Before you saw any Puroresu...

[Guest Downhome]

What I mean, is that before you actually watched any Puroresu at all, what did you think it was all about? Did you expect something other than what you actually got, or was it how you expected?

 

Me, I got basicly what I thought about, plus more. Before I saw actual Puroresu, I had the video game VPW2 so I was already familier with many of the moves, names of guys, etc... When I saw the real stuff though, it was a lot better than I thought it would be, thus I am now hooked!

 

Sincerely,

...Downhome...

[Guest wolverine]

My first tape was the Super J Cup 1994, which had many guys I was familiar with from U.S. TV (Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko, Liger, Taka, Sasuke) so I got what I expected.

 

It took me longer to get into AJPW, mostly because I started WRONG. I got the Super Power Series 1999 comm tape I heard so many positive things about, and while parts of it were entertaining, it wasn't something I explored again for a few years. Then I saw 6/9/95, and became hooked on that promotion.

 

For Joshi, I bought the Dreamslams, and while I was impressed, I didn't become hooked until I saw the Dream Rush main event, which was completely out of this universe.

[Guest Grenouille]

My thought was that they were all going to be these ping pong balls doing lots of highspots every couple seconds. Well, I was wrong.

 

I played lots of VPW2 and Fire Pro G then eventually decided to buy some AJPW tapes. My first tape was the 1999 New Years Giant Series tape to see what the fuss was with a Misawa VS Kawada match and to see the hangman DDT done by actual people. I hated every part of the tape including Misawa-Kawada match. After a few months I decided to give Puro another try with some stuff from 95. I picked up the CC 95 and have been a fan ever since. I suppose it just takes a few viewings and patience to enjoy at first, when all you'd seen in your life was the standard WWF fare.

[Guest TopSecretMan]

I didn't know it existed before I saw it.

[Guest Coffin Surfer]

Well the best of Benoit from RF Video(shudders, but still a damn good tape) was my intro to puro. Than Super J Cup 94 and one of those New Japan Tournaments from 94(I still don't know shit about show names).

 

It wasn't so much to see Puro, but I was on a quest to see every Eddy, Benoit, and Malenko match ever. Already familar with thier American work, I wasn't expecting luchadore type action. I actually liked most of the matches on a first viewing. Though the junior style isn't really my thing anymore.

 

I than read the Rolling German review of Misawa/Kawada 6/3/94, and became interested in All Japan. The reviewer described how the match wasn't about lots of big moves, it was about story telling and drama. So I wasn't expecting lots of crazy ass moves and high spots when I saw my first match.

 

The first All Japan match I ever was Kawada/Kobashi 98 Triple Crown Match, and I actually loved it. I was amazed at how Kawada made every move look damn impossible to pull off. The slow pace didn't bother me, since at the time I was watching nothing but old NWA stuff.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I'd just read about it on the net, got curious, and a bunch of like-minded friends and I checked out the J-cups, got hooked. AJPW followed soon after, as well as a little MPro, and most recently, Joshi. NJPW Heavies and Lucha never really did it for me, though. Especially lucha, just not my thing.

 

I was TOTALLY expecting little bastards flying all around the ring helter skelter. While I might've been partially right in that assumption when it comes to MPro and Toryumon, I'm pretty much the opposite of correct when it comes to AJPW/NJPW.

[Guest Black Tiger]

From seeing guys like Chono in WCW I knew some of what to expect. I got the WCW/Japan Supershow as an introduction which I thought was a good start. Then I got the J* Crown and all 3 Super J-Cups as well as the TOSJ 1993. So I was familiar with NJ no problem. It took a little longer with some of the heavyweights but I'm pretty up to speed on what to look for in an NJ match

 

I'm not too big on AJ aside from the early 1990's Misawa. I don't know if I'm watching the wrong stuff or not but I can't stand AJ. I'm working on the 1995 CC which I hear is their best tape set, so after I finish it I'll let you know if I've changed my mind at all.

[Guest eiker_ir]

The first Puro i ever saw were 2 matches that i download but i didn't like them, they were those exploding-cage of death-fire-C4 matches and i don't like those kind o' matches so i didn't watched again for a long time, i tought everything was like that over there.....

 

 

....later i started seeing some stuff from Ultimo Dragon, Lyger, Benoit and Jericho from WAR and completly loved it and from there i started to get into all the other promotions like NJPW, AJPW (altough i don't like it that much), etc.....

 

 

 

[Guest TheyCallMeMark]

I was TOTALLY expecting little bastards flying all around the ring helter skelter.

 

That was also my assumption.

[Guest HBK16]

Before I saw it, I read it in Foley's book. I though all puro was hardcore. My first tape was the KODTM mainly cuz I read about it in his book. But then I got into M-Pro and then Toryumon.

