Into the Indies 03.22.11: The Earthquake, Round 2
Posted by Ryan Byers on 03.22.2011
It's round two of earthquake related news, this time with more focus on its impact on Japanese pro wrestling. Fortunately, the majority of the stories are positive.
Welcome back to a somewhat more optimistic Into the Indies.
For those of you who missed last week's column, I said very little about professional wrestling and focused largely on the fallout from the earthquake, tsunami, and potential nuclear disaster that has rocked Japan this month.
Honestly, the time that I would normally spend following Japanese professional wrestling has been spent following this much larger story, so I've got very little to say regarding the topics that I would normally cover here. As a result, I thought that it would be best to do an abbreviated column in which I could discuss several of the wrestling-related stories that have come out as a result of the earthquake and its fallout.
If there is an upside to tragedies like this one, it is that, in their aftermath, they often bring out the best in people as they come together in order to honor those who have passed away and make life better for those who have survived but still suffered significant hardship. One example of this phenomenon is the above picture, which comes to us from the All Japan Pro Wrestling show held on March 21 and served as a benefit for those who were affected by the quake. Though All Japan promoted the show and their name was on the marquee, it was actually a cooperative effort between AJPW and several other promotions, as New Japan sent over the tag team of Jushin Liger and Yuji Nagata while Big Japan loaned out their "Strong BJ" unit of Daisuke Sekimoto and Yuji Okabayashi. ZERO1 got in on the action as well, with their hot rookie prospect Daichi Hashimoto (son of Z1 founder and Japanese legend Shinya Hashimoto) appearing for All Japan to wrestle against one of his father's best friends and greatest rivals, Keiji Mutoh. There were even many notable freelance wrestlers coming out for the card, including Takao Omori, Minoru Suzuki, and even Big Van Vader and his son Jesse White, who Vader has been taking around Japan on his first major pro wrestling tour.
Though there is no word on exactly how much money the AJPW show raised for earthquake relief efforts, the attendance was roughly 8,000 fans, so there was certainly the potential for a large amount of yen to come rolling through the doors.
All Japan wasn't the only company raising money, though. Mayumi Ozaki, legendary female wrestler and promoter of the current joshi group OZ Academy, teamed up with former joshi competitor and current Japanese senator Shinobu Kandori to put on a fundraiser this past Sunday which included participation from virtually every active women's wrestling company in the country and, as with All Japan, from several wrestlers who are not currently affiliated with any promotion. Though details on what exactly the women did to raise the money are scant (it doesn't appear that they wrestled), the end result was reportedly the equivalent of $10,000.00 to the Red Cross, so I'm not going to ask too many questions.
Also noteworthy is tiny independent group Osaka Pro Wrestling, which runs shows almost daily. Their audiences are not large (usually less than 200 and sometimes even less than 100 fans) but they have taken up a collection from those fans that have appeared at each one of their events since the earthquake took place. The net result of the collection effort is that over $6,500.00 has been raised for relief efforts as of March 21.
Aside from the money that has been raised, perhaps the best news about the professional wrestling industry in the wake of the earthquake has been that virtually nobody connected with the sport has been reported dead and those who were briefly missing have been accounted for. Atsushi Sawada, a young shoot style wrestler who has gained the majority of his fame with the Inoki Genome Federation, was very briefly rumored to be missing but is now reportedly accounted for. Rumors of former New Japan and All Japan star (and ROH punchline) Kendo Kashin - who also did several MMA fights under his real name of Tokimitsu Ishizawa - being missing lasted for well over a week, spurred on by comments from Antonio Inoki's son Simon that nobody had been able to reach either Kashin or his wife. However, over the past several days, it has come out that Kashin is alive and well, albeit apparently in a very small hut in the city of Sendai with no electricity.
Perhaps the most unfortunate wrestling-related story to come out of the earthquake yet is that of Jinsei Shinzaki, who non-puro fans will probably best remember as WWF character Hakushi during the mid-1990's. Shinzaki was a resident of Sendai, which is the major city that was closest to the epicenter of the earthquake. In addition to living in Sendai, Shinzaki had two businesses there. The first was a ramen noodle restaurant. The second was a women's pro wrestling dojo owned and operated in conjunction with joshi wrestler Meiko Satomura and her SENDAI Girls promotion. Apparently the SENDAI Girls office, the restaurant, and Shinzaki's home were all so badly damaged in the earthquake that, for a period of time, he was living in his car. It is not entirely clear whether Shinzaki has found other living arrangements since this news first broke earlier in the week, but all of us here at 411 certainly wish him the best. It is also not entirely clear whether or not he will be able to keep the planned American booking that he has in mid-April with CHIKARA.
And those are the major stories as it relates to pro wrestling and the earthquake. Unless there is a significant quake-related story which breaks in the next seven days and has some connection to puroresu, I should be back to the column's regular format next week. We'll see you then.
