TALES FROM THE ROAD: January Series - JAPAN
17 Days in January 2000.
Yes, I was on an airplane, out over the Pacific ocean at midnight DECEMBER 31st. No, I wasn't worried about Y2K, which turned out to be the big hoax that I knew it was. I was thinking about the upcoming BIG JAPAN PRO WRESTLING January series. 17 days total in Japan and ten big matches. I shouldn't have worried about them, they went GREAT! The first day, we were at the famous KORAKUEN HALL in Tokyo before a sellout crowd of more than 2000 people. Keep in mind that ticket prices are $65 each, so 2000 fans mean big money. We were scheduled for a 6:30 start. ALL JAPAN PRO WRESTLING had been in the same building that afternoon at 2:30 and had likewise sold it out. As a matter of fact, there was at least one show each day, in that very building, the rest of the week. I was delighted to see some of my good Japanese friends. Masa Horrie was there, Kogi Yamamoto was there as well, and the January series was off to a very good start. My match was against a new (for us) Mexican wrestler that I had never met. When the bell rang, he attacked me, went to throw me into the corner and I reversed him and gave himn the big clothesline and he was out. 1-2-3 and my match was over in 8 seconds. As a matter of fact, during this series, I had 10 matches, some were single matches and some were with tagteam partners. I won 9 of the matches with the big stiff clothesline and the very last match of the series, my partner won the match with a BIG MOONSAULT. This guy, KAMIKAZE, is tall for a Japanese. He is 6 feet tall and he does the highest moonsault that I have ever seen. It really is amazing.
Probably the best match, for me this series, was the barbwire death match that I had with BJPW CHAMP, T. HOMNA. This guy is very good. For those of you that haven't seen him, he is one helluva athlete. The Japanese wrestlers are the best in the world, because they are in such great shape, and because they are trained for a very long time before they are allowed to even think about having a match in the ring. Anyway, 18 minutes into the match, with both of us bleeding half to death, I finally hit Homna with the BIG CLOTHESLINE FROM HELL and knocked him out, letting me get the pin in this non-title match. I do a left handed clothesline and the next day, I had a bruise from mid biceps running down my forearm that measured just shy of 19 inches long! It hurt for several days. Actually, during this series I knocked out a couple more guys with the clothesline. BJPW is tough. There are a lot of very tough wrestlers there and when you step into the ring with them, you had better be ready to fight. I love this company.
I personally have only lost one match in Japan. Several months ago, then champion, SHADOW WX defeated me in a death match that saw him hit me with a big fireball and then hit me with a clothesline with his arm ON FIRE!!!. On our next series, which starts on Febuary 22nd, I get a return match with SHADOW WX, in KORAKUEN HALL. This will be my chance to avenge my one loss in Japan.
There were many good matches during this series. Yamakawa, Homna, Shadow WX, and most all of the other guys had at least one INCREDIBLE match during the series. Words can't describe some of the talent that we have in BJPW, you will have to see it to believe it. That is one reason that I am now offering the BJPW video tapes (see the section on my webpage for merchandise) these guys are something else.
Every tour, somebody goes to the hospital for stitches of other injuries, this series was no exception. In BJPW the action is tough!
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