On March 21, 1994, at the Yamato City Gymnasium, on the third day of that year’s Champion Carnival tournament, in a match between Triple Crown champion Mitsuharu Misawa and Doug Furnas, Furnas executed a Frankensteiner and Misawa landed on his head.
Misawa continued the match and won, as planned, via submission. He tried to wrestle two nights later in Kiryu in a six-man tag team match, but only tagged in once. He was said to be in tremendous pain, and it was announced that due to the neck injury, he would have to take the rest of the tournament off.
In theory, that destroyed all booking plans as Giant Baba, who had booked the entire tournament with the different wins and losses to end up with the top guys in top positions, middle guys in the middle, but some upsets and surprises, would have to change everything since Misawa had to forfeit the rest of his matches on the tour, most of which he would have won.
Furnas, in the dressing room the next day in Hiratsuka, when the word got out, heard it bad. His recklessness in doing what at that time was considered a dangerous move had not only put the company’s biggest drawing card out of action and hurt him, but had screwed up Baba’s intricate booking plans. All Japan was very much like a team that rallied together, trying to keep its place in a very competitive market by presenting the highest level of competition in the world. Guys were going to get hurt, but they worked hurt and you’d have to really be injured badly for the top guy like Misawa to complain, let alone take weeks off during such an important tournament.
And don’t think Furnas didn’t feel guilty. He was beating himself up mentally, and getting yelled at by Stan Hansen, in particular, the top foreign star and locker room senior and leader.
Misawa heard about how badly Furnas was getting it, and also, how badly he was feeling about being responsible for hurting the company.
The next day, Furnas got a message from one of the young guys. Misawa wanted to see him. Furnas now felt worse than ever. He was taken to the dressing room where Misawa and the other Japanese wrestlers were. Misawa was sitting in a chair with a neck brace on. He looked terrible. Now Furnas felt worse than ever.
Misawa made a signal. Everyone was told to leave the room. Now Furnas was really feeling bad. Once everyone left Misawa stood up, took off his neck brace, moved his neck around and smiled. He then put back on his neck brace and sat back down in the chair. Furnas was told to leave, and to let everyone know they could come back in the room.
The plan for the 1994 Champion Carnival tournament, and for the rest of that year, was to make Toshiaki Kawada and Steve Williams into singles superstars and Triple Crown champions, while also protecting the title, Stan Hansen, Kenta Kobashi and Akira Taue.
Rather than have Misawa, the champion, suffer a few losses and diminish the title that by that time he had held for almost two years and was the most protected world championship in pro wrestling, the idea was to make him out of the tournament and give everyone forfeit wins. Kawada would pin Williams, hopefully in a classic final match. Misawa would return, with a bad neck, and lose the title to Williams, whose big move was a backdrop driver, which impacts the neck. That would lead to Williams defending against Kawada, who would then beat him for the title. Kawada, Misawa’s top rival, would now be at a higher level, as he won both the Carnival and the Triple Crown. But he did so without ever beating Misawa.
Furnas went back to the foreigner dressing room. Hansen went back after him about how he’d hurt the company’s top star and screwed up the tournament. Furnas told him the story of what had just happened. Furnas knew enough that he shouldn’t tell the story to anyone, but obviously telling Hansen, with his standing in the company, would be okay. Hansen’s response was that now Furnas not only hurt Misawa and screwed up the tournament, but he was now lying and making up excuses for what he did.
On 4/9, in the main event of New Japan’s Sakura Genesis show, Kazuchika Okada was defending the IWGP heavyweight title against Katsuyori Shibata.
The match was among the best matches held anywhere in the world in the past few years, but there was one spot more memorable than any. Okada, who had his arm weakened during the match, finally connected with the rainmaker. Shibata not only didn’t go down, but responded with a sick head-butt. Immediately, Shibata’s head was split open.
