Kitao was asked to lose to Tenta at the Dome. He was furious. Tenta had been a well-known sumo in Japan because he was 6-foot-6 and 423 pounds as a sumo. Known as Kototenzan, Tenta showed a lot of promise, winning his first 21 matches in the lower division, the second longest streak from debuting up until that point in history. But he hated the lifestyle and quit barely six months after his pro debut, and became a pro wrestler as Giant Baba saw promise in him.
Kitao and Tenta were sumos at the same time. Kitao was a superstar in sumo while Kototenzan was the equivalent of a star trainee in developmental. Kototenzan became well-known due to his size and being a foreigner, but Futahaguro was one of the country’s biggest celebrities.
Tenta had several years of experience on Kitao and had become a big star in WWF, just coming off a huge money program with Hulk Hogan. Kitao was a household name, but inexperienced as a pro wrestler. Kitao saw it that this guy, in a shoot sport, was a prelim guy and not in his league, and complained that everyone in Japan knew they were contemporaries in a real sport and he wasn’t in his league.
The second night in Kobe, Kitao was told he was doing the job again. Kitao refused. It became a huge deal that night. Tenta placed sixth in the teenage world championships in wrestling and was a successful college wrestler at Louisiana State and a legendary bouncer/real street fighter in college because of his size. That size and reputation got him the offer to come to Japan and try sumo. Because of all that, he was considered as a real badass in the WWF locker room and maybe the toughest, or one of the toughest guys in the company.
With that rep, he had a lot of pressure on him regarding this big Japanese guy who said he wouldn’t lose to him. Kitao has dropped a lot of weight by this point so Tenta was much bigger than he was. Tenta came in clearly mad and cautious, but they did work somewhat early. Tenta took him down and it’s hard to tell if he muscled it and shot it or Kitao just went with it, because Kitao got out of the ring and they were still working, although not working well at all.
After a lock-up, Kitao went for a Kimura, likely as a shoot based on Tenta’s reaction, who did anything but go with it and blocked it and backed off. At that point, cooperation ended. Kitao, while having a rep for lazy, was likely in better condition. He was lighter and even a lazy Japanese trainer would be in better shoot shape than a guy on the insane WWF schedule of that era. He bulled Tenta into the corner and went to grab his throat, but the ref jumped in and called for a break. Tenta was mad, cautious and tiring. Kitao was also cautious and realized this was getting legit. Neither would make a move until Kitao got an open hand little blow to the face and Tenta tried a clumsy kick. Kitao got in a fighting stance and Tenta got even madder, yelling at him. Neither would make a move. Kitao then put his hands on his hips, apparently daring Tenta to do something. Tenta continued to hell at him. The fans didn’t know what to make of this and the ref yelled at Kitao, who then sucker kicked the ref who, trying to figure out a way to make this end, had his excuse and called for the DQ on Kitao.
But it wasn’t over. Tenta raised his arm like he had won. Kitao then grabbed the mic and said in Japanese, “You do nothing but fake wrestling, you fake b*stard” and said that Tenta could never beat him if it was real. Fans hated this, for one, everyone deep down knew pro wrestling wasn’t real, but didn’t want to be told in the middle of the show. They knew Kitao violated the basic rule, plus the match outright stunk, the finish was awful, and the crowd blamed it on Kitao and not Tenta. Plus they had seen the match devolve, and as a shoot, the reality is neither would make a move so Kitao’s bragging about he Tenta could never beat him if it was real didn’t jive with the guy who was every bit as cautious as the other guy.
Of course, Kitao was fired immediately.
exactly what you want from these two. A simple story to start, Shuji suplexes Yuji on the apron fukking up his mid section, giving him a target to hit every cut off spot he needs to keep control, and it also puts a large mountain Okabayashi has to climb to turn things around. Strikes are vicious in this, specially when compared to the rest of the show, this really was on another level. This had 2 suplex no sells by Yuji that would normally take me out of the match, but the fact that he was groggy for like 2 minutes and Ishikawa was still on top - which lead to an awesome struggle for control/test of strength segment - made up for the kind of excess I'm not a fan of. I think the only fault this match had was that it was 3 minutes too long, the final sequence was a little clunky and the crowd felt it. They were able to bring them back for the actual finish though. Awesome main event @Scottie Drippin
