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Episode 37: Collision in Korea
42 Plays4 years ago
In 1995, WCW tried their hand at international diplomacy, working with New Japan Pro Wrestling and Antonio Inoki to put on a wrestling show / peace mission in North Korea. Now, the pay-per-view version of that show has been posted to YouTube, courtesy of Eric Bischoff's "83 Weeks" podcast - allowing us to take a look at one of the few WCW pay-per-views not available on the WWE Network. Should it have stayed hidden? To find out - let's go to the ring!
Want to watch the version of the show we're reviewing? Find it at: https://youtu.be/R-By0dlVYE4
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/letsgo2thering , or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LetsGo2theRing/
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
But samurai tags Jisuda, who hits a great stalling suplex, his weird grazing big boot, and Sumo slaps, then tags samurai for a high-ing hit for a high-ing fed foot. Oh, I found my show intro.
Introduction and Podcast Progress
00:00:44
Speaker
Hello everyone, and welcome to Let's Go to the Ring, where we take a look at the good old days and not so good old days of World Championship Wrestling, series by series. I'm your host, Robert, the Earl of More, and I'm joined by filthy peasant Alec Bridget. Your... highness? I guess?
00:01:04
Speaker
How's it going tonight? Okay, how's it going with you? It's going good, it's going good. We are doing our bridge episode now between our, what's that, our third and our fourth series now? Yes. It just keeps catching me by surprise how much we've managed to do on this show so far. I'm pretty proud of that. I guess the figure is you're going to build a bridge, but through North Korea. That's the best way to do it. That seems perhaps ill-advised, but we'll see how it goes for us. Too late now.
Collision in Korea Overview
00:01:33
Speaker
As Al just alluded to, tonight we're taking a look at Collision in Korea, otherwise known as the Pyongyang International Sports and Culture Festival for Peace. But presumably the WCW marketing team took one look at that title and said, yeah, we need something a bit snappier. Yeah, yeah, I'd say so.
00:01:55
Speaker
Collision in Korea was held on April 28 and 29, 1995, at the May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea, in front of a claimed crowd of 165,000 on the first day and 190,000 on the second.
00:02:11
Speaker
Though Eric Bischoff claims it was more like $170,000 on the first day and $180,000 on the second. And wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer notes it was probably actually more like $150,000 on the first day and $165,000 on the second. If you thought the accounting for WrestleMania 3 was bad, yes. Enjoy.
00:02:32
Speaker
If the 190,000 for day two held true, it would be the record attendance for an indoor pro wrestling event, and the 165,000 for day one would actually be second place. Presumably, that means even if Meltzer's numbers are the real ones, the 165,000 for day two is still the indoor attendance record for a pro wrestling event, since the only higher number was the probably fictional 190,000.
00:02:56
Speaker
So it's an impressive accomplishment, albeit one made significantly less impressive when you take into account the fact that most of the fans were likely ordered to be there. Yes.
00:03:10
Speaker
The original show featured 15 matches, with 7 on the first day and 8 on the second. WCW did not actually air the show live for American fans, though.
Broadcast and Political Context
00:03:21
Speaker
Instead, they created a pay-per-view version, which aired August 4, 1995, several months later, with commentary added in by Eric Bischoff, Mike Tenet, and Kazuo Ishikawa, better known to us as Sunny Ono. Yes!
00:03:36
Speaker
That's the version that we're going to be watching. It was actually posted to YouTube by Eric Bischoff's 83 Weeks podcast, and we'll put the link to that release in our episode description, assuming I don't forget. Yes.
00:03:49
Speaker
The pay-per-view version featured only eight matches, a mix of matches from days one and two. I'm admittedly glad to not have to watch another 15 match show. But it is a bit of a bummer that one of the matches that got cut featured Starrcade 1995 favorite Shinjiro Otani. Understandable though, as it's actually only about two and a half minutes and ends in a referee stoppage due to what sounds like it might have been a legitimate injury.
00:04:16
Speaker
This is a really strange show, as you might guess. WCW in New Japan teaming up to do a cross promotional show in North Korea, of all places. Right. That begs the question, how the heck did that happen? Well, it all started with Antonio Inoki, New Japan wrestling legend and then member of the House of Counselors of the Japanese Diet, the upper house of Japan's legislature.
00:04:42
Speaker
According to Eric Bischoff on his podcast, 83 Weeks, Inoki contacted him about a year prior to this show just to get in touch with Muhammad Ali, who Inoki had famously had a boxing versus wrestling match with back in 1976. Which went smoothly. They just met up again at that point to get reacquainted. Later, Inoki contacted Bischoff again to see if he would be able to recruit Ali and WCW wrestlers to participate in a tour of shows in Japan.
00:05:12
Speaker
and North Korea. Now why did Enoki want to do this? Well, Enoki's political career was in trouble, as his reputation had been damaged by a number of scandals including according to what culture, embezzlement allegations from a prior secretary and manager, and according to Bischoff on 83 weeks, indirect connections to illegal arms trading.
00:05:33
Speaker
He saw a grand outreach and diplomatic gesture to North Korea as a way to revive his flagging political career. Notably, this was not the first time that he'd done such a thing. Back in 1990, he'd gone to Iraq to negotiate with Saddam Hussein for the release of 41 captive Japanese citizens, and organized a wrestling show in Iraq that December as part of his diplomatic efforts there, succeeding in getting 36 of the 41 freed.
00:05:58
Speaker
though the Japanese Wiki page for the event mentions him getting 36 Japanese hostages and five Japanese residents freed, which would add up to 41, so I'm admittedly a little bit unclear on the precise results. Sadly, WWE didn't run that show as well. Yeah. In any case, Inoki had been re-elected in 1992, so he saw wrestling diplomacy as a boon to his political prospects.
Eric Bischoff's Perspective
00:06:23
Speaker
As far as Bischoff's interest, he says on 83 weeks that he saw it as a way to get WCW some publicity and that he was actually a little surprised by how little attention it got at the time. He was excited at the chance and he didn't even think of the fact that Americans were prohibited from going to North Korea. Yeah. Which seems like a bit of a thing to overlook. A bit, yeah.
00:06:44
Speaker
He expected that others would be excited as well, so he was surprised when he got quite a bit of pushback, including, notably, Hulk Hogan, who Bischoff describes as listening, stroking his mustache, and saying, nah, sorry, can't make that one, brother. Bischoff notes that Enoki had really wanted Hogan, but Hogan had zero interest in going to North Korea.
00:07:05
Speaker
Yeah, it is notable that Inoki and Hogan have a long history of wrestling together. Yes, yeah. Technically, depending on how you look at it, Hogan is actually the first IWGP champion. They were in this little tournament thing, which he actually did beat Inoki in the finals. So generally he was champion there, but then they made it a yearly event and he just never came back. Oh, okay. So it's like, I don't know if he really counts as champion or not. Yeah. According to him, he does. If you ask him, he will add that IWGP number to his tally. Okay.
00:07:35
Speaker
So it's understandable what they would want. Yeah, absolutely. So you won't hear me say this too often, but I am 100% with Hulk Hogan on this one. Yeah, it's a rare statement. Bischoff says they didn't tell anyone or even seek advanced permission from the State Department, perhaps knowing that they would have said no. Right.
00:07:55
Speaker
Bischoff says his mindset at the time was that if he got into trouble with the State Department when he got back, it'd get WCW even more publicity, and he was pretty sure that once he was done with the consequences from the U.S. government, Ted Turner would just give him a slap on the wrist. He admits, though, that he should have asked permission. Yeah, I mean, it's great publicity if you're third in federal prison.
00:08:13
Speaker
He does actually say he checked in with some people at CNN and checked if they thought he was likely to end up in jail. Oh, okay. Which he says would have caused him to reconsider, but he was told that level of consequence was unlikely. Oh, okay. Admittedly, North Korean prison, maybe a little more likely, but he wasn't thinking that side of things. I think it probably depends on what you're planning to do there. Yeah. You're planning to go there and go, this is so great. I don't know why it appealed on move here. That would probably be bad. Yeah.
00:08:39
Speaker
Bischoff mentions that he got Rick Flair to agree to come relatively quickly in his recollection, but that Flair, though he never said he might not come after all, ended up clearly worried about the trip and the lead-up to it. Bischoff goes on to tell the tale of their landing on his podcast, and it definitely sounds unnerving at best. Per Bischoff, they flew over on a North Korean military transport, and on the approach he saw the landscape, and he calls it desolate, questioning how it could even support life. He says it looked like the landscape of Mars.
00:09:09
Speaker
I've never seen so much nothing in my entire life," he says. Upon landing, the whole party was split into pairs. Bischoff was paired with Sonny Ono. Their passports were taken, and they were each assigned a North Korean interpreter who was actually a member of the secret police to watch their every move and, quote Bischoff, to brainwash them. He notes that his guard told him that he was only the seventh American to enter North Korea without being shot down or captured.
00:09:37
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Bit of an awkward, awkward moment.
North Korea Experience
00:09:41
Speaker
Yeah. Bischoff does note that most of what the North Koreans told him was unlikely to be even remotely true, including potentially that fact. True, yeah. He describes the atmosphere of government control in the country as overwhelming. I bet, yeah. In what has to be a rarity, Bischoff calls his own decision to participate and go to North Korea stupid, and says if he got the chance to do it over again, he would not go.
00:10:06
Speaker
He says that in part due to his refusal to contact the State Department before going, he didn't fully understand at the time just what the trip would be like or how it would be used by the North Korean government for propaganda. More on that later. So that's how this event came to be. But how was it as a wrestling show? To find out, let's go to the ring. All right.
00:10:31
Speaker
Bischoff's version of the show starts with the lead-in featuring the characters from anime series Carrero Gunso, or Sergeant Frog, which proclaims in crappy basic subtitles that this is EP Network. I tried looking up EP Network and came up with everything from a site that podcasts about air rescue operations, to a logistics support company, to a Christian nonprofit healthcare mission. I'm pretty sure none of those were involved in getting this on YouTube, so I'm not actually sure what EP Network is. Yeah. Rick Flair.
00:11:00
Speaker
two of the greatest international superstars in the world wide wrestling extravaganza for the first time ever on pay per view. It's a spectacular one time global event.
00:11:20
Speaker
Our actual show opening features a video package highlighting Rick Flair and Antonio Inoki, backed by shots of North Korean performers from the opening ceremonies that we'll be getting clips of throughout this evening. We get a weird sudden shift from electric guitar music to choir music in the middle too. I do like the intro bit with Flair and Inoki both shown in front of their respective nation's flags. It helped give this about as much gravitas as you were likely to get in like 25 seconds. Yeah, fair enough.
00:11:49
Speaker
host, Eric Bischoff, wearing terrific dad glasses. Yes. Welcomes us to the show, introducing co-hosts Mike Tenay and Kazuo Ishikawa. They stand in front of a big collision in Korea logo over an American flag. It looks green screened in. Oh, it is 100%. Because I think the flag actually does blow a little bit. Yeah. I'm making hand gestures again for the benefit of the audience that can't see me at all.
00:12:16
Speaker
Today builds up the diverse wrestling styles that we're going to be watching and the Inoki Flair match and asks Ishikawa about the, quote, international intrigue behind the event. Ishikawa says we have Americans and Japanese in North Korea and its wrestling diplomacy at its best. Bischoff brings up the presence of Muhammad Ali and says it's an exciting event.
00:12:37
Speaker
He throws to the first match, talking as though he's actually hosting the show live, which he's not. The commentators switch on that a few times over the course of the show and never quite seem to solidly decide whether they're pretending to be live commentary or being open about doing this months later. It gets really bad towards the end. By the end, they just play in this act talk about, well, I'll tell you what happens later. Yeah, it just feels so strange. Yeah. Pick your tense, man. Pick your tense. Yeah.
00:13:03
Speaker
So our first match is Flying Scorpio, otherwise known as Too Cold Scorpio, versus Wild Pegasus, Chris Benoit. The referee for this one is, I believe, Masayo Tayama. The other referee that we'll have tonight, Masayo Hatori, is identified by name on the show occasionally, but this one never actually is. Wikipedia lists two referees for it, so I'm assuming that this guy's the other one.
00:13:28
Speaker
So, if I'm wrong with this guy's name, I apologize. It's the other guy we've had before, I believe, correct? I believe we have. One of the only Starrcades had him on. That sounds right. It might have been the International Tag Team Tournament one. Yeah, it might be, yeah. And this match from the actual show is actually day two, match four. Yeah, it's kind of a weird place to start, other than... Yeah, a little bit. It didn't start with either of the opening matches for either of the nights.
00:13:54
Speaker
There's a lot of wrestlers that over the years have done shoot interviews, and they talk about the stories. More recently, there's a pension brought to the show from the show Dark Side of the Ring on Vice. So a lot of what I have here was told through there, not necessarily for the first time, but definitely to a major audience for the first time. The guy who really stands out a lot, bearing in mind that a bunch of people involved in the show are unfortunately dead, so they can't tell their side of the story, because you have too-called Scorpio.
00:14:24
Speaker
Not to disparage the man too much, but it felt like watching that show, he decided to make the entire thing about him. Oh, okay. Because he spends a lot of time talking about how great he is and this and that and it's like, I feel like I'm not watching this show for you as much as everything else, but thanks.
00:14:40
Speaker
Essentially what he tells the story that happened at some point while they're being bust around from side to side as part of these PR events, he had said something mean about Rick Flair. And Flair and Robert Hawk, who were on the trip together, were paired off together that way. So at some point according to him, and not really validated by anyone else that is there to tell us, a fight broke out in the bus between the two of them over things he said about Flair.
00:15:06
Speaker
Just weird picturing word of hawks standing up for a flare given the times we've seen him like fighting flare and you're not a little bit sigh, you know, a character out of character. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So if you believe him, there was a fight and it went 100% in his favor. So again, bear in mind the source of the information. It could have happened that way or could not happen though. Yeah. According to him later on the same tour.
00:15:29
Speaker
He was walking through the hallway and Robber Hawk attacked him from behind, again, to the source. It all escalated to the point where he apparently, so what he says, this is not someone thinks about him, for that in mind, he talks about he was planning to kill Robber Hawk while on the trip.
00:15:46
Speaker
He recorded that this year talking about it, so he's had 20 plus years to think about this. That he really stuck on this story. He claims that he was planning to make a shift and he was going to find some way during the tour to kill him either there or maybe when they got back to Japan. Not that it would be better whichever way she did it at. Yeah. He claims he was talked out of doing that by his roommate, which for the trip was Chris Benoit. Okay. So yeah.
