Essential Japanese Wrestling Discussion/News

JohnB

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Masakatsu Funaki leaves Wrestle-1

"At a press conference in Tokyo, at which Wrestle 1 Keiji Muto and Masakatsu Funaki founders were present, told the latter that he will leave the promotion, at whose foundation he worked in September, 2013, the end of June. Funaki erlärte that he had been in discussions about a contract extension, but he had been unable to agree on terms with the promotion, which allowed to remain. Thus, he would win his last time on Saturday for Wrestle 1 and be active as a freelancer from 1 July. Keiji Muto pointed out that the many innovations that have been introduced by the new CEO Sanshiro Takagi since May, were generally positive, but in this case you have not found each other. The 46-year-old also revealed that he decided against a "Spot Participation" agreement, in which it had been paid per appearance for W-1. It is therefore assumed that the paths of Funaki and Wrestle 1 have finally separated.One of the issues raised by Muto innovations by Takagi are apparently the "spot contracts". With such a deal is from early July TAJIRI, who was responsible for the booking since the end of 2014, be active for Wrestle 1. It involves a limited number of performances that are guaranteed by the promotion. Remarkably, this is mainly because only TAJIRI almost exactly a year ago came to Wrestle 1 when he left Wrestling New Classic with five other wrestlers. To what extent this is changing its status within the promotion, was not known."
 

trick

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:mjlol: at this Kojima/HHH story

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Jmare007

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I can't find it there

:stopitslime: just click it and it leads you to this post.

It was a gradual shift (Nakamura having his current gimmick) that happened over the course of late 2008-early 2009 (damn, it's been that long?). He switched from trunks to black leather pants, grew his hair out (though he didn't adopt the cut you see today until late 2011 or so) and started relying on knee strikes and straight punches for offense. The attitude came gradually over the course of 2011-2012 between his New Japan work and stints in CMLL, as he started shaving the sides of his head, gesticulating weirdly and generally being an eccentric in and out of the ring. It's been quite the transformation to observe.

As for why? Well, NJPW had been trying to push him as their next "guy" since about 2003 (when they found out that he was the only guy that they had that could take an MMA fight and not completely embarrass himself) and it never really stuck. They kept pushing and pushing him, and they kept watching as Tanahashi eclipsed him in popularity and became the cornerstone of the promotion that he was supposed to be. The austere prodigy gimmick wasn't really working, and even the early stages of his CHAOS gimmick only worked so well. So, on an excursion to CMLL, he decided to indulge a bit in his weirder side, and you see the results from that decision.

Dude's probably the most popular guy in the promotion due to his style and charisma, and is likely only out of the IWGP Title scene by choice. It'll be interesting to see where he goes next.
 
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