‘We do it all: comedy wrestling, lucha libre.’ How Japanese indie talent is commanding WrestleMania weekend

The ecosystem of indie wrestling exhibits working alongside WWE’s annual Wrestlemania has change into a practice. It’s a time rife with alternatives for wrestlers, with loads of work to go round and the possibility to attach with followers extra immediately — it’s even change into protocol for numerous wrestlers from abroad to guide their American excursions round Mania Weekend. As Los Angeles continues remodeling right into a worldwide showcase for the richness and variety of wrestling, this yr fittingly incorporates a bevy of worldwide expertise, notably for practitioners of Japanese wrestling.

One in all this weekend’s main occasions includes a direct collaboration between American and Japanese promotions: Thursday night time’s IMPACT and New Japan Professional Wrestling’s “Multiverse United” on the Globe Theater, which introduced collectively main Japanese stars akin to Hiroshi Tanahashi and KENTA, together with North American indie darlings akin to “Speedball” Mike Bailey and Lio Rush. Status Wrestling’s “Nervous Breakdown,” on Friday night time, which options legends akin to Aja Kong — one of the vital celebrated ladies to step foot contained in the ring — and up-and-coming expertise akin to powerhouse bruiser Shigehiro Irie can even take the Globe stage.

Kota Ibushi, one of the vital adorned and acclaimed performers of his era, took down Canadian phenom Bailey at Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport 9 Thursday night time. It not solely marked Ibushi’s first stateside look because the pandemic, but additionally his first match since declaring himself a free agent after a controversial departure from New Japan Professional Wrestling, the place he’d labored as a primary occasion contender for over a decade.

The previous tag workforce companion of AEW star Kenny Omega, Ibushi is among the few wrestlers who engages in comedian antics within the ring — wrestling intercourse dolls, for instance, or capturing fireworks out of his bottom — with out sacrificing any of his severe athletic credibility. Earlier than he turned a extra recognizable star, Ibushi lower his enamel for Dramatic Dream Group (DDT), which discovered a global cult following because of its distinctive mix of Jackass-like stunts and severe grappling.

Since its emergence within the 2000s, DDT set the blueprint for Japanese indie wrestling to return, and its affect will be seen throughout American wrestling as nicely — there’s a direct line from WWE’s Sami Zayn doing absurd stunts for DDT, like wrestling whereas paddling a canoe down a river, and his hijinks-heavy Rube Goldberg machine of a match with Johnny Knoxville at WrestleMania final yr.

One in all DDT’s breakout stars is MAO, a technically dazzling performer who mixes a punk rock vitality and daring humorousness with nimble grappling. He has already made a number of journeys throughout the Pacific in 2023 and says that even when the viewers’s love of wrestling is deep in each the US and Japan, touring internationally permits for various sorts of connections.

“I like international followers as a result of I like listening to their chants,” MAO explains. “Japanese followers have a unique type of cheering and name out our names, whereas American followers are very trustworthy. If one thing is unhealthy, they are saying it’s unhealthy. If one thing is nice, they are saying it’s nice.”

Hiroshi Tanahashi poses for a photograph within the ring at AEW Forbidden Door in June 2022.

(Courtesy of AEW)

This weekend presents a uncommon alternative for American followers to obtain the complete DDT expertise, with a full-blown takeover of the Ukrainian Cultural Heart. In arguably one of the vital intense matches of the weekend, AEW star and indie pioneer Eddie Kingston teamed up with Jun Akiyama, certainly one of Kingston’s private heroes and an indeniable legend of Japanese sturdy type, to tackle the brooding, gothic Daisuke Sasaki and KANON.

On Friday night time the DDT roster squares off in opposition to the outlaws of Recreation-Changer Wrestling (GCW), an American indie promotion that gained rising momentum on the top of the pandemic. Matchups embody Darkish Sheik, the godmother of the Bay Space’s underground wrestling scene and the artistic power behind the endlessly creative DIY promotion Hoodslam, taking up pop idol Saki Akai. In the meantime, Bay Space-based wunderkind Starboy Charlie stares down Kazusada Higuchi, a former sumo wrestler and adorned champion with an old style strongman look.