[Guest HossSauce]

I can't stand 99% of puro. If North American wrestling is all style and no substance, then puro is all substance with no style. It just doesn't excite me at all. I really have to be in the mood for it to watch puro. And if I do watch some puro, it's from RF Video and it features North American wrestlers wrestling Japanese wrestlers. Japanese vs. Japanese? Forget it.

 

I guess I got off to a really bad start: IWA King of the Death Match. But I've seen my fair share of puro since then, and I still don't like it one damn bit. Plus -- and I know that this is holding a grudge -- all of the nit-picking and "our wrestling is better than your wrestling" that the puro fans do on the Internet turned me off to it right from the start. It's really obnoxious.

 

The only thing I hate more than puro is ECW and garbage wrestling like XPW and CZW. It's pure and utter crap. At least in Japan they have good matches.

[Guest HBK16]

I can't stand 99% of puro. If North American wrestling is all style and no substance, then puro is all substance with no style. It just doesn't excite me at all. I really have to be in the mood for it to watch puro. And if I do watch some puro, it's from RF Video and it features North American wrestlers wrestling Japanese wrestlers. Japanese vs. Japanese? Forget it.

 

I guess I got off to a really bad start: IWA King of the Death Match. But I've seen my fair share of puro since then, and I still don't like it one damn bit. Plus -- and I know that this is holding a grudge -- all of the nit-picking and "our wrestling is better than your wrestling" that the puro fans do on the Internet turned me off to it right from the start. It's really obnoxious.

 

The only thing I hate more than puro is ECW and garbage wrestling like XPW and CZW. It's pure and utter crap. At least in Japan they have good matches.

Whoa whoa whoa whoa! In all my years of being a fan of wretling and discussing wrestling, I have never, ever heard anybody say they hate ECW. ECW was like one of the greatest feds ever. You call yourself a wrestling fan?

[Guest HossSauce]

That's just not true. Lots of fans hate ECW. Scott Keith hates ECW. A lot of the so-called "workers" in this business don't think very highly of ECW. What's your basis for this claim? Have you personally asked every wrestling fan out there what they think of ECW?

 

A lot of fans like ECW, but a lot of fans hate it too. Where do you think the term the "ECW mutants" came from? The ECW marks themselves?

 

ECW sucked. The only time that the in-ring product was any good was right before WCW stole Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko, Mysterio, Psicosis, Juvi, etc. Other than that brief period when ECW had all of the vanilla midgets and cruiserweights, the talent pool blew.

 

The Sandman? I can't believe that this guy ever went to wrestling school. November 2 Remember '97 vs. Sabu is the most God-awful, embarassing excuse for a match that I have ever seen. -*****, and I only break it out when I need a good laugh.

 

Sabu? The king of blowing spots.

 

Rob Van Dam? The one home-bred talent with true superstar potential that ever came out of Philly, and he didn't even have great matches in ECW because of the ridiculous amount of time that he spent posing and stalling. I love him now that he's in the WWE, but when he was in ECW I was merely impressed with his athletic ability.

 

Tazz? Well, he sure got exposed quick in WWE. He was exactly what he said he was: a suplex machine. The minute that he had to expand his repetoire beyond that, he choked.

 

Tommy Dreamer? Give me a break. He has nothing: no look, no athletic ability, no technical wrestling expertise, no nothing. He knows how to swing a kendo stick and blade and cripple himself. That's it.

 

Justin Credible? Talk about the most overrated heel in the history of the business. Once he got to the big leagues, he was exposed for what he really was: a skinny little punk who cuts terrible promos and tries to get heat by doing pseudo-crotch chops because he's kinda in the Kliq but kinda not. Is there a rule that everybody in ECW has to carry a kendo stick? Jesus Christ...good thing he had Lance Storm to carry his ass.

 

Masato Tanaka? Great talent, too bad he was borrowed from FMW. Mike Awesome? Ditto. I'm glad that he left them high and dry and got the hell out of that bingo hall. Cactus Jack? Steve Austin? Brian Pillman? The Steiners? Terry Funk? None of these guys were ECW-bred and all of them had a cup of coffee with Heyman and his bush league outfit and then got the hell out.

 

Axl Rotten? Ian Rotten? Balls Mahoney? Once again, I'm dying to know what wrestling school these guys attended. Have you ever seen Axl vs. Ian Rotten? Do these guys know how to do anything except maim each other for real? It's good to know that after nearly bleeding to death and scarring himself in all of those -***** broken glass/taped fist matches with Axl, Ian Rotten is now a bonified superstar. Yeah. And as for Balls, if doing the FAT-ASS SPINNING SHIN GLANCE OF DOOM and swinging a chair is all it takes to be a wrestler, I should have worked for ECW.

 

Raven? Talented guy. It's a shame that he didn't have better opponents to work with. I feel sorry for anyone who has to work with Tommy Dreamer for 2 years straight.

 

Don't even get me started on Chilly Willy.

