The only reaction one would have to the main event storyline at the Rikidozan Memorial show on 3/11 at the Yokohama Arena is that WCW level booking stupidity occurs on major Japanese shows as well.
From the start, the idea of a Shinya Hashimoto & Naoya Ogawa tag team, while good for gaining press, seemed like the worst idea because of the nature of their heated angle. And after an angle-filled strange show, with an attempt to duplicate one of Japanese wrestling's legendary scenes, the late 1987 introduction of Big Van Vader (who destroyed Antonio Inoki in two minutes in his Japanese debut, which actually caused a riot, which was bad, not good, that night, but ended up through improving greatly over the next several months actually became a superstar in Japan anyway), this time with 7-2 former college basketball star Ron Reis. What's curious about Reis is that he's a legit 7-2, and is several inches taller than Paul Wight, but because he was never put in a position to be pushed, his height in wrestling was always decreased as opposed to exaggerated by the few to many inches than pro wrestling traditionally does with tall performers. Reis has flopped across the board with both the Americans and Japanese trying to teach him to be a wrestler, playing the monster foreigner role as B.B. Jones. In the end, what looked great on paper, Jones, under a mask as the gigantic foreigner, a throwback to the Sharpe Brothers in the Rikidozan era as well, pinning Hashimoto, and in one night making himself a superstar, wasn't great in practice. As it turned out, the disappointing crowd of 9,000 fans (announced as 13,500), showing that while fans will pay to see Hashimoto "fight" Ogawa, they aren't interested in seeing them work pro wrestling angles (this is almost a WCW level lack of understanding of what made the angle work and not understanding how it can't be done as a typical "pro wrestling angle"), laughed at the main event and groaned at the finish. A new Big Van Vader wasn't created as much as a new Gasper Brother (one of New Japan's flop angles during a down period in the 80s).
And when it was over, in order to build heat for the next Hashimoto vs. Ogawa match on 4/7 at the Tokyo Dome, Hashimoto, after being pinned dramatically in this tag match, at least on paper, was to announce that if he didn't win the Dome match, he'd retire. Unfortunately, this angle that should have been a dramatic comeback to a bloodied defeat, came off as bad comedy, and adding a retirement stipulation, that due to context, didn't get taken seriously.
Overall, the show, which looked bad on paper, was even worse live, said to be one of the worst major shows in Japan in a long time. Aside from the opener, which even then was below par considering the talent involved, there wasn't one pro wrestling match that could be considered good. The most exciting matches after the opener were actually a shoot match involving Yuki Kondo of Pancrase, and there was a big pop for current teenage rock sensation Hideaki Takizawa, 18, who sang the national anthem and then pinned Antonio Inoki in a comedy match.
Complete results saw: 1. Magnum Tokyo & Gran Hamada beat Cima & Sumo Dandy Fuji in 18:25 when Tokyo pinned Fuji after a Michinoku driver. This, combining three wrestlers from Toryumon with Hamada from Michinoku Pro, who all do the same Japanese lucha libre style, was said to be the only good match on the show;
2. Naoki Sano of Takada Dojo pinned Yuki Ishikawa, the boss of Battlarts, in 11:30 in what was said to have been so-so;
3. Yuki Kondo of Pancrase in a shoot match choked out Kan Tenjun of Korea in :40. This was an explosive exciting match since Kondo was given an easy opponent. After the win, Kondo announced his next match would be 5/26 at the Tokyo Dome (he didn't announce his opponent who is expected to be Saulo Ribiero, the winner at 191 pounds in Abu Dhabi last week);
4. Commando Boilshoi of JWP & Yumiko Hotta of AJW, beat Kayoko Haruyama & Ran Yuyu of JWP in 10:10 when Boilshoi pinned Haruyama with a reverse uranage. Also said to be so-so;
5. In another womens match, Yoshiko Tamura & Yuka Nakamura & Kyoko Inoue of Neo Ladies beat the JWP trio of Dynamite Kansai & Tsubasa Kuragaki & Azumi Hyuga in 16:36 when Tamura made Kuragaki submit. Said to be kind of boring;
6. Yoshiaki Fujiwara, at age 50, returned to the big stage in a legends match against old rival Satoru Sayama, winning with a leglock in 10:56. Said to have been passable;
7. Junji Hirata of New Japan & Ryuma Go of his own promotion beat the New Japan team of Tadao Yasuda & Osamu Kido when Hirata pinned Yasuda after a schoolboy. It was said to be decent when Hirata was in, which was most of the way. Go was said to be terrible, which was expected, but he wasn't in much;
8. In a total comedy skit billed as an exhibition match, Hideaki Takizawa beat Antonio Inoki in 3:57. This match got a huge reaction because Takizawa is such a big deal right now that a lot of teenage girls, who didn't react or care about any of the other matches on the show, bought tickets to see him. Inoki clowned around and sold because Fujiwara would interfere. Finally, Takizawa got the pin after a people's elbow. Not all that long ago, Takizawa sang at a baseball game and drew 20,000 extra female fans, so the belief was his appearance would lead to this show drawing tons of women, but that wasn't the case;
9. In the Big Japan vs. FMW feud, Big Japan stars Ryuji Yamakawa & Tomoaki Honma beat FMW headliner H along with prelim boy Naohiko Yamazaki in 18:58 when Yamakawa pinned Yamazaki with a reverse tiger driver. Said to be so-so;
10. In what was said to be a terrible match that the fans booed, Yoji Anjoh, the former UWFI and Kingdom star who most recently was fighting in K-1, beat indie wrestler Tarzan Goto via DQ in 13:37. Both looked terrible. Both juiced and Goto used objects like a fork, a chain and some chair shots before he finally was DQ'd for hitting the ref. Fans booed the match and the finish;
11. Jones & Genichiro Tenryu beat Hashimoto & Ogawa in 8:51. The storyline for this, totally unbeknownst to the live audience, is that at 5:30 p.m., with no witnesses or cameras, Ogawa's regular tag partner Kazunari Murakami jumped Hashimoto in the parking lot and bloodied him up. At first, Hashimoto didn't even come out for the match. When he finally came out, he was walking real slow to sell the injury. Ogawa worked the first five minutes before their pre-arranged stipulation of Hashimoto going in. Hashimoto worked with Jones, who threw him outside the ring and brawled with him, causing the audience to, laugh. That wasn't the idea, and it got worse because Hashimoto was selling a serious beating and Jones' offense was anything but serious.
Ogawa vs Hashimoto was such an odd feud, Hash getting his ass kicked completely into retirement 
. And everyone has at least one stan
Nice try
