846 replies to this topic

[gordi]

ohtani, on Mar 28 2012, 11:49 PM, said:

I want to go back to New Zealand. My wife will be pissed if we return anytime soon as she isn't happy about leaving. We considered moving to West Japan but it's the same as moving to New Zealand except without any support. I'll miss my friends and all the wonderful people I met.

I'm sad we've never met up while we were both here... but, godspeed, good luck, and thanks for all the advice you've given me about life over here!

[rzombie1988]

Crazy man! I finally make it and you are leaving OJ! Hope we can meet up again before you go. We need another DVDVR Japan meet-up.

[FLIK]

gordi, on Mar 28 2012, 07:10 AM, said:

I had been training really really hard with the idea of maybe stepping back into the ring for one more match

Ah, see, I think that's whear you messed up, you look all skinny now in the pic above w Buffalo, you shoulda beefed up instead, more fat to cushion the blows :)

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Yeah, being there to see people like Choshu, Tenryu, Sayama, Taue, Chono, Abdullah, and Dump step the ring the last couple of years... it gave me hope.

3/4 of those ppl take little to no bumps at all these days, there's still hope for you yet. Gordi the Buthcher....I can see it now....

[ohtani's jacket]

When do you arrive, Rob?

[rzombie1988]

ohtani, on Mar 29 2012, 12:38 AM, said:

When do you arrive, Rob?

I'll arrive near the end of June. Definitely let me know if you will be around.

[rzombie1988]

ohtani, on Mar 29 2012, 12:38 AM, said:

When do you arrive, Rob?

I'll arrive near the end of June. Definitely let me know if you will be around.

[ohtani's jacket]

God, I hope I'm gone by then. It all depends on the wife.

[gordi]

“SECRET JOKER2″
Osaka Minami Move On Arena
(Super No Vacancy Full House)

Have you ever been in this situation: There's a woman you find absolutely alluring, to the point where she seems unattainable... but somehow, incredibly, she wants you, too... and then the two of you are finally alone together... and she just rips off her shirt and stares right at you like she's just issued a challenge?

I've been in that situation, and it's an amazing feeling: Simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. You can't believe it's happening and you just hope that you can handle it!

That's roughly how I felt last night at Minami Move On Arena when Kuuga hauled a whole cask of sake up onto the concession counter, broke it open, and told us to help ourselves.

Frankly, I didn't handle it very well. Before the first match started, I was already too drunk to even drool properly.



Luckily for me, M.M.A. is just the right kind of place to get totally off my (gigantic) tits without suffering any consequences other than a massive hangover.  Just so nobody's worried about me: I made it home OK and I didn't even lose my umbrella!



My special friend Yui, who works in a bar not far from the arena, stayed sober all night and was probably the main person watching over me...



... of course Kenji (seen here with gifts for Jon from Osaka Holiday Paradise) had my back, as always (Although I think he got pretty drunk, too)!



When I first met Taro, he was a volunteer with dreams of some day working for Osaka Pro. Now he's an employee! Way to go, Taro! He speaks English very well and was the key guy encouraging me to just have at the sake barrel... not that I really needed encouragement, but you know...



Apple-chan was wearing leather shorts. I almost passed out from the sudden loss of blood...



Tako was working concessions with Taro. He's such a great guy!



Ran-chan was working the gimmick tables.

[gordi]

So the idea of Secret Joker is that we only know that all of the guys from the nefarious JOKER faction are going to be on the card, and they're facing special guests... but we don't know who the special guests will be!  

At the first Secret Joker show, the guests included Antonio Honda, Gran Hamada, El Samurai, and The Great Sasuke... so I was pretty stoked for SJ2.



As is now tradition, the show was stared by a little kid dressed as Kuuga coming out and doing a spot-on impression of Kuuga's ring entrance.

Hideyoshi & HAYATA vs. Diablo & Black Shadow was the opener. Diablo's not exactly my favourite wrestler. It was fun to boo him.

