gordi

I like that structure very much. I find if you have something like that to work off of, the rest of the pieces can fall into place much more easily.

What a Main Event! I would have been marking out for that in '85.

I love how you and LowBlow are using your different versions of the Machines. It's always entertaining to read.

The Tag Tourney is really heating up! I hope Tommy Rogers is going to be OK.

Love how you are using Foley, and how you structured the card to ensure maximum appeal for the Canadian audience.

JWA Revival End of Tour Hype Show Aired on Asahi TV April 21 1985 Hosts: Konishiki Yasokichi, Hidekazu Tanaka We start right out with footage from April 16, at Kawasaki City Gym: JWA Heavyweight Champion Tenryu and his challenger Fujinami are shaking hands in the ring after Tenryu’s 1st successful title defense. Suddenly, the ring is stormed by Adrian Adonis, Dick Murdoch, and Bad New Allen, who are carrying chairs and other weapons. They attack Tenryu and Fujinami, who are taken by surprise and beaten down. Bad News bust Tenryu open with a nasty chair shot. Jumbo Tsuruta and Yoshiaki Fujiwara, who competed in a #1 contenders match earlier that evening, charge into the ring to make the save. We cut to: Fujiwara and Tenryu in the studio with Konishiki and Tanaka. Fujiwara explains that even though he has earned the right at a title shot, he now feels that he would prefer to see Tenryu get his revenge on Bad News on April 26th, in Tokyo, at the Nippon Budokan. Tenryu, his head heavily bandaged, thanks Fujiwara and promises that he will get a title shot in the near future. He then promises to beat Bad News Allen so that he can honour his promise to Tenryu, and also get revenge for the beating. Fujiwara then offers a challenge to Adonis and Murdoch, the North-South Connection. Tenryu asks who Fujiwara’s partner will be. Out comes none other than Jumbo Tsuruta. Konishiki and Tanaka put this over huge, as two great Japanese wrestlers will be teaming together for the very first time on the End of Tour show. ***BREAK*** After the commercial we get footage of Hashimoto beating Mutoh to win the NJPW Young Lions Cup. The victorious Hashimoto was allowed to choose anyone on the roster to be his tag partner to challenge for the Tag Team Titles on the End of Tour Show on April 26th, and to the delight of the crowd he chose Mutoh. Tanaka hypes up the Tag Title Match, and we get footage of the JWA Tag Team Champions, The Fighting Sprits (Antonio Inoki and Akira Maeda), in action. Then we are joined in the studio by Gran Hamada, who talks about how honoured he feels to be fighting for the JWA Middleweight title in the Budokan. We get footage of the JWA Middleweight Championship #1 Contenders Determination Match from Kawasaki, featuring Gran Hamada, Masakatsu Funaki, Black Terry, and Tiger Mask Misawa. We also get a highlight reel of JWA Middleweight Champion Black Tiger in action. ***BREAK*** We return to find Tatsumi “Dragon” Fujinami at the desk with the hosts. Fujinami explains that while he is The Dragon, there is also an “American Dragon” who will be coming to the Budokan on the 26th. We cut to footage of Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat in action in the AWA ring. We then cut abruptly to footage of Anoaro Atisanoe paddling an enormous outrigger canoe through heavy waves, accompanied by a freakishly muscular companion. A brightly colourful chyron is superimposed over the footage, reading (in Japanese): Tatsumi “Dragon” Fujinami and Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat vs Anoaro Atisanoe and Don Muraco. April 26th. Tokyo Nippon Budokan. There is another abrupt cut, to footage of the crowd going nuts as Baba and Choshu lock up in Kawasaki. We get another chyron, hyping: Giant Baba, Tiger Mask Sayama, and Tiger Mask Misawa vs Riki Choshu, Umanosuke Ueda, and Tatsutoshi Goto. Back in the studio, we are joined by Takashi “Onomi” Ishikawa and Ashura “Fighting” Hara, who narrate footage of their intense training in preparation for their match with The American Dream Team on the 26th. ***BREAK*** Los Guerreros del Universo (Babe Face and Black Terry) join us in the studio to loudly declare in broken Japanese that they will prove the superiority of the UWA by taking the Middleweight Tag Team straps from The Mighty Animals. We then get some clips of Hamaguchi and Inoue in action, winning the titles. That is followed by a well-produced video package hyping up the singles match between Sting and Bam Bam Bigelow. We get to see their impressive power and athleticism in action as the narrator asks which of these young gaijin will prove to be the stronger. We close with brief clips of Masa Chono, Osamu Kido, Masakatsu Funaki, Kazuo Yamazaki, Naoki Sano, and Masa Fuchi in action and the credits play over a replay of the attack on Tenryu and Fujinami by Adonis, Murdoch, and Bad News.

