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Kakutogi Road Presents: U.W.F. 1984 Year In Review
Dk-FEBsa-Uc-AEQz7f-jpg-large960×720 111 KB
*Editors Note: Mike Lorefice (of MMA/Puroresu mega-center) will have his comments be preceded by his initials. *
No one could have known that in September of 1984, a group of disgruntled professional wrestlers from Japan would change the world by doing something as seemingly simple as injecting some much-needed realism into the wrestling landscape, digging into their various influences in “real” martial arts to bring a breath of fresh air into “fake” fighting. Like many other examples of events that altered history, this had less to do with any sort of formal calculation on the parts of the participants but was more of a case of serendipity abounding once again. To understand the dynamics that led to this cataclysm, we must first go back a year.
In 1983 the New Japan Pro Wrestling promotion was doing record business, going as far as to sell out 90% of all their events. However, its founder Antonio Inoki had recently invested a lot of money into a failing biotech company based in Brazil which prompted him to skim a considerable amount of revenue that the New Japan promotion was bringing in to try and offset his losses. These financial shenanigans eventually became known to the rest of the company, where certain members prompted a coup, thereby forcing Antonio Inoki and his head booker, Hisashi Shinma, to resign. Since its inception in 1972, NJPW was based around its hero and main attraction, Inoki, but in June of 1983, he suffered an injury, which going by historical precedent would normally lead to a downturn for a pro-wrestling business. However, this wound up not being the case as business continued to boom, despite his being sidelined by injury, thanks to his other stars within the promotion, especially guys like Riki Choshu, Tatsumi Fujinami, and Jr. Heavyweight sensation, Satoru Sayama.
This forced people to take notice and see that Inoki wasn’t the only one responsible for the successes of New Japan, but this newfound respect given to other members of the roster did not do anything to increase their pay, and in fact, some had even received pay cuts due to money being funneled into corrupt side ventures by Inoki and Shinma. This perfect storm was all it took to prompt Inoki and Shinma to want to seek a fresh start, thus the idea of the U.W.F. was born, not out of artistic desire, but rather a necessity borne of self-preservation. The wheels were in motion to make the transition when Japanese television company, TV-Asahi, stated in no uncertain terms that they would refuse to continue to air NJPW without the involvement of Inoki.
In those days, Japanese pro wrestling was dead in the water without a tv-deal, and no amount of personal indiscretions on the part of Inoki would be enough for the brass of NJPW to be willing to lose out on one. So, this leads to all being forgiven, and Inoki being reinstated as president. This surely had the side-effect of disillusioning many of the up-and-coming stars within the promotion as their time in the spotlight would have to now be curtailed, or at least blunted, to make room for Inoki, once again.
While Inoki was back in the good graces of television executives everywhere, Shinma, on the other hand, was still persona non grata . He was now being forced to trudge into the unknown, this time without the star power of Inoki. Because of this, he was now in dire need of a fresh face to build his new promotion around, which is where Akira Maeda came into play. Maeda was a Sediokaikan karate practitioner in the late 70s and was allegedly discovered by Shinma at a karate tournament in 1977. Maeda was actually of Korean descent, which helped gift him with an athletic 6’3, 240-pound frame, which many of his Japanese contemporaries lacked.
At first, it looked like things were doomed for the U.W.F. from the get-go, as when Inoki was still on-board Fuji Television expressed interest in televising the product, but when Inoki left, so did Fuji. Maeda was deemed to be an unproven commodity, and thus too risky for their investment. To make matters more bizarre, when the U.W.F. held their first event on 4-11-84, it was a dog’s breakfast of styles, ranging from tepid puroresu where Japanese natives would square off against Americans that seemed like they mistakenly missed their flight to Amarillo, TX, and wound up at the Korakuen Hall instead, to inspired, hard-hitting, Lucha Libre. To view the first U.W.F. event would make someone think that this outfit had an identity crisis on its hands. Surely, one would have never gotten the impression that this promotion would have led to being one of the most important to ever exist, not only for its influence on Japanese pro wrestling but even to the effects it has had on modern-day MMA.