Tokyo Joshi Professional Wrestling (TJPW), DDT’s sister promotion, has exploded since its founding in 2012, and can make its American debut on March 31 as nicely. The dramatic development of TJPW, from underground exhibits a decade in the past to pay-per-view at this time, speaks to the rise of Japanese wrestling fandom in the US in addition to a higher respect for ladies’s wrestling. American performers on “TJPW Stay in Los Angeles” embody Trish Adora, Billie Starkz, and “The Nonbinary Nightmare” Max The Impaler, all of whom have been making waves on current excursions overseas in Japan, alongside TJPW stars like Miyu Yamashita and Yuka Sakazaki.

From MAO’s vantage level, DDT has discovered a rising worldwide viewers not simply due to its distinctive type, but additionally due to how devoted the expertise is. “We do all of it: comedy wrestling, lucha libre, hardcore,” he provides. “And we all the time give 100%.”

As a type lengthy predicated on the change of expertise between international locations, wrestling was hit notably exhausting by restrictions on intercontinental journey over the previous few years. Now that pandemic-era tips have eased, there’s a mutual enthusiasm on the a part of performers, who’re wanting to get out in entrance of crowds and introduce themselves to new audiences, and followers themselves, who’re itching like by no means earlier than to see wrestling stay and within the flesh. However the inflow of Japanese expertise this Mania Weekend feels notably distinctive to Los Angeles. Due to California’s relative proximity to Japan, the L.A. wrestling scene has a wealthy historical past of collaboration with Japanese promoters that goes again many years.

“Within the Nineteen Sixties, Los Angeles was an important place for Japanese wrestlers,” explains Dave Meltzer, one of many foremost historians {of professional} wrestling and a longtime California resident. “Again then, all the main papers and magazines in Los Angeles coated wrestling and revealed match outcomes, so in case you had been a Japanese wrestler who got here to the US to work, the press protection and pictures may make you appear to be a worldwide star again in Japan.”

On the time, wrestling in Japan was dominated by the Japan Professional Wrestling Alliance, based in 1951 by nationwide hero Rikidozan — for the primary a number of years of its existence, the JWA collaborated and exchanged expertise with the Nationwide Wrestling Alliance, the principle governing physique for professional wrestling in the US. JWA ultimately broke from the NWA to work with the brand new Los Angeles group Worldwide Wrestling Associates, which had simply cut up from NWA itself. Within the Nineteen Sixties, when the “world title” was spoken of in Japan, it wasn’t the extra well-known NWA Title however fairly the world heavyweight title of the WWA. Stated title was defended each overseas and in Los Angeles’ Olympic Auditorium — Japanese networks akin to TV Asahi even broadcast title matches from town’s fabled sports activities venue, which was the epicenter of Los Angeles wrestling for many years.

Los Angeles wrestling’s splashy information protection went each methods: It helped anoint American wrestlers akin to “Stylish” Freddie Blassie and The Destroyer as bonafide popular culture icons in Japan. “For those who had been coated in these magazines, you had been a star in Japan on Day 1, earlier than you even arrived,” says Meltzer. Due to his super field workplace success in Los Angeles and his frequent appearances in wrestling magazines, legendary Mexican luchador Mil Máscaras was poised for stardom abroad, and his distinctive masks and colourful cape gave Japanese audiences their first glimpse of lucha libre.

By the Nineties, a complete era of Japanese performers akin to The Nice Sasuke and Último Dragón had grown up with luchadores Máscaras, Dos Caras, and Gran Hamada, and would mix hard-hitting Japanese athleticism with the acrobatics of lucha libre. The result’s often known as lucharesu: a time period combining lucha libre and “puroresu,” the Japanese time period for professional wrestling.

Lucharesu discovered its approach again to Los Angeles round then, the place it deeply influenced the high-flying antics of cult favourite Professional Wrestling Guerilla, the Reseda-based promotion that bred future superstars of AEW and WWE like The Younger Bucks, Adam Cole, and Kevin Owens. Even after the demise of World Wrestling Associates in higher Los Angeles, Japanese superstars like Antonio Inoki and Atsushi Onita ran exhibits within the space within the Nineties, bringing collectively a distinctly multicultural viewers of Mexican lucha libre followers, Japanese immigrants, and American wrestling lovers.

The professional wrestling panorama might have modified drastically over the many years, however Los Angeles continues to inhabit a singular place as a cultural waypoint of wrestling tradition, particularly between Mexico, Japan and the US. This yr’s Mania Weekend is a testomony not solely to town’s distinctive historical past as a wrestling epicenter, but additionally gives indelible proof of wrestling’s inherent internationalism.