It sounded terrible watching it at the time, but the one thing about Japanese wrestling is that as hard hitting as the matches seem on television, television greatly mutes the actual sound and impression, which is why Japanese bouts are generally so much more impactful live and move emotions more. One person who was at ringside watching noted to us that it sounded like a baseball bat hitting hard wood and said the sound literally turned his stomach. The match was universally praised. The spot was praised in some circles because it was the single most indelible memory of the match, but it was decried as well, because that type of stuff shouldn’t happen in the ring. You shouldn’t mess with the head.
In fact, the entire match had its questions. Okada, the guy whose role it is to carry the promotion for the next decade or so, took incredible punishment. You simply can’t get hit that hard, that many times, and not develop injuries. Injuries in wrestling are the killer to longevity, as well as the killer to longevity in being able to produce the kind of matches that are the current standard to headline big shows in Japan.
This isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon, especially when it comes to the protection of the long-term star performer. There are tradeoffs in the sense there is an emphasis on having great matches that move the audience, particularly in Japan when there are so many companies and the standard is so ridiculously high. But careers shouldn’t be sacrificed for one night pops.
When the match was over, Shibata and Okada both collapsed. The idea is that both men gave everything they had in a war that lasted 38:09. Had it not been for Okada’s match with Kenny Omega, this would have been a strong favorite for match of the year. The idea is both gave it everything they had. Okada won, but it was a battle of attrition and by the time it was over, neither had anything left. As Shibata was being helped out of the ring to the back, he lost his balance and fell to his knees more than once.
Backstage, Shibata collapsed again, motionless. Well, almost motionless. It was reported he couldn’t move. That actually was not the case. The doctors were checking him and said there was internal bleeding and he was rushed to the IUHW Mita Hospital.
It was said that Shibata was fully conscious and coherent at the hospital, but he was diagnosed with a subdural hematoma and was said to have undergone emergency surgery.
Dr. Shunji Asamoto, who performed the surgery, stated, “There is no medical evidence, but it is said it can easily recur. If he still wants to be a professional wrestler in the future, strict examinations will be necessary. I am not optimistic at all.”
So the big question is, is this real, or was this a way to sell and make the match even more legendary, give Shibata time off (and it’s possible with all the injuries he’s been working through that he needed it) and have him come back as an even bigger star? And there is no answer.
From talking to two people there and being contacted with a third, the belief they had is that this was an intricate work. Certain evidence was presented to me as to why, a few things that are notable, can’t be discussed here, but aren’t necessarily proof either way. The obvious aspect that this does fit into a potential great long-term plan for all involved (provided Shibata returns, as if he doesn’t, it’s very clear this was real) and that Gedo is a great booker. Of course, having a great booker doesn’t mean something that fits into a great long-term story is necessarily not real.
Still, one person noted he’s gotten stories that are polar opposites, and another said that it’s seemingly a subject they can’t discuss. Most are taking it as it being real. It could be. Some of the talent believes it is. Some doesn’t, but in pro wrestling, you are taught not to believe anything.
Even one person who said he believed it was a work and had evidence, conceded the possibility it wasn’t and that evidence would lead one to believe it was a work but it wasn’t proof.
It is certainly being portrayed as a potential career ending injury, coming right on the heels of the situation with Tomoaki Honma, which is an even more likely career ending injury. As a booker, does that mean the Honma timing would enable the public to believe it more and thus makes it a better time to do it, or would the timing be you wouldn’t want to do anything reminded people of that at this point in time? In wrestling, historically the former would be used in the thought process more than the latter, but to many, the latter would also be used.
The fact Shibata and Honma were the two guys in the promotion, along with Tomohiro Ishii, who would take stiffness to a different degree is probably a telling tale about limitations of what a human body can take. The reality is that the modern style is going to lead to more injuries because of the bigger bumps and higher flying moves. It’s somewhat tempered by the guys who work this style doing much fewer matches than their predecessors, and generally being smaller, but I’m not confident of the long-term. The long-term of the older generation, for the most part, wasn’t good. The long-term of the All Japan stars in the Misawa and Furnas era is downright horrible, although some of that was bad luck like Williams, Kobashi and Gary Albright, and wasn’t necessarily ring related. Others, like Misawa, absolutely was. With Furnas, it probably was as well.
