Essential Japanese Wrestling Discussion/News

[Apex]

Okada vs. Marufuji at KOPW was such a remarkable match. Corino's commentary really added to it.

 

[PlayerNinety_Nine]

About to check this DDT Battle Royal on a train.



Heard Court Bauer talk about it and it sounds like weapons grade fukkery

EDIT: There's a couple of moments in there so far

Well - that was....interesting. I was kinda expecting Kota Ibushi to show up. This seems like exactly the kind of thing he turned down a contract with Vince for.

 

[Honga Ciganesta]

In a cruel irony of fate, it now appears likely that the match designed to bring Katsuyori Shibata into a top tier position with New Japan Pro Wrestling may be the last match he’ll ever wrestle.

Shibata, 37, who remains hospitalized after his 4/9 IWGP title match with Kazuchika Okada at Tokyo Sumo Hall, is said by friends of his to be unlikely to ever be cleared to wrestle again after surgery due to a subdural hematoma from a sick skull-on-skull head-butt spot as a counter to being hit with the rainmaker.

The combination of the length of the match, dehydration and the trauma from the head-butt led to doctors advising New Japan that they would likely never be able to clear him to wrestle in good conscience.

New Japan has not announced this publicly, nor has anything been said publicly about Shibata’s situation after some brief statements in the days after the match.

Shibata collapsed backstage and was rushed to the hospital in a situation where nobody knew what was and wasn’t real, because Japan does have a history in keeping the lid on its most protected angles and making them seem legitimate.

But while there was a lot of questions last week, almost everyone at this point is going with the idea the injury and situation is exactly as it was described last week.

Dr. Shunji Asamoto, who performed the surgery, noted that he would need a strict examination before being cleared to wrestle and that he’s not optimistic at all.

One of the reasons why the company and its doctors are so cautious in this situation has to do with an incident 17 years earlier that also involved Shibata when he was breaking in.

Masakazu Fukuda captured the national high school wrestling championship in 1990 in Japan under coach Yamato Oshino at Ashikaga Kogyo High School. He was the third national champion that Oshino had coached, with the first two being Mitsuharu Misawa in 1980 and Toshiaki Kawada in 1981, who had gone on to become two of the greatest wrestlers in history. Fukuda went on to place second in the nation in freestyle wrestling in 1994 at 180 pounds, and was a 1996 Olympic hopeful. But he left amateur wrestling before the Olympic qualifying tournament to turn professional with the RINGS promotion. But he quit in camp and instead started working independent shows. He was brought into New Japan as an outsider for the 1998 Best of the Super Juniors tournament and impressed officials to where he was signed to a full-time contract in January 1999.

On October 17, 1999, in a match with Shinya Makabe (Togi Makabe) in Kobe, Fukuda suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, which required brain surgery. He got extensive testing but was given a clean bill of health and returned to action in February of 2000.

On April 14, 2000, he wrestled Shibata in Kesenuma, Japan in the Young Lions Cup. Fukuda was scheduled to win the match and do well in the tournament, and be moved into the heavyweight division and be put into a shooters group with Yuji Nagata, Manabu Nakanishi and Yutaka Yoshie. Shibata delivered a routine elbow drop barely six minutes into the match and Fukuda was supposed to kick out. Instead, he began snoring in the ring and was rushed to the hospital where he underwent emergency brain surgery, and passed away five days later at the age of 27.

The only word we’ve received on Shibata is that he’s awake and alert, can carry on a conversation and has memories of the match with Okada. At first, he had some right side paralysis, but that has gotten better.

Shibata lost to Okada in an incredible match which boosted both men’s stock because they sold out Sumo Hall in advance with more paid attendance than any non-G-1 show the company has run in the building in more than a decade. It was done with Hiroshi Tanahashi, Tetsuya Naito and Kenny Omega working undercard tag team matches, so it showed that Okada had become a legitimate top drawing champion on his own, and that the crowd saw Shibata as a strong challenger who they were behind in his quest to win the IWGP title as opposed to it being just another main event match. The match was given no special angle and established Shibata as one of the big five stars of the company.

Shibata, the son of 1970s New Japan wrestler Katsuhisa Shibata, went to Kuwama Kogyo High School where he was a national high school wrestling champion in 1997. He was best friends and teammates with Hirooki Goto and the two started together in the New Japan camp.

He was groomed for stardom in New Japan. The company, in a declining phase, chose Shibata, Shinsuke Nakamura and Hiroshi Tanahashi to build around. But Shibata quit the company in 2005 when one of the New Japan promoters left and started a new promotion where Shibata was to be the top star. During the period he was in New Japan, they were putting some of their wrestlers with strong legitimate backgrounds in shoots. Shibata did one professional kickboxing match, which he lost via second round stoppage from a body blow, and one MMA fight in Brazil, which he won in 52 seconds.

He left pro wrestling and spent five years doing MMA. Shibata, who fought as a middleweight, was a huge name in the MMA world but not a great fighter. Because of his fame, he had matches with some of the top middleweights who fought in Japan during that period, with losses to the likes of Ralek Gracie, Kazushi Sakuraba, Jason “Mayhem” Miller, Yoshihiro Akiyama, Hayato Sakurai and the much larger judo gold medalist Satoshi Ishii. He was knocked out five times as an MMA fighter, and compiled a career record of 4-11-1.

He returned to New Japan with Sakuraba in 2012 and was a heat machine. He played the role of an outsider doing a shooter gimmick, no selling traditional wrestling spots and working matches to look legitimate with hard strikes and working a match to make it appear there was no cooperation.

Owner Takaaki Kidani, a big MMA fan, particularly of Sakuraba, brought them in at a time when most of the roster didn’t want them around, remembering how previous overuse of MMA fighters had greatly hurt the popularity of the promotion.

