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Potholes in Kings’ Road
By ditch | July 9, 2006
By Dave Ditch
Four pro wrestlers have made headlines so far this month, and all of them have one thing in common: tours of All Japan Pro-Wrestling.
Kenta Kobashi was trained there, debuted there, and became a top star there. He was first lauded as one of the best wrestlers in the world during the mid-’90s, and without having reached elite status early in his career he wouldn’t have become an industry cornerstone today. For all intents and purposes Kobashi is currently the ace of the Japanese wrestling community, due to an underachieving young generation and rapidly aging predecessors. Be it in terms of kayfabe strength, drawing power, crowd response, media image or any other facet, Kobashi has what you want in a megastar. Then, just as he was set to headline NOAH shows at the Tokyo Nippon Budokan in July and September, he was struck by the discovery of a kidney tumor- and a cancerous one at that. NOAH and Japanese wrestling both could not afford to lose him. US indy promotion ROH was told bluntly that Kobashi was not going to be wrestling in America ever again, despite the success of his brief stop-over last fall. The implication of course was that Kobashi might not be able to wrestle in Japan again, much less for some pissant gaijin concern.
What could have been a tragedy in the same vein as the deaths of Jumbo Tsuruta and Shinya Hashimoto appears to be averted. Following a long, delicate procedure late last week, Kobashi’s tumor was removed and doctors claim that the cancer was not able to spread. Since lengthy and debilitating chemotherapy wasn’t needed Kobashi might be able to bounce back, as Jushin “Thunder” Liger did from brain cancer in the mid-’90s. It goes without saying that cancer is a tricky foe and has a habit of returning when least expected, but for now the prognosis is good for the career of Kenta Kobashi.
Rob Van Dam and Sabu both had their stints in All Japan. In the latter case it wasn’t so frequent, but in the former All Japan was a vital career springboard. RVD wasn’t a ‘regular’ gaijin like Stan Hansen or Steve Williams, but he did work whole tours and earn title shots prior to attaining stardom in ECW. Sabu wrestled in a wider variety of Japanese promotions, and even got a fundraiser show titled ‘WE LOVE SABU’ not too long ago. For any with even a shred of knowledge about backstage behavior and/or marijuana culture, it was established that RVD and Sabu were well-versed in the use of ganja as a recreational drug. RVD especially was willing to say so in public interviews and on merchandise like t-shirts. Wrestling promoters didn’t care, since RVD was reliable and Sabu was a glorified stuntman. Promoters never cared about a wrestlers’ private life unless it infringed on their ability to perform.
I suppose that, in a way, death is the ultimate performance inhibitor. The death of Eddy Guerrero last fall, a death precipitated by the use of recreational drugs and steroids, forced publicly-traded WWE to institute a serious anti-drug policy. Apparently not too serious since RVD and Sabu’s pot usage only came up when they were arrested on possession charges last week, but it’s serious enough for WWE to suspend RVD for a month despite RVD’s pivotal role in both the Raw and ECW weekly television shows. Outside of the arrest (which can only lead to a fine) and the suspension, there have been no consequences for either the wrestlers or the promotion. The scandal-hungry and anti-wrestling mainstream media seems uninterested.
The same cannot be said about the arrest of All Japain trainee Isao “Arashi” Takagi. An ex-sumo who has traversed the Japanese wrestling scene and who rarely made waves, Takagi became a household name overnight when police caught him with a small amount of pot- exactly 1/5th as much as RVD and Sabu had. The scandal was so great that it made headlines above Kobashi’s surgery, and All Japan immediately held a press conference to announce that they would no longer associate with him. Obviously they wanted to have the first word on the story and prevent any PR spin, especially after they just announced a tie-up with squeaky-clean Hello Kitty purveyor Sanrio. It’s worth noting that All Japan would most likely have fired even their most important wrestlers if similar circumstances arose, since a bigger name would mean a bigger scandal. WWE, despite its much-touted ‘wellness program’, never considered offing Rob Van Dam for a second.
Far be it from me to cast aspersions about another society, let alone one as stable and prosperous as Japan’s, but the Arashi scandal strikes me as absurd on a variety of levels. Marijuana isn’t a healthy habit, but Arashi’s diet is exponentially more injurious to his work and life expectancy than a couple of blunts now and then. What’s more, if Arashi had been caught with an amphetamine like Speed, the scandal and penalties would have been much lighter despite the drug being much more dangerous. And what exactly does it say about the Japanese fight scene that dope is shameful and enough to cause banishment while links to the Japanese mafia are winked at, despite instances of threats in the fight industry (both MMA and wrestling) and mafia-tinged ‘suicides’? Perhaps it’s an issue of internal hypocrisy in the fight business. Perhaps it arises from cultural taboos. Whatever the reason, it’s worth noting that less than 1/100th of a pound of marijuana is apparently worse for a Japanese pro-wrestler to have than renal cancer.
Topics: All Topics, Dave Ditch, