50 Years of Puroresu! Full New Japan 10/8 Tokyo Dome Show!

[Peru-Yakuza]

New Japan's Official web has finally announced the line-up for the 10/8 Tokyo Dome Show. (Puroresu 50th Anniversary - Indicate of Next).

The Katsuyori Shibata vs. Ren Yanbing match has been scrapped (it seems to me no Sanshou/Kung Fu Wushu fighter would do a work, plus especially in light of the obvious political problems between Japan and China). In good news, the Dream Match is definitely the main event.

-New Japan vs. Team 2000 Juniors: Jushin Liger, El Samurai & Minoru Tanaka vs. Akira Nogami, Gedo & Jado
-Handicap Match: Giant Silva & Dalip "Giant" Singh vs. Yutaka Yoshie, Wataru Inoue, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kenzo Suzuki
-Michiyoshi Ohara vs. Gary Goodridge
-IWGP JUNIOR HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: Masayuki Naruse vs. Kendo Ka Shin
-50 YEARS OF PURORESU MEMORIAL MATCH ~ TATSUMI FUJINAMI'S 30TH
ANNIVERSARY: Tatsumi Fujinami & Bob Backlund vs. Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk
-Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs. Riki Choshu & Osamu Nishimura
-Manabu Nakanishi vs. Tadao Yasuda
-NON-TITLE MATCH: Kazuyuki Fujita vs. Kensuke Sasaki
-50 YEARS OF PURORESU DREAM MATCH "CROSS GENERATIONS": Yuji Nagata & Jun Akiyama [NOAH] vs. Hiroshi Hase [All-Japan] & Keiji Muto.

[Hisaharu Tanabe]

Peru-Yakuza (09-29-2001 09:45 a.m.):
-50 YEARS OF PURORESU MEMORIAL MATCH ~ TATSUMI FUJINAMI'S 30TH
ANNIVERSARY: Tatsumi Fujinami & Bob Backlund vs. Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk

Man, who came up with this one!?

How emotional I was when I found out about this one few weeks ago. It almost lead me to tears. I was/am a big fan of all these four. If this match took place 20 years ago, it would be the strong style/traditional wrestling of New Japan against typical American pro-wrestling of the good, old All Japan(=NWA).

[no_name]

You know, I've always been curious: what exactly is the difference between New Japan's "Strong Style" and All Japan's style, exactly? I've heard some people refer to All Japan as a "strong style" promotion, but that term is associated with New Japan usually. Having seen both promotions, the main differences I was able to find were more outside brawling in All Japan, and perhaps more emphasis on strikes, but that's it. What is the true difference between the two?

[Hisaharu Tanabe]

no_name,

It depends on which time frame you are talking about.
70s & early 80s:
All Japan, being a member of NWA, was a typical American pro-wrestling with big foreign names. They had many ref bump finishes too.
New Japan in this period had a reputation of being legit shooters(not all of them, of course). Inoki had many mixed martial arts matches against judoka, boxers, kickboxers, karateka, etc. In dojo, guys like Fujiwara and Kido were training future shoot-style stars such as Sayama, Maeda, Takada, Yamazaki, etc. There were "challengers" coming to dojo, believing that pro-wrestlers weren't that tough. I heard they often ended up leaving the New Japan dojo with at least one broken bone.

90s to present:
All Japan had more stiff matches after the influence of Tenryu, who ironically left the promotion in '90. In the other hand, New Japan started becoming more americanized with less influence from Inoki and departure of the shoot-style guys such as Maeda, Fujiwara, Takada, Funaki, etc.

I hope this answers your question.

[no_name]

Thank you, I really appreciate your information.