Wow, they ran the show three times in a row Great introduction for Stan Hansen!

It's cool to see the NWA develop as the promoters work together. It's like anyone could show up anywhere at any time, which keeps things unpredictable and exciting.

Nice to see Akira getting experience in there vs a great team like the Rock n Rolls

Who won the 8-man in Mobile?

Tex vs Tenn just keeps heating up

JWA Revival End of Tour Show – April 26th, Tokyo, Nippon Budokan Masa Fuchi vs Naoki Sano Blade Runner Sting vs Bam Bam Bigelow Masa Chono and Osamu Kido vs Masakatsu Funaki and Kazuo Yamazaki JWA Middleweight Tag Team Championship match: Los Guerreros del Universo (Babe Face and Black Terry) vs JWA Middleweight Tag Team Champions The Mighty Animals (Animal Hamaguchi and Mighty Inoue) The American Dream Team (Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake) vs Takashi “Onomi” Ishikawa and Ashura “Fighting” Hara Giant Baba, Tiger Mask Sayama, and Tiger Mask Misawa vs Riki Choshu, Umanosuke Ueda, and Tatsutoshi Goto ***BREAK*** Tatsumi “Dragon” Fujinami and Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat vs Anoaro Atisanoe and Don Muraco JWA Middleweight Championship Match: JWA Middleweight Champion Black Tiger vs Gran Hamada JWA Tag Team Championship Match: JWA Tag Team Champions The Fighting Sprits (Antonio Inoki and Akira Maeda) vs The Young Lions (Shinya Hashimoto and Keiji Mutoh) Jumbo Tsuruta and Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs The North-South Connection (Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch) JWA Heavyweight Championship Match: JWA Heavyweight Champion Genichiro Tenryu vs Bad News Allen

I'm currently writing a 1985 Japan thread in the Armchair Booking 1983 project, and I've really been enjoying these write-ups of mid-80s Japan that Superstar has been doing. I have the North-South Connection working as my top gaijin heels now, so this was particularly fun and inspiring for me to read. Thanks for doing these! ... And you guys have to admit, that Chiggy vs Dump hair match had what has to be the quietest and least responsive pro wrestling crowd of all time

Crazy thing, though probably not all that surprising, is that "in real life" Zeus is one of the warmest, kindest people you could ever hope to meet. His look is totally suited to being a cocky, dickish heel but the dude behind that look could not be more different from the character he's playing. Bodyguard, too, while we're at it.

Yep. From the 1950s through the mid-80s "Big Monster Foreign Heel" vs "Valiant Japanese Hero" was the *primary* booking strategy in Japanese pro wrestling, and it continued to be extremely important until well into the 90s. There were a few exceptions (for example, the Funks eventually got so popular that they could work as gaijin faces) but from Fred Blassie through Abdullah the Butcher, Stan Hansen and Vader, the monster gaijin was a fixture of puroresu. Guys like Joe Doering in AJPW are doing their best to keep some part of that tradition alive today, but foreigners can easily work as good guys in Japan now, too.