Thankfully, hope was around the corner when an influx of disaffected talents joined forces with Shinma and Maeda. After three months of languishing without a clear sense of direction, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Satrou Sayama, Nobuhiko Takada, and Kazuo Yamazaki all joined the roster, and almost instantly breathed purpose and life into this fledging outfit. All of the above, with the exception of Takada, had notable experience with “real” martial arts, in addition to their professional wrestling training, which proved to be an instant complement to Maeda’s natural abilities. This shift to a direction based around realism and martial arts was further accelerated when performers like Rusher Kimura, Ryuma Go, Mach Hayato, and Gran Hamada (who were all part of the original roster) all felt like their styles didn’t mesh with the new direction the company was taking, and all, eventually, bailed as a result.
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Besides their martial arts camaraderie, the glue that bound this upstart group had to be that each one of them felt held back to some degree under NJPW and Inoki. Fujiwara was a standout collegiate judoka before joining the New Japan Dojo and becoming one of their first graduates in 1972. However, he never received much in the way of a main event push during his initial run with New Japan but did manage to garner some respect behind the scenes for his judo acumen, even prompting Inoki to have him tag along in his corner for his infamous bout against Muhammed Ali.
Sayama was the biggest surprise here, as he had quit NJPW over Shinma’s financial mismanagement. However, he decided to go all-in for the U.W.F. even going as far as to blast NJPW in interviews with the Japanese press, claiming that Inoki held his younger wrestlers back. Wisely, the newfound U.W.F. didn’t let a good controversy go to waste and took this opportunity to proclaim NJPW and other wrestling companies as pure hokum, and brazenly declare that they were providing real shoots to the public. Long before Eric Bischoff was deemed a revolutionary for giving away RAW results on live television, the U.W.F. crew engaged in guerrilla warfare, by breaking all the unwritten conventions of kayfabe at the time, by not only acknowledging the existence of other wrestling promotions but even taking the time to blast them as well, decrying them as frauds and charlatans.
Their unconventional antics led to them being very popular in Tokyo and other major metro areas, but the lack of a television deal limited their ability to break out to a wider audience. Two major problems began to arise behind the scenes, the first was a growing wave of resentment from many of the wrestlers of how Sayama would constantly insist on winning all of his matches, and the other was their inability to become more than a cult promotion. This 2nd problem was the biggest obstacle as it led to poor ticket sales whenever they would tour more rural areas of Japan. To compound matters, Sayama’s concept of a sport based around shooting (which later became Shooto) was already in his heart, and he was trying to encourage the UWF to move to an entirely shoot-based format, with “shooting” rules. Sayama also wanted to only stick to major markets, and run shows once a month, as anything more than that would be problematic as shooting takes a harder toll on the body than cooperative pro wrestling matches.
Sayama was already financially stable when he went into the UWF, due to the success of his Super Tiger Gym, but the rest of the wrestlers on the roster, in addition to the back office, were struggling financially. This caused many of them to be leery of Sayama’s ideas, as they felt that it would be unable to draw enough money with only real fights and didn’t want to risk not frequently traveling to different cities like most standard pro-wrestling companies. Sayama was dogmatic and adamant about his philosophies which irked many in the company but was too popular to just be dismissed outright. This problem would soon rectify itself as Maeda and Sayama (who were also increasingly bickering about the direction and essence of the promotion) eventually came to blows on 9-2-85 when what was supposed to be another routine match led to a shoot, Maeda being fired, and Sayama quitting pro wrestling in disgust. (We cover this incident in much greater detail in Kakutogi Road: Volume 1). Of course, with their two main stars out of the picture there was no way to survive going forward, and the company soon folded. Perhaps the greatest irony was that the UWF would later adopt Sayama’s booking philosophy of only having one monthly show, when they reformed in 1988.
With all of this said, we are now ready to examine the best that 1984 had to offer. We are doing this because Mike Lorefice, and myself, would continually find ourselves with lingering questions while doing our regular columns. Was Suzuki always good, or did he slowly grow into it? Did Fujiwara always look like a 70-year-old crypt keeper? How much has the style changed between 84 and 92? These are just some of the things that we seek greater clarity on, which in turn should not only provide us a better context to work with but our readers as well. We will be punctuating our regular columns with an examination and highlight the best moments of the UWF’s life from 84-90. So, without further ado… let us proudly present:
UWF: 1984’ Year in Review.
