For the Serious Puro Watchers

[Guest Trivia247]

Though im still learning, I still wanna get alot of tapes

 

what I did notice that there are alot of Americans who come and go in the various Japanese promotions.

 

though we all know the likes of Stan Hansen, Don Frye, the Late Gary Albright, plus Cactus jack, Terry Funk etc etc made names for themselves out in Japan.

 

My question is, from alot of these wrestlers who take tours out there, who do you think probably has better career potentials in Japan than in the states?

 

Who made it out there better than they did back here..

 

Hansen did, from my estimates. Scott Norton did, who else?

[Guest Shuriken]

Stan Hansen, Scott Norton, '' Dr. Death'' Steve Williams, Johnny Smith, Mike Barton (Bart Gunn), Jim Steele, and alot more..

[Guest Dangerous A]

Most of the gaijins you mentioned have had better careers in Japan than in NA.

 

All the big men you mentioned (Vader, Dr Death, Norton, Frye, Hansen, Albright) have all seen tremendous success as compared to their NA careers.

 

Foley has had more dangerous matches in Japan, but I think his work in the US was better.

 

Funk is hard because he has had such a long career and I haven't seen any of his work from the 70's, when I heard he could really go. I am not too fond of his death match work, but it's not bad.

 

 

(oh yeah, 1700 posts!)

[Guest TheHulkster]

Funk is a tough one. He was a main event level player for All Japan throughout the 70's up to his "retirement" in '83. He had some great matches with Jumbo, Brody, and Hansen and was a big draw along with his brother. Then he later became the man in FMW when he was no longer a world class caliber wrestler. In the US, he was a good draw as NWA champion and had hot money drawing feuds with Lawler, Flair, and countless others. His star power got ECW off the ground. He's one of those rare 50-50 guys.

[Guest Indikator]

Yet Funk was more popular in the Mid-90´s in Japan when most wrestling fans in USA didn´t know him

[Guest XdojimeX]

"Yet Funk was more popular in the Mid-90´s in Japan when most wrestling fans in USA didn´t know him"

 

 

All Japan and NWA headliner in his prime vs. broken down old man chasing the ghost on the sleazy indy circuit?

 

Oky Doky.

[Guest bababooey]

mike barton is doing well,

dan devine, who was a power plant guy, has an alright spot

jungle jim steele

[Guest Indikator]

"Yet Funk was more popular in the Mid-90´s in Japan when most wrestling fans in USA didn´t know him"

 

 

All Japan and NWA headliner in his prime vs. broken down old man chasing the ghost on the sleazy indy circuit?

 

Oky Doky.

My post was about Terry Funk´s ==> popularity <==

I´d say more people saw his matches against Onita than his matches against Eddie Gilbert in some obscure high schools

[Guest The Rising Star]

I think Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero haven't had bigger success in America than they have had in Japan.

[Guest Doyo]

I guess it can depend on how you want to define success, but I would

argue that Benoit and Guerrero have achieved far more overall success

in America. They were both pretty much just used as cruiserweights

in Japan. Yeah the weight divisions are kept seperate and the cruisers

get way more respect there, but they are still not seen as the top guys.

 

In USA, they have both been multi-time Intercontinental and world tag team

heavyweight champions. Benoit even was briefly WCW world

champion with a victory over Sid, something you would never see in Japan.

Liger has had way more success than either of them in Japan and he has

and probably never will be positioned as a heavyweight threat. Benoit

is positioned as a guy who can beat practically anyone in the WWE. No,

they haven't used him or Eddy to their full potential. They've especially

blown it after Benoit got that standing ovation after the ppv match with Angle.

But in Japan he never had any high profile world heavyweight title matches.

[Guest BigPoppaKev]

A lot of gajins have had nice runs in Japan. Jericho had a decent run for a little bit before he came back to the states and started working for ECW. All the others you mentioned are all up there (Hansen,Vader, Frye.)

 

The one guy I think a lot of people are forgetting is Lou Thez. His feud with Rikidozan is legend and Thez was a huge start for many, many years in Japan all the way up until his death. Others also like The Destroyer, Karl Gotch, Andre, and many more all had runs in Japan.