That's the other thing about Secret Joker: For one night we cheer everything that JOKER does and boo everything that anyone else does. When The Winger came out to face Masamune, I booed loudly and he stopped, glared at me with raw hatred, and angrily flipped me the bird. The people around me were terrified! Later, upstairs, he gave me a hug and spoke to me in excellent English. I don't know if this will make any sense at all to anyone who hasn't been to Minami Move On for a show, but to me, that kind of thing is now what pro wrestling is all about: Everyone's in character during the show, but afterward everyone celebrates together like old friends. It's an Osaka thing, perhaps.

  

Also, The Winger bounced Masamune's head off of my chair.

After the break, we got Tadasuke & Orochi vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima & Satoshi Kajiwara. It was a tremendous match! My loud, continuous booing of Kensuke's boys was entirely ironic. I enjoyed the hell out of seeing them go to work in the O-Pro ring. I got so caught up that I forgot to take any pictures. Also, I was totally out of my mind after gooning down cup after cup of sake throughout the break. That may also have influenced my opinion of the match... but I'm pretty sure it was actually very good.

Winger, Nakajima, and Kajiwara were pretty damned good surprises as special guests... but Kuuga really outdid himself for the Main Event: He and the freshly-turned-heel Spider J were joined by Hiro f'n Saito to face the team of...

... and out come Super Tiger and Tiger Shark... and you don't wanna get your hopes up in case it isn't him... but when Tiger Mask Sayama's music hit there was just a crazy jolt of raw electricity that ran through the crowd. There was a dignified-looking but extremely good-natured older couple sitting next to me and the man legit started bouncing up and down in his seat like a little kid, with his eyes wide open and a look of absolute delight on his face. I know he's wildly out of fashion on these boards now... but there really are a lot of people in Japan for whom Sayama will always be their real-life superhero.







And, even though probably everyone at ringside was someone who considers Kuuga to be a friend... we couldn't help but lose our collective shit and start screaming for Tiger Mask as well. Bringing him in was just as much a gift to us as the cask of sake was.

[gordi]

As I said, after the show we partied together like old friends!



Kuuga! (That might just be my favourite picture ever)!


Orochi!


Nakajima!


The Winger!


Spider's awesome new symbiotic black costume!


HAYATA!


Kajiwara!

[Ditch]

Gordi, who's the guy pictured on the left:
http://www.imgur.com/bjmP5.jpg

[gordi]

Ditch, on Apr 17 2012, 06:22 AM, said:

Gordi, who's the guy pictured on the left:
http://www.imgur.com/bjmP5.jpg

Beats me. I only moved here three years ago. That pic is before my time. Sorry!

Here's something though:


The legendary guest star at this year's Anniversary Show will be some guy named Yoshiaki somethingorother... I think he had an arm-bar named after him...



Anyone here heard of this guy before? Is he any good?

[ダニエル]

That's Genba, and he's terrible. ;)

[Ryan]

Ditch, on Apr 16 2012, 04:22 PM, said:

Gordi, who's the guy pictured on the left:
http://www.imgur.com/bjmP5.jpg

http://puroresucentr.../densenman.html

[gordi]

A few pics from Golden Week so far:


Fujiwara!!


Kikutaro!



Tatoo show!


Yun Gang Chul, the special guest wrestler from Korea, got some sick chest bruises to take home as a souvenir from Osaka, courtesy of Tadasuke!


Mini Ebbesan!

[gordi]

Kanpai from Billy!


Kanpai from Tako!


Kanpai from Tigers!

[Justin877]

ダニエル, on Jan 22 2012, 10:41 AM, said:

Believe me, the stories are awesome and at least I enjoy reading them. Albeit half filled with envy (of a positive, admiring variety!).

Like a travelogue.  I don't keep up with much puro lately, but do enjoy the pics and show reports.  Keep them up.

J.H., on Mar 13 2012, 09:14 PM, said:

gordi don't ever stop posting in this thread!

It remains one non-jaded wrestling thread on the whole board. It is almost a travelogue of Westerner abroad in Japan through the shared love of pro-wrestling. If you stopped posting anythign and the thread just died I think a certain sense of joy of coming to DVDVR would follow. This thread always restores my faith in Pro-wrestling as being the everyman's form of entertainment!

