way down. Many of the shows were before small crowds, and most of those crowds were papered.

While nobody would say so publicly, they were behind on paying a lot of the wrestlers, and the demise of the promotion has been expected for the last couple of months. Yamaguchi said his goal was to eventually bring the promotion back.

KungFu Grip posted:

apsouthern posted:

edit: ignore this, one of my 3 years olds has figured out how to post on SA

Ditch posted:

Looking like Sugiura defends vs Hirooki Goto on 1/4. Sugiura beat Goto twice during the summer. Goto is coming off a win over Masato Tanaka.

edit: Also, Tajiri is starting up a new promotion called Smash from the remnants of HUSTLE. Looks to be much, much smaller.

HulkaMatt posted:

Card is coming along nicely!

So do you expect the Dudleyz to still hold the titles when this show is over?

Ditch posted:

IWGP Tag Team Title - 3WAY Hardcore Rules Match: Giant Bernard & Karl Anderson beat "Team 3D" Brother Ray & Brother Devon (c) and Yujiro & Tetsuya Naito (10:34) when Anderson pinned Ray, after Ray was elevated into the air by an invisible force and dropped on his head, to become the 55th champions.

Ditch posted:

He pinned KENTA with it once in 2006.

And I think KENTA would need to add at least 7KG of muscle to become a potential heavyweight champ. Marufuji's reign wasn't so good for business but it also came right after Kobashi left. Misawa drew better but that's really to be expected. I don't know that Rikio or Morishima would have done more than Marufuji in '06. All that said, Marufuji had bulked up and used a style where it made sense that he could sneak out wins against heavies. KENTA uses brute force, so he needs to get bigger to be credible getting knockout-style pins on big names. Sugiura is about his height but much thicker, and even he's only getting a push because they're desperate.

Ditch posted:

It's worth noting that most refs bang out a three count in just over 2 seconds. ECW refs are the worst for this, especially for any 'babyface wins' finish. New refs are actively advised to count fast in general.

That said, Joe in his later years could be frustratingly slow. Still not HALF as bad as the ref in the 2000 WON MOTY though. How the hell can anyone stand slow counts in a fast-paced match with a ton of nearfalls??

Ditch posted:

Sugiura will miss the upcoming short tour with a curse arm fracture. The key is if he can make the big-ish show on the 28th, and if not that, then can he return for the big singles tournament tour on April 10th. Though maybe he wouldn't have been in the tourney anyway.

HulkaMatt posted:

Kawada.

HulkaMatt posted:

You can break it's branches.

Ditch posted:

KENTA's new hair and shirt:
http://noah.co.jp/imgs/newsimg/100312_04.jpg

Ditch posted:

Now Taue is hurt

HulkaMatt posted:

What in the world is this company going to do?

HulkaMatt posted:

I was just going to ask you what was up with Kobashi.

HulkaMatt posted:

I'm more concerned about the hand.

Captain Charisma posted:

That show is just not good at all. Style clash in pretty much every match iirc

Ditch posted:

Trust me, he didn't. At least not a multi-page one. I'm part of a forum that really focuses on WON and that's something that comes up regularly. Plus I have a source *cough* for WON and didn't see one.

Ditch posted:

About freaking time. Maybe he was doing it Tully-style and holding auditions for a '10'.

Ditch posted:

TM4 was never gonna unmask, unless you think the debut of TM5 obligated him to.

They can keep grinding it out for years, I mean look at frigging Zero-One.

Illinois Smith posted:

I love reading Alan's online ramblings just because of how excited he gets about stuff but I think listening to him rave about all 500 of his favorite DG matches of 2010 would be enough to drive anyone insane.

HulkaMatt posted:

Alan is a real nice guy.

Ditch posted:

NOSAWA, the omnipresent mediocrity, managed to do four crimes within the span of a minute.

He was drunk, and wanted a taxi ride to his hotel. Taxi driver didn't know how to get there (this is common for some reason) so NOSAWA argues with him, gets out, opens the driver's door, pulls the driver out, and starts driving for a little ways until the cops pull him over. So:

-Assault
-Drunk driving
-Stealing a taxi
-And he didn't have his driver's license

Now, let's see if he goes to jail before Jeff Hardy!

coconono posted:

Hey BJW, the grossest thing I've ever seen is Abdullah Kobayashi drinking a liter of egg yolks. Don't do that ever again.