Puroresu Love & Resources V3

[The Valeyard]

Mutoh has to be the most decorated heavyweight in history now, right?

 

[King Kamala]

Yeah, announcers were selling the “Trying to become the most decorated wrestler in history.” Angle really hard. Works well if you are like 1997 Terry Funk or something not someone like Mutoh who moves around like Fred Sanford at this point.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

Mutoh has won a lot of titles but even if you counted every borderline major singles title he's won it doesn't look like he's won 16.

Mutoh has 10 being very generous.
Triple Crown 3x, IWGP Heavy 4X,NWA Heavy 1x (borderline but why not), GHC Heavy 1x, Wrestle-1 Championship 1x (heh)

Tanahashi 8: IWGP Heavy 8 times

Misawa 8: Triple Crown 5x, GHC 3x

Fujinami has at LEAST 7: 6 IWGP Heavys, NWA World, and there's a bunch of others which if I gave to Mutoh I'd probably give to Fujinami

Kensuke Sasaki another guy who did the Triple Crown/IWGP/GHC run has 7: Triple Crown 1x, IWGP Heavy 5x, GHC Heavy 1x

Suwama (who is still active and the current champion) has 7: AJPW Triple Crown 7x which is the record)

Toshiaki Kawada has 6: Triple Crown 5x,, Z1 Heavy 1x


If you start counting every heavy belt or also tournaments it gets even messier. Jumbo won all the elements of the Triple Crown several times before they were united (and 3 times after) but I didn't count those. Chono "only" won the IWGP title once but he won the G1 5 times.


At the end I'd still say Ric Flair continues to stand alone though. WOOOO~

 

[King Kamala]

You know who else is a more decorated champion in Mutoh? JOHN CEEEEENAAAAA! also Randy Orton & Triple H but who gives a fuck about them ITT?

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

Mutoh became the first man to hold the world titles from NJPW, All-Japan, NOAH, Wrestle-1, and NWA..

 

[King Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1360263774427570182

Reading more Western puro fans reaction to the show yesterday and I've seen a few of these "THIS IS WHAT MISAWA WOULD HAVE WANTED/WOULD HAVE DONE."

I mean...I know he formed the company and all but dude's been dead for almost 12 years now. At some point, I'd assume creative would stop being based around what he would have wanted!

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

He would have done that and its why NOAH ended up in the situation its in lol

 

[King Kamala]

Someone else pointed out that if he were around today, Misawa would have booked himself to beat Mutoh for the title lol.

 

[Brocklock]

You know who else is a more decorated champion in Mutoh? JOHN CEEEEENAAAAA! also Randy Orton & Triple H but who gives a fuck about them ITT?

https://whatculture.com/wwe/10-reasons-john-cena-is-this-generations-mitsuharu-misawa

 

[King Kamala]

LOGIC BE DAMNED! I'd unironically love to see Cena do some stuff in Japan before he hangs up the jean shorts for good. Cena/Tanahashi would be MY Cena/Rock.

 

[Brocklock]

Me too. Cena vs Ishii would be incredible. Cena vs MiSu even more so. I actually don't find that article's headline to be too outrageous and I think Cena might be a secret huge AJPW 90's fan because a lot of the structure of big Cena matches tend to be heavily influenced by Misawa and Kobashi.

 

[Slayer]

Yeah, announcers were selling the “Trying to become the most decorated wrestler in history.” Angle really hard. Works well if you are like 1997 Terry Funk or something not someone like Mutoh who moves around like Fred Sanford at this point.

Kamala you big dummy!

To the "most decorated heavyweight" question I was looking at it the same way as BBBD, considering success across several separate promotions as opposed to long-term success but only for one company, in which case I'd say Mutoh is definitely at the top for puro and has to be high on the list for all pro wrestling period

The Mutoh line about Misawa I'd just chalk up to pro wrestler talk ("your dad would have loved me more than you!"), can't say anything for the people agreeing with him though

 

[King Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1360440096365903878

What NOAH really needs to return to prominence. Trading cards with their stars lounging in casual wear. Somehow, ‘00s casual Kanemaru looks about as middle aged as he does now (when he is actually middle aged).

