Do you think the Joshi industry will continue to survive in its current fragmented form (with numerous feds and free-agents)? Or do you think we'll see them move towards closer cooperation or even fusion in the close future?
I don't think there enough fans to support the number of Joshi organizations there are in Japan. The idea of multiple promotions merging never works in practice, if was going to the only chance there would have been was the old AWA/WCCW and that lasted all of a month. Sooner or later somebody is going to have to close up shop, and when they do someone's roster is going to get a LOT stronger.
That's pretty much my take too, though the joshi feds have shown an uncanny ability to survive despite the conditions
Another thing that strikes me, is the trouble the joshi feds seem to have drawing without the stars of the glory years.
That ARSION wasn't able to draw significantly or expand with an exciting young talent as Ayako Hamada as champion and despite overall quality wrestling can't only be down to poor booking, but also leads me to think that a large part of the joshi audience aren't ready to see anyone other than the stars of the 80s and 90s.
GAEA and AJW still have those stars, but they don't seem to be able to elevate their young talent to comparable status all that quickly either. They may well find that when the Satomuras, Satos, Nagashimas... FINALLY go over the Nagayos, Ozakis... for good, they don't represent the same draws or mean as much as the stars of the interpromotional era. If things stay as they are now, and unless somebody gets really strong by absorbing someone else's roster, I don't think any fed will be able to stand alone and mean all that much.
In that perspective, cooperation seems to me to be the smart thing to do now. A good place to start would be to have the young stars of the different joshi feds get involved more in matchups and feuds amongst themselves to create the rivalries and heat that will make business down the road, when the old stars are gone.
Interesting observations! I've only been collecting Joshi tapes for the last 8 months or so, and most of those have been Arsion, followed by J'd. I've been avoiding AJW, but i found a recent tape of theirs to be enjoyable, so I'll start collecting some of those.
I can understand that some of the fans might be unwilling to accept some of the younger wrestlers while the old ones are still out there, but what's up with Lioness? It seems Aja at least was willing to allow the younger ones to shine. Lioness seems much less willing to do that. She was the same way over in J'd. It's almost as though someone thinks she's Arsion's best hope for drawing larger crowds. (for all I know maybe she is!) I look at Omukai, Gami, Noki-a, etc. and I can't help but think there's enough talent and personality to make Arsion very popular, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Bad booking is an explanation I've seen a lot. I would ask whether the style in Arsion has anything to do with it, but nowadays they don't seem to be much more shoot-oriented than most of the other feds.
I sure hope the answer isn't Lioness, 'cause I'm a little tired of seeing her drag her table to ringside, execute 2 or 3 versions of the power bomb, pin her opponent, then grab the mic and start flapping her gums. I think Aja is much more interesting.
I apologize if this is stuff that's already been covered, but hey....I'm a newbie!
Let me apologize to everyone for resurecting a six month old tread but I ran across it in the archives and I was just wondering if anyone had an opinion on this also it seems a good time to ask i.e.- JWP going under, GAEA running an old vs. young storyline, Arsion and AJW having problems drawing, GAEA seems to be expanding with older workers, AJW has a young champion etc.. It's just that I've been thinking about this question and I don't really have a clue about where the industry is heading.
You could say either on the way back to where it was in 93 or down the crapper, depending on how you look at it. I would tend to believe the latter unless some new stars who can draw mad money are discovered.
Judging from a business standpoint consolidation appears to be the solution but that means GAEA domination which in turn means the older stars on top so the solution isn't a solution at all. It seems to me that the industry is in a catch 22 situation. The older fans want the older stars but to survive the industry must draw new fans by means of newer stars but the newer stars don't appeal to the older fans so they must push the older stars even though they don't create new fans so the newer stars have to wait until they turn old before they can be stars in the first place even though the older fans have died by then so they must create newer stars to draw newer fans but they can't because the newer older stars were never stars like the older older stars were so they can't make the newer newer stars stars like the newer stars were.... aw never mind.
If anyone is expecting some sort of consolidation, it isn't going to happen, unless it's in the form of workers leaving all the other groups, and heading to a particular one.
As it stands now, the only company in good shape is GAEA, and they have serious problems with developing young talent.
Zenjo is on the ropes, first losing TV, then losing their champion, and then working with Ogawa, in a panicky move that has really hurt the company.
Jd' is in a constant sort of frozen stasis, they don't draw, but they will never go under as long as Tomen owns them.
JWP is basically dead.
NEO is good for what it is, but it's so tiny that nothing they do really has any effect on anything.
LLPW has their fans, and they do OK with that, but they also can't seem to develop any young workers that stick, and have been hit with the retirements of some key players in the company this year.
Arsion is just Arsion. It's just as inept and directionless as ever, and somehow even managed to drag Zenjo down with it.
I know it's depressing to think about what has happened in the last 5-8 years. I was watch Big Egg the other day and could not believe they drew such a huge crowd to a womens event just a few years ago. Today they would be lucky to get 5000 to turn out for a show like that. What is really frightening to me is how far AJW has fallen. They had everything going for them in the mid-90's. Now they are a skeleton.
