"Ra-Se" the Nebutaman vs. Nearlynakedman


Friday night I went out for some yakiniku with the gang and the actor Hugh hires to portray his dad who was in town. Much to my surprise Marc was there, and it's a good thing too 'cause otherwise I would have never found out about the awesome professional wrestling show going down the next night in his tiny home town of Onoe. Saturday evening, Kate and I met up with Hugh and Marc at a small community sports center in Onoe. It wasn't exactly the Skydome, so I wasn't really expecting much from this show despite the hefty admission price of 3500 yen. Fortunately the show was surprisingly good, and I'm really glad we went. Probably the highlight of the night was when the evil heel wrestler "Pineapple" used one of my shoes to beat his opponent senseless. Don't believe me? Well I have a shocking video to show you, just click here and see for yourself.


On to the photos...

Follow up:

A sign of things to come? I snapped this photo Friday afternoon in Noheji as I was driving home from work. Does Abdullah the Butcher now live in Noheji and drive a white mini pick-up?



On our way to the show, and we can't wait!




Present that night, but only to sign autographs, was Japan's answer to Jesse Ventura, The Great Sasuke. He garnered worldwide attention in 2003 when he was elected to the prefectural assembly in Iwate and refused to ever take off his wrestling mask. For more on what makes him so 'great' read this.


The show was put on by North Eastern Japan Wrestling, which also seems to be called Michinoku Pro-Wrestling, which is not to be confused with former WWF (now WWE) star Taka Michinoku, who also once worked for Michinoku Pro-Wrestling, and was trained by the aforementioned Great Sasuke.



The ring apron had "VAAM" written on it, which only added to my confusion. Turns out VAAM is the name of the show's sponsor, which is some kind of hornet juice drink. VAAM contains the chemical tryptophan which apprently has been banned in America do to its tendancy to kill people who drink it. Here is my new favorite wrestler Takeshi Minamino doing some kind of strange dance in front of the ring apron.




The audience was pretty small, under 100 or so, but there was no shortage of hat wearing oyaji on the steel folding chair-less floor.



The show started with an odd 10 minute long song battle between the babyface Satoh twins and oldtimer heel Kensen Numajirou. Nikolai Volkoff would be proud.




The electricity in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife! Right Hugh?



The wrestling itself was much better quality than I was expecting, with lots of well executed high spots. Here's Nebutaman about to land on Nearlynakedman.




This guy looks kind of like Mankind, but more shiny.



Pretty boy strikes a pose...




and the keitai paparazzi are ready for it.



Look out below!




Whenever the action spread to the floor we all had to scramble to our feet, and run for our lives. I took one such opportunity to snap this shot of Kate enjoying the show.



The main event was some kind of 4-man tag match, but I don't remember any tagging ever occuring as the bulk of the match was spent in the audience. The best thing about it were the amazing outfits of the heel tag team champs Mango, Pineapple and Minamino. The green haired Pineapple brought a guitar to the ring with him a-la-Honky Tonk Man, but sadly he never smashed it across anyone's head.




Guess they shouldn't have drunk that complimentary VAAM.


The show turned out to be kind of short, with only 4 matches if I remember correctly, but it was still definatelly worth it. It was more or less the same as pro-wrestling back home with a few odd, but endearing differences. For instance whenever a wrestler would lose a match a ring attendant would come to his rescue and spray him with some mysterious coolant. Then the loser would apologize to the fans for losing and promise to try harder next time. The audience didn't really cheer or jeer anyone, but politely applauded anytime a wrestler did something impressive. At the end of the night, the fruit themed heel tag team stood by the exit and politely thanked us all for coming and graciously posed for pictures. I felt kind of sad to leave and secretly wished they would take me with them on their bus to whatever podunk town they're heading to next.