JWA Revival Debut Mid-Tour Event April 16, Kawasaki City Gym Keiichi "Thunder" Yamada vs Kuniaki "Tiger Hunter" Kobayashi I like to open a big event type of show with an exciting but relatively low-stakes singles match. Fortunately, our junior and middleweight divisions are pretty stacked with talented workers, so we've got a lot of options for booking that kind of opener. Here we have our top up-and-comer against a savvy and experienced veteran. Kobayashi made his stripes as Tiger Mask Sayama's heated rival. Now its time for Thunder to prove himself and he looked great here using speed and technique to stay even with his larger and more experienced rival. Yamada ended up getting pinned with a Fisherman's Suplex Hold, but Kobayashi made sure that he looked really good even in defeat. Dos Caras, Shiro Koshinaka, Osamu Kido and Blade Runner Sting vs Greg Valentine, Brutus Beefcake, Anoaro Atisanoe, and Siva Afi. You know you have a stacked roster when this is the second match on the card. Beefcake looked a little worse for the wear after the beating he took from Inoki and Maeda, but he also worked a lot tighter and more believably in this match. I guess Valentine must have had a word with him. He also looked a lot better in there working with guys who are more than willing to bump and sell. Siva Afi looked pretty good, too. He seems to be getting more intense and focused. I think working with The Islanders during the tag festival had a really good effect on him. Sting also had an impressive spot where he lifted Atisanoe up and walked around the ring before Power Slamming him. In the end it came down to Valentine and Kido, trading chops for kicks and really making the sweat fly. Eventually the Hammer took Kido down with a nasty Elbow Smash, dropped another elbow to his midsection, and then locked in the Figure Four for the win. Seiji Sakaguchi, Isamu "Carpenter" Teranishi, and Yoji Anjo vs Bad News Allen, Umanosuke "Professor" Ueda, and Bam Bam Bigelow The big attraction here was 1965 All Japan Judo Champion Sakaguchi facing off with 1976 Summer Olympics heavyweight bronze medalist Allen Coage. So, of course we made the fans wait for that. Anjo threw some stiff shots at Bigelow, who then tossed his much smaller opponent all around the ring. Former sumo wrestlers and IWE mainstays Teranishi and Ueda had a nice long battle where the blonde brawler had a rare chance to show what he can do on the mat. Teranishi made him look like a million bucks, feeding him hold after hold and counter after counter. Then, finally, we let the two judokas go at it. They didn't disappoint, mixing judo, brawling, and pro wrestling in equal measure. Sakaguchi almost got a pin off of a Choke Bomb, and then Bad News came back with a Double Leg Enzuigiri but Sakaguchi made it to the ropes to escape the pin. He then tagged in Anjo, who threw a few nice kicks but then got hit with a Lariat from Ueda, a Splash from Bigelow, and finally a Piledriver from Allen to put an end to things. JWA Middleweight Championship #1 Contenders Determination Match: Gran Hamada vs Masakatsu Funaki vs Black Terry vs Tiger Mask Misawa We've just had two big clubbering heavyweight tag matches and there is a lot more clubbering still to come, so its time to break things up with a fast-paced and entertaining match. There are some stakes to this one, too, as the winner will get a Middleweight Title shot at the end of the tour. Hamada flew all over the ring, Funaki threw some stiff strikes, Black Terry punched people right in the face, and Misawa bumped and sold for everyone. Black Terry and Funaki even tossed in a little bonus funky mat work. In the end, Gran Hamada earned the title shot with a Flying Swinging DDT on the young shoot stylist Masakatsu Funaki. Riki Choshu and Yoshiaki Yatsu vs Giant Baba and Ashura Hara Obviously, the fans were dying to see Choshu and Baba go at it again so we gave them a long segment at the start where Hara and Yatsu bulled each other around the ring, then a bit of Choshu beating Hara down, then a tease that the two big stars were going to fight but Choshu made the tag so we got Baba vs Yatsu instead then a little more Yatsu vs Hara. Its maybe a little much teasing out two big match-ups on one card, but when Baba and Choshu finally locked up, the crowd went crazy. Choshu went right at the Giant, knocking him down with a Lariat for a near-fall and forcing Baba to go to the ropes to escape the Sharpshooter. Baba came back with a series of chops and a Coconut Crusher for a near-fall of his own. In all, the crowd got about five or six minutes of Baba vs Choshu before Hara and Yatsu got tagged in again. After a couple of minutes of back and forth action, Hara levelled Yatsu with a Hitman Lariat then tagged in his partner, who hit a big Riki Lariat to end the match. ***BREAK*** JWA Heavyweight Championship #1 Contenders Match Jumbo Tsuruta vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara Jumbo just absolutely dominated the first fifteen minutes of this match with power moves and suplexes. He tossed the veteran grappler all around the ring but Fujiwara was just too tough and resilient to stay down. Fuiwara's only offense in the first fifteen minutes consisted of kicking and punching Jumbo's Lariat arm, which seemed to have almost no effect on the large Olympian. The turning point came when Jumbo tried to work over Fujiwara's leg with a Spinning Toe Hold, after taking him down