James

This too.

And you delivered yet again  with Tiger Mask Sayama, probably my all time favorite Jr. Heavyweight.

[gordi]

Thank you, Justin!

Well, the five pro wrestling shows and four pro wrestling drinking parties in eight days odyssey is over. I feel a little like how Hunter Thompson  wrote that he felt at the end of  'The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved' but I think I feel better about Osaka than he did about Kentucky.

Going back to last Sunday... I should point out that Fujiwara was absolutely awesome in his role, probably the very best actual wrestling that I've seen out of an Osaka Pro guest legend in a six-man tag. That match will be well worth seeking out when it becomes available online. Plus - I may have mentioned this already - Fujiwara gave me a high five after the match.

IMP Hall was packed for Kotoge's final match. In addition to Fujiwara (and Kikutaro actually hitting the brainbuster - which was like Ric Flair hitting a top turnbuckle move!) and the emotional goodbye, we got to see Ranmaru and Apple Miyuki teaming up! They came out in matching leopard-print hoodies and top-ponytails, to the tune of You Give Love a Bad Name!

Seb from France and Jon from New York are both in Osaka. After the show we went out for yakiniku and after that we went to an inexpensive tachinomi (stand-up bar) where the specialty is "Hell Tofu" which is a huge piece of tofu topped with thick layers of red chili powder, green chili paste, and sliced green chilies. Trying to finish that between Kenji, Kae, and I turned into a hilarious epic of mock-stoic endurance. Kenji never broke his poker face. I totally broke mine.

Thursday I couldn't drink at the show because I had to teach afterward. There was a flea/free market after the show with the wrestlers selling all kinds of gimmicks. Chitose and Aika came out to meet Seb and Tomoko and Maxim and we held a mini-parade of gorgeous half-breed babies through the streets of Namba.


Aika-chan

Friday was the Gengis Khan (Mongolian Grill) party from which I have already posted a few pictures. My tattooed friend won a free Osaka Pro ticket as a door prize and she gave it to Jon and told him to use it when he comes back next year!

Yesterday Dump Matsumoto was a special guest in the main event, teaming with Zeus & Kyusei Ninja Ranmaru to take down Ebessan, Kanjyuro Matsuyama & Naoki Setoguchi in a comedy match. Afterward there was a drinking party in Count 2.99 hosted by Ebessan. (Yes, there is a bar in Osaka called Count 2.99, right across from Minami Move On!) I went alone, since the rest of Otaku Gundan had other plans... and it turned out to be mainly a talk-show kind of thing, with Ebessan telling stories. That could have sucked for me, since my Japanese is still pretty crap even after living here for three years... but everyone made an effort to keep me involved, Ebessu in particular... and also Apple Miyuki came as a guest and ended up sitting beside me for a big chunk of the party. * insert valentine eyes smiley here *

I also met a very drunk guy from Kobe who wondered if I might know who any of his favourite wrestlers were. He brought up names like Tenryu, Hansen, Brody... when I told him that I'm an enthusiastic fan of 80s and 90s AJPW, he absolutely spazzed out. I have to say that I was pretty happily surprised as well. We drank gin and tonics together and reminisced about our favorite wrestlers. He doesn't go to live shows these days but instead he watches re-runs of the matches from his college days, at home on satellite. He's only the second guy I've met into Japan who is as passionately into old AJPW matches as I am (as most of us are). He was pretty stoked to hear that people like us exist!

I also won a towel in a janken (rock paper scissors) contest!

After the party, me, the drunk guy, Ebessan, Apple, a family of three, and a couple of other woman stuck around and watched the Main Event of a BJW show from Yokohama live on the bar's TV. It was Abdullah Kobayashi vs. Shuji Ishikawa in a light-tubes match. Sick stuff.


2.99 is jammed full of wrestling memorabilia.


They have a whole wall of signed photos.


I got that ridiculously tiny Ebessan mask off of a box of Ebessan Wasabi Rice Crackers.

Ebessu's t-shirt is from the Dos Caras/Gran Hamada shows. He's got a ton of respect for Hamada. His dream match would be to face Tenryu. He originally tried to turn down the Ebessan gimmick but Spel Delfin forced him to take it. His favourite food is ramen.

