Big Japan Pro Wrestling
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Big Japan Pro Wrestling (BJW) is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion established in 1995. It is most famous for its Deathmatch style contests.
Beginnings
Big Japan Pro Wrestling was founded in March 1995 by Shin’ya Kojika, during the boom period for Deathmatch wrestling in Japan. Shin’ya Kojika is still president of the company to date.
Style
It followed in the footsteps of organisations such as Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) and the International Wrestling Association of Japan (IWA Japan), who helped popularise a hard-hitting, violent and bloody style of wrestling known as the Deathmatch.
These matches are usually weapon filled, using both “conventional” weapons (such as chairs and tables), as well as “extreme” weapons not usually seen in main-stream wrestling, and previously unused in wrestling at all. These weapons include, but are by no means limited to, nails, thumbtacks, fire and fluorescent light tubes. Barbed wire is also often used liberally in these matches, sometimes wrapped around other weapons, laid on the floor surrounding the ring, wrapped around the ring ropes or even replacing the ropes altogether.
Early BJW Deathmatch Innovations
In it early years, BJW was unable to directly compete with the budgets of it's compotition. This lead to the innovation of a number of unique gimmick matches, many of which helped hide its monetary shortcomings. These include:
- Circus Deathmatch- above the ring is a scaffold and under that scaffold there is a type of circus net made of barbed wire. When a wrestler falls off of the scaffold the barbed wire spider net is there to “catch” the wrestlers. After a wrestler, or a team of wrestlers, have been thrown into the net it is cut down and the match continues to a pin fall.
- Piranha Deathmatch- Barbed wire boards are placed in the corners. In the middle of the ring, there is a tank full of Piranhas. To win you must hold your opponent in the tank for ten seconds.
- Desert Deathmatch- This match is similar to the Piranha Deathmatch. However, instead of barbed wire boards, there are two cacti. And instead of Piranhas, there is a tank full of scorpions.
- Crocodile Deathmatch- Two wrestlers compete in a nonspecific death match. The loser of the match must then go on to wrestler a crocodile.
- Fire Stone Deathmatch- Both the inside and outsides of the ring are lined with electrified space heaters wrapped in barbed wire. The match is won by pin fall.
- Big Japan W*ING Crisis Big Born Deathmatch- Barbed-wire-board, thumbtacks, bed-of-nails, circus-style-scaffold into a barbed-wire-trampoline, tub of scorpions, cactus plants, light bulbs, Fire Stones, Dry Ice, barbed-wire-bat, drills, swords, knives, buzz saws Street Fight Tornado Death Match.
Criticism
The favoured BJW style is often criticised for their lack of psychology and actual wrestling moves. While this at times can be a fair criticism of the style, it is not a hard and fast rule. Deathmatches, including those in Big Japan, can often feature very logical progression of a match, as well as innovative, high-flying and high-risk wrestling moves, not always reliant on weaponry.Some have also commented that this extreme vein of the sport requires no actual wrestling skill, labelling it as moronic and uninteresting. One could argue, however, that all wrestling boils down to a form of entertainment, and that BJW are just professing a more “extreme” style of entertainment.
Another controversial issue is how dangerous Deathmatches actually are to the wrestlers involved. Participants often suffer severe flesh wounds which trigger large losses of blood. Burns are also an issue when fire and/or explosives are involved. Some wrestlers, such as Tomoaki Honma, have been permanently scarred by repeated contact with barbed wire and other sharp foreign objects. On occasion, some wrestlers have even been rushed to the hospital due to serious injuries suffered during a Deathmatch (such as the Hayabusa vs. Atsushi Onita "Exploding Cage" match, although it happened in FMW).
Inter-promotional feuds
Big Japan has feuded with both New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) and Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW). These were both story line feuds and, in reality, the companies worked together.During late 1996 and early 1997, Big Japan entered into an agreement with New Japan. Being a relatively new promotion, BJW was in need of mainstream publicity. NJPW agreed to a feud, which would allow Big Japan wrestlers to appear in their company and use New Japan’s popularity to give exposure to their company. In return, Big Japan agreed to lose the feud and the majority of the inter-promotional matches, therefore strengthening the New Japan brand. The situation provided an interesting clash of wrestling styles, as NJPW often favoured a strong style of competition. The biggest show featuring both companies occurred at the Tokyo Dome on 4th January 1997.
In the late 90’s and into the 00’s, Big Japan competed against Combat Zone Wrestling. CZW was a relatively new American promotion, which also largely focused on an extreme style of wrestling. Wrestlers feuded in both companies (in Japan for BJW and America for CZW). During this feud, CZW wrestler Wifebeater injured BJW wrestler Ryuji Yamakawa with a badly executed spinebuster from the apron to the floor, and the general quality of wrestling sank. BJW lost a lot of fans in this period, and top star Tomoaki Honma departed the company to become a freelancer. (Honma would later sign with All Japan Pro Wrestling.)
Other
Away from the Deathmatches, BJW also has had well-established normal wrestling titles. On February 3, 1998, Yoshihiro Tajiri won a one night only 8 man tournament in Tokyo to crown BJW’s first Junior heavyweight. This match showed a distinct departure from the violent matches BJW is known for. The company also has had a Heavyweight championship, Women’s championship, Tag Team championship, and 4-Man tag team shuffle championship. Although the Tag titles are the only ones still active.Current Roster
- Takashi Sasaki
- Ryuji Ito
- Abdullah Kobayashi
- Jaki Numazawa
- Daisuke Sekimoto
- Jun Kasai
- MEN's Teioh
- Kintaro Kanemura
- Tetsuhiro Kuroda
- Shadow WX
- BADBOY Hido
- Mammoth Sasaki
- Katsumasa Inoue
- Hiroyuki Kondo
- Daikokubo Benkei
- Yuichi Taniguchi
- MIYAWAKI
- GENTARO
- Hyoma
- Asian Cougar
- Saburo Inematsu
- MASADA
- Mad Man Pondo
- Necro Butcher
Past Wrestlers
- Abdullah The Butcher
- Yoshihiro Tajiri
- Tomoaki Honma
- Ryuji Yamakawa
- Mitsuhiro Matsunaga
- Shadow Winger
- The W*inger
- Homicide
- Mr. Pogo
- Shoji Nakamaki
- Kendo Nagasaki
- Tarzan Goto
External links
- [Official site in Japanese]
- [BJW title history]
- [More information on Deathmatches and BJW innovations.]
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