00:16:13
Speaker
bearing all that in mind, now watch the two of them wrestling each other. Yeah, okay, that's...
00:16:19
Speaker
I think that's one of those stories that I would have been happy not to know. Yeah. And he's really proud of it. So it's that story to tell. So I feel okay telling it. Yeah. Yeah. He went nationally and bragged about it. So it's very game, I think. Yeah. It's interesting. No matter how much of that story is true, assuming like any small portion of it is the idea that the two of them were like, we're going to get into a fight in North Korea. Yes. That seems like not a great idea. Like in any respect.
00:16:49
Speaker
The only person that really talks about otherwise is Scott Norton, who's also featured in the program. He doesn't necessarily dispute or validate any of the information. He does mention that Roy R. Hawk at this point was on budget medication for some sort of kidney issue. So if they really had a fight, if it even happened, it's not like he's fighting Hawk at his best anyways. And he sort of dismisses it as saying, well, if this hadn't been happening, it would have gone a lot differently.
00:17:20
Speaker
Okay. I feel like I'm listening to a soap opera here. Ah, a little bit, yeah. Bischoff calls the North Korean fans polite and notes that they haven't seen a lot of pro wrestling. Scorpio is out first, taking his life in his hands by wearing American flag pants in North Korea. Yeah, let's promise it for you. Yeah.
00:17:41
Speaker
The ring announcer, who I believe I read is Hidikazu Tanaka from New Japan Pro Wrestling, nicely claps along with Scorpio as he dances to his music. Tanaka even seems to almost decide to do some of the dance himself before thinking better of it and stopping. He's wearing what I can only describe as a marching band drum majors uniform.
00:18:02
Speaker
Oh, that's what you're talking about, yeah. Yes. All the show, he's dressed like that, yes. Yeah. You can actually tell the difference between the nights based on the color of his outfit. Oh, yeah. It's true, yeah, yeah. On night one, he's wearing blue. Yeah. And on night two, he's wearing white. But it's, in both cases, this weird drum major uniform. Yeah, because this one, he's wearing the white one, because it's night two. Yeah, you're right.
00:18:22
Speaker
Benoit comes out next and he just kind of runs down to the ring. He gets some flowers midway down the entrance ramp and when he's almost to the ring, a lady runs out from the crowd and along behind him then delivers some flowers to Scorpio. I'm guessing, I don't know, Scorpio danced by too fast or something to pick him up. It's very possible. Today builds up Scorpio and Benoit both being trained in the New Japan organization.
00:18:45
Speaker
acrobatic counterwrestling to start, and Scorpio gets the better of Benoit, who backs into the corner and holds up his hands toward Scorpio off. Bischoff argues with the mostly inaudible Ishikawa about the merits and athleticism of Japanese and American wrestlers. Benoit wins a test of strength, but Scorpio blocks knee drops and monkey flips Benoit, and they rapidly roll back and forth trading pin attempts, getting mostly two counts.
00:19:10
Speaker
Tene brings up Scorpio and Benoit appearing on an earlier show, When Worlds Collide, as tag partners. That show was a joint promotion between the AAA and IWC wrestling companies, but it was produced by WCW, and Tene probably especially wanted to promote it as it was his first time ever on commentary. Scorpio stuns Benoit with some strikes, then hits a moonsault to a daze Benoit for two.
00:19:37
Speaker
On a Scorpio superkick, Ishikawa seems to say something about Scorpio knowing more about martial arts than Benoit, because Benoit's Canadian. I mean, that outtracks. Sure. They don't seem to have really given Ishikawa his own working microphone, so he's barely audible for most of the show. Yeah.
00:19:54
Speaker
It's kind of like if you're in a car trip, and there's the husband and wife in the front seat, and the kid's like popping up and talking with the back seat. That's kind of what it's like. As occasional pop in, you'll hear a voice that's not quite as strong, but it's further away. It's like if Tine and Bischoff were both sitting there with their own mics, and Ishikawa is sitting between them.
00:20:13
Speaker
but doesn't have his own microphone and is just like leaning closer to one of them or the other to talk at certain points. It might just be that the guy kind of speaks quietly, but it really sounds like there's a problem with whatever microphone they tried to give him. Yeah, it could be. Benoit dodges a Scorpio splash, whips him to the ropes and hits a knee strike, and Bischoff tries to claim that Scorpio was coming off the ropes at 30 miles per hour.
Key Matches and Highlights
00:20:37
Speaker
Benoit wears Scorpio down with a suplex drop on the ropes, drop kick, and strikes, but Scorpio floats over a suplex and sidekicks him, but Benoit reverses a Tombstone Piledriver into one of his own and hits his top rope swan dive headbutt to Scorpio's bicep. Kind of weird aim there. Bischoff calls it Air Benoit, which is about the only name they could have given it that's worse than what they call it later, Air Canada. It gets Benoit the three count and the win.
00:21:06
Speaker
The referee raises Benoit's hand in victory and Benoit walks off with his flowers as the ref wakes up Scorpio. We get replays of the tombstone reversal and the swan dive headbutt.
00:21:17
Speaker
Thoughts on this one? Given that it's not the actual opener of the show, I thought it was at least a good choice as far as match quality for the show opener. We talked before, we like having the stronger, faster match, quicker matches open shows. So it sets a nice pace and sort of gets the audience ready for what, hopefully you'll get the rest of the night to some degree.
00:21:37
Speaker
Technically, it was done really well. They did the lucha spot with the press down and monkey flip over and pen and pen stuff. I know their history with the company is still kind of funny that it's Benoit Scorpio, again, a Canadian-American doing the famous lucha spot. We flip over like that. That is true, yeah. Monograp would be maybe it's a bit too short. It kind of gets going and then they just go, oh, is it finished now? And we're done.
00:22:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm in total agreement on that. I found it a perfectly good opening match, even if that's not what it actually was. Yes. It served its purpose on the pay-per-view version. It had a quick pace and good solid action, crisp moves, well performed, and there were some really nice reversals all very smoothly done.
00:22:18
Speaker
It is a short match, I agree on that, but they do get a good mix of action in there. My only complaint, I think the same as you, is that the finish feels a bit sudden. Yeah. Don't get me wrong, a tombstone pile driver and a swan dive headbutt are both match-enders, but it just feels like they come up out of nowhere where both guys were going strong moments ago. Right. It does give it a shock ending, which can be beneficial, but maybe it's just too much of a shock. Yeah, I can see that. Still, it was a fun match. Yeah, I think so.
00:22:46
Speaker
So the year before this, there was a tournament to declare the new NWA world champion back in 1994 to go Scorpio and Benoit where both ended along with other wrestlers. In the tournament, Scorpio actually beat Benoit making semi-finals where he would lose to Shane Douglas. Oh, okay. Shane Douglas would of course famously throw the belt down and swear and talk about UCW as the world champion. All right. So Scorpio could have stopped that if he had just done better that night. Come on, Scorpio. You let the NWA down, man.
00:23:18
Speaker
As far as Scorpio and the NWA or WCW, it is his last appearance on any WCW events. Technically, he didn't appear on this one either because it's a weird joint show anyways. But he had been released from the company earlier in 95 and went to ECW where he'd work for a while until he'd go to WWF where he'd become Flash Funk. And he is one of the few people on the show actually still working today. So he's not actually working for WCW at this point? No. Interesting. In the meanwhile, technically New Japan people.
00:23:49
Speaker
As far as Benoit goes, they mentioned in commentary that Benoit competed in previous Super Jacob tournaments, and then he've act one-one. So later that year, 1995, he would compete again. Him and the winner of the previous year's show, Juice and the Thunder Liger, got a buy to the quarterfinals due to their previous victories. Benoit would also be a future Chris Jericho during that. Oh. With a terrifyingly sounding top rope tombstone pile driver. Oh, gah!
00:24:20
Speaker
I've not seen video of that, but I'm horrifying just picturing it. Yeah, that sounds frightening as heck. Unfortunately, Benoit would lose his next match with Jugedo, which sadly means we don't get another Benoit Liger match. Oh, okay. Although we would get a one on that 95 show in WSW, so maybe that's the makeup for it. Yeah, consolation prize there. Exactly.
00:24:45
Speaker
Our second match is Tokamitsu Ishizawa versus Yuji Nagata. The referee for this one again is Masayo Toyama. And this is actually day one, match one. So this is the legitimate opening match of the entire thing. I'm surprised they didn't make this and made a vent to the show. Ishizawa gets WCW's generic Asian guy music that they use for a lot of wrestlers over the years. Nagata gets their other generic Asian guy music.
00:25:14
Speaker
Today builds up that the two are almost mirror images of each other in terms of their backgrounds and that holds very true right down to their outfits which are nearly identical. Nagata just has longer boots. Correct. With this being really poor video quality, believe me it was tough keeping this one straight and I'm honestly not 100% sure that I managed. Yeah. So forgive me if I made any mistakes here.
00:25:36
Speaker
Now bear in mind that, at this point, they're both young lions in New Japan. Yeah, thus, probably. That's why, yeah. As a young lion, you get to wear generic black trunks and boots and knee pads. And you have to earn your right to be a full character. Yeah. That's kind of your gimmick, basically.
00:25:53
Speaker
Ishikawa, and believe me, trying not to mix up Ishikawa and Ishizawa is going to be really fun. I bet. It's happy that there is now Japanese wrestlers fighting. He even actually speaks up so we can hear him for a moment. Yes.
00:26:09
Speaker
Nagata gets some early kicks, but Ishizawa takes him down by the legs, and the two rapidly trade ankle locks, then transition to trading arm and other holds, ending with an awesome moment where Ishizawa gets a headlock on Nagata, but Nagata simultaneously gets an ankle lock on Ishizawa. Ishizawa manages to turn that into a body scissors, and Nagata's forced to grab the ropes to break. There's some great matwork in the opening there. Oh yeah, sure.
00:26:32
Speaker
Bischoff very clumsily covers the history of Americans in North Korea, including, quote, a couple helicopter pilots who ended up there accidentally.
00:26:42
Speaker
That would refer to a 1994 incident in which a United States Army helicopter piloted by Chief Warrant Officers Bobby Hall and David Hilliman accidentally strayed into North Korean airspace and was shot down. Hilliman actually died of his injuries, and Hall was imprisoned, though he had at least been free for about a year by the time of this broadcast. Still, not the most graceful coverage of the incident. Yeah, no.
00:27:06
Speaker
Ishizawa starts to dominate, landing several furious strikes, and ducks in Nagata Enzigiri, or back leg round kick, quote Bischoff, going for a camel clutch, and when Nagata blocks that, rapidly rolling him over for a cross arm breaker. Nagata gets the ropes and fires back with a slightly scary overhead belly-to-belly suplex, then hits his Enzigiri and locks on a cross face for the very sudden submission and the win. That felt like it was just getting going to me.
00:27:35
Speaker
The ref raises Nagata's arm as Bischoff mangles Ishizawa's name. No replays for these guys, sadly. It would have been good to see some of that matwork in slow motion to see the detail of what they were accomplishing out there, I think. Thoughts on this one? It's a strong 10-wheel match, but like he said, it's so short. If you're looking at really examining the actual logistics of how people wrestle and all these fine details of countering and grappling, it's definitely good for that.
00:28:02
Speaker
Remind me a bit of what Ring Honor did post full quarantine, semi-quarantining with their shows. They started doing the pure tournament with pure rules. They had three broke breaks and all that. It was all about grappling and that. Oh, okay. This reminded me a lot of that. The problem with this one and certain sent a problem with their more recent stuff is that
00:28:23
Speaker
there's a bit of a lack of, like, flourish to it. Like, it's all well done, but it's not as engaging as it could be if they had slightly more character. Like, if we had a reason why they were fighting and not just, here's these two guys that are both trying to earn a place in the fight. Yeah. Which is part of a factor of them being in the Young Lions division. Right. And part of a factor of this being a random show in North Korea. Correct. That you're not going to have much storyline to any of this at this point. Very true. But I agree. Like, if you had some more character going on
00:28:51
Speaker
I can picture you get both of these guys after they've actually earned their gimmicks and they have this same match and it immediately has more impact. Agreed, yes.
00:29:00
Speaker
For me, I think this was about the first quarter of a really, really good match. It feels like they did the opening and they started building up ferocity and then it was just suddenly done. It ends far too soon and far too suddenly, but for the time that it lasted, it was excellent. Some exceptional and detailed mad work by both of them intermixed with some vicious strikes that made this an exciting watch.
00:29:24
Speaker
The commentators say that both guys are only like three years into their careers at this point, which is true. Both actually debuted a week apart in September 1992. Oh, there you go. And this is crazily impressive for that short amount of time. It ended too quickly and too suddenly, but it was a good introduction to both guys and I'd love to see another match with both of them. Agreed.
00:29:46
Speaker
Uh, in 1996, they guys would have a rematch. I'm kind of curious if you can find footage of that. They would race off again as part of the young lions cup. Oh, there you go. And as far as the gotta goes, he's the only one from this pairing that we would probably ever be covering on future shows. Cause he comes in for a run in 1997 managed by San Iono, broadening it ultimate dragon. He appeared at the red 97, I think in 98 as well. Oh, cool. I'll look forward to that. Cause I really, really enjoyed him here. Yeah.
00:30:18
Speaker
We cut to very brief footage of North Korea's opening ceremonies for the event, showing a very elaborate performance with women dressed in outfits with long sleeves letting them do synchronized moves that make it look like flowers opening all over the field. The soundtrack, which I think was by WCW for this video, not the original shows music most likely, sounds like that scene in a JRPG where the heroes have suffered a big loss but rediscovered their resolve and are headed off to face the main villain.
00:30:45
Speaker
I believe on the podcast, Bischoff asked about the theme music on here, and he says they didn't pipe it in when they were there. And since they decided not to do the live pay-per-view commentary for it, they didn't bother any of that. Yeah. So what we're seeing is basically stuff from the WCW audio library. That's right. Yeah. Based on some of the music we've heard. Yeah. Bischoff says they got to experience a lot of North Korean culture and they'll be sharing clips throughout the evening.
00:31:16
Speaker
Our third match is Ukami Gundun, Hiro Saito, and Masahiro Chono, versus El Samurai and Tadeo Yasuda. The referee for this one again is Masayo Toyama, and this is day one, match four in the actual show.
00:31:34
Speaker
There's no interesting North Korea trip stories. I do have a historical note for you on this one, though. Okay. Hiro Sayito is a one-time NWA junior heavyweight champion. He defeated Denny Brown after Starrcade. Denny Brown, hey! Yeah, yeah. Call back first forever show. Oh my gosh, that's a while back, yeah. Yeah. Sayito and Chono get Zodiac and Rey Mysterio's future theme. Yes.
00:32:02
Speaker
Their team name, Ukami Gunden, I believe translates to something like Great Spirit Army Corps. Though it sounds like the combination of a really good Zelda-like video game and a really good mecha anime franchise. Kind of, yeah. I actually kind of would like to see a crossover of those two franchises. Like, can you picture playing as a giant mecha version of Damarturasu? Oh, yeah. Sure.
00:32:28
Speaker
Tine builds Chono up as a former NWA champion. He looks bad in his long coat. He does. Tine says he's got a bad attitude these days, and Ishikawa says he's mad he didn't get enough opportunities overseas and inaudible. Yes. Accurate.
00:32:45
Speaker
It's seriously like midway through any of his lines it'll just be, he didn't get enough opportunities at all. It's like somebody reaches over and puts their hand over his mouth sometimes. Or they're like dragging his chair slowly away from the microphone. They're like pranking him the entire show is the only explanation. Yeah. I don't recognize the music for Samurai and Yasuda.
00:33:08
Speaker
The samurai's mask, I thought, looked really cool. It's like a black and red version of an early Cyclops mask from the Axemen. Yeah, the full advisor effect. The full head one, yeah, the head. Tine is a really good choice for commentary on this show as he spouts facts about all of these guys with ease, telling about Yasuda's transition from Sumo. Bischoff actually nicely segues that into a discussion of athletes in American sports like football transitioning to pro wrestling, which is a very common thing, as we've found over the years. Yes, extremely.
00:33:40
Speaker
Yasuda trades shoulder blocks with Chono, but Chono sneaks in a kick on a test of strength, and tags in Sayito to work Yasuda's arm, only for Yasudo to block his holds and slam him, then tag El Samurai. Bischoff references Muhammad Ali's presence, not that we ever see him outside of one video package. It's bizarre, they never really cut to him once. Yeah. Like what happened?
00:34:02
Speaker
Tanay notes that Samurai once beat Jushin Liger for the IWGP title. Samurai gets one and a half off a leg drop, but Sayito tags Chono, who brutally Yakuza kicks Samurai in the face. He does, yes. Jeez. Ouch.
00:34:18
Speaker
Samurai sunset flip for two, and he tags Yasuda. Yasuda hits a weird big boot that just seems to graze Chono, but Saitou and Chono double-clothesline him, and Saitou hits a sentin. Saitun? For two. Yasuda easily pushes Saitou to the corner to tag Samurai, but Saitou dodges a dropkick. Bischoff has upgraded rope rebounds now to 60 miles per hour.
00:34:47
Speaker
Well, there's a little speed markers on the ground. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and like in the racing games. Yeah, you got a booster. There you go.
00:34:54
Speaker
Sayito and Chono trade off beating up Samurai, and Sayito knees him in the balls. He does. But Samurai tags Yasuda, who hits a great stalling suplex, his weird grazing big boot, and Sumo's laps, then tags Samurai for a flying headbutt for two and a half on Chono. Samurai grabs Chono from behind, and Chono gives him the mother of all mule kicks, sending him airborne. Yes, it looked painful. Chono and Sayito do not want Samurai to have descendants.
00:35:23
Speaker
No. Bischoff sarcastically calls that a very technical move. Yasuda protests, and that distracts the ref, so Chono and Sayito can double team poor aching samurai. Yakuza kick by Chono, and Sayito deals with Yasuda as Chono hits a top rope flying shoulder block to samurai for the three count and the win.
00:35:45
Speaker
Chono and Sayito pose victoriously, and Ishikawa points out that Chono bowed respectfully, and Bischoff says, sure, he guesses that makes up for kicking Samurai and the groin. Yeah, right? Yasuda reenters the ring and chases Chono, Sayito, and the ref, mostly the ref, honestly, out. The poor ref falls pretty badly out of the ring, and either he's selling really well or he genuinely pulled something in his back. Samurai nicely does not forget that his balls hurt, as he's awkwardly trying to bow.
00:36:15
Speaker
I'm not sure how much that's selling. Yeah, I was going to say, I'm hoping that none of those shots were actually legit, but that last one really looked like it might have been. It did, yeah. We get replays of the first Yakuza kick, then the flying shoulder block, and Tanay oddly discusses it like we're watching a replay of the second Yakuza kick and the flying shoulder block. Thoughts on this one?
00:36:36
Speaker
Unlike the previous match, I thought they did a good job showing the sort of heel and face dynamic quite well with here. There's definitely no mistaking Chono and Saido as good guys here. They're definitely, you know, the big bullying types and they'll knock you around and they will, as I mentioned, take cheap shots to get the advantage. Yes. I thought Samurai did a good job playing the, or fight from underneath character. Yes, absolutely. Constantly fighting back, no matter what they do to him. It definitely gets you sympathy when he gets launched airborne by his balls. Yeah.
00:37:07
Speaker
It does, yes. And kind of required to do, Yasuda, as I mentioned, is not very long into pro wrestling, having come out of Sumo. But I thought he shows good little flashes of what he can do as a character. Kind of curious to see more matches with him later, see how much he builds upon the sort of Sumo stuff with his slaps, integrating that into a full wrestling character.
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah, I believe they mentioned he's been in it for about a year. Yes. At this point, which he's quite good for just a year. Yeah. They tell a pretty good story here. I mean, both of the good guys are strong and efficient, but Chino and Seita are just too vicious and sneaky to get a win on. Yeah.
00:37:46
Speaker
Yeah, I thought this was a perfectly acceptable tag match. You can kind of tell that Yasuda's new, his sequences are a little bit repetitive and it feels like they're keeping him to what he knows how to do, but he's a big impressive looking guy and what he does, he does mostly well.
00:38:02
Speaker
It's only the big boot spot that I feel looks a little bit awkward, and that's more to me how Chono and Saito choose to sell it. They're doing it like he kicks on the side of their head and passed it or something wrapped with an actual impact, which just looks a little bit odd. Otherwise, everyone involved put on a good show, and Chono and Saito had some nasty moves, particularly when attacking poor Samurai's crotch.
00:38:26
Speaker
They worked really well with Yasuda's power and Samurai's speed, and everyone came out of this looking pretty good. It's not a standout or very complex, but it's good fun as long as you're not El Samurai. Agreed.
00:38:42
Speaker
About a year from now, El Samurai would become the WWF World Light Heavyweight Champion. Oh, okay. And, of course, as that champion, he would put up on the line as part of the Super J Crown. Ah. He would, of course, not win that tournament. That would be won by Great Sasuke and later won by Liger. However, he would later beat Liger for the Super J Crown. Oh, okay.
00:39:06
Speaker
Now, it is worth noting for how confusing as the J crown thing is. So if you don't remember, it basically it's eight light heavyweight slash cruiserweight titles put on one tournament, whoever won got all of them. Yeah. So you have a great visual of Thoskay as well, Ultimo Dragon carrying their crazy eight belts around. Yeah. Legitimately too many belts for you to carry on your own. Yes. Where like Sunny Ono has to carry like two of them out himself or something too.
00:39:33
Speaker
Yeah, poor Saskia looks like a scarecrow holding all these belts when he won initially. It's pretty crazy. It's so cool though, right? Oh, no, absolutely, yeah. You want to look important instantly, walk out of the entrance ramp carrying eight title belts. Yes, exactly. Now, the weird caveat for El Samurai's win is that they had a match where Liger lost one of the titles. I believe it was like the British Commonwealth heavyweight title. I'm like that. I don't know what the actual belt is. There's too many belts.
00:40:03
Speaker
So then he had a match where just that was an online, he lost at somebody else, and he just kind of went, eh, and kept the Super J crown thing going for a while with one less belt. Presumably that organization said, we'd like our belt back, please. So.
00:40:21
Speaker
A little side note as well, since Ron the Governor can't remember all the same way again, proving his longevity in sports. His last major title win is actually in 2010. Wow. Him and his partner would win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Titles, beating the future of Finn Balor in that match. Oh, cool. Yeah. That was around the time of, if not during the initial Bullet Club storyline with Prince Devitt.
00:40:45
Speaker
he's trying to take over everything. So it's pretty impressive that here he is 15 years later and he's still winning belts like nothing happened. Yeah. He's good. I mean, I really enjoyed his work in this match. So I would love if we somehow end up with him on another show at some point, but like I said, I don't know that we do for WCW stuff.
00:41:03
Speaker
I will say, it's not really a critique of him, it's a more refusing thing for me, is that I know that, before this anyways, Enniguero wrestled under a mask, and a similar looking outfit, with his long hair hanging at the back. So I really did initially think when I saw him that it was him, and once I figured it was someone else, I kind of went along with it.
00:41:25
Speaker
So, pardon me, once the C&L Samurai anywhere matchably, he was Black Tiger, I think it was? Yeah, that's right, I believe so. So, I kind of want to see one of the matches for the quality, but at the same time, it would be really confusing for me to watch, probably. I would imagine so. Bischoff throws to a second video package, this one featuring Rick Flair, Muhammad Ali, Antonio Inoki, and various other wrestlers posing and seeing North Korean monuments.
Cultural Tours and Women's Matches
00:41:51
Speaker
Ali wrestles a big lion sculpture because Jim might as well. Yeah.
00:42:12
Speaker
Their every move was documented by North Korean cameras, and they were forced to lay flowers at the statue of Kim Il-sung, the recently passed founder of North Korea. They were led to monument after monument to present it with North Korea's alternate history version of many world events, including proclaiming that North Korea was responsible for ending World War II, and personally defeated Japan and forced their surrender, leaving out the United States involvement entirely. That's interesting.
00:42:16
Speaker
Wen and Pian Yang.
00:42:39
Speaker
Bischoff says there were many times during the trip when he really wanted to say something about how wrong the view being presented was, but he knew of course that if he did, he'd be in grave danger. Bischoff tells the tale as well of a surreal moment in which he and Sunny Ono, just after getting into a vehicle with their interpreter slash secret police escort, found out just how monstrous North Koreans believed the Americans and Japanese were when the woman turned around and calmly advised them that it was illegal to rape North Korean women.
00:43:09
Speaker
Oh. As though, you know, it'd be perfectly legal elsewhere. Yeah, thanks for telling me. Jeez. He says they just kind of, oh no, and he looked at each other and just kind of looked back and said, okay. Fair enough. The whole experience of the trip clearly shook him.
00:43:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they talk to people about that in Darkside the Ring about how they were taken on a bus and they were handed flowers and then said, go lay these flowers on it. But when the coverage goes, like, look at these great honorable Americans bring flowers to honor Kim Il Sung. Exactly. Yeah. Look, our global rivals have come to come to pay homage to our founder. Yes.
00:43:50
Speaker
I mean, sure, they might have thought, hey, let's go see the founder statue at some point while we're there, but they were not thinking of it as like, we are bowing before him. No. At the time. Yeah. There's definitely some interesting stories that Bischoff shares on the 83 Weeks podcast about this, and I think well worth a listen to anyone who's interested in knowing more about this event and the Dark Side of the Ring episode as well, I'm sure. Yes.
00:44:16
Speaker
Our fourth match is Manami Toyota and Mariko Yoshida versus Akira Hokuto and Bull Nakano. Referee for this one is Maseo Tiger Hattori, which this one I know because Bischoff and Tinei actually say his name during the match. Thank you, guys. This one is day one, match two. Oh, and yes, both referees are actually named Maseo.
00:44:42
Speaker
Not that they're both featured, but we do have two different saitos on the show technically as well. Yes. Yeah. So it is worth noting that all the performers in this are actually not from new Japan. They're actually from all Japan pro wrestling. Oh, okay. So it's kind of weird given that if you think of this as a WCW new Japan show, I don't know if there's, didn't have any new Japan woman to bring or what the whole story in that is not knowing enough about the territories, but that's the kind of weird thing to think about.
00:45:08
Speaker
That's especially interesting because from what I recall hearing from other sources at points, New Japan and All Japan were so at odds at points to the extent that if a American wrestler came over and worked for one of them, they were basically blacklisted by the other for a while. Yeah. I don't know exactly where in the timeline that is. This may have been at a point where they were working together better, but... Then there's points later on where big stars like Pluto would leave and go to All Japan. It was a big black mark on them as far as New Japan fell as well.
00:45:38
Speaker
That's in the 2000s though, so it may have been better. Yeah, so this may have been when they were a little friendlier, I'm not sure. She mentioned there's a match not featured on this show that did happen at the event. On Night 2 there's actually a singles match between Bulnakano and Akira Hokuto. Or the teammates in this match. Correct, together in that one with their rivals.
00:45:58
Speaker
So what's weird about it is that match we're not getting is one of only two title matches that happened on this show. So the match they have on night two is for the CMLL World Women's Championship. Which, how could that was champion? That's cool. I would have liked to see that one, honestly, considering these two are both excellent, excellent wrestlers.
00:46:19
Speaker
and tying it back to another show, Hoketo actually would hold that title, obviously not losing it on this show then, because why would they have a title change on this show? Yeah. She would lose the title in late 96 when she'd be stripped of the title for wrestling on Nitro and then build up to Starrcade with their Women's Champion tournament. Interesting. I don't know why CML all got so mad about that, but they did.
00:46:42
Speaker
Toyota and Yoshida come to the ring first. I can't tell if it's actually designed that way or not, but Yoshida, dressed in white, has this scarf that seems to fray out to the side so it looks like a single angel wing. It's probably not an accidental thing. Yeah. Thank you. She's doing a Sephiroth before Sephiroth, I think there. Yes.
00:47:01
Speaker
Can you make it a little bit? Toyota wears a cool red and gold robe. Ishikawa seems to say something about one of them reminding him of his sister. I didn't catch most of it again. There's a whole thing where he talks about how beautiful his sister is. He's like, I think Bischoff talks about how pretty one of them is. I think Yoshida maybe? Yeah. And he says, well, you have met my sister. And he got on a weird tangent about how, well, you never offered me a tangent to meet her and everything.
00:47:29
Speaker
Bull Nikano and Akira Hokuto come out next. Nikano has her trademark look with the blue hair that points straight up. Oh yeah. And Hokuto is wearing a scary kabuki mask and a big red wig and carrying a katana. It's a good thing this isn't a hardcore match, her opponents would be dead. Yes, agreed. Thankfully the mask and the sword are set aside for the match. The commentators compare Nikano to Vader, which is fair in many respects. Oh yeah.
00:47:54
Speaker
All four fight to start, and Nakano puts an end to that by clotheslining Toyota and Yoshida simultaneously. Yoshida and Hokuto get to their corners, and Toyota and Nakano square off. Nakano hits a monstrous clothesline that flips Toyota end over end, and Bischoff of course makes car crash jokes. Why not? In fairness, I think they'd make the same jokes with someone over here that was named Ford or something like that. Yeah, yeah, sure.
00:48:23
Speaker
Nakano flings Toyoda around, but Toyoda dropkicks her, but she doesn't go down, so Toyoda hits a second rope dropkick, and then another, and that finally knocks Nakano down for two. Tag to Yoshida, and Nakano murders her with a closed line, and tags Hokuto, who gets two counts with a top rope splash and a rapid pile driver. It was like super fast that she did that, it was amazing.
00:48:47
Speaker
Hokuto slaps on the Rita Romero special, an elevated surfboard that looks super painful, and ends it with an eye rake just to be mean. Why not? Tagged into Kano, and she picks Yoshida up and folds her like a pretzel. I think it was Paige that used the same folds later. Yes, correct. Yeah. That was interesting to see. For sure, yeah.
00:49:09
Speaker
Nakano and Hokuto keep adding to Yoshida's eventual chiropractor bill, and Nakano gets two off just hurling Yoshida bodily to the mat. Bischoff and Tanay build up referee Hatori's own legitimate amateur wrestling experience. He was a world champion bantamweight wrestler. I found out that he actually became a pro wrestling trainer at Hiro Matsuda's school teaching amateur wrestling basics, and in fact one of his students was Hulk Hogan.
00:49:38
Speaker
Hatori actually only recently retired as a ref in February 2020. Correct, yeah. Had quite a lengthy refereeing career. Yeah, him and Lager had their big ceremonies to retire, yeah. Yeah. Yoshida finally dodges a Hokuto clothesline with a cartwheel and hits a series of Buddha-like handspring elbows, then a fisherman's suplex for two.
00:49:59
Speaker
Hokuto interrupts a top rope move with a superplex for two and a half and holds Yoshida for a Nakano's second rope clothesline, but Yoshida dodges and Nakano nails Hokuto. Tag to Toyota, but Hokuto immediately gets the boots up on a top rope dive and tags Nakano, who power bombs Toyota for two. Bischoff called it a pile driver. Why not?
00:50:21
Speaker
What a powerbomb by Bull, Tene says, correcting Eric without sounding like he's correcting Eric. He knows who signs his paychecks. Yes, indeed.
00:50:30
Speaker
Toyota rolls up Nakano on a second power bomb attempt for two. Toyota and Yoshida try to double suplex Nakano, but she suplexes both of them instead. Tag to Hokuto, but Yoshida and Toyota dodge a top rope dive and knock Nakano and Hokuto out of the ring. Yoshida dives onto both, then holds them for an excellent springboard planchet by Toyota.
00:50:53
Speaker
You pointed out, I think when we were watching it out, that nicely Yoshida holds them just long enough for Toyoda to hit them and then backs off rather than taking the blow herself like everyone has ever since. Exactly, yeah. Children hold them in place and move out of the way just in time. Yeah.
00:51:09
Speaker
Back in, the teams trade off for rapid fire two counts off of Toyota moonsault, Hokuto victory roll, Hokuto high angle German suplex, and Yoshida rope run springboard cross body. That was really cool how like quickly she jumps up the ropes when she's flung at them and just smooth as silk jumps right back off. Not gonna resist more drop kicks, so Yoshida and Toyota take her down with a double drop kick, but she ducks the double clothesline and Hokuto wipes both out with a split legged top rope drop kick.
00:51:37
Speaker
Toyota rolls out, and Nakano clotheslines the heck out of Yoshida to send her out, then sends both outside for an amazing Hokuto top rope flipping double clothesline to the outside. Hokuto drags Yoshida in and slams her, then Nakano hits a top rope leg drop for the three count and the win. Nakano and Hokuto get their hands raised, and Toyota slowly helps Yoshida back up so they can take their bows and make their exit as well.
00:52:05
Speaker
We get no replays for that match, because why would we want to watch awesome stuff again? Yeah, exactly. Thoughts on this one? I thought it was a really good match. It was very strong as far as the action goes. They nailed a variety of moves. Maybe he's leaning on droppings a little bit, but I thought they were all good, so I can't complain too much about them. Obviously, the word for this match is impactful. Yes. Because there are some clothesline, as you mentioned, power bombs, suplexes, all that kind of stuff.
00:52:34
Speaker
Credit to both Toyota and Yoshida for really taking all that and keep fighting back from it. Yeah, it's amazing. They're resilient. But without ever making it look like the moves didn't hurt. No, they don't no sell anything, but they are up fast enough to keep the action flowing.
00:52:52
Speaker
Yeah, for the most part, there's a really good story they tell, which is that both Nakano and Hokuto are just so strong and powerful, they have to keep moving. Anytime they're too predictable or too slow, they just get wiped out and slammed and they have to fight back again.
00:53:08
Speaker
I think for me, the only thing I would really give it is that you kind of lose the impact of how good the faces are with their jumping and flipping when you then see Hokuto do a summer's all dive the outside. That is true. Because she's there to do really big power moves to them, and here she is doing this big flip. That's still a really good move to be wrong, and it's a really good match, but that's just very slight critique for a match. Otherwise, it's really hard to poke holes in, honestly.
00:53:34
Speaker
It really shows what they can do given less than 10 minutes for this whole situation. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, I thought this was awesome. These four started full throttle and then hit the nitrous. Yeah. Giving us an incredibly fast paced match that was filled with crazy acrobatics and powerful strikes and slams. The latter often but not exclusively from the incredibly impressive Nakano. Female Vader is an apt descriptor.
00:53:59
Speaker
All four of the women are great in this, but Nakano definitely is the standout as she just hurls people around bodily and stands up to everything thrown at her, making it feel like Yoshida and Toyota were in a desperate fight to just keep her on defense whenever she was in the ring. Not to undersell Hokuto either. Her rapid pile driver and that high angle German suplex in particular were awesome, and Yoshida and Toyota rounded things out with incredible precision and grace in every move.
00:54:24
Speaker
I really enjoyed this one, and it's the first match we've had on this one that felt like it actually built to a really big, satisfying finish. Both Hokuto and Nakano would, of course, end up in WCW in late 1995. I believe it's a World War III event. They're attacking, and obviously we have Hokuto, quite a bit more, being one of the few women's champions they ever actually had featured on their television shows. Yeah. Since every other title change happened in Japan for some good reason. Yeah. And never went to Medusa for some strange reason.
00:54:55
Speaker
That's bizarre. It is strange. It is so strange. Interestingly, Buena Cano retired from wrestling in 1997 to become a pro golfer. She's apparently done quite well. She's still doing it now. I wonder if she still does the hair that way because that would be awesome. I don't think she does that. Probably not, but now if I were her, I would have like covering my putters. I'd have that on my clubs. Yes. Have the little blue thing on them like that. That would be awesome. I would definitely have that.
00:55:24
Speaker
So sadly, I don't think we're going to feature Monami Toyoda or Yoshida ever again. I hope hopefully I'm wrong, but I feel like I should mention, I've written about Monami Toyoda. In 2012, she had a special retirement show. I almost want to watch, if this is the quote, I really want to watch it just so that the curiosity of it.
00:55:45
Speaker
So the gimmick of her retirement match, excuse me, the gimmick of her retirement show rather, is that anyone that wanted to come have one last chance to wrestle her would get a chance.
00:55:57
Speaker
She wrestled a series of one-minute matches. She would have a total of 51 of them, in fact. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah. I really wanted to make you try to recap a show of, like, 51-minute matches. Oh, that would be a nightmare recap-wise, but that sounds actually genuinely cool. Yes. Well, it gets better. So that was, like, sort of the buildup, because, you know, that's not enough. Like, a little hour of one-minute matches almost is not enough.
00:56:21
Speaker
She would then face off with her main rival, who in the first match would beat her. So, Toyota would sense and challenge her to a second match. Mind you, they're not more men matches than them, they're regular matches.
00:56:34
Speaker
she would then win both second match and a third match they would have because her opponent was upset to finally retire after all that action. Holy crap. You're thinking that's for a retirement show, but this is clearly the later stages of her career. You've got that much incredible amount of stamina. Wow. That's amazing. That sounds absolutely incredible. Yeah. I love to make you write the match recap for that event.
00:57:03
Speaker
Match number 37 in the 27th hour of Let's Go to the Rain episode. What do you think of this match? Well, they had about 45 seconds to do something. That was pretty good. Yeah. I do want to see, I'm curious if I can find video of this somewhere just to see what it looks like. Yeah. Yeah.
00:57:27
Speaker
Our fifth match is Shinya Hashimoto versus Scott Norton.
Scott Norton's Challenges
00:57:33
Speaker
And this is possibly for Hashimoto's IWGP World Heavyweight Championship. It seems to be listed as that in various articles that I've found, but nobody mentions it on commentary. So I'm not actually a hundred percent sure if that's the case. I think that it is because if you look it up, it mentions that there were only two title matches on the collision in Korea two day event, and this is one they often cite. Okay.
00:57:57
Speaker
the referee for this one is again tiger hottori and this is day one's main event the seventh batch on day one fortunately poor scott narden is part of probably the most famous collision korea event there's about five different shoot videos where he discusses this whole story so it's pretty prolific so i'll do my best to give it to you properly yet there's a situation there in this point they're all bunked in this hotel basically the one hotel at this point that's actually
00:58:25
Speaker
fully functional in probably an all North Korea or at least in beyond Yang. So that's why they're there. Scott Norton has recently gotten married. So he's been dealing with the international travel part, working in Japan with her. Yeah. So it's, you know, you work a show and you call her, talk about your day. Cause you're not seeing her probably for a while. You're on a X normal week tour. Norton's here. His wife is not correct. Yeah. Yeah. Even in, as far as your painting in Japan, she's, he's definitely not a career. Yeah. I don't blame her. Yeah. No, me neither.
00:58:54
Speaker
So Scott Norton explains the excruciating detail which he had to go through to make a phone call from a North Korean hotel at this point. His room is on the seventh floor of the hotel. He had to go down to the lower level below the entry area of the hotel to talk to the lady that runs the switchboard for calling in and out of the place. Oh my gosh.
00:59:17
Speaker
And according to him, the elevators did not work. So he has to walk down seven flights of stairs, pay her whatever the charge is to make a call out to where it is in the USA, and then run up seven flights of stairs in hopes that his wife hasn't hung up the phone.
00:59:34
Speaker
Because the lady's just going to call right away from when he's there. You can't just pick it up there and talk. Oh, yeah. You got to talk from his room. So they legit have phones in the room, but you have to go down seven flights of stairs to tell someone that you want to make the call. Oh, my gosh. Yes. Wow. So not the most efficient system. Yeah.
00:59:57
Speaker
That had been going on for about three days. He's tried several times to call her, gone through that situation multiple times. Either the calls go through or she's hung up by that point. A number of things. So back at home his wife thinks that he's blowing her off to hang out with the boys and have fun. Obviously she's not thinking about that because he's in North Korea. Yeah. And not thinking of exactly where he is at this point. So on day three, he
01:00:25
Speaker
He finally makes the situation work. I don't know how much this cost him, by the way, both in stamina and in money, to pay that lady to make futile phone calls that many times. He finally gets to talk to his wife after all this time. She's upset, thinks he's been blowing her off, having fun, not doing anything with her. He's not really mad at her. Obviously, he's mad at everything else going on right now in his life.
01:00:46
Speaker
So he then expresses his outrage, complaining about how such a blank hole country he's in and how bad it is. In mid sentence, the phone cuts out. Oh my gosh. In other words, we're listening. Yes. Yeah. So he says several minutes later, there's a knock on his door and there's few people. He doesn't say anything with guns, but the indication is someone has guns. Yeah. So they take him down. They take him to the elevator, which now works. So basically the elevator worked. They wouldn't let him use it. Oh my gosh.
01:01:16
Speaker
Yeah, just like no one uses the elevator at all. They're interrogating him and all this stuff. The way he tells the story, he's convinced, the reason he's still alive to this day to tell the story is that he's part of this massive PR event. You know, Muhammad Ali is there, CNN as a reporter is there. Yeah. And it's just a big covered event. So I think they figured if one guy went missing, no matter what the profile is, that would be bad for us.
01:01:42
Speaker
So, he thankfully is here to tell this story, but yes. Yeah, yeah. Obviously, they'd have to raise the bar a little bit on what they'd usually do to disappear someone, because they're definitely going to get questions if someone involved in an event with an actual, at this point, official of the Japanese government. Yes.
01:02:02
Speaker
And mind you, someone going missing by the secret police on a peace mission. Yeah. Especially bad. Yeah. It's a matter of what happens in the match we're covering next. It's not as bad as what happened to him everywhere else on the trip. Oh my gosh. That's... Wow. That... hopefully was the worst experience someone had on this trip. Yes. Wow. That had to be terrifying. Yes. Jeez. Oh. Poor Scott and Orrin. Go. Yes.
01:02:34
Speaker
Just to sort of lighten the mood a little bit, I have some little circle notes I could throw in here as well. That'd be kind of interesting. So, Scott and Orin isn't wrestling in New Japan for a while at this point. He famously was going to make an appearance for WCW, but then was unhappy and was placed by the prisoner. Oh, right, yes. And the worst match of that last series. I don't think any question about that, no? Yeah, no. That was really, really, really bad. Yeah.
01:03:00
Speaker
He was briefly a tag partner with Ludwig Borga, who at this point went by Tony Hallmey, which is his actual name. Okay. Where they beat the Steiner Brothers for the tag titles, briefly, before losing them to the Hellraisers, AKA Robar, Hawke, and Kazuki Sasake. Right. He would then form a new tag team with Hercules Hernandez, AKA Assassin No. 2, also Thurgate Nice A3. The one that was not Cuddly.
01:03:25
Speaker
Yes. Tassa number one is Kudleyessa, and number two is Bronny. Yes. Yeah, they would beat the Hellraisers for the tag titles as the great named Jurassic Powers. Yes.
01:03:39
Speaker
Nice. A little interesting fact for you on Hashimoto as well. So in 1989, he debuted as a big prospect. He was put in as part of a tournament to crown a new IWGP world champion. That's kind of a big start for you. One of the opponents he beat as part of the tournament, which obviously he didn't actually ultimately win, Viktor Zangiev. You remember from the international tag team? Right. Yeah. I think we liked him.
01:04:07
Speaker
Yes, he was the smaller Harrier of the two. Right, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he beat him as part of that initial run, but we later lose to someone who I believe actually ended up winning the tournament, Vader. Okay. Yes. I can picture a Hashimoto Vader match being pretty awesome. Mm-hmm, absolutely.
01:04:27
Speaker
Bischoff says he, quote, almost grew up with Norton in Minneapolis. Not quite sure what that means. Yeah. And talks up Norton's arm wrestling experience. Today explains that Norton has been a frequent challenger for the IWGP title and that at the time of this match, Hashimoto was IWGP champion. But like I said earlier, he doesn't outright say that this was actually for the title. I guess it was. Yeah. As far as I can tell, it was.
01:04:53
Speaker
Norton comes out in his usual wrestling singlet, but with black and white vertical stripes. It's not a flattering look. Maybe it's a reference to him being replaced by the prisoner on the show. Yeah, there you go. At least they are wide enough that it didn't hurt my eyes to look at like Stevie Ray's did back on Slippery 99. That was so bad. That just blur it together. Yeah. Oh, just like couldn't, couldn't watch sometimes, which was actually a benefit with that match. That's true.
01:05:21
Speaker
Bischoff mentions that Norton had a, quote, hard time adjusting to being in North Korea. Yes, as we learned. A reference to the events you described. Yes. And also mentions on the show how their passports were taken and they were followed everywhere by escorts. He doesn't go into detail, but he says he's pretty sure the North Koreans were glad when Norton was gone. Ishikawa chimes in with something that was assuredly witty if I could have heard it at all. Yeah.
01:05:47
Speaker
Norton's opponent, Hashimoto, comes out wearing the title belt and a headband and gets what will soon be Dean Malenko's theme. Oh yeah. He is a big fella as well.
01:05:57
Speaker
He was a very major figure in Japanese wrestling, actually, being one of three men, the others being the great Muda and Satoshi Kojima, who have been NWA World Heavyweight Champion, IWGP Heavyweight Champion, and Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion. The last itself, a combination of the PWF World Heavyweight Championship with the NWA United National Championship and the NWA International Heavyweight Championship.
01:06:22
Speaker
A bit later on, in 1997, he would set a record for the length of IWGP title reign at 489 days, which would not actually be broken until 2017. Yes. So quite an important figure in Japanese pro wrestling. He also won the G1 Climax tournament in 1998 as well. Okay, cool.
01:06:44
Speaker
Norton breaks free of a full Nelson with ease, and body checks Hashimoto so hard that he sails clean out of the ring. I think I really could sail by Hashimoto. Yes. Ishikawa says something about Hashimoto having a sumo body and Norton having bumps.
01:07:00
Speaker
I guess that means muscles, I'm not quite sure. Hashimoto finally counters a charge with a high sidekick, leading to a kick combo that ends with an impressive and very surprising spin wheel kick for two. Hashimoto starts working Norton's arm with arm bars, wrist locks, and strikes, but occasionally gets flattened by a big Norton clothesline. Bischoff builds up his and Norton's shared AWA history, and Tanay mentions that Norton went to high school with Road Warrior Hawk, and jokes about them bullying Bischoff for his lunch money.
01:07:30
Speaker
Bischoff says if it was those two, he'd even have handed over his car keys. I agree. Hashimoto ducks a Norton clothesline and hits a jump kick to the head. Really nice. He slaps on another arm bar, but Norton powers free with just one arm in a cool spot. Hashimoto starts kicking him, but Norton roars and asks for more repeatedly until Hashimoto tries another spinning wheel kick and Norton just casually ducks, letting him sail overhead.
01:07:59
Speaker
Norton earns two counts off a clothesline, a neckbreaker, and a body slam into some big falling elbow drops. Today mentions all of a sudden that there's a 20 minute time limit. You know, just mentioning. Yeah, as you do.
01:08:11
Speaker
Hashimoto counters a Norton powerbomb with a back body drop and gets a beautiful drop kick. He is amazingly agile for a big dude. Oh, yeah. He goes back to wrenching Norton's arm, but Norton appears to break the eyes and the camera misses Norton ground moves as some of Bischoff's commentary is lost in a burst of static. Bischoff, did you talk bad about Kim Jong Il? Yeah, right?
01:08:34
Speaker
Norton gets two counts off a Vader-like second-row splash and a nasty gut buster into a elbow drop and a thrusting clothesline. Bischoff proposes a match between Hashimoto and Vader, which, as I mentioned, I would love. Yes.
01:08:49
Speaker
Ishikawa proposes a New Japan vs WCW show, basically setting up Starrcade 1995 right there. Yep, pretty much. Hashimoto hits a beautiful sweep kick, then gets two counts from a kick combo, a massive jumping elbow drop, and a DDT. Norton seems to go for a power slam off a whip, but either his grip slips or there's a little miscommunication, but they recover admirably fast and he hits a DDT instead.
01:09:15
Speaker
Norin can't get Hashimoto lifted for a pile driver, then struggles a bit, but finally muscles him up and over for a suplex for two. I'm honestly not quite sure if that was a botch due to legit tiredness, or if they were trying to portray resisting, but if the former at least they abandoned the more dangerous pile driver.
01:09:32
Speaker
Yeah, I felt like that was that was planned. I could try to build up the move, build it up like that. Yeah, it feels like they're trying to do it, but it is a towards the end of a 20 minute match so I could see the other. I want to get a bit of it out on that, I think. Yeah, personally. Yeah. Hashimoto resists Norton chops and chops Norton to his knees, then lands a massive sidekick for two. But Norton fires back with an equally massive powerbomb, then hits a top rope splash for two.
01:09:59
Speaker
He whips Hashimoto to the ropes, but as he sets for a clothesline, there's a pop. And streamers rain down from above, signaling the 20-minute time limit. So it's a time limit draw. Norton looks dejected, but he and Hashimoto shake hands. Thoughts on this one? I'm kind of torn on this one. If you break it down in the action, I think it's overall really good. They tell good stories with Hashimoto having to sort of fight against Norton's strengths.
01:10:28
Speaker
Which is literally a strength in this case. The ability to take him down for moves. You also get good bits where Norden is able to predict what Hachima was going to do, like you talked about with the ducking, the spindle kick, and stuff like that. I think my problem with the match, and it doesn't mean I necessarily don't like it. My problem with it overall is I think it was kind of built backwards.
01:10:51
Speaker
They basically decided that they're going to work a 20 minute time limit draw match. So they paced a match like you would pace out a 20 minute time limit draw match. They wrestled a match like, because they knew they were going to do this, but they didn't make it look like an old match that just happened to run 20 minutes is what I'm saying. Okay. It's likely they work holds longer than you might, you know, these transitions is a little longer. They never, it's never boring, but it's never,
01:11:18
Speaker
It doesn't feel like a match that just happens one at a time. It feels like they work towards a few minutes left in the match and then here's a quick ending spot because we don't want to run out of time. That said, I do like the match a lot. It's probably the best Scott Norm match I've seen, which I know is not a high metric necessarily because I've only seen one other one on the show officially.
01:11:38
Speaker
Yeah, one or two, I think we've done. Yeah. Oh, do we get him as part of the... He's on Battle Bowl, the one... I would say he's part of Battle Bowl, so yeah. I think he was good in that. It's hard to pull good from that show. Yeah. You're plucking it out of there. Like we said on that show, I think. It's one of those shows where any individual match on that show is actually probably pretty much fine, but it's just the sheer string of them and how much they're like each other. Yeah.
01:12:05
Speaker
Because it's definitely the most variety I've seen from a Scott Norton match. So, credit where credit is due for that. Yeah. Yeah, I'm more of a Scott Norton fan, I think, than URL. But even I was a little bit nervous when I heard 20-minute time limit and Scott Norton.
01:12:22
Speaker
But this was pretty good. Hashimoto and Norton just belted each other with big hits and power moves, and they really wrenched on their hold, so it was one of those fun big-man matches where they just pound the crap out of each other because they can both take it. Yeah. Agreed.
01:12:36
Speaker
Hashimoto had some surprising agility too, with several nice jumping kicks that I would never have expected from the initial look of him. This had a good back and forth sort of feel, and it felt like a contest between two guys that knew each other well and had a good rivalry going on. It did slow down from time to time, I'll agree, but they never really lost the flow, and they did an impressive job managing a lengthy match for two big dudes.
01:13:01
Speaker
I didn't really like it ending in a time limit draw, of course, but I do appreciate that they at least avoided the stereotypical, oh, I almost had a three count, but for the buzzer. You know, sort of ending. They never felt like they visibly sat around and waited for the timer or anything like that. They were clearly fighting up until the very last moment. So it was slower pace than some of the other stuff tonight, but it was still really enjoyable. Yeah, I agree with that.
01:13:28
Speaker
there's an interesting cross connection involving people on the show and the IWGP championship. So for instance, in 1998, Scott Norman actually win the title, which I think we discussed in a previous show. He never actually wears it on NYTRO, say for like, think of maybe one thunder, he gets to wear the belt on. And it's bizarre that he's a world champion of this major promotion and they don't want to promote it, since he's part of the NWO. Look how we're winning across the world. Yeah, you'd think they would build that up, but maybe IWGP people said no.
01:13:55
Speaker
It's possible. It feels more like a Hogan than someone outshining his title win. Fair. It's another world title thing. Yeah. That could be too. I don't know for sure, but it's just how it feels based on his history. So I mentioned the cross connections. The match Scott Nord would win would be for the vacant title. He'd beat you to each and you got it. We saw it on the show for the belt. That would be a really interesting match.
01:14:18
Speaker
And the reason the match happened was because the belt was vacated by Masahiro Chono, who was injured while a champion. Wow, interesting. Well, instantly, Scott Norden would later lose the Eurotile to the Great Muda. The month of that match, January. Ha ha ha ha, it returns. Callbacks.
01:14:37
Speaker
As far as Hashimoto himself, he's world champion when this match happens, but he would lose it like a week later. He loses on May 3rd to the Great Muto. Okay. It's funny, he's champion when this match happens, but he's not a champion.
01:14:53
Speaker
like a week after it actually occurs and been almost two months since the actual title when this show really airs. Yeah. Yeah. I think this is one of the rare cases at this point, rare cases where they really openly admit we're recording commentary in post. Yes. Because today actually says at this time he was IWGP champion. Correct. That is a lot of interesting connections between them. Yeah.
01:15:15
Speaker
Bischoff cuts to another video of the opening ceremonies. Ladies running with big flowers in a choreographed flag show this time, leading to some gymnastic work on huge parallel bars, and some people doing a choreographed dance with basketballs. Okay? Weird. Some kids did some acrobatics too, it looks like, and there was a martial arts demonstration besides. Looks like quite a huge spectacle. The performances do look impressive, and it's just too bad about the regime putting it all on. Yeah.
01:15:41
Speaker
On 83 weeks, Bischoff also mentions that, un-shown on this version, obviously, proclamations of loyalty to the regime were a big part of the North Korean pre-show as well. Oh, okay. Our sixth match is Tadeo Yasuda again versus Hawk Warrior, otherwise known as Road Warrior Hawk. Referee for this one is Tiger Hatori. And this is day two, match six.
01:16:08
Speaker
As Yasuda enters, Tenay mentions that it was going to be the Road Warriors in a tag match, but animals suffered a recurrence of his back injury from a few years back and couldn't come, so Hawk's in a singles match instead. Hawk comes out in the full spike gear and everything. I imagine that it was fun getting that through North Korean customs. Oh yeah.
01:16:26
Speaker
Today talks about Hawk's time in New Japan, teaming with Kintsuke Sasaki as the Hellraisers. Bischoff jokes about what it would be like riding a plane next to Hawk with the spiked shoulder pads on. I'm pretty sure that he doesn't wear those in flight, Eric. Mostly sure, anyway. Now, I assume Sookie Sasaki and Hawk didn't have the nail sticking out of their head like the proper Hellraiser. No, no. No, the spiked shoulder pads, I think, are the replacement for that.
01:16:53
Speaker
I'd like to see that reverse, like have Pinhead be, I guess, pin shoulders. Have him wear those. Quite a contrasting gimmicks here as they line up across the ring. You've got Yasuda in just the plain orange trunks, nothing fancy, entering to generic music, across from Hawke in the full face paint, big spiky shoulder pads, and entering to his personalized what a rush theme. Sadly he didn't bring Rocco on the trip.
01:17:20
Speaker
Aside from some Sumo slaps, Hawk throws Yasuda around the ring like a ragdoll and clubs him down early on, and resists a Yasuda shoulder block. I know that as Hawk, but it feels a little bit weird that the former Sumo wrestler is the guy who can't knock his opponent down, rather than the guy who can't be knocked down. Eh, fair enough.
01:17:39
Speaker
Isuda challenges Hawk to a sumo face-off and does the traditional sumo stomp, the Shiko. Ishikawa notes that those are said to ward off evil spirits. This is true, though they're also a lower body exercise. Bischoff says Hawk is one heck of an evil spirit, and Ishikawa jokes he's like a tengu, which is a good pick, actually. Yeah, absolutely. The bird demon. Yeah, yeah.
01:18:01
Speaker
Yasuda and Hawke charge, and Yasuda knocks Hawke down, but Hawke springs up and clotheslines him down, hits such a high flying shoulder block it's almost a knee strike, and tries a top rope splash that Yasuda dodges. We get a nice Yasuda butterfly suplex, but Hawke no-sells, clotheslines him, power-slams him, and hits a flying clothesline from the top for the three count in the win. Hawke gets his hand raised and goes outside to pose in victory, as Bischoff makes sure to mention Hogan at least once while he's praising WCW Wrestling.
01:18:32
Speaker
We get replays of the sumo contest and the final flying clothesline. Thoughts on this one? I thought it was pretty decent. All things considered, it's what, two and a half minutes long, I think, altogether? Yeah, very short. Yeah. So bearing in mind that at this point, it's Rory Hawke in a singles match. Not a lot of variety of what he can do in a situation like this. And it's a guy that's wrestled for about a year. Yeah. It's actually not bad. No, no, no.
01:18:58
Speaker
I do appreciate, I noticed it more on the rewatch, he's sort of less sewn down from watching so much in a row. I noticed that Hawk gave more offense to, at least in that small amount of time that I remembered. He left him to his suplex, that was the suplex, it doesn't matter that much, but he left him to his body slam, left him to his suplex, and left him, you know, knock him on a little bit before we're never really just going to the finish. So it's not 100% one-sided squash match, it's like a 97% one-sided squash match. Oh, okay.
01:19:27
Speaker
You have to mention the clothesline interesting because a lot of times people do a flying clothesline, a jumping clothesline. You sort of hit them and they go down. With his, he hits them and like pulls him down with his arm. Yeah, it like becomes a like a flying rock bottom at a certain point. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It might have just been their timing being a little bit off or something. As we mentioned is like a year into wrestling. Right. It's impossible.
01:19:51
Speaker
Reminds me, there's a move you see a lot in wrestling, the Sling Blade, where you jump and you pull them down, fight from behind with your arm as you jump past them. Yeah. Just didn't look like a fun clothesline to take. Yeah.
01:20:06
Speaker
Yeah, I thought this was incredibly short. It was nice to see Hawksure and Yasuda did get to show off a few nice moves, but this barely had time to be anything, at only about two and a half minutes. Obviously, from the sound of things, this wasn't the match that they had planned, but I kind of wish that they'd come up with something that had a little bit more time to breathe and develop.
01:20:25
Speaker
I didn't feel like Yasuda was very well served by this one. I thought he came off looking far worse than against Chono and Saito, as Hawk just, he did let him have some offense, but then he just basically shrugged off everything he did. No, I mean, that's for Hawk, that's kind of what I expected. Yeah, true. So I didn't think it was bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it just felt kind of there. It was, let's get Hawk on the show, and nothing really beyond that. Yeah. On that note, sort of crazy, but also kind of obvious situation here.
01:20:54
Speaker
Like literally the match that follows this both on our broadcast and I think on the actual night of I remember correctly. Yes. Is the Steiner's tag team match against Kazuki Suzuki and Hiroshi Hase. Yeah. So you have Suzuki and Hawk both here and they were the Hellraisers. Why can't you just put like Yasuda or someone else with the Steiner's? Yeah, I could say that.
01:21:19
Speaker
That way Hawk can probably do about the same amount of work, but it'd be part of a six man match. Yeah.
01:21:25
Speaker
Don't be wrong. I was able to discuss, I liked the tag match we get, but I could see you easily to sort of play nails advocate and just try this instead. That is probably the best place to put him, put him with a guy he's worked with extensively. As we note from, I believe Starrcade 1990, we get a World Warriors Steiner's match on that show. Yeah. Where's 89? Hold on. 89. Sorry. They have two tournament shows in a row. Yes. Understandably, a lot of overlap Steiners are in both of them.
01:21:53
Speaker
89 we have two different tournaments one of which is a tag tournament. Yes 90 we have a lengthy tag tournament Yeah, then if we get to 91 it is the first battle ball show. Mm-hmm So it's again a whole crap ton of tag matches. Yeah for someone that likes tag wrestling but In smaller doses that was not the most fun run of Starkades. No, absolutely Burhawk would return to WSW in
01:22:20
Speaker
Lear 95, and then of course he come back in 96 with his partner, Robor Animal. I think they would debut for the first time the blue shoulder pads. Because it's like red take red everywhere at the time I ever see them. Until WCW when they come in for a run that's definitely hit or miss based off of slam green 96. Yeah, it does at least involve one of the better Lex Luger moments. Oh, for sure. Challenging them to a Chicago street fight and then immediately turning to Sting and saying, what's a Chicago street fight?
01:22:48
Speaker
Suda himself would actually win the IWDP title as well. Oh, cool. In 2002. All right. So several years after this, you would win it. I mean, it makes sense. Still definitely need more experience. Yes. There's a caveat to his win, however. So there's a period of time starting in the early 2000s with New Japan with Inoki running. At this point, Inoki's retired. Inoki loves MMA. So if you could present yourself as an MMA background,
01:23:14
Speaker
Your spot in the card would change dramatically. Okay. Which is a double-edged sword because there was wrestlers that they would do a match like that. He'd push them with the card sometimes give them the title. In fact, a couple of times it happens. But then once they lose a match, like an actual legit shoot fight, he then either took the title from them completely, like he did with Bob Sapp. Poor Bob Sapp loses a different fight somewhere else and stripped the IDP title. Like what? How does that make any sense?
01:23:41
Speaker
But yeah, Yasuda was one of the guys that he won in Disney in May. Obviously, given his size and his experience, I could see that working out well. And it did. You won a couple of fights in a row, being impressive, so you got to win the title. Well, good for him that he eventually got there, though. Oh, yeah. Looking at this early in his career, you can tell that he's keeping to what he knows how to do. But like I said earlier, he clearly knows how to do it quite well. Yeah, yeah. I can picture him becoming a very good performer, given a little more seasoning. Yeah, absolutely.
01:24:13
Speaker
Our seventh match is the Steiner Brothers, Rick and Scott, versus Hiroshi Hase and Kintsuke Sasaki. Referee for this one again is Tiger Hitori. And this is day two, match seven.
01:24:27
Speaker
So there's surprisingly little drama that I've been able to find stories about between Shooter Views and the Aether Bricks podcast, Dark Side of the Ring, about Scott and Rick Steiner's time in North Korea. That is genuinely surprising, yeah. I feel like if this was a tour in 1999, you'd hear a lot more about Scott Steiner for sure.
01:24:44
Speaker
Bishop told the story about how they held some outdoor luncheon for them. And mind this is a country that's been through a 15 to 20 year famine. Yeah. Here's these big beefy American guys and they're giving them plates of food off a grill. So it felt really great if you live there. Yeah. This is where all the food is going, you know? So apparently they were grilling up food, they gave Scott some chicken, he did not like it and threw it down the ground.
01:25:11
Speaker
Which, in any culture, it's disrespectful, but especially certain Asia, they're not fans of that kind of thing. And again, the 1520, you're a fan of not helping the situation. Yes, yeah.
01:25:21
Speaker
Thankfully, as far as I can tell, there's no other stories with that happening. It's just him doing that, everyone going, ah, let me get Scott out of here for a while. Yeah, I'm kind of surprised he didn't end up visiting the same room that Mr. Norton went to for a bit. Yeah. Let's surprise myself. Norton just says something mean about their country to his wife. Yeah, right? Steiner's actually chucking their food on the ground. That seems like that would get a stronger reaction. Yeah.
01:25:46
Speaker
The Steiner's come out in their University of Michigan jackets. As you pointed out, the theme were dubbed in post. I kind of wish they were played there because the mental image of the North Korean leaders sitting there trying to look official and authoritative, well, Steiner's just blaring. That makes me chuckle for some reason. Yeah, I can see that.
01:26:06
Speaker
It is notable, of course, that these Steiners are actually not here representing WCW as at this time they're working for New Japan. They would rejoin WCW in 1996. Hiroshi Hase and Kintsuke Sasaki come out wearing t-shirts and for some reason the image of Tito Santana and Rick Martell as Strike Force came to my mind as they jogged to the ring. I can kind of see that.
01:26:27
Speaker
By the way, this has nothing to do with anything, but a weird factoid I came across while looking up what the dang Santana Martell team was actually called, when he was in Georgia Championship Wrestling, Tito Santana apparently went by Richard Blood. If that sounds familiar, it's because that's Ricky the Dragon Steamboat's real name, which he switched away from because Booker Eddie Graham thought it was a better name for a heel than a face, which I agree. It's just interesting that it did see use albeit in a totally different promotion and by a totally different wrestler.
01:26:56
Speaker
Moving on, Bischoff notes that Hasei and Sasaki are very popular in Japan, and Ishikawa says something. I definitely heard Parliament and Election in there, but the rest is drowned out by the music. With the microphone they've given him, though, Ishikawa could be drowned out by a passing housefly.
01:27:14
Speaker
I assume that he was bringing up the fact that Hiroshi Hase was actually elected into parliamentary office in Japan shortly after this show, though before it aired for Americans, in July 1995. He was actually the second wrestler to accomplish that after Antonio Inoki, who we'll see later. That explains the rockin' mustache. Voters love the stash. Oh, 100%. At this point, by the way, the commentators have decided to just admit that they're recording in post after seeing me to go back and forth all night.
01:27:45
Speaker
Tanay notes that these teams have had a long rivalry, bringing up a match from the first WCW New Japan Super Show in 1991. Bischoff segues that into talking about a Japan show that they did after this show, and praises Kintsuke Sasaki's mother's cooking. Apparently his family owns a restaurant, and it's very good. Yeah, it sounds like it. Hishikawa says that it's very popular with American wrestlers, and I think says something about them calling her Mama-san. Yes, that is correct. It's a cute moment, overall. Yeah, for sure.
01:28:14
Speaker
Hase and Scott start us off, and Scott outwrestles him, presses him overhead, and throws him out over the ropes onto a ring attendant. Actually, no, a lot of the ring attendants are actually other wrestlers. Yes. Their names are important on their checks. Oh, okay. The Stiners double-team Sasaki, and he rolls out two, leaving them doing their traditional pose in the center of the ring. Ishikawa says the North Koreans will think they're a couple of crazy Americans in audible continuation.
01:28:40
Speaker
Tenay talks of Hase's Olympic history. He wrestled at the 1984 Olympics in LA. Back in, Hase hits a nice spinning heel kick to Scott's face and a good drop kick, but Scott fires back with a rapid suplex and a tilt-a-whirl slam, then tags Rick, as Hase tags Sasaki. Sasaki, no cells, a Steiner line. Twice.
01:29:06
Speaker
He ducks a third and sidekicks Rick down. I have never seen somebody get to no-sell Rick Steiner. Bischoff doesn't mention it, though, as he's too busy talking about Hase being in politics. Sasaki and Rick trade a German suplex and belly-to-belly suplex, respectively, and Sasaki hits a power slam.
01:29:23
Speaker
Tine brings up Sasaki's marriage to Akira Hokuto and says they were actually introduced at this very event. Famously, Sasaki proposed after one date. Yes. Love at first sight can happen, man. Even in North Korea, I guess. I guess so. Bischoff is thrilled for them. It's a really cute moment. Yeah. Tag to Hase, and he does not get to no-sell a Steiner line. No. It gets two.
01:29:48
Speaker
Rick drives him to the turnbuckle and tags Scott, who hits a massive belly-to-belly suplex for one as Sasaki breaks. Scott punts Hase in the face a few times. He's in politics, dude. Lay off the face. Hase counters with a dropkick, but Scott brilliantly grabs his leg and drags him across the ring to prevent the tag. It was flashing back to Anderson's tag matches there.
01:30:10
Speaker
Tag to Rick, who hits one of the scariest German suplexes I have ever seen. Hase nearly lands right on his head. Yeah. It's like the flipping cell of it where you pull over. He tries to do the flipping cell, but he doesn't get all the way over. Oh, jeez. I think on the show we were watching it and you heard me make like a noise. Yeah, that's how it was, yeah.
01:30:33
Speaker
It gets to as Sasaki breaks. Rick and Scott trade off decimating Hase. Scott, overhead belly-to-belly, is almost as scary, and they keep hitting him in the face before a double-underhooked powerbomb by Scott for two and a half. Hase finally dodges a Steiner line from Rick, and he hits a back suplex that almost turns into a rock bottom, then tags Sasaki, who runs wild on both Steiners with dropcakes and slams, until Scott punches him in the crotch. Scott, come on! Dude just fell in love!
01:31:04
Speaker
Sasaki gets revenge, clotheslining both down, and lifting Rick for a top rope dive from Hase. Hase does a giant swing, and today says to count the rotations. So I did. Thirteen. Bischoff says that 44 is his record, so this was more of a warm-up. Nicely, though, Rick is so dizzy that he can't find his corner. But he can manage a German suplex that does appear to land Hase right on the nagen this time. Yeah. It does. Tag to Scott.
01:31:33
Speaker
and it gets one off a pump handle slam as Sasaki saves. So Rick takes Sasaki outside to brawl and the camera watches them as Scott hits what looks like it would be the Steiner screwdriver on Hase off camera for the three count and the win. Seriously, you cut away from the Steiner screwdriver to show some punching? We've seen a lot of boneheaded WCW production moves, but this takes the cake.
01:31:59
Speaker
The starters pose in victory, and Sasaki comes over to help Hase up because, you know, Steiner's screwdriver. He's eventually able to take a bow, and we don't even get a replay. Thoughts on this one? Clearly the real loser here is poor Hiroshi Hase. Yes. Especially his face. Oh, gosh.
01:32:18
Speaker
They don't make a clear commentary which would really be helpful. I think the idea is that Thanos already definitely heals here. They seem to be acting like it at several points. They're playing it like that with, like you mentioned the Anderson, with the way they're being punched in the guy down below and all that. They don't break on the ropes a few times too. True, yeah.
01:32:38
Speaker
It's nice that they made that clear on commentary, because you don't necessarily think of the Stiners, especially at this point, as heels. They're just, hey, the Stiners, they rustly throw people around and beat the crap out of them. Bischoff does have several comments about their emotions getting the better of them and that sort of thing. It's probably a case where he's like, when we bring these guys in, they're probably going to be faces again. So don't build up too much of their heel work, most likely. I can see that.
01:33:02
Speaker
It hurts to match a lot of things. The good amateur doesn't make it clear enough how you're supposed to feel. And there's so little crowd reaction to the theme of the show that it's hard to get the right vibe from them. Suzuki doesn't get to do a whole lot here, does he? Really? He doesn't. He always looks good when he's in there, though.
01:33:20
Speaker
And he's not new. It's not like it's the Yasuda situation where they bring him over that. So it's weird he's been so old-time in the ring. Yeah. I think Abe's in his match as the basically one-sided beatdown of poor Roshi Hase. Yes. And then they sort of fight to the outside and they can't remiss his finish. Yeah. One of the worst production mistakes we've seen. I can't reiterate. Exactly.
01:33:43
Speaker
I think if his match was a little more even, and there's little things like the commenter making the characterization more clear and having actual crowd reaction to be a really, really good match. For me, it falls a little bit short as an overall package because of that, but it's enjoyable to watch. Nothing else from the sheer terror of it, of watching this program get thrown around and beaten up. It's a morbid appeal to something else.
01:34:08
Speaker
Yeah, I thought this was a great tag match. It's, as you'd expect from this era, Steiners, especially with two performers as good as Sasaki and Hase. I have not seen the latter before and he is amazing. Maybe a little too eager to get dumped repeatedly on his head, especially for a guy with a political career ahead of him.
01:34:25
Speaker
but he's very agile and still resilient. He feels able to go toe to toe with the Steiner's despite being visibly smaller than them. Sasaki, of course, just gets in their faces and matches them blow to blow as he's an equally big muscly guy. He gets to manhandle Rick at points in ways that I'm not sure I've ever seen happen, which was really cool. Rick and Scott, of course, are their usual suplex happy selves, as impressive as always.
01:34:50
Speaker
I thought this had a good flow and a sense of escalation through the match. For me, I wasn't bothered as much, I don't think, by Hase being in there so much because I think he did a good job of playing the face in Pero Roy. There's one point, I remember, he's in a front face lock by one of the Steiners and he is actually managing to slowly push him across the ring and I really was genuinely pulling from like, get there, get there, get there.
01:35:14
Speaker
So I really enjoyed it. I thought it escalated nicely throughout the match, and it was a joy to watch if a tad scary at times. Seriously, I'll say, tuck your head. Yeah, I think for me, there's not enough of his partner in there, so it's a little too one-sided as a whole. But yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you as a general though, yeah. Interestingly, the Stiners would first go to ECW after this, which is one people almost never talk about.
01:35:41
Speaker
And obviously they would then return to WCW where they would spend the rest of the time with the company. As I mentioned, Jose was elected to the diet in 1985. He kind of hung around politics for a while after this. Yeah, it was a pretty long career. Yeah, he kind of, it's weird because he'll pop in and out of wrestling, but also politicians. Can't you do that in America? Yeah, that would be like the house within like go do an indie show somewhere. That would be interesting. Definitely.
01:36:07
Speaker
In fact, his last appointed position I looked up was he was the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology. He was appointed in late 2015 and served through mid-2016. Okay. Hey, I mean, congratulations to the guy on a lengthy career in both fronts. Yeah. He's appointed by the now absent Shinzo Abe. Yes.
01:36:28
Speaker
more across the next ones for you here. 1997, Zukis Zaki would reach arguably the pinnacle of career where he would win the IWDP championship. He win it from Hashimoto. Okay. He did multiple reigns. I think he has four or five total across multiple years. Unfortunately, the last time he lost the title was 2001 to Scott Norton. Well, there you go.
01:36:50
Speaker
seeing the entire IWGP title picture for the next several years on this show, it looks like. Pretty much. That's neat. We cut to Bischoff, Tine, and Ishikawa. Bischoff says the Steiners are trying to make their way into WCW, and Tine goes over some of the variety we've seen, then gets Ishikawa's thoughts on the Flair-Inoki match. Ishikawa says that Flair has no chance because Inoki was trained by Ricky Dozen, who was from North Korea.
01:37:21
Speaker
It's perhaps more accurate to say he was from what would become North Korea, as he was born Kim Sin-rock in 1924, before the Koreas split, and indeed when they were actually under Japanese rule. He left for Japan in 1939, becoming a sumo wrestler, where he got the name Rikido-san, before becoming a pro wrestler in 1951.
01:37:43
Speaker
enormously successful and popular. He even got to beat Luthez for the NWA international heavyweight title and was the founder of the first Japanese pro wrestling promotion, the Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance, JWA. Oddly, they don't include the P. Why not?
01:37:59
Speaker
Sadly, he died after being stabbed in a bar fight with a yakuza, Katsushi Murata. Reportedly, the wound was survivable, but after surgery he ignored doctors' orders and drank alcohol heavily, worsening his condition and leading to his death. He was an incredibly important figure to the Japanese pro wrestling scene, becoming a massive star and training several Japanese wrestling legends, including, most notably for tonight, Antonio Anoki.
01:38:27
Speaker
Other than that, he trained Giant Baba. Yes. They would eventually leave the company that he founded with them underneath him and form All Japan and New Japan, effectively. There you go. So he's basically the genesis of the entire Japanese
Antonio Inoki's Influence
01:38:40
Speaker
pro wrestling scene. Pretty much, yeah.
01:38:42
Speaker
Weirdly, Bischoff goes back to kind of talking like the match is upcoming rather than something that already happened as he talks about Flair's chances. A second later, he's back to talking about things in past tense again as we see shots of Inoki and Flair getting ready for the match backstage in the arena. Inoki works out doing headstand neck bends against the arena wall, which looks intense. Flair wandering through a mostly empty backstage area with his glittery robe over his arm is kind of funny to watch.
01:39:12
Speaker
As we see shots of Flair and Enoki in front of their respective flags, Flair's theme hits, and they nicely time a dramatic shot of the two of them for the big note in the opening bars of Flair's theme. And when it hits the dun dun, it shows the two of them facing off, which is kind of neat. So our final match is The Nature Boy, Rick Flair versus Antonio Enoki with Antonio Enoki's chin. Seriously, it's like Leno's.
01:39:41
Speaker
Referee for this one is, again, Tiger Hittori. This is day two, the main event, match eight. There's one story that's told about the trip North Korea. Curiously, it's never told firsthand. It never told as, I said this and someone else did this.
01:39:59
Speaker
It's always told third hand. Someone heard them say this and saw the reaction. I think Bischoff tells the story. I don't know if people that were around to tell the story tell this. Supposedly at some point during one of the big dinners, they're bragging about how great North Korea is and how they're more dominant than America.
01:40:16
Speaker
Muhammad Ali supposedly pops in saying, no wonder we blank and hate these guys. Yes. To the Ric Flair, sort of nods approving Ali, but doesn't say anything. And there seems to be no reprisal towards Ali, maybe because of his level of celebrity at that point in notoriety. Bischoff at one point does mention that at this point, Ali, who was obviously suffering from Parkinson's.
01:40:39
Speaker
had actually a great deal of difficulty holding conversation at a louder volume, but he could be perfectly well heard when he was whispering. So if he was leaning over like to Rick or something, they might just not have heard him, basically. Okay. Yeah, because I've never seen that story told by Rick Flair. And I've never seen Ali tell that story. It's people that are around saying that this is what happened.
01:41:04
Speaker
This is technically part of Inoki's retirement tour. He announced in 1994 he was planning to retire from pro wrestling, which would happen in 1998. All right. Well, planning ahead. Yeah, you know, you know, there's, there's programs over here where you, you'd say, you know, I'll retire in five years. Like the Jay Leno situation where he say leave the show after the contact ran up. Yeah. Fair enough. Back to Jay Leno. How'd that work out? There we go. How's it planned?
01:41:31
Speaker
The player comes out in a glittery purple and silver robe as Bischoff builds up Inoki's work to make this event happen. Inoki is out next in a white robe with kanji on the back, surrounded by a crowd of people. There's a bunch of wrestlers shielding him as he strides through a huge crowd with everybody snapping pictures with big old cameras. Ishikawa praises Inoki for his attempts to use pro wrestling as a means of promoting peace.
01:41:56
Speaker
The commentary gets seriously awkward at this point, as they tried to talk in past tense, but also future tense. You know, things like, this was Flair's first match back. We'll see if ring rust matters. You know, it just feels strange how much they're switching back and forth, and sometimes acknowledging they're recording in post, and sometimes talking like, oh, this is happening right now, in front of our eyes. Imagine at some point, it's like he's going to spoil the main event, and he simply says, why don't we spoil what's going to happen later? On those lines.
01:42:25
Speaker
Okay. It's just like pick one. Yeah, exactly. Enoki comes out ahead on counterwrestling, as Flare has to use the ropes to break an armbar. Flare yells at the ref. Flare rolls Enoki into an armbar himself. It's almost a cross arm breaker, but he doesn't keep the feet across the chest. Enoki boots Flare hard in the head to break, which probably made Flare regret not putting on an actual cross arm breaker. Yeah. And they glare at each other. Flare giving an aggressive woo.
01:42:55
Speaker
The crowd actually makes some noise for the first time on the show. Yes. Inoki's shoulder block, and Flare rolls out to cool down. Back in, Flare immediately kicks Inoki on a test of strength. Bischoff builds up Inoki's physical condition, saying that he'd tried to join Inoki for a jog, but had to bow out after 25 minutes, unable to keep up.
01:43:16
Speaker
Flair works Inoki's arm, and he rolls out, slapping the apron in frustration, but Flair snaps his neck across the ropes as he tries to get in, then rams him into the post a couple times. Ishikawa, actually audible for once, notes that North Korean state TV had showed days of Ric Flair matches in the lead-up to this so the audience would know what to expect. That's one of the more benign uses of state TV at least. Yeah, I guess so.
01:43:40
Speaker
Inoki reels outside the ring near other New Japan wrestlers, and Hiroshi Hase encourages him. I wonder if that ended up in either one's political ads, or both. I feel like Hase probably wouldn't want to include that as ads if he's running. I don't know. Flair suplexes Inoki in for four two counts. Bischoff constantly switches back and forth between talking like this is live and talking about it happening months prior. It's really distracting. It's very distracting, yes.
01:44:09
Speaker
Flair works Enoki's leg with a shinbreaker, leg hold, and more, though he does slip in an STF at one point, which Bischoff notes is rare for him. Bischoff praises Flair's skill on the way to praising Hogan, who beat him. Seriously, Bischoff, Hogan is not even here. He's not gonna watch the show, buddy. No. I don't think he cares. No.
01:44:29
Speaker
Figure 4 by Flair. Inoki howls in pain, but Flair prevents him from reaching the ropes. So Inoki muscles Flair's leg off of his own, able to disentangle himself, and gets to the ropes. I'm not actually sure if I've ever seen that counter completed before. I know we've seen people try and do the leg shove, but I don't know that I've ever seen someone get to actually do it. But yeah, I'm not sure on that either. It was a cool difference from the norm. Yeah.
01:44:55
Speaker
Speaking of differences from the norm, or not at all, Flair tries the figure four again and Inoki rolls him up for two. He then backslides him for two as well. Inoki wins some slug vests and gets a big smile on his face. At least he's having fun. Flair flops, and Inoki flings him to the turnbuckle for Flair flip, sending him to the floor. Back in, Flair begs for mercy, and the ref gets in Inoki's way, so Flair sneaks a kick around the ref.
01:45:21
Speaker
Flare goes up top, but Flare Karma holds true even in North Korea. Enoki gets two and three quarters, and a two, off of a dropkick, but Flare wins a slug fast and gets two counts with an elbow drop and a big stalling suplex.
01:45:36
Speaker
Flare tries a slam, but Inoki somehow manages to counter that with a head scissors in a cool spot, then hits a cartwheel kick, a top rope knee drop, and his enziguri, or jump back leg round kick per Bischoff, for the three count and the win. Ishikawa says he told Bischoff that would happen. Inoki gets flowers from someone outside, and waves to the crowd. Bischoff says he's not making excuses for Flare, and proceeds to make like a dozen excuses from ring rust to jet lag.
01:46:06
Speaker
The player recovers and walks up to a no-key aggressively, but ultimately extends a hand, and they shake hands. See, peace can come from wrestling. There you go. Thoughts on this one? I thought it was a good match. Obviously, it's historically important. I think it's the only time these two ever actually have a match. I'm pretty sure that's the case, yeah. Yeah. Which is kind of bonkers when you think about it.
01:46:29
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that really seems like something that should have happened more than once, right? Especially, I know there's a point where Anoki comes over to WCW and actually has a match, but I think it's like Steve Regal, right? Correct, yes. The US of the Clash of Champions, yeah. We got Antonio Anoki for one match. Who should we have him face?
01:46:45
Speaker
Regal, I guess, you know, not, not flare or not. Yeah. Don't get me wrong. I really love Regal. Sure. And he deserves an honor, but it just feels strange. They are like the first and apparently only enoki match in WCW. And it's, it's not Rick flair or, or one of the world champion level guys at the time. It's the same way they brought in no mask arrest to fight Cactus Jack. Right. Yeah. Huh. Okay. Sure.
01:47:10
Speaker
Yeah, so it's kind of crazy to think that this match didn't happen more often, like once a year for a while you think you have something like this happen, but yeah. All things considered, they have really good chemistry. Flair is willing to, as always, play heal Flair and work underneath, constantly cut off the face and everything. Enoki does a good job of sort of showing his sort of confidence at first, then getting more upset as the match goes on. The few good points they make in commentary are not confusing at which tense it happens in.
01:47:40
Speaker
about how Inoki doesn't normally throw punches. The fact that Flair has gotten worked up is a good tell for him. Yeah, he's really riled up and they point that out really nicely. Yeah, exactly. You haven't seen a lot of Inoki stuff because there's just not a lot of stuff here in America. So I don't have like a baseline of Zoe to judge Inoki matches, so I can't say of like, this is a really good Inoki match, an avid Inoki match, or just, you know, a bad one for all I know.
01:48:04
Speaker
I will say, and it's kind of built in, so Inoki's finish, he's been using for like 20 plus years at this point, is the Inziguri kick, and I will not call it what Bishop calls it. It's a good move, but we had a couple people do that move on this show, and it's not a finish for them. Right, yeah. On top of it, if you look at the way that the finish happens,
01:48:26
Speaker
He does a rolling flip kick, which is pretty cool. Knocking flare down, goes to the top rope, knee drops the back of his head, then picks him back up, kick him in the back of the head a third time. A little bit complicated, maybe. He does at least do it really fast, though. No, that's true.
01:48:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of the same thing as like what eventually happens to the DDT. That's like for Jake Roberts, that's the absolute death move. Like no one kicks out of the DDT. Yeah. But then it becomes this like transitional move after a few years. So it has a similar feeling. I think watching the end security for a Nokia as if you'd seen like Jake Roberts do the DDT on the show where that's used as a transition move by like everybody. Yeah. And just then suddenly it's like, wait, that's that's a killer move now. What?
01:49:09
Speaker
If I was in a situation and my move was like that was suddenly something everyone did and didn't necessarily have that much impact, I would like try to make it more effective. Like I would build up a match or like go for it early and have them like duck and you know like roll out the ring like whoa you know I'll see them at the kick you know. Have people really build up that move. Remind people. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I can see that.
01:49:31
Speaker
And maybe tell people not to do that move if I'm on the show. Especially when it's your show that you set up, you'd think he could tell people, just don't do Inzegiris, it's my thing. Yeah, exactly. I am literally part of the government at this point. Yeah. I thought Noki here did a good job sort of playing the face to Ric Flair's heal, which, he is probably pretty easy. Even an autopilot mode Flair is really good as a heal, so yeah. Yeah. That's a good bench.
01:49:58
Speaker
Yeah, I thought it was a very, very solid match. It does feel a bit tame at first after some of the amazing action we've seen earlier in the show, but through really get into it and it builds massively in intensity as it goes. It has exactly the feel it needs. It's a slower opening because the two are both legends and no, no of the other skill. So they're tentative approaching at first feeling each other out. But then it leads to more aggression as they each get more confident and more frustrated with the other's escapes. And as you pointed out, as a Nokia gets annoyed by flares, dirty tricks.
