UWF 04/05/1990 - THE MEMORIAL - (24/31)

UWF The Memorial
Nippon Budokan, Tokyo
4th May 1990
att. 14130

Before we get into the emotional and physical fray of a UWF show (and please, keep reading to meet our special guest writer!) I think it is probably important that, given the haphazard order that I have approached UWF shows, I recap where we are as of May 1990 in order to give some shape to the story.

In 1988 we met the original shoot-style six: Akira Maeda, Nobuhiko Takada, Kazuo Yamazaki, Yoji Anjo, Shigeo Miyato, and Tatsuo Nakano. In this year they would introduce the occasional foreign guest (Norman Smiley, Bob Backlund, Mark Rush, and Bart Vale) and wreck the career of their own trainees in one match (Tsunehito Naito). The jockeying for top slot was contested between Maeda and Takada, with Maeda seeing out the year as kingpin.

Things changed dramatically in 1989, and yet somehow remained the same. Akira Maeda beat all-comers to remain on top. However, the defections of Yoshiaki Fujiwara and his mentees Minoru Suzuki and Masakatsu Funaki from New Japan shook up the midcard scene considerably. Johnny Barrett was the only foreigner who would return time and again, though a number of memorable one-offs including Willy Wilhelm and Trevor 'Power' Clarke kept things fresh. Young trainee Kiyoshi Tamura excited and delighted in his few appearances, though he was hospitalised by Maeda in their brief bout in October.

UWF 16/01/1990 - WITH '90 1ST (20/31)

UWF With '90 1st
Nippon Budokan, Tokyo
16th January, 1990
att. 14130

Wintertime in Japan brings spectral sights to UWF: a fighting fortress on a hill blanketed in powdery snow as ducks bob for food, soundtracked by an airy Hiroshi Yoshimura-esque motif.

New year Budokan

 
It is beautiful and a potent reminder of how shoot-style caught the wave of a particular aesthetic moment as much as it existed in the brief space between the old (pro-wrestling) and the new (mixed style fighting). These moments of stillness and gravity are things that contemporary wrestling seems to miss in its rushed presentation, if I can have this one opportunity to grouse.

UWF 24/07/1989 - FIGHTING SQUARE HAKATA (13/31)

UWF Fighting Square Hakata
Hakata Star Lanes, Fukuoka
24th July, 1989
att. 4000

Clutching a dozen or so random bootleg selections purchased from the wrestling VHS shop in the Colliseum on Church St. in Manchester (now: Light Aparthotel), I opted to watch the one that I hadn't heard anything about. It was this show that I am about to review the first hour of - I know it exists in full because on that rainy day at the turn of the century I sat through the whole thing, rapt. 

Proust watching Ronda Rousey armbar people

Seeing Fighting Square Hakata in approximately 2001 wouldn't change my life and seeing it now doesn't have some kind of Proustian effect, but it did offer a taste of something I've subtly hoped for in wrestling ever since: not shoot-style as such but a glimpse of the real, unmediated as possible, slicing through the artifice. 

UWF 13/08/1990 - CREATE (28/31)

UWF Create
Yokohama Arena, Yokohama
13th August 1990
att. 17000

We lurch forward in time some four months and five shows to look in on a UWF in its death throes. What appears to be rude health, an array of diverse talents and stars wrestling in a pleasing way, and full houses (SUPER NO VACANCY FULL HOUSE no less) are in fact the beginnings of the factionalisation that leads to the creation of three brand new companies.

(Mon)

While the previous two reviews - Force Korakuen 2 Days and Road - detailed UWF at its most basic and austerely-presented, Create is one of those opulent summer spectaculars where the lights dazzle, lasers fire, graphics are updated, and it all just feels like wrestling does Last Night of the Proms only with less jingoism and better music.

UWF 27/02/1990 - ROAD (22/31)

UWF Road
Sports Centre, Minamiashigara
27th February 1990
att. 4500

There is not much time, we must press forward.

A training montage opens ROAD and the sound cuts out so we can only see the pure visuals of things like Yoji Anjo hopping up and down on the spot and people exchanging money for the expensive-looking programmes for this particular entry, the 22nd, into the annals of shoot-style lore's wider chapter on UWF.

