#wrestling wrambles | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

yoshihashismattebum · 2 years ago

Text

There but for the grace of the Holy Emperor go I (or how I learned to stop worrying and love Taichi) – an essay on pro wrestling and 'struggle’

The following is an essay/article/thing that I wrote a while back on parallels I saw between Taichi’s story in NJPW and my own struggles with the creative process. I thought this might be a good place to post it. It’s mostly serious, but there are a few jokes in there to lighten the mood! Let me know what you think!

“Never try, never fail.” Before I started writing this essay, I could have sworn that that was a Simpsons quote. But no, Google tells me that it’s from Robots, a film I saw for the first and last time 15 years ago in a tiny cinema in Skegness Butlins. I remember absolutely nothing about the film, but maybe it had more of an effect on me than I realise, because that phrase has too often been an accurate description of my life over the years.

Take this essay, for example. I've been meaning to write it for at least two years now. But I haven’t. Why not? The short answer is that writing is hard! And in my head, the article was already perfect: wordless, but complete. I have dozens like it in my head, all perfect, all hypothetical, all unstarted. But I know that as soon as I put words down on paper, as soon as I commit to something, the imperfections start to creep in. Before too long, I’m faced with what the brilliant Dorothy Parker called “a pile of paper covered with wrong words”. It’s happening now. As I write, I hear constant critiques from the mouths of a chorus of imaginary critics, each with my own voice. I hate this. It’s shit. I shouldn’t have started here. Just get to the wrestling already! I haven’t even mentioned Taichi yet! No one wants to read about me and my insecurities. Ugh. No matter what any number of TikToks of tidy desks and immaculate notebooks might suggest, writing isn’t a clean or pretty process for a lot of people, especially those of us with anxiety disorders or other mental health conditions. It’s a constant struggle. And if there’s anything that sums up the general ethos of Japanese wrestling perfectly, it’s that word: struggle.

My first introduction to New Japan Pro Wrestling was the 2019 G1 Climax. Diving straight into a 90-match tournament may seem a bit like going in at the deep end. And it is. But I still maintain that it’s the perfect way to get into NJPW. It was the G1 that got me hooked, after all, and I’ve got friends into NJPW in both of the subsequent G1s that I’ve watched. I think the key is the round robin format. After all, the main way that we come to understand characters in any form of media is through the way they interact with other characters. In the G1 you get to see each wrestler interact with all of the others in their block in turn, one by one. Barring injury, there are no eliminations until the finals: you see exactly the same amount of each wrestler. Even perennial no-hopers like YOSHI-HASHI (sorry babes but it’s true) have to stick it out to the bitter end, by which time their chances of winning the whole thing have long since disappeared entirely. But as with so much of Japanese wrestling, it’s less about the winning and more about how wrestlers respond to their gruelling ordeal that defines their character. In other words, it’s all about the struggle.

I’ll admit that it took me a while to ‘get’ Taichi’s character. He definitely makes a good first impression though. “His outfit is so extra!” was probably my first thought. The mask, the hair, the gold brocade: it’s unlike anything else in wrestling. “Incredible!” you think. “He’s like an anime villain come to life!” Then you start to notice the creases in his cape, and you realise it looks like it cost £5 from a fancy dress shop. “But he sings his own entrance music!” you say. “That’s cool! ...Oh wait, he’s lip syncing. That’s less cool. Nice idea though! I wonder if he has a special entrance for his bigger matches?” Oh, you sweet summer child. No, it’s exactly the same each time, down to the highly strange entrance video which looks as though it was filmed in a French chateau. “Well that’s a bit disappointing,” you say. And that’s all before you’ve even seen him wrestle.

It’s his wrestling style I really want to focus on today. His entrance, his iron glove, his outfit, his wonderful tearaway trousers, his relationship with Miho Abe, his relationship with Zack Sabre Jr. – they’re all parts of the puzzle, and I could probably write an essay on each one of them. But, as is so often the case in Japanese wrestling, the bulk of the story is told between the bells, often entirely wordlessly. Back in 2019, I didn’t find Taichi’s matches particularly exciting to watch. He’d mainly use chokeholds, illegal weapon shots, eye rakes, and a whole load of other ‘devastating’ offence. Occasionally there would be glimmers of brilliance as he pulled out a sweet gamengiri or a brutal backdrop suplex, but that was about it. His matches weren’t a chore to watch, like some other wrestlers’ were, but they weren’t highlights either. They were just fine. I thought that it was all he was capable of. I think a lot of people did. I was wrong.

