My Path To Becoming a Pro Wrestler in Japan (Part 5)

(WNC year 2 part 1)

(This story takes place entirely in the year 2013 unless written otherwise)

In late January of 2013 , Hajime Ohara and WNC parted ways. In a previous post I may have said this took place in December of 2012, but it was actually late January, 2013.

I mention this because it was a BIG problem for Tajiri. Ohara was his number 1 ticket seller, responsible for bringing in 30-40 tickets per show. If Tajiri was going to have a stab at keeping WNC afloat with basically no money, he needed someone to sell tickets. He also needed a gaijin (foreigner) because he now had no money to bring overseas talent in.

Tajiri (background) came to watch the rookies, and chose me to debut

To explain how much WNC changed in the space of a month, from December 2012 to January 2013, is pretty easy. The company cancelled all Korakuen Hall shows except for 2, going from 12 times a year to twice a year. It stopped bringing in the big overseas names, and it stopped using a production company (paying them 650,000 Japanese yen a month - $6000) to do all their videos for TV and YouTube. He hired me as their video guy on a very cheap salary, and we spent hours and hours together in 2013 and 2014, filming skits, promo videos, and of course our weekly WNC podcast (link below). I would also be responsible for filming the shows (I hired cameramen and edited them myself) and uploading everything to YouTube. It is definitely worth checking out the old WNC YouTube page, lots of great stuff on there (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi-jwtIXoxtd7OBs4HCOdog).

Koji Doi was a good tripod for the camera

Although Ohara left at the end of January, his last job for us was to set up a show called “WNC Future”, which was a show where all the senior wrestlers were left off the card, and the main event was to be the young boys. This also meant that the rookies got a chance to get in the ring. The show was held on January 4th, 2013 and was the first time I had ever jumped into a wrestling ring in-front of an audience. January 4th is a historically special day in Japanese pro wrestling, the annual Tokyo Dome show for NJPW.

The four rookies who would be having exhibition bouts

I was smarter than the other three. I already knew ahead of time what Tajiri, Akira, and Ohara thought I could be - which was a UWF style fighter, so I went out and bought my gear and wore it to the ring. The tights were actually just sports tights that I wore in training, but the ISAMI shin pads, knee guards, and shoes were all new. The others came in a t-shirt and shorts. You can’t break with tradition in Japan, but as a gaijin, you can, and I did.

In Japan, it is a time honored tradition that all rookies go through a series of 3 minute “exhibition” bouts before debuting. If you check out part 4 of my series of blogs, at the very end there is a YouTube link for a WNC show in May of 2012. The opening match (before Tajiri comes to the ring with the first owner) is a 3 minute exhibition bout between Yusuke Kodama and a rookie called Kawamura, who failed to debut with us. That will give you an idea of what an exhibition bout is.

Announced under my real name that I would be doing an exhibition match

My opponent was Josh O’Brien, the American from Boston, and it would be his last match in WNC before leaving. Josh and I had done a three minute shoot bout (legit try to tap each other wrestling) in training the previous month, and I won 1-0. Tajiri was watching, liked it, and told us to do exactly the same at the WNC Future show. When January 4th came around, I had sold 17 tickets, far and away the most. My friends all turned up to support me, including Eric (RIP), who you may remember from the first post, who pushed me to start kickboxing, that led to pro wrestling.

L-R: Shah, me, Eric, Simon

I don’t remember much of the match, except that Josh found an extra gear and was much better than the shoot match in training. In fact, in this match, we both had chances to get each other, and we couldn’t. It finished 0-0 and we were pretty even throughout.

This was a 100% legit, unscripted wrestling match. The idea in Japan is, show everyone you can legit wrestle first, and then you can debut.

The match left all my friends confused because they thought I was doing pro wrestling, with Eric commenting;

“I thought this was pro wres, why didn’t you go off the top rope!?”

Tajiri and Ohara were happy, and I was the only one to get asked to do a second exhibition bout the following month. Before that could happen though, Ohara left WNC.