UWF 30/09/89 and 01/10/89 - FORCE KORAKUEN 2 DAYS (16/31 & 17/31)

UWF Force Korakuen 2 Days (Day 1)
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo
30th September 1989
att. 2300

In spite of the unwieldy title up there, and the months that have passed awaiting the transition of the stars and oceans and gods that deign to re-align and offer us the beauteous bounty of shoot-style tapes unearthed, the most important thing is that this blog continues in its quest to bring to you (and mostly to me) the good news about the olden tymes wrestling that purported to be real (it was not but also...it was). 

Let me recap in Plain English for those of you playing catch-up. The second version of wrestling company UWF emerged in 1988 and died in 1990. In their time spent on earth before ascent to heaven (RINGS) they produced 31 shows of gripping and profoundly moving professional wrestling that merit special discussion. The first 11 shows were easily available and have been covered within this parish. A gap of two missing shows vexes before reviewing shows 14 and 15. Then another gap of two shows before covering the final two shows of 1989 (18 and 19). The remaining 12 shows, taking place in 1990, are the least widely disseminated. And up to now I have only covered one of them (show 23).

UWF 15/04/1990 - FIGHTING AREA (23/31)

UWF FIGHTING AREA
15th April 1990
Hakata Star Lanes, Fukuoka
att. 4000

A brief extract from the Maeda text that arrived in my possession some time ago:

- He's a big one for an easterner innee Harold?
- I'll say. Bit of a prick too.
- You what?
- He kicked Giant Haystacks so 'ard last night his balls were swollen like an aubergine.
- What's an aubergine?
- Weird vegetable. Big and purple. Like a marrow. Tastes of nowt.
- Christ.

_________

Rest in peace to the RealHero Archive, that repository of wrestling from Japan. You provided a good service to a hardcore of maybe 150 nerds though some of us still managed to gripe about the extensiveness of your coverage. But as one door closes another opens. The discovery of a full 1990 UWF show means that slowly, surely, and pleasantly, we can join the dots of this incredible tale.

UWF 29/11/1989 - U-COSMOS (19/31)

UWF U-COSMOS
29th November 1989
Tokyo Dome, Tokyo
att. 60000

Pre-note: As it stands on the date of writing (10/10/17) this represents the final UWF Newborn show that I have in complete and watchable form, so perhaps there will be an enforced hiatus until the world of the internet turns and deposits the missing 1989 and the entirety of the 1990 shows somewhere accessible. 

As we learn from watching RINGS (or if you are me, reading RINGSblog aka TK Scissors) Akira Maeda's obsessions in the years between UWF's death and RINGS' creation would morph from "shoot-style" wrestling in Japan to a nascent-MMA/NHB style incorporating fighters from around the world. We have seen the beginnings of that in UWF, sure, with the appearances of a sextet of shoot-boxers, Gerard Gordeau, Bart Vale, Trevor "Power" Clarke, Chris Dolman, etc. 

UWF 25/10/1989 - FIGHTING ART (18/31)

UWF Fighting Art
Sports Centre, Nakajima
25th October 1989
att. 5600

To go 'inside the curtain' (which is the meaning of the top division in sumo known as Makuuchi (幕内), referring to the roped-off area these champion athletes would wait in prior to performance, I believe 'curtain' is 'maku' as the third tier is 'makushita', meaning 'beneath the curtain'. Watch sumo, it is excellent) momentarily this is the show that I had feared watching the most ahead of time for reasons that will become, hopefully, apparent during the writing of this entry.

And to go even further inside that curtain like, perhaps, ha ha (does knowing cultural studies lecturer positional adjustment) the recent season of Twin Peaks (imo serious ten out of ten bestoftelly thanks) this entry reverts to the initial style of watching the show and sort-of remembering it which is sometimes stylistically more satisfying but perhaps less involved and perhaps emotionally and factually false. We shall see, won't we? (EDIT: I wrote this intro way before I watched it and eventually I managed to get to a point where I could live-type the edition, rendering this paragraph mostly redundant except aesthetically which is to say not redundant at all)

UWF 07/09/1989 - FIGHTING BASE NAGANO (15/31)

UWF Fighting Base Nagano

Movement Park Gymnasium, Nagano
7th September 1989
att. 4500

We have business to attend to before we get to the UWF. Please look at your agendas which I emailed to you on the 11th.