Dk-FEBsa-Uc-AEQz7f-jpg-large960×720 111 KB
*Editors Note: Mike Lorefice (of MMA/Puroresu mega-center) will have his comments be preceded by his initials. *
No one could have known that in September of 1984, a group of disgruntled professional wrestlers from Japan would change the world by doing something as seemingly simple as injecting some much-needed realism into the wrestling landscape, digging into their various influences in “real” martial arts to bring a breath of fresh air into “fake” fighting. Like many other examples of events that altered history, this had less to do with any sort of formal calculation on the parts of the participants but was more of a case of serendipity abounding once again. To understand the dynamics that led to this cataclysm, we must first go back a year.
In 1983 the New Japan Pro Wrestling promotion was doing record business, going as far as to sell out 90% of all their events. However, its founder Antonio Inoki had recently invested a lot of money into a failing biotech company based in Brazil which prompted him to skim a considerable amount of revenue that the New Japan promotion was bringing in to try and offset his losses. These financial shenanigans eventually became known to the rest of the company, where certain members prompted a coup, thereby forcing Antonio Inoki and his head booker, Hisashi Shinma, to resign. Since its inception in 1972, NJPW was based around its hero and main attraction, Inoki, but in June of 1983, he suffered an injury, which going by historical precedent would normally lead to a downturn for a pro-wrestling business. However, this wound up not being the case as business continued to boom, despite his being sidelined by injury, thanks to his other stars within the promotion, especially guys like Riki Choshu, Tatsumi Fujinami, and Jr. Heavyweight sensation, Satoru Sayama.
This forced people to take notice and see that Inoki wasn’t the only one responsible for the successes of New Japan, but this newfound respect given to other members of the roster did not do anything to increase their pay, and in fact, some had even received pay cuts due to money being funneled into corrupt side ventures by Inoki and Shinma. This perfect storm was all it took to prompt Inoki and Shinma to want to seek a fresh start, thus the idea of the U.W.F. was born, not out of artistic desire, but rather a necessity borne of self-preservation. The wheels were in motion to make the transition when Japanese television company, TV-Asahi, stated in no uncertain terms that they would refuse to continue to air NJPW without the involvement of Inoki.
In those days, Japanese pro wrestling was dead in the water without a tv-deal, and no amount of personal indiscretions on the part of Inoki would be enough for the brass of NJPW to be willing to lose out on one. So, this leads to all being forgiven, and Inoki being reinstated as president. This surely had the side-effect of disillusioning many of the up-and-coming stars within the promotion as their time in the spotlight would have to now be curtailed, or at least blunted, to make room for Inoki, once again.
While Inoki was back in the good graces of television executives everywhere, Shinma, on the other hand, was still persona non grata . He was now being forced to trudge into the unknown, this time without the star power of Inoki. Because of this, he was now in dire need of a fresh face to build his new promotion around, which is where Akira Maeda came into play. Maeda was a Sediokaikan karate practitioner in the late 70s and was allegedly discovered by Shinma at a karate tournament in 1977. Maeda was actually of Korean descent, which helped gift him with an athletic 6’3, 240-pound frame, which many of his Japanese contemporaries lacked.
At first, it looked like things were doomed for the U.W.F. from the get-go, as when Inoki was still on-board Fuji Television expressed interest in televising the product, but when Inoki left, so did Fuji. Maeda was deemed to be an unproven commodity, and thus too risky for their investment. To make matters more bizarre, when the U.W.F. held their first event on 4-11-84, it was a dog’s breakfast of styles, ranging from tepid puroresu where Japanese natives would square off against Americans that seemed like they mistakenly missed their flight to Amarillo, TX, and wound up at the Korakuen Hall instead, to inspired, hard-hitting, Lucha Libre. To view the first U.W.F. event would make someone think that this outfit had an identity crisis on its hands. Surely, one would have never gotten the impression that this promotion would have led to being one of the most important to ever exist, not only for its influence on Japanese pro wrestling but even to the effects it has had on modern-day MMA.