Sadly, Apple ran away blushing prettily when Ebessan suggested that she give me a goodbye kiss. That would have been a nice capper to this post! I did almost get a kiss from Dump at the arena, she stopped just short and gave me an air kiss instead!

[gordi]

Today was the Big Guns charity show at IMP Hall. The Main Event was Zeus and the bodyguard vs. Shinjiro Ohtani & Daisuke Hashimoto. I was stoked to see Shinya's kid live, and to see Dump again, and Otokosakari (Otsuka's bare-assed comedy character) and I guess to meet friends, and so on... but the main thing for me today was to wear my Destroyer mask.

If you search "Gorimaccho" you'll find a lot of 3D Hentai porn for some reason... but you might also find the famous "Gorimaccho vs. Hosomaccho" commercial that they used to try and get pencil-necked geeks to buy protein water over here. If so, you will then understand why someone who has been nicknamed "Gordi-macho" might be driven to find a red-trimmed Destroyer match and wear it all day long, which is what I did today. The bridge of my nose is kinda sore now.


Ebessan bought that t-shirt at Uniqlo!


Within the space of 8 days, I got a high five from Fujiwara (did I mention that already?) and I talked to Alexander Otsuka while wearing a Destroyer mask. Life in Japan is EXACTLY what I thought it was going to be like in my wildest dreams.  

Astonishingly:


Well... it's not totally astonishing, since the guy I bought my Destroyer mask from had a table in the lobby... but still, I bet that neither of us expected this to happen. Also, the mask guy blew a gasket when he saw me in the Destroyer mask.



Outside of IMP Hall, people were totally baffled by the sight of the Gor-Destroyer. Inside the hall, there were basically four reactions: People whoknow me well were all "Oh, hi Gordi!" and just completely no-selling the mask, except for the bodyguard who totally busted a gut laughing at me.  People who didn't know me, on the other hand, all wanted to take pictures with me. At one point, people were seriously lining up to get their pictures taken with the Gordi-stroyer!

The fourth reaction was the best of all, though: Certain hawt Osaka babes were all over me at the hall, including the woman with, no fooling, the best body out of any woman I've ever met at an Osaka Pro show, which is really saying something. So, yeah: Dick Beyer is such a non-stop babe magnet that even I can attract the ladies when I put (an inexpensive copy of) his mask on!


After this picture was taken I was all, "Hey thank you for yesterday, I really enjoyed that !" (In Japanese) and Apple, probably remembering Ebessan teasing her about kissing me goodbye, blushed crimson and stammered out that she enjoyed it, too. A couple of dudes who saw that looked at me like I was a superhero!  





That's her... then later she was all "Oh, I want one for my camera, too..."
Previously she had only occasionally treated me with anything more than ordinary politeness.

Thank you, Mr. Beyer! You are a legend!

[FLIK]

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I also met a very drunk guy from Kobe who wondered if I might know who any of his favourite wrestlers were. He brought up names like Tenryu, Hansen, Brody... when I told him that I'm an enthusiastic fan of 80s and 90s AJPW, he absolutely spazzed out. I have to say that I was pretty happily surprised as well. We drank gin and tonics together and reminisced about our favorite wrestlers. He doesn't go to live shows these days but instead he watches re-runs of the matches from his college days, at home on satellite. He's only the second guy I've met into Japan who is as passionately into old AJPW matches as I am (as most of us are). He was pretty stoked to hear that people like us exist!

Hmm, so now i'm curious, did he just happen to be thear that day then or did he actually come for the Ebessan show?
I'm amused by the thought of some random old drunk guy who hates all the modern wrestling except for Osaka Pro.

Quote

If you search "Gorimaccho" you'll find a lot of 3D Hentai porn for some reason... but you might also find the famous "Gorimaccho vs. Hosomaccho" commercial that they used to try and get pencil-necked geeks to buy protein water over here.

Even more amusing is that if you image search it, in the middle of all the porn on the first page, there's 1 lone picture of you that shows up beside it :)