But Sakuraba & Shibata were a big success as outsiders. In time, Sakuraba’s injuries and age caught up with him, but Shibata only became a bigger star, having strong matches in particular with Tomohiro Ishii and his big feud with Goto. He and Goto later became a tag team and won the IWGP heavyweight tag team titles from Karl Anderson & Doc Gallows on January 4, 2015. That fulfilled a teenage dream that he and Goto had of winning the titles together at the Tokyo Dome.

He also held the Never championship three times. While he got wins over most of the top stars, he was always booked at the level just underneath the top guys. The Sumo Hall show was his first chance to carry a major show in a championship match on his own, and many thought he would win the title. Evidently, the idea is to keep the title on Okada and build up Omega as the big challenge, but Shibata was scheduled to be in the top mix going fo rward.

There are ways to safely do head-butts in pro wrestling, but the legitimate skull-on-skull type that Shibata did with Okada, and also did with Katsuhiko Nakajima last year in a feud that never got out of the blocks, should be banned by all pro wrestling companies.

 

[Apex]

Hope Shibata can come back one day. He deserves to be around to see the Tokyo Dome sell out again.

 

[MenacingMonk]

All those years of head butting finally got to him.

 

[MightyHealthy]

If they did it for Milano AT, then one can hope they do the same for Shibata.

 

[Hey_zeus]

I can't believe what GOATbata is going through.

 

[TOAD99]

Damn Shibata is one of my favorites

Those headbutts were cringe inducing though. No need for them.

Too bad this shyt happened to him.

Just glad he's alive. His injury sounds really bad so I doubt he's coming back (he shouldn't, no need to die in the ring)

 

[ezrathegreat]

Watched New Beginning in Sapporo. Wasn't feeling it at all. Typical undercard of bleh to build up other matches, and then after such a dull undercard, Suzuki/Okada doing a match with 30 mins of leg locks felt pretty boring to me. Especially since the leg work ultimately went nowhere, as Okada was still able to do all of his spots (standing dropkick, corner dropkick, missile dropkick, flying elbow, kip up) with no problems. But then they work this almost 70s AJPW style and randomly have a ref bump and big run in brawl that....also goes nowhere, as the match went right back to leg locks as soon as the brawl was over. Felt very incongruous and unnecessary with the match they were working.

Idk, I was getting HHH/Rollins vibes. I hope I'm able to get Okada = Rollins out of my head, if not, he's ruined forever for me. His selling really sucks, though. The screaming and not being able to walk to dropkicks where he jumps over the ropes and poses. I hate that grabbing or slapping your knee for a second counts as selling now. As long as you slap your knee before and/or after, it's cool to go from not being able to walk to being able to jump 12 feet in the air. He also DESPERATELY needs to either learn to strike harder or cut out strike battles from his matches, because when he's throwing those weak ass elbows or slaps at a dude like Suzuki

That was hilarious.

 

[Jmare007]

There is another serious situation in Japan, as Akebono was rushed to the hospital after a show in Fukuoka. The last word we had is that he was in a medically induced coma. He was expected to be hospitalized for at least ten days. He was hospitalized after a match on Tuesday night in Omuta working for DDT.

fukks sakes Dave, I praise dude for finally not falling for the 1sr report regarding puro news and right away he does this

from purolove:

On Sunday in his daily update Dave Meltzer reported that Akebono had been rushed to a hospital after a show in Fukuoka where he was placed in a medically induced coma.

On Tuesday Abekono`s promotion Oudou published this statement:

"Thank you for the warm support. Regarding our company`s representative Akebono, he is currently under medical treatment in hospital due to a right leg cellulitis and an infection. As a results of discussions with the hospital side, we decided to cancel appearnces of all events scheduled in the future. Initially the person himself [Akebono] was very disappointed by this decision, now he`s recuperating with his medical treatment aiming for a return [to the ring]. Also some articles were misleading due to reports that were posted. Because there are many parts that are far away from the facts. We are going to revise at this place. To all our fans and everyone concerned we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience. We will give updates regarding our future schedule. Akebono continues to thank you for your kind regards.

Oudou Co., Ltd."

After only quoting the statement translated above Tokyo Sports has since posted a summary of of Akebono`s hospitalisation:

The cellulitis on Akebono`s right leg occurred on the same place as last year around that time. Because bacteria from the wound entered the body into the blood he seems to have slight fever. However, his situation is said to not be critical.

Akebono wrestled for ZERO1 on April 9 & 10 and for DDT on April 11. On the morning of April 12 his body felt weird so referee Bomber Saito brought him to a hospital in Fukuoka where he received intravenous treatment. In oder to receive more examinations he was hospitalized.

Since Bomber Saito had to fulfill his work obligations Akebono`s wife and kids came to the hospital, then left on April 17 after Akebon received his test results. Due to the news of an emergency transportation various speculations rose in the pro-wrestling and sumo wrestling world. Speculations about his condition being life-threatening were denied by the statement from his promotion Oudou yesterday. Tokyo Sports also seems to be under the impression that he will return to the ring.

 

[Kidd Dibiase]

 

[The Rainmaker]

 

[23Barrettcity]

Feel bad for shibata and his fans . I still never liked his style though snd this is why

 

[MightyHealthy]

Kitamura eats roids for breakfast

 

[stro]

Kitamura eats roids for breakfast

Good. I hope he eats more. I need a true monster hoss in NJ besides 5'8" Michael Elgin and Bad Luck Fale. I was very VERY disappointed in the Elgin/Fale NJ Cup match. Not because I thought it'd be good or anything, but because Elgin didn't do any power spots at all. His only "power spots" were a vertical and German suplex. shyt Ishii has done to Fale. PROVE to me you're as strong as you say, breh. Catch Fale doing a dive, breh.