Thankfully, hope was around the corner when an influx of disaffected talents joined forces with Shinma and Maeda. After three months of languishing without a clear sense of direction, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Satrou Sayama, Nobuhiko Takada, and Kazuo Yamazaki all joined the roster, and almost instantly breathed purpose and life into this fledging outfit. All of the above, with the exception of Takada, had notable experience with “real” martial arts, in addition to their professional wrestling training, which proved to be an instant complement to Maeda’s natural abilities. This shift to a direction based around realism and martial arts was further accelerated when performers like Rusher Kimura, Ryuma Go, Mach Hayato, and Gran Hamada (who were all part of the original roster) all felt like their styles didn’t mesh with the new direction the company was taking, and all, eventually, bailed as a result.
1436598_v9_aa1080×1440 147 KB
Besides their martial arts camaraderie, the glue that bound this upstart group had to be that each one of them felt held back to some degree under NJPW and Inoki. Fujiwara was a standout collegiate judoka before joining the New Japan Dojo and becoming one of their first graduates in 1972. However, he never received much in the way of a main event push during his initial run with New Japan but did manage to garner some respect behind the scenes for his judo acumen, even prompting Inoki to have him tag along in his corner for his infamous bout against Muhammed Ali.
Sayama was the biggest surprise here, as he had quit NJPW over Shinma’s financial mismanagement. However, he decided to go all-in for the U.W.F. even going as far as to blast NJPW in interviews with the Japanese press, claiming that Inoki held his younger wrestlers back. Wisely, the newfound U.W.F. didn’t let a good controversy go to waste and took this opportunity to proclaim NJPW and other wrestling companies as pure hokum, and brazenly declare that they were providing real shoots to the public. Long before Eric Bischoff was deemed a revolutionary for giving away RAW results on live television, the U.W.F. crew engaged in guerrilla warfare, by breaking all the unwritten conventions of kayfabe at the time, by not only acknowledging the existence of other wrestling promotions but even taking the time to blast them as well, decrying them as frauds and charlatans.
Their unconventional antics led to them being very popular in Tokyo and other major metro areas, but the lack of a television deal limited their ability to break out to a wider audience. Two major problems began to arise behind the scenes, the first was a growing wave of resentment from many of the wrestlers of how Sayama would constantly insist on winning all of his matches, and the other was their inability to become more than a cult promotion. This 2nd problem was the biggest obstacle as it led to poor ticket sales whenever they would tour more rural areas of Japan. To compound matters, Sayama’s concept of a sport based around shooting (which later became Shooto) was already in his heart, and he was trying to encourage the UWF to move to an entirely shoot-based format, with “shooting” rules. Sayama also wanted to only stick to major markets, and run shows once a month, as anything more than that would be problematic as shooting takes a harder toll on the body than cooperative pro wrestling matches.
Sayama was already financially stable when he went into the UWF, due to the success of his Super Tiger Gym, but the rest of the wrestlers on the roster, in addition to the back office, were struggling financially. This caused many of them to be leery of Sayama’s ideas, as they felt that it would be unable to draw enough money with only real fights and didn’t want to risk not frequently traveling to different cities like most standard pro-wrestling companies. Sayama was dogmatic and adamant about his philosophies which irked many in the company but was too popular to just be dismissed outright. This problem would soon rectify itself as Maeda and Sayama (who were also increasingly bickering about the direction and essence of the promotion) eventually came to blows on 9-2-85 when what was supposed to be another routine match led to a shoot, Maeda being fired, and Sayama quitting pro wrestling in disgust. (We cover this incident in much greater detail in Kakutogi Road: Volume 1). Of course, with their two main stars out of the picture there was no way to survive going forward, and the company soon folded. Perhaps the greatest irony was that the UWF would later adopt Sayama’s booking philosophy of only having one monthly show, when they reformed in 1988.
With all of this said, we are now ready to examine the best that 1984 had to offer. We are doing this because Mike Lorefice, and myself, would continually find ourselves with lingering questions while doing our regular columns. Was Suzuki always good, or did he slowly grow into it? Did Fujiwara always look like a 70-year-old crypt keeper? How much has the style changed between 84 and 92? These are just some of the things that we seek greater clarity on, which in turn should not only provide us a better context to work with but our readers as well. We will be punctuating our regular columns with an examination and highlight the best moments of the UWF’s life from 84-90. So, without further ado… let us proudly present:
UWF: 1984’ Year in Review.