Enter Tomohiro Ishii. If you’re not familiar with Ishii, just imagine a fleshy fire hydrant with arms, legs and a permanent scowl. Apparently ‘chill’ is stored in the neck, because Tomohiro Ishii lacks both. He’s a furious toy tank of a man who batters his opponents with chops and forearms and expects the same in return. He’s part of what I like to call the “Dad Division” of NJPW, a group of men with strong dad energy who enjoy nothing more than hitting each other very hard in the face. There are many varieties of dad in NJPW (that’s an article for another time), but Ishii is a dad of the “you’re not going anywhere until you do it properly” variety. Ishii came here to have a fight, dammit, and if you’re not going to fight him properly then he’s pulling this car over until you hit him harder. No, he doesn’t care that he’s holding up the traffic. In wrestling terms, this mainly consists of him backing his opponent into a corner and then refusing to let them out until they hit him with a forearm that he judges to be satisfactory. When they do, he’ll whip out a quick reversal and repeatedly chop them in the throat. He’s one of my favourite wrestlers. He’s uncomplicated, brutal, and gritty. In other words, he’s the perfect foil for Taichi

Going into their G1 2019 encounter on the final night of B Block, I was familiar enough with Ishii to know that he wasn’t going to let Taichi get away lightly with his usual bullshit. What I certainly wasn’t expecting was for Taichi to be the one to initiate the fight. As soon as the bell rang, Taichi rushed for Ishii. It wasn’t his usual torrent of cheating and stalling either – it was vicious, brutal stuff: hard suplexes, stiff powerbombs, and lethal kicks. What followed was a tremendous match, a 12 minute sprint that never let up for a second. “Where did this come from?”, I wondered. But when I looked into it, I realised that it hadn’t come out of nowhere. This was the culmination of six months of groundwork that had been laid by Ishii.

The first singles meeting between the two was in the second round of the 2019 New Japan Cup. This match starts a lot more like I’d expected from their first G1 match: Taichi does a lot of rolling out of the ring, lots of stalling, lots of choking, lots of cheating. The usual routine. But Ishii refuses to engage with any of it. Instead, he stares Taichi down in the centre of the ring, repeatedly hitting him in the face, goading him into attacking. And to a certain extent, it works. Taichi starts trading Ishii’s forearms for kicks of his own, each one echoing round the arena like the crack of a whip. But it doesn’t last long. Eventually, Taichi relapses into his old ways again. A complete charge of heart all at once was perhaps too much to ask for. At the dramatic climax of the match, Taichi knocks the ref down and grabs his mic stand. You can almost hear the crowd roll their eyes in unison. Another bullshit finish. Just as the match was getting good. But what does Ishii do? He doesn’t try to dodge it. He doesn’t get a weapon of his own. He doesn’t try to out-bullshit the bullshitter. He just stands there, staring Taichi down, screaming in his face. I don’t speak Japanese, but his meaning is perfectly clear. “Hit me, you coward! Fight me properly! Drop that weapon and punch me in the face!” And you know what? For perhaps the first time in his life, Taichi actually listens. He drops the weapon and goes toe to toe with Ishii.

When I looked into Taichiro Maki, the man behind the character, I realised that I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was. He was trained by Toshiaki Kawada, regarded by some as one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, whose kicks could fell giants. From what I know, the two were not particularly fond of each other. To say that Taichi has a chip on his shoulder would be an understatement (Taichi the character and possibly also Taichiro the man – the line is blurred, as it so often is in wrestling). But he also has a great wrestling pedigree.

It suddenly clicked for me. I’d thought that Taichi—that Taichiro Maki—was a fairly mediocre wrestler who was carried to a great match by Ishii. But I was wrong. Taichiro Maki is a very good wrestler. Taichi the character is a very good wrestler. But Taichi is also a slacker. I’d been worked. It was a part of the story. Taichi, the character, just hadn’t been trying up until now. Why not? I can’t be entirely sure. But I can guess. Because it’s all too relatable. I’ve been there myself. I was there for the two years that I had this article in my mind and repeatedly put off writing it. Trying is hard. Failure is terrifying. Especially when you’re haunted by the shadow of your mentor, whose shoes you’ll always fail to fill, even if you try your very best, because it's just not possible to fill them. Kawada’s matches have passed into legend. They’re studied like holy texts, spoken about in reverent tones by disciples such as Eddie Kingston. No one’s best would be good enough.

In wrestling, sometimes you’re going to give it your all, you’re going to put your body and soul on the line, and it still won’t be enough. You’re going to be battered, beaten and broken, and then you’re going to lose. Wrestling is scripted, and that allows it to tell some beautiful stories, but there can’t always be a happy ending. The underdog can’t always win. There wouldn’t be any impact to the story otherwise. For wins to matter, sometimes there have to be losses. Sometimes the underdog tries their best and their best just isn’t good enough. But in NJPW, what matters is what they do afterwards. Heels whine, complain, and find a cheaper way to win next time; babyfaces might do some soul-searching, but ultimately they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, get back on the horse, and give it their all next time. And the next time. And the time after that. And so on and so forth, sometimes for years and years without any reward (just ask YOSHI-HASHI). When Taichi was coasting on his underhanded tactics, never putting in much effort, he always had something else to blame whenever he lost. Not himself, never himself, because he never gave enough of himself in the match to blame. He only ever did just enough to get by, just like his half-arsed lip-synced entrance. He could always just shrug it off with a smirk and do exactly the same thing next time. Never try, never fail.