For now, Shibata is off all shows. In time, it will be very clear what was and wasn’t real.
We are only three-and-a-half months into 2017, and Kazuchika Okada has had a run of major singles matches, with Kenny Omega, Minoru Suzuki, Tiger Mask W (Kota Ibushi) and Katsuyori Shibata that rank with the best runs of anyone in history.
Two key points that make this run even more notable. Okada has won every match cleanly. In every case (Tiger Mask W one could argue being the exception, but probably not), the loser of the match has gotten over far more than he was going in, and even with the clean win, in every case, it has built more interest for a rematch.
The other aspect is that while you can make comparisons to Ric Flair or Hiroshi Tanahashi or Mitsuharu Misawa or Kenta Kobashi or Shawn Michaels or Manami Toyota, in most cases, their series of great matches are stylistically similar. These were four completely different types of matches with four different types of opponents. There are Omega and Tiger Mask W similarities, but in the end, those were very different matches. Shibata and Suzuki both do the worked MMA styles, but they are very different in their approach to it.
The show drew an advanced sellout of 10,231 paid to Sumo Hall. While comparisons of direct numbers are misleading because of how attendance is now reported, New Japan has gone from only selling out Sumo Hall for G-1 to now selling it out regularly. It’s New Japan’s third straight sellout in the building. There was actually slightly more paid than even last year’s G-1 finals. This was said to be the largest paid attendance for a non-G-1 Sumo Hall show dating back more than 17 years, so while the touring shows have their ups and downs, the company is at its hottest period since the glory days when it comes to the big shows.
A major key to this attendance is also that it was not a fully-loaded show. It was really just a normal PPV show with no special title matches past Okada vs. Shibata. It was a strong showing in particular for Shibata, who has never been pushed to this level since his return. It was a show where the junior heavyweights were second from the top, and three of the company’s four biggest stars, Tetsuya Naito, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kenny Omega, were used in underneath tag team matches designed to build storylines for future matches as opposed to being key matches for the night on their own.
There was one title change on the card, as ROH’s War Machine, Ray Rowe & Hanson, defeated Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima to win the IWGP tag team titles. War Machine, as big agile guys, are the kind of a team that gets over in Japan. What’s notable is that seems to mean New Japan isn’t expecting them to be going anywhere soon. Both were under consideration by WWE, but WWE, due to legal threats, has backed off of approaching and offering deals to ROH talent for the time being. Tenzan & Kojima were never supposed to have the titles in the first place, and most likely the plan was for the belts to go to Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma, before Honma’s catastrophic injury.
Overall it was a hot crowd and almost every match was good, with an off-the-charts main event and a very unique semi-final, which showed how much they trusted and counted on the main eventers.
The co-main event, with Hiromu Takahashi defending the IWGP jr title against Kushida, lasted only 1:56. That goes completely against normal New Japan big match and championship match style when you have good workers. It was a gutsy call, and very much an arguable call. On paper, Takahashi vs. Kushida looked like the closest thing to a sure thing great match. Instead, it was used to get Takahashi over strong and educate fans that a finish can come at any times, as opposed to only after ten plus minutes of a grueling match. Or it may be a cover for a Kushida injury, given that he is off all cards (although he is booked in the U.K. this week) until returning on 5/3. That could lead to dissatisfaction when the match isn’t what you expect, but that allowed the main eventers to go so long and have time for the classic match.
The company also announced the key matches between now and 5/3, which is the annual Wrestling Dontaku show in Fukuoka at the International Center Arena. They are splitting the championship matches up on three shows, rather than loading up one, with five New Japan World live events over the next month.
. 
and takes the strap on some Nash Hogan shyt?
I just hope it's Meltz bullshyt but dude been on fire lately with his scoops.
I mean...WHAT?