First agenda item: within the context of your screen please look to the right hand side underneath the section marked "shootstyle annals" and gaze upon a new addition to the world of blogs about this under-theorised area of professional wrestling: Kingdom of Shoot! This, as the name suggests, covers the short-lived promotion of UWF demi-doyen Nobuhiko Takada. Entry #1 (and #2, since writing this introduction way before the remainder of the entry) has gone up and I implore you to learn of its ways.

Second agenda item: Antonio Inoki, the ur-Maeda, has announced the second card for his ISM promotion. What is ISM? The real story is lost in the scrambling waves of the kayfabe and translation processes. Let us just say that it is Inoki's replacement for his IGF endeavour in mind, body, and soul. Here is the card, courtesy of purolove.com:

UWF 13/08/1989 - MIDSUMMER CREATION (14/31)

UWF Midsummer Creation
Yokohama Arena, Yokohama
13th August 1989
att. 17000

And so we hit our first snag in the attempt to provide a full historiographical overview of the legendary shoot-style wrestling company UWF. Eagle-eyed readers will already have spotted the 14/31 in the title and not the 12/31 that should necessarily occur what with the 11/31 in the title of the previous show. And doubtless those readers will have swelled with anger and grief and all I can do is stare that barrage of sheer enmity down and give you the honest truth of the whole sordid affair.

The discs in my possession for FIGHTING SQUARE NAGOYA and FIGHTING SQUARE HAKATA are incomplete. Both cut off after one hour and omit matches of grave importance such as the bout ranked #2 of 1988 & 1989 by the UWF itself (the disc also features the match ranked #3, and at least that is complete, because it is a complete cla- I have said too much). And unlike my review of MAY HISTORY 1ST I am thus far unable to locate these strays even in the cultural detritus coherer that is the internet of 2017. Thing is: I have seen all of the Hakata show somewhere before, so it's gotta be out there.

UWF 21/05/1989 - MAY HISTORY 2ND (11/31)

UWF May History 2nd
NK Hall, Tokyo
21st May 1989
att. 7000

The stoic stone lion that guards the front of Tokyo's NK Bay Hall that we see in the establishing shot of today's show could be interpreted by some to be one of many calculated shots fired by UWF 2 toward their former comrades and colleagues in the world of New Japan Professional Wrestling.

After now just over one year wildly successful year of business it is clear that UWF is taking bold steps of its own - toward the real fighting crew of Pancrase, perhaps, that would also host its debut show in this very building. Think of this show as an anchor point found midway through the company's run, midway between paradigms, adrift, alone, pioneering, bold. Maeda.

UWF 04/05/1989 - MAY HISTORY 1ST (10/31)

UWF May History 1st
Osaka Stadium, Osaka
4th May 1989
att. 23000

Whatever you think of Akira Maeda's history of surly non-cooperation or weird booking or the unusual fake-fighting-but-more-real-than-other-fake-fighting style his company/ies offer(s) up you have to admit that 23000 people in a baseball stadium to watch a wrestling company still not 1 year old is incredible. Please, admit it, using the comments below.

Now to lift the lid on the writerly process a little. Most weeks I sort of watch the shows in sections and write about them mostly from memory and a few scribbled notes, inserting historical and biographical data to keep things contextual. This one is going to be different as, for a change, I am going to type along with the show in-running on a separate screen. No idea how this is going to turn out. I could find myself halfway down a side road when someone breaks out something incredible. To worry about that later.

UWF 14/04/1989 - CORE THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY (09/31)

UWF Core The First Anniversary
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo
14th April 1989
att. 2400

The lord works in mysterious ways. You're trying to think of an opening to the newest entry in your blog of microscopic importance (avg. 100 readers, probably 65 too many, need to think of ways of shedding some of you) and then God herself hands you a doozie:

Here's the full KakiRide card pic.twitter.com/l0y4xQMJQY

— 日本 Audio Wrestling (@jaudiowrestling) July 24, 2017

Why - yes - that IS UWF's very own Tatsuo Nakano coming out of the woodpile for a special charity shoot-style show. But what of these other names, you ask. I put on my trilby and take my katana (刀) down from its special holster on the wall and, with a satisfied smile, and monologue freely about the importance of the blockchain.