 

[909]

FinJuice coming to Impact. What the fuck

 

[King Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1360926988240887812

 

[Slayer]

Always enjoy seeing those puro trading cards from the 00s (I wonder if there was a specific boom for those types of cards in Japan at that time or just coincidence that's the period I've seen most of those coming from). I would not have recognized lean short-haired Morishima at all without his name on the card, and I love Marufuji looking ready to hit up Ozzfest '01

I'm assuming @King Kamala's tweet above refers to, in addition to Mutoh a couple days ago, Jun Akiyama ending Tetsuya Endo's KOD reign this morning. This one I'm more fine with as Akiyama can still go, plus the KOD title isn't anywhere near as "serious" a title as the Big Three belts. Another similarity to their corporate brother was when after the celebration Kazusada Higuchi came to the ring as Jun's first challenger for the title. There is some difference though as Kaito is the #1 young guy of NOAH and the former champ looking to reclaim his title, vs Higuchi being DDT's maybe #3 young guy (behind Endo and Takeshita, and possibly Ueno ahead of him as well) and having never held the KOD belt, long overdue IMO

So now of the main five promotions' top champions, three are Mutoh (58), Akiyama (51) and Suwama (44). At the antipode of the spectrum is Dragon Gate with 24 y/o Shun Skywalker, and lastly there's Kota Ibushi who's the happy medium of looking like the latter while being closer to the former

 

[King Kamala]

Jun Akiyama looks and moves a good 10 years younger than he actually is. Plus his rawboned angry vet is type of gimmick you can do until your 60s

 

[Brocklock]

Yeah Akiyama is like Tenryu in that he works a lower impact style than his peers so he could probably continue wrestling until his sixties. Akiyama also has a lot of tools he can use that don't require as much sick bumps and impact like his amateur background.

 

[Slayer]

Jun Akiyama looks and moves a good 10 years younger than he actually is.

and crazy thing to me is that on the other end I keep wanting to think he's older than he really is because so much of his career was intertwined with the Four Pillars who were 5+ years his senior, so it's easy to forget he's actually in the same age group as the NJ Dads, Minoru, Mochizuki and Sugiura

Hell, he's actually younger (by a year+ but still) than MiSu and Nagata

 

[King Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1361209754190704644

BY GAWD! MUTOH MIGHT HAVE GOTTEN NOAH TO WALK THROUGH THAT FORBIDDEN DOOR!

(also I thought NOAH had a deal with MLW? I'd rather see Mutoh Vs Jacob Fatu or Mutoh Vs Tom Lawlor than him hobbling around against anyone on Impact. Knowing Impact's bad luck with puro guys, Moose will probably break Mutoh's hip in like a six minute mid card match)

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

okada regularly talks about doing super shows with wwe/aew/roh/njpw/etc. they just say whatever and if something actually happens its usually a coincidence.

 

[King Kamala]

Impact is so low on the totem pole (and statement was vague enough) that it'd be weird to lie about it though IMO. For all we know, Mutoh was just reading fanmail.

On opposite end of age spectrum from Mutoh, the new Young Lion injured his arm 15 seconds into his debut match. Poor fella. Hopefully, we'll all be able to laugh about this some day when he's main eventing shows.

btw, speaking of DOORS OPENING, it's PROBABLY been mentioned somewhere on here but the main event for AEW Dynamite from last week is on NJPW World.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

NOAH has/had working relationships with both MLW and Impact recently. Mutoh has a history with Impact as well.

 

[King Kamala]

Knowing our luck, we’ll get Mutoh Vs Tommy Dreamer for the GHC Championship.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1361332394175815682

I wonder what 40+ year old Japanese wrestlers AJPW can dig up that haven’t been snatched up by NOAH.

 

[tekcop]

Someone else pointed out that if he were around today, Misawa would have booked himself to beat Mutoh for the title lol.

No. He would have booked some 280lb guy with zero charisma and a giant head to beat Mutoh. Then he would have booked himself to beat that guy.

Also, I thought you guys were being overly anxious and pessimistic about the idea of Mutoh winning. My bad.

 

[King Kamala]

Minoru Suzuki, King of Wrestling Fashion

Minoru Suzuki loves Stance socks. Colette Arrand loves Minoru Suzuki so much she bought a pair. What makes Suzuki so fashionable? Find out!

www.fanbyte.com

How did I not know Suzuki owns a boutique clothing store? I assumed he was strictly a gym wear outside of the ring type. Fact that he's so stylish makes me like him even more!

 

[tekcop]

My gf has followed him on Instagram for a few years. He mostly posts about his clothes. Primarily his socks.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

I'm caught up on the first 2 shows of the Castle Attack tour. One the first show, NJPW debuted a new Young Lion, Yuto Nakashima. Less than 1 minute to his match again Yuya Uemura, they were doing some catch style work, Yuto dislocated his elbow. If you look for it, it's pretty nasty. NJPW has announced he's going to miss the remainder of the tour. Hopefully that's all the time he misses. He shows great intensity in the first 60 seconds of his NJPW career.

 

[The Valeyard]

Mutoh stinking Impact up again is gonna take the fun out of this. I hope whichever Tommy Dreamer he has a match with is patient.

 

[King Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1361406273732960259

By God, Mutoh is going to be the first 60 year old World Champion!