February 13th, 2013, was the date of my second exhibition match. I could feel that my debut might be close, but I wasn’t sure. Nobody was giving up any information. Tajiri paired me up with Yusuke Kodama and instructed me very clearly to;

“Go out there and legit try to kick his head off. I want you to show your martial arts”

Right you are. And so I did.

With January ticking over into February (2013), Tajiri had a roster spot to fill. I didn’t know it at the time, but he had come to the first training of 2013 to check on us rookies. When he needed one person to debut later on when shit hit the preverbial fan, he decided it was going to be me. That’s why I was given the second exhibition bout. I had been training for only 10 months, Josh was now gone (meaning I was the only foreigner), and I had a martial arts background of karate, aikido, and kickboxing. Tajiri must have been asking about me, because Akira came up to me the week before the second exhibition match and slyly asked;

“Are you planning to use your martial arts if you debut?”

I said that I would like to, yes. He asked me to show him, so I went over to the punching bag at U-File Camp dojo and proceeded to light up the sandbag, showing off my kicks. Akira was surprised and said “wow, you have good kicks”. That is probably why Tajiri told me to show off my martial arts for the Kodama match.

Months before Ohara left WNC, I was alone with him in the office (of the first owner). This was the same time when he told me that he didn’t want to be such a dick to us rookies, but he felt he had to or we wouldn’t train hard. It was borderline mental torture, some of the stuff he would yell at us (well, mostly the Japanese), you definitely could not repeat to your mother. Ohara knew I could kick, and told me to check out some of the old UWFi matches, saying he thinks I should be a shoot fighting character like Nobuhiko Takada. This must not have been relayed to Tajiri and Akira, because they didn’t know.

I will confess right now. When Ohara mentioned this to me, I did not have a clue what UWF was, who Nobuhiko Takada was, or even what shoot fighting was. For those who don’t know, UWF is the style that was born from Japanese pro wrestling, and eventually morphed into modern day MMA. Ken Shamrock was an American pro wrestler who made it big in Japan as a UWF guy, and then moved onto the UFC. UWF guys Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki (both trained by Fujiwara) also started the world’s first MMA organisation called Pancrase (which ex-SMASH president Sakai now owns), which in-turn inspired Pride to be created. Shamrock was the Pancrase champion when he debuted in UFC 1.

I had never heard of my future namesake Fujiwara, or any of the other legends of the sport. I barely knew any Japanese pro wrestling legends let alone UWF ones, and Fujiwara was a legend in both. I had grown up entirely on WWF and the only Japanese wrestler I know other than Antonio Inoki was Masahiro Chono. Back in 2002, I was very randomly given a part time English teaching job at Aristrist, the accessory company that Chono’s German wife founded. We used to talk in English about wrestling, he was such a cool guy. Who on earth could have predicted that this skinny kid teaching English would one day stand next to Chono as someone in the same business.

Having been told I should be a UWF type wrestler, despite having no idea what UWF was, I also find it ironic now that I am only doing UWF style matches in Japan. Fast forward to 17:30 for my first match with GLEAT, who run UWF style shows. It’s in an empty arena due to COVID-19.

The second exhibition match went off without a hitch. Kodama was happy, he told Tajiri so, and I was excited. Could this actually be happening? Am I going to debut!?

Second exhibition match vs. Yusuke Kodama

A few days after the exhibition bout, I was just finishing up training at Ihara Kickboxing Gym. I was on my way out of there by this time, ready to quit. Being so into wrestling, I barely went there anymore anyway. But I was there on this one night and at the end of training, as I was leaving the gym, Tajiri called me. He didn’t announce that I would debut right away, instead he asked me how I was doing, told me about Ohara leaving, and lastly said;

“By the way, would you like to debut in two weeks at the Shinjuku Face show?”

My mouth dropped. The words I had been waiting to hear all my life had finally come. I remember the exact location, the exact scene as my eyes saw it, as I heard the news. This was happening, and the wild ride was just about to begin. This would also be the end of my first chapter of aikido. After 10 years doing the art, I quit the Aikikai Hombu Dojo for good as well. I was now focusing EVERYTHING on professional wrestling. Click here for Part 6.