During the next G1 in 2020, this new side of Taichi began to appear more and more. He put on a frankly remarkable match with Kota Ibushi that saw them hit about two wrestling moves between them in a 17 minute match. The rest was all kicks. And Ibushi kicks hard. He was a K-1 standard kickboxer for God’s Ibushi’s sake. Taichi gave almost as good as he got, but let’s face it, he was never going to out-kick Ibushi. This was a test of endurance for him, and although he didn’t win, he didn’t back down either. He passed.

By 2021, the floodgates had been opened. Taichi was on his way to a full babyface turn. At Wrestle Grand Slam in July, Dangerous Tekkers (Taichi and his boyfriend/tag team partner, Zack Sabre Jr.) faced off against Tetsuya Naito and SANADA for the tag team titles. After a gruelling 30 minutes of wrestling, ZSJ was alone in the ring, getting beaten down by his opponents. Time and time again he reached out for a tag from Taichi, but each time the LIJ crew dragged him away from his corner. Wrestling convention would suggest that this was setting up for a hot tag, where Taichi would charge into the ring on fresh legs, knocking both opponents down to thunderous cheers polite applause (thanks covid) from the audience. Except the tag never came. Zack stuck it out, struggled through the pain, and eventually scored a surprise roll-up pin with his dreaded European Clutch. It was a lesson in grit and determination for Taichi. And it seems as though he was paying attention.

Three months later, in his final G1 match of 2021, Taichi was in a bad way. He’d had some fantastic matches with the likes of Jeff Cobb and Kazuchika Okada, but despite some impressive showings, he was lingering at the bottom of the table with a dismal 4 points. But his score wasn't the only price that Taichi had paid for his struggle: his ribs were heavily taped and even before the bell had rung, it was obvious that he was in a lot of pain. It seemed, then, like a merciful relief that his final opponent was Hiroshi Tanahashi, living legend and perennial good guy. Surely Tana wouldn’t take any cheap shots? But for some reason, on this night, a red mist descended over the Ace. Perhaps it was resentment at Taichi’s many years of coasting. After all, Tana had pushed his body well past its limit on a nightly basis throughout the 00s and 2010s to carry the company on his back. His knees are held together with little more than spit and shoeshine from thousands of High Fly Flows, but every single match his opponents target them without mercy. Why should Taichi get the support of the crowd for a mere two years of hard work, when Tana had spent two whole decades sacrificing his own body for the company and its fans? Why should he always take the high road when his opponents refuse to show him the same mercy? Or maybe he was just having a bad day.

Whatever the explanation, Tana was sadistic, assaulting Taichi’s injured ribs again and again until his opponent could barely stand. Taichi could have called it quits. He could have let himself get pinned to end the pain. He could have beaten Tana over the head with a steel chair to get some satisfaction and a way out via DQ. Maybe the Taichi of 2019 or 2020 would have done just that. But the Taichi of 2021 didn’t. He stuck it out. He kept trying. And this time it paid off. Just like ZSJ at Wrestle Grand Slam, he hung on just long enough to get the surprise roll-up and the victory. He finished the G1 on 6 points. It wasn’t a great score on paper. Two points lower than his total in the previous two years, in fact. But in the eyes of most, it was his best tournament ever. He’d finally embraced the struggle.

Of course, he still starts matches by choking his opponents sometimes. He still does the same shitty lip-syncing during his entrance. He still wears the same creased cloak. The tearaway trousers are still there, and they’re still great. Character growth doesn’t mean complete character change. He’s still Taichi, and he wouldn't be Taichi if he didn’t take a shortcut every now and then. But crucially, he’s also not afraid to try anymore. It doesn’t take Tomorhiro Ishii goading him with forearms to get him to embrace the struggle now. He’s prepared to come out kicking and screaming every single time. And if Taichi can do it, so can I, dammit. I won’t always get it right. Sometimes I’ll fail. I won’t ever live up to my idols. What I write won’t ever live up to the perfect hypothetical version in my head. But at least I’ll have done something, even if it’s sometimes something I struggle to love. And that’s certainly better than never having tried at all.

Matches Referenced:

Taichi vs. Tomohiro Ishii – New Japan Cup 2019 – 13/03/19

Taichi vs. Tomohiro Ishii – G1 Climax 29 – 11/08/19

Taichi vs. Kota Ibushi – G1 Climax 30 – 16/10/20

Dangerous Tekkers vs. Tetsuya Naito & SANADA – Wrestle Grand Slam – 25/07/21

Taichi vs. Jeff Cobb – G1 Climax 31 – 04/10/21

Taichi vs. Kazuchika Okada – G1 Climax 31 – 08/10/21

Taichi vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi – G1 Climax 31 – 31/10/21

#oli writes #njpw #taichi #wrestling #pro wrestling #essay #long reads #oli wrambles about wrestling

43 notes · View notes