01:50:29
Speaker
There's some surprising moves from both of them, like a few unusual holds from Flair, and Inoki's nice array of counters and kicks, and that kept me into this quite a bit. It felt like a Flair match, but a different sort of Flair match at times that mixed in things that I hadn't really seen from him before, like the STF and that almost cross arm breaker thing. Yeah, absolutely. So it's comfortable, but different, I guess? Yeah. It was a really enjoyable match, and Inoki seemed to be having quite a good time with it as well, so good for him.
01:50:59
Speaker
It's a match that's good enough that I'm shocked that it's their only one. Not just in terms of, I would have liked to see more of them, but in terms of, this feels like a polished match between two guys that have fought each other before, right? Like, we know each other's spots, we're able to counter them and everything. You normally get that from two guys that have had like this long feud, but as far as I can tell, there's never been a Flair and Oki match. So I think that's a testament to how good these guys are. That they can have a, we've had a long feud match when it's their first encounter.
01:51:30
Speaker
I hadn't thought of it that way until you were mentioning that, but it really is an interesting atmosphere to it. Yeah, absolutely. Obviously, as I mentioned, the build-up Enoki had quite a few scandals hanging around his deck, so he would not win a re-election in July of 1995, the same time that Hase did win an election, which might have been a little awkward. Yeah, yeah, maybe a bit. How did you do, boss? Great. How did you do? Great.
01:51:58
Speaker
He would actually run again for office in 2013, where he said another term. The thing with Anoki, especially later in there, is that
01:52:08
Speaker
Better or for worse, he's committed to this, I'm gonna bridge between Japan and North Korea. Problem is, he stops really doing what he's supposed to be, and when he's allowed to make trips, he would just, oh, by the way, I'm going to North Korea this weekend. You're like, wait, what? No, no, no, no. What are you doing? Yeah, it takes some unauthorized ones. I understand he ends up suspended from the legislature fairly soon after he gets selected in 2013, even. Correct, yeah.
01:52:32
Speaker
So it's, like I said, carbon credits do, he's committed to this idea, but at a certain point it hurt him because he wasn't doing it the right way. Makes you wonder if it's a mix of him just being stubborn about the whole thing. At least as far as taking trip means I was supposed to. Yeah. Like, you're not going to tell Anoki when he can't take a trip. Anoki will go when he feels like it. Yeah. Sticks out that big ol' chin and says, I will do what I want.
01:52:56
Speaker
One little show I want to add, so that's kind of interesting. So we have the future Sonny Ohno doing sort of commentary throughout the show, what little you'll make out. I think it's going to be interesting to note how many people on this show will later be managed by him on WWE television and pay-per-view. Okay. We have Kazuki Sasaki, obviously, as part of Starrcade 95. Yup. Yuji Nagado when he comes in 97, is the man by Sonny Ohno. Masayor Chono, also managed by him. Okay. Both on 95 and I leave later as well.
01:53:26
Speaker
And you also have the duo of Hirohokuto, managed by him and Buolakano and the tag match are together. Okay. Quite a lot of future Sony Ono clients. Yes. All from this neat guy who chimes in every few minutes, puts a little bit of a line. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
01:53:41
Speaker
By the way, I think it is noteworthy. I'm pretty sure that Kazuo-Sani Ono is his actual name, and Ishikawa is the fictional name. Ah. I wonder why. I wonder why he'd picked out a fictional last name of that. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, it's possible that they had a view that they might eventually use him as this other character, and so they maybe weren't sure that they wanted to say anything else about the character at this point. Maybe I don't know.
01:54:06
Speaker
To be fair, if you take the sunglasses off, it's somehow a different person to so many people. Yes. Like, you show the person on the side of the picture like, oh, that's the same guy, isn't it? He's like Superman. Exactly. Enoki goes around shaking hands with people around the ring, and Bischoff signs off, leaving us with a few more shots of the opening ceremony for the show.
Reflection and Diplomatic Implications
01:54:25
Speaker
And collision in Korea is done. So, overall thoughts on collision in Korea?
01:54:32
Speaker
So as far as action goes, it's a really good show. Um, there's a mix of matches that are a bit short and some that are quite good. I don't think there's really any bad matches on the show. No. Maybe the, but basically the squash match with the shooter and Hawk is maybe the worst, but even then I got some enjoyment out of it still. I wouldn't call it bad at all. Just maybe a little underwhelming. No, sure. Yeah.
01:54:56
Speaker
So it's nice to have a show where I can't go, oh, this is clearly the worst match in the show, no question. That said, you have to deal with the awkwardness of the whole situation, the whole North Korea trip, all the stories you hear about how bad things were, whether it was the government or people apparently plotting murders while they're there. Yes. You all do the fact that the crowd is only really awake for like one and a half matches. There's brief bits and early matches where you hear them, but... Or rather, has probably been ordered to cheer for a particular person. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
01:55:25
Speaker
we didn't mention yet, Obama taking it from your summary, is that they awkwardly dub over the other commentary for the show. Yes. I'd forgotten to mention that across. Yeah, you can hear the Japanese commentary. Yes. They appear to have not recorded on a separate audio track, which seems like something that would have been a good idea. Yeah. It seems like WCW was given the video and audio track combined rather than giving, as you said, giving separate audio tracks and video tracks.
01:55:53
Speaker
So when they did, they just kind of talk over the audio there. So there's no talking here. Yeah, you can constantly hear this Japanese dialogue underneath the English commentary. And it never gets loud enough to be too distracting, except when Ishikawa is talking and you can't hear him anyway. But it's always a little bit of a, like, wait, did someone else say something? You know? Yeah, exactly.
01:56:17
Speaker
But yeah, overall it's a strong show. You just have to ignore the sort of weird aspects of all the surrounding environments. The fact that the crowd willing or otherwise has no reaction for anything on the show until the end. Considering that there's over 150,000 people there, you would have thought there'd be more crowd noise, even just incidentally. Yeah.
01:56:39
Speaker
I'm not a diplomatic expert, but from that context I would call this show a lot of risk for little to no gain. And indeed, for something of a loss, given that it gave the North Korean government a lot of useful propaganda footage of American executives and Japanese dignitaries paying homage to North Korea's founder and monuments that were set up specifically to push an alternate version of history where America was the absolute evil.
01:57:03
Speaker
Maybe if there'd been a greater chance of actually making some progress on diplomatic issues, a risk like this might've been taken, but it should only have been done with the participation of the United States government, which Bischoff admits he knew wouldn't allow it. So, bad idea. If we can separate from that aspect of it though, and that is a huge thing to set to the side, let's talk about this as a wrestling show.
01:57:26
Speaker
The matches were almost universally good to great. Starting matches felt a little short or ended too suddenly, but like I said, only Hawk's match against Yasuda was maybe a little underwhelming for this show. Don't tell John I said that. No. Otherwise, there were a ton of fun matches, especially the tag matches. Shocking for me, I know.
01:57:46
Speaker
So far as the wrestling goes, it was terrific and easy to enjoy. It was also nice, like with Starrcade 95, to not really have to worry much about the storylines and just get to enjoy some strong athletic performances. Yeah. Agreed. But as a show, it is very awkward. There's a weird feel to the entire night, a strange atmosphere that just kept throwing me off. I had to focus in consciously on the matches more than usual to stay into things.
01:58:13
Speaker
I think it always would have felt like that to some extent, but the poor production quality definitely didn't help. I'm not gonna fault the show itself for the way this version kind of looked like it had been filmed through a sphere of jelly or something, or how blurry everything was, as I'm fairly sure that resulted from whatever bootleg video was used by whatever EP network was before this was picked up by Bischoff's 83 weeks and put on YouTube. I doubt it originally looked like that. No. It's a copy of a copy of a copy. Yeah. At least, yeah.
01:58:41
Speaker
I will, though, fault the actual show for an array of poor camerawork, bad cuts, shots from far too close to see anything clearly, crappy audio, lingering original commentary track, as you pointed out, that distracted from the overdubbed commentary, and not giving Kazuo Ishikawa a d*** working microphone.
01:59:00
Speaker
Aside from the completely inaudible member, the commentary was okay. Tenet was a great choice for this as he came prepared with an array of factoids about all the Japanese wrestlers to familiarize the American audience with performers that they might not have seen before. Bischoff did well enough overall and was actually a little more likeable than he often is, as he shared some fun stories about his time with some of the Japanese performers as well.
01:59:25
Speaker
And Ishikawa barely spoke, and when he did, you could hear about every fourth word. So he added very little. He did get a couple good lines in at least. They did a decent job, but didn't really manage to make an event like this half the gravitas that it should have.
01:59:41
Speaker
they were recording in post and it felt like they were recording in post. It's like on a lot of the shows, the commentators themselves are kind of getting into it and getting excited by it. You don't really feel that on this show because they're aware they're watching a recording. They don't get to be charged up by the crowd or getting any of the benefit that you get from recording during live performance. So I think that comes through in their commentary. It feels more casual, which can be good, but
02:00:09
Speaker
just kind of, it doesn't feel as energetic. You know what helped it show? Best given that it's all pre-taped and then done later anyways. Get Bobby Heenan on there in place of Ishikawa. Honestly, you give this to the Tony Bobby Dusty team, they would get enough energy just from working with each other. Yeah. I think that that would be pretty hilarious. Agreed, yes.
02:00:32
Speaker
All told though, I did actually enjoy watching collision in Korea and I'm glad I got the chance to do it. It was a very unique show and exposed me to some performers I'd knock on the opportunity to watch and may never get the opportunity to watch again, at least in WCW stuff. I do recommend checking it out. You'll get to see a show that's not quite like anything else out there, but that still manages to entertain you.
02:00:59
Speaker
would have been a better way to do this whole thing in general. Obviously, it would have been agreed upon by North Koreans because they wanted the spotlight of everyone coming to them to make peace. But if you could have found a neutral area, a Taiwan, for instance, send North Korean wrestlers there if they're worth them available. I assume where they were.
02:01:20
Speaker
All the same people there and how a neutral round show find a place literally between Japan and North Korea somehow. Something where it definitely would have been safer for all concern. Let's put it that way. But yeah, I think that would have been potentially a better thing. Like you said, I'm not sure what the North Korean element of the show would look like in that case. I'm not sure that they have pro wrestling at all. Yeah. But presumably you might have some amateur wrestlers that Inoki or somebody could teach the basics of pro wrestling real quick.
02:01:47
Speaker
Either way, you can still do a, let's talk about peace in North Korea and unity situation. Yeah, without actually being in one of the most dangerous countries for Americans to visit. Yes, or most people to visit, to be honest. It's not just about us, but it's a lot about us, to be fair. Match of the night and MVP then, so Al, you're match of the night.
02:02:10
Speaker
All good action throughout the show, for the most part, I would say the one that really blew away, especially in rewatch, I could really look into it more. That's the Hokuto Nakano vs. Chiro da Ishida match.
02:02:23
Speaker
As you mentioned, really hard hitting, really fast paced, we'll put it together. It's a shame that it's shorter than it actually is. If they give them like five to more minutes, I think they made a really, really good match. But it's a great sub 10 minute match, especially with them to actually squeeze in there. Yeah. It's, it's amazing how much action they put in in that short amount of time without ever feeling like they're devaluing any moves. Yeah. Cause I've seen other fast matches.
02:02:48
Speaker
where it feels like you're getting a lot in, but like the one on, was it Slambury 2000 or 99? I forget the three-way tag match. Oh, 99. Yeah. That one was still a fun match to watch, but it felt like, you know, people are just getting knocked down and then getting right back up again because we got to get something else in really fast. This one didn't have that feel. Or that ladder match we have on the 2000. Right. It's RKW. Yeah, same thing. My turn now.
02:03:15
Speaker
Yeah, for me, they were also definitely in the running. The other one was Hase and Sasaki versus the Steiners. Sure. It's very close, but I'm going to go with Hase and Sasaki versus the Steiners. Okay. Both matches had amazing action, but for me, the latter just had a touch more story to it. There was a little bit more discernible tag strategy and the feeling of a longer rivalry that came through well in how the teams fought each other.
02:03:41
Speaker
I don't want to sell the women's match short at all. No, it's amazing. This one just impacted me just a touch more. Likewise, I wouldn't, that wouldn't short change the other tag. I see that they're both really good. Yeah, they're both exceptional match. There was, as we pointed out, a ton of good action on this card. Uh, MVP. So going a little some of my way, normally do this, but it seems fitting. So based on the performance in his match and the fact that the show literally wouldn't happen without him, my MVP is a tender and no key.
02:04:06
Speaker
outside of just the fact that he put the show together and got it done through basically sheer force of will, it sounds like. His format was really good. It's a few times he'll get to really grade a Noki match on anything, so I thought it was good. Yeah. I accept that reasoning because I very nearly did the same thing myself, honestly. It's a very good point. If you're talking about MVP, the guy without whom the show would definitely not exist is a pretty strong prospect for that, right? Pretty big VP, yeah.
02:04:36
Speaker
I am going to give this to someone who really surprised me, showing me moves I never expected from him and putting on a match I would not have expected he could manage at first glance. That is Shinya Hashimoto. Fair choice. He is one of the most agile and fast big men that I have ever seen, with a speed and ability that seems at odds with his build when you first look at him. And he also managed quite a good 20-minute match with Scott Norton that left me quite impressed with both. I had never seen Hashimoto before and he impressed me a great deal.
02:05:07
Speaker
I do have a runner-up I want to call out as well, which is Hiroshi Hase, who is amazing and very talented, but urgently needs to learn to land anywhere but his head. Agreed. Yes. I almost gave it to him, but he kept scaring the crap out of me, and that cost him a few points, honestly. I won't say his Freddie Mercury mustache should help me a bit as well. Just a crazy little thing called love. Yep.
02:05:32
Speaker
And that wraps up our review of Collision in Korea. If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can find us on Twitter or Facebook as Let's Go to the Ring. Links will be available in the episode description. Follow us for episode announcements and other show details, and share your own thoughts about each show as we go through.
02:05:51
Speaker
You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, TuneIn, Verbal, or Audible. And please, if you've enjoyed this show, give us a rating or review, and share the show through your favorite social media platforms to help others discover us. Many thanks to Wikipedia for attendance figures tonight, and to Gina Trujillo for our logo. Next up, our new series.
02:06:20
Speaker
Saddle up for a trip back to 1994 as WCW kicks off Spring Stampede before I evidently got roostered at the Old Saloon and forgot to show up for a couple years. Oops. Will it be a rootin' tootin' good time or a pile of prairie coal? Find out next time. I promise, no more Western puns. I make no such promises. This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling.
02:07:02
Speaker
Then tag samurai for a flying headbutt for two. I didn't even do it to you. Just all yourself. I know, I know. It's my fault entirely.