« WEC’s poor ratings show that Strikeforce should not waste their time going after them | Home | Why did UFC 110 reportedly not draw big on PPV? »
Report: Asashoryu involved in new pro-wrestling promotion
By Zach Arnold | March 10, 2010
I’ll give him this — he always is up to something interesting and pro-wrestling is in his family’s DNA. The group he will reportedly be involved in is called MAP (Mongol Asashoryu Pro-wrestling) and the debut show will take place on 3/21 in Tokyo at Shinjuku FACE (smallish building). The Daily Sports report notes that Asashoryu will not wrestle, but is cooperating as the face of the project with business manager Akihiro Ichinomiya (age 31). Ichinomiya’s older brother happens to be Shoichi Ichinomiya, who is a comedy wrestler in Japan.
Apparently, the plan is to recruit local Mongol talent and bring them into the fight game. It’s interesting that Asashoryu is deciding to build up political connections this way in the Japanese fighting landscape. Essentially, he is putting himself in position to become a fixer/producer for bringing in foreign talent from the Sumo world into pro-wrestling and perhaps down the road in MMA.
The Daily Sports report discusses the idea of the Ichinomiya brothers teaming up versus a Mongol army of wrestlers on the 3/21 Shinjuku show. The report also claims that Asashoryu & Ichinomiya are currently in Mongolia (Ulan Bator).
The news is currently on the front page of several Japanese news portals including Yahoo’s main page.
Topics: Japan, Media, Pro-Wrestling, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
“Asashoryu”
^^
This is brilliant.
No way he’s going to wrestle at a venue that small. Even with nothing but a small horde of anonymous Mongols, if he wrestled it would sell out at least Korakuen.
In a related story, Hulk Hogan appeared at a UFC show several months ago.