 

The Baldies? Vic Grimes? New Jack? Mustafa? Do I even need to go into how utterly talentless these guys are? New Jack does not know a single wrestling maneuver. Not ONE. All he can do is stiff people with weapons and mutilate 16-year-old kids with Xacto knifes.

 

The Eliminators? Talk about the most overrated tag team in the history of wrestling.

 

Shane Douglas? Once again, overrated. He couldn't cut it in the big leagues, so he went to Philly to whine and cry about Ric Flair and the Kliq holding him down. Here's an idea, Shane, maybe you suck.

 

Amish Roadkill? The F.B.I.? The Blue Meanie? What is Paul Heyman's fetish with morbidly obese men with zero talent? There's a reason that these guys are no longer employed.

 

Danny Doring? Simon Diamond? Talk about vanilla and overrated, especially Simon. Ooh, he strokes his chin and he has cool music and he's boning Dawn Marie.

 

Personally, I can't believe that Steven Richards has a job with WWE.

 

Chris Candido? Bam Bam Bigelow? For all the hype about how good these guys are supposed to be, I've never seen them actually, you know...have a great match.

 

Fuck ECW.

[Guest HBK16]

ECW changed wrestling in the States. They gave wrestling fans something that they have never before seen. They weren't all about hardcore. Sure from 1995-1998 they held a lot of hardcore matches but in 1999-their fall they had the greatest action I have ever seen. I am sure that more than 90% of the people here will agree with me that ECW was a great federation.

[Guest Evil Ash]

I actually assumed it was more like lucha before I saw any of it. I guessed it was a ton of little guys jumping around, doing death-defying moves. Then I saw stuff like All Japan, where it's basically just really big guys telling a great story and hitting each other really, really hard. I was surprised how much thought and build up was put into it. It was actually more like traditional old school wrestling, with some head-bumps thrown in.

[Guest Black Tiger]

Here are a few more:

 

FMW

 

Hayabusa vs Mr Ganosuke (Busa wins titles)

Megumi Kudo vs Combat Toyada

Cactus Jack vs W*ING Kanemura

Hayabusa/Tanaka vs Terry Funk/Mr Pogo

[Guest Vyce]

I was always curious about Japanese wrestling, since I used to get the Apter mags as a kid, and would enjoy reading the one to two page news page they would have in the back covering the Japanese scene. I didn't get a real taste of it until 1993, when WCW aired " WCW / New Japan Supershow 3" on PPV. I remember, it was actually the first wrestling PPV I ever bought. I was able to sell my parents on buying it because of the cheap price (only 10 bucks).

 

In retrospect, that card has little to no historical value, and has pretty much been forgotten....but it introduced me to the world of puroresu, and its where I first got interested in the style.

 

Two matches from that show struck me and have stayed with me since: Ultimo Dragon v. Jyushin "Thunder" Lyger for the IWGP junior title, and Masa Chono v. Great Muta for NWA title (this was shortly before WCW abandoned the NWA and that title became the "International" title). Chono & Muta was a good Japanese heavyweight match which I enjoyed, especially since I was a Muta mark. And as for Dragon & Lyger.....I have seen better, more exciting junior matches in the years since that match, but at the time it BLEW ME AWAY. They did some highspots which I had NEVER seen done up until then.

 

So that show got me interested in puro. It wasn't until later on, a few years later, that I was able to get my hands on puro through tapes and such. That's where I got my start, though. I've always had a respect for the style.

 

******

 

Now as to ECW.....I wouldn't go quite as far as HossSauce, but upon reviewing a lot of my old ECW tapes and ECW matches I've taped from TV.......that promotion, I think, gets far more credit than it deserves. There were a LOT of things I liked / loved about ECW, but overall.....I don't think I can view it as a "great" promotion. When they did something right, they did it very well - but the crap was REALLY bad. And even until the end, they had a tendency to do some really crappy "wrestling". It seems that for every good worker they had, every Jerry Lynn or Steve Corino, they had a Sandman or Axl Rotten who were largely talentless brawlers.

[Guest CED Ordonez]

Like many others here, puroresu wasn't on my radar before I was introduced to it. It wasn't on my TV and it was going on around the time I was still a mark, so it didn't exist in my eyes.

 

First mini-introduction to puro was when WCW introduced them States-side. I liked their talents and moves (marked heavily for the Nagata Lock, hence my boardname).

 

However, it wasn't until my friend hooked me up with the Misawa/Kawada "Ganso Bomb" match that I had my first taste of puro. It put a grin on my face with the thought of "Holy shit! They're really beating the crap out of each other!"

[Guest BigPoppaKev]

I just assumed it was like all death matches/brawls. My friend bought the IWA King of the Deathmatch '95 and I watched it and I thought that was japanese wrestling and thats really it. Then I got some more FMW tapes and started to do some research into it and realized the greatness that is Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, Lyger and the list goes on.