I had a lot of hope when I found out about AJW and Arsion working together because they have some great matchups between them but it's the same old thing. For the December Arsion Carnival show they have Momoe showing up and they stick her in a tag match third from the top. I can understand them holding off on Momoe-Chama for a while but they should at least put her with Yoshida or if they really wanted to team her with Akino throw them at the Lioness and Gami in place of Fujita and Noumi. I fully expect to see a Ito and Baby A match soon.
Yeah,its hard to believe how big joshi was in Japan a few years ago,...or the number of quality matches that were produced on a nightly basis,or even that up until '97 Zenjyo had more high-end talent top to bottom than WCW,WWF,All Japan and New Japan combined!
I think part of the problem in joshi(and all wrestling in general in Japan),is that the quality in AJ,NJ,AJW,JWP,Michinoku,and the UWFI in the early '90s was so high,there was nowhere else for puroresu to go but down.Hey,even WAR was putting on good matches,if not good SHOWS,and even FMW,while not as technically sound,was pretty exciting to watch.
Think about it;
the Jrs in New Japan and Michinoku and joshi stars were doing such incredible highspots never seen before,and New Japan,All Japan and UWFI were all so stiff,and FMW had its oen type of crazy spots with barbed wire,broken glass,"electrified"ropes,with"explosives".It doesn't matter that many of FMW matches were not the great(or even just good)you couldn't help but be intrigued,just because you couldn't believe the bumps thet were being taken,... and what they were being taken on.What else could be doen that was new and exciting?
The athletes themselves were pretty darn good too.So much more had been learned about health,nutrition and training that the big names of yesteryear(male or female)just coulnd't compare,even if they worked just as hard or even harder.
But getting back to specificly joshi,it was so exciting,partially, because of the interpromotional matches and shows,...and it was DONE RIGHT.It WASN"T done anywhere near this scale in men's shows,and the women's promotions appeared to be more willing to GIVE as well as TAKE.Ozaki and Kansai("outsiders"from JWP) winning the WWWA Tag Team Titles and Kansai winning the WWWA Singles titles were the best examples of this and certainly made it appear that almost anything could happen.Not to mention the fresh match-ups and angles or the quailty of not just matches,but in many cases ENTIRE SHOWS,that were through the roof.It couldn't NOT be as exciting as it was even if they tried.
In addition to this,joshi expanded past just the traditional teenage Japanese girl audience.The Matsunaga's looked around at shows and started to see young men as well.This was a whole new added source of viewers,and not to mention revenue.It was easy to keep the interest of boys and men with the action being so great and most of the top stars in joshi being so attractive,...Toyota,Kyoko Inoue,Mima Shimoda,Sakie Hasegawa,Ozaki,Cuty Suzuki,Megumi Kudoh,...the list could go on and on.Many probably had differnt types of favorites,either best workers or best looking.
But now,what type of new high-spot or bump can be done to make it have "did you just see that?!?!"type of effect? Its more than just shock value,but so much new things happend in such a short time span that it almost happend to fast.
The best thing that could happen would be to have only two or three joshi promotions.I was crazy about JWP at one point,but unfortunatley,it is time for them to bow out as gracfully as the can. LLPW just doesn't seem to have any type of longterm game plan or real direction.ARSION could still turn things around IF they had a little bit less of the nonsense and just booked the solid shows that they still could.At one point I was so sure that they would become the number 2 in Japan.GAEA Japan has gotten better at utilizing the youngsters,but still mistreated their titles and champions.It just ment more to be a veteran(or friend of Chigusa's)than to be both Singles AND Tag Team Champion,in the case of Ozaki.NEO is entertaining and has improved a great deal,but having a solid smaller joshi promotion might not be such a bad thing,and NEO may be the best suited for this. What is J'd doing to get back their TWF Singles Title from Asuka?I think the last time she defended the title was back in '99.That tells about their problems.AJW,if for no other than their history,still has the best chance to lead the industry in Japan,but even they can make mistakes and need to realize they need new stars AND established names, to stay number one.A balence needs to be maintained.
I've recently been watching some tapes from 97-99 and noticed something pretty interesting. They weren't drawing squat back then.
Like I said in a post somewhere, the only show I've been to that hasn't been a sell out was the ARSION show last December. Even JWP at the Tokyo Kinema Club was overfull. (Still only 300-350 but it was a small place) So the fan support, and money, are there.
The problem, I think, just comes down to positioning. JWP and NEO got so far down how can they build back up running small shows a couple times a month. They don't have money to bring in names or train a number of rookies to fill up the card. They can't improve their position financially, so they're bound to collapse when people start leaving for better money, or retire.
JWP is pretty much dead, and I'm sure NEO will be once Kyoko retires. Zenjo, GAEA and LLPW I think are in it for the long term. So that leaves Jd' and ARSION as the 2 on the bubble, for me. (Jd' could go in the tank as soon as Tomen decides it, ARSION when Rossy screws up again)
So you'll have wrestlers mixed back in and have an acclimation period. Then someone else will put money to make their own league and start the process all over again.
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
