週刊プロレス No.2127
There’s a big interview with Takagi fresh off of his big championship win. Nothing earth-shattering but it’s interesting to read and he comes across as thoughtful. He posted on instagram he slept with the belt the first night but made sure to wash it after Ospreay had it. He was surprised that they let him take it home and was also surprised at the outpouring of support from Dragon Gate people.
He sees himself accomplishments-wise a step down from the likes of Okada and Naito etc. and saw this as potentially his last chance to have a shot at reaching that level so he needed to win it and instead of discouraging him seeing that difference between him and Okada lit a fire under him for that reason.
A turn of phrase or two I liked - he references 勝って兜の緒を締める, an expression meaning to tighten your helmet after a victory instead of letting your guard down, to talk about the real work begins now that he has the belt. And he says “まえは記録よりも記憶に残る試合をしたいなと思っていたけど、本当に大事なのは両方なんだなって思ってきた（笑う）。” saying that while previously he wanted to leave behind memories, not records, now he’s realized the truly iconic wrestlers leave behind both and he wants to aim for that.
He also says that while it might be old-fashioned (I’m not sure if he means the expression?) “らしさ” as in 自分らしく、プロレスらしく、男らしく, that kind of らしさ is important to him, so he wants to hold the belt in a 鷹木慎悟らしく way.
Naito talks about Takagi’s win - apparently while he left before the Ospreay match, he watched this one from the back, and relates a strange anecdote about what he said to Takagi as he was preparing to make his entrance:
パレハ (interviewer)：今回はどんな声をかけたんですか？
内藤：いや、かなり集中していてコッチに気づかなかったんで、背後から「ワッ！」っておどろかしました（笑）。そしたら「なんでいるんだよ？」って聞かれたんで、「応援はしないけど、がんばって」と。
パレハ：よくわからないエールですね（苦笑）。
内藤：「応援しろよ！」って言い返されましたね（笑）。
He also mentions some context I didn’t know - He, Takagi, and Ibushi are all members of a group called the ５７年会 because they were all born in 昭和５７. He says for a while he thought to himself that he was a real frontrunner of the group, but now that Takagi has the championship and the next challenger is Ibushi, he’s wondering if now he’s bringing up the rear.
拳王 apparently angered some people when he complained about wrestlers with side-jobs. He says what he meant is that while yes, economically wrestlers often need to have a day job starting out, you should only work ones that help with wrestling in some way. To him taking a side job that has nothing to do with wrestling will just wear you out and distract you and if it’s really your dream to make it in wrestling you need to be fully commit to it.
One wonders what he would think about Dr. Britt Baker, DMD.
Here’s a great 毒霧 photo
I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen a Mutoh match as The Great Muta outside of like, 80s WCW. I should probably fix that sometime!
Giulia’s column is about マイクアピール. It sounds like she struggled to be confident and connect with crowds on the mike but having Maika and Shuri around helped, and after the coronavirus shut down stardom and “その中で信じられないくらい悲しい出来事も起きた” she was the one to have post-match microphone duty after their first show back, and she describes looking out at the audience in such an emotionally fraught moment and something clicking - and she did well enough and its a famous enough scene that the magazine reporter providing themes for the column had that specific moment in mind when it in saying 「ジュリアさんはマイク上手。ある時突然変わった瞬間があって、お客さんのハートをガッチリつかんだ気がした。」(I’d be tempted to go watch the vod since I only started watching regularly after that point but I dunno if I’m ready to relive the emotions surrounding that particular time…) . Giulia says she learned from that that the audience is half the equation when it comes to promos. You need to feed off of their energy - they want and are expecting something stirring and unforgettable and you just need to channel that into the confidence to give them that.
Earlier she also mentions her ジュリアの事が好きで好きでたまらない諸君! catchphrase started as a frustrated ジュリアの事が嫌きで嫌きでたまらない諸君! that got a reaction when most crowds were still just giving her silence.
Incidentally - it’s silly to say, but this column is the first that made me realize how integral the show-ending promo is to Japanese pro wrestling, and how its absence is a big part of my not connecting with American wrestling in the same way. I never thought about it before, but it’s really a huge difference isn’t it? It’s not like wrestlers don’t have celebrations in America but there’s definitely no Tana-style speeches and air guitar and love (at least that makes it to the aired version), and lingering on that catharsis of feeling like you’re celebrating along with the wrestler or already getting pumped up for the next arc is a big deal, and a unique pressure on someone who is surely physically exhausted by this point I’m sure.
Apparently Gleat is in some way resurrecting the UWF name as Lidet UWF. I don’t really have enough context to understand anything about that, I just think it’s interesting that there’s semi-famously multiple short-lived promotions called UWF in both America AND Japan. I think in Japan the name is associated with “shoot-style” pro-wrestling, and this announcement includes a list of rules. I think I might have a book about one of the UWFs somewhere from when I was really going ham on the wrestling books…
The history column is about the media blitz as Muhammad Ali came to Japan in the lead-up to the famous fight with Inoki in 1976.
I don’t mention the “champ talk” column very often because it’s short and usually pretty shallow or just about wrestlers I don’t know, but apparently now コズエン have the record most defenses for the Artist of Stardom three-woman tag belts with V5 and we hear from Mina Shirakawa a bit because of it.
She says she got advice from Yuzuki Aikawa, who was Stardom’s first ace and was a former gravure idol herself, 「ただのプロレスラーにはなるな」, to not aim to become an ordinary prowrestler but embrace being a グラドルレスラー and use it as a source of strength and pride.
This looks like a hell of a suplex
Looks like Suzu and Risa had a match, in the form of the semifinals of an intergender deathmatch tournament that looks like it was a cool time! I’d be tempted to track that down…
The costume column spotlights Ice Ribbon wrestler Yuuki Mashiro and I just wanted to spotlight this very good homemade ガチャ themed belt because I guess she’s the ガチャ王 (?) - I’m not sure exactly what that entails, but on looking around for possible more information I realized I recognize her from winning the 新人賞 award in a previous issue! Think I’ve seen the belt before and wondered what it was too…
The business-focused column at the back talks to Rossy Togawa, the producer of Stardom, about why Stardom’s still running lots of shows amid covid and states of emergency and stuff, and it sounds more or less like Stardom’s just booming right now and they want to keep that momentum.
It mentions he’s called Hayashishita, Kamitani, Maika, Himeka, and Iida the “黄金世代” (borrowed the term from women’s golf appartently) and all 5 are expected to grow into top level contenders.
(Almost forgot to tag @fallynleaf - Perhaps I ought to have posted in the spiffy new thread instead!)
that sounds about right.
I’d actually say it has a couple additional unique things to it other than just the premise(for one thing it’s not just black and white but actually black, white, and pink, with the pink mostly used for the pink arrows)