with a Neck Breaker. Fujiwara reversed into a Heel Hook, and once he had Jumbo on the mat all of the momentum shifted in Fujiwara's favour. He worked Jumbo's leg, quickly transitioned into working his neck, then seemingly out of nowhere he locked in his signature Arm Bar. Jumbo struggled to defend then struggled to escape, but Fujiwara was relentless. Tsuruta nearly made it to the ropes, but Fujiwara managed to roll him back into the middle of the ring. At that point, Jumbo had no choice but to submit. The two men shook hands in the middle of the ring after the match, in a show of mutual respect. JWA Middleweight Championship Match: JWA Middleweight Champion Black Tiger (with Babe Face) vs NWA International Junior Heavyweight Champion Mighty Inoue (with Animal Hamaguchi) This match was booked to clean up the Middleweight Title situation and further legitimize Black Tiger's reign. We also want to set up a Middleweight Tag Title defense between Hamaguchi & Inoue and Black Terry & Babe Face on the 26th. So, for anyone paying close attention the outcome was never really in doubt but the match was still enjoyable. This was a straight-up heel vs face battle with Black Tiger subtly cheating, Babe Face constantly interfering, and referee Verne Siebert catching Hamaguchi in the act whenever he tried to even things up. After 15 minutes of this, Black Tiger caught Inoue with a Tombstone to defend his belt and add the NWA International Junior title to the JWA Middleweight Title lineage. JWA Tag Team Championship Match: JWA Tag Team Champions The Fighting Spirits (Antonio Inoki and Akira Maeda) vs The North-South Connection (Adonis and Murdoch) Other than Inoki's selling, this match was everything you could hope for. There was brawling, technical work, a real sense of struggle and hatred... The North-South Connection trapped Maeda in their corner early on and beat him down at length. Maeda bled a gusher, and that played into the ongoing story of this match: Maeda's spirit was undimmed, but his body wore down more and more as the match (and the bleeding) continued. In the end, Inoki was able to earn the victory for his team with a Flying Knee Drop on Murdoch. The only thing that kept this match from being even more dramatic was that Inoki just refused to take big bumps or do any long-term selling. Maeda carried that burden for his team, and he did a great job but Baba still felt like we should have a word with Inoki after the show. Suffice to say, Inoki did not take the constructive criticism at all well. JWA Heavyweight Championship Match: JWA Heavyweight Champion Genichiro Tenryu vs Tatsumi Fujinami This is precisely the kind of main event match that Baba had in mind when he put this roster together. I really pushed for Tenryu as our inaugural champ, but there is one potential issue with having a man like him in that position: We want him to work as a fan-favourite, but hes so big and tough-looking that it's hard for him to draw sympathy from the audience. Fujinami is only one inch shorter than Tenryu but hes more than 40 pounds lighter so if anyone was going to get sympathy heat in this match it was the challenger. One good solution for this kind of dilemma (i.e. a dominant-looking face champ) is to follow the kind of formula that the WWF often uses for Hulk Hogan matches: The champ takes a terrible beating before making a valiant comeback. We are definitely going to do that with Tenryu, but we don't want to go there every time. Further complicating matters: Fujinami is a straight-up good guy wrestler with tons of fans. I had dinner with Fujinami, Tenryu, Verne, and Doriya-Mon a few times, on the road, to try and work out a different way to tell the story. Eventually Fujinami came up with the idea that he would go straight at Tenryu and try to beat him at his own game: Strikes and bombs and big power moves. The match could be kept relatively short (around 16 minutes) and be worked at a furious pace. After taking the fall, Fujinami could explain in magazine and newspaper interviews that his pride had cost him the match because he didn't work to his own strengths. Ichiro Furutachi and Takashi Yamada could put that over on commentary when the highlights were shown on TV, as well. So that's what we did, and it worked like a charm, and the post-match show of respect got interrupted by Adonis, Murdoch, and Bad News charging the ring to set up the end-of-tour main event (and Jumbo and Fujiwara making the save to set up a nice tag match as well).

Spivey was the right choice for the new Varsity Club member. Nice entertaining angle to set that up.

Love seeing Barry Horowitz in the TV main event. Interesting slow burn with Macho and Liz.

Nick Bockwinkel vs Billy Robinson has got to be the greatest opening match in the history of the Gardens. I'll bet Funk vs Backlund at the end of that ten-man was a hot finish to the show as well.

Terry Gordy vs Steve Williams should be a monster fight. Gordy's been having a rough year.

Not so much good vs evil as Memphis vs Dallas

Guitar on a pole! The closest thing I have to a complaint is that there is so much going on in the US territories now that it is hard to keep it all straight. There's always something moving and shaking.

No objections here.

I like the idea of the Rougeaus vs the Harts! Hope we'll get more of that match-up in the future.

Whoa! Gama Singh and the Karachi Puraas with all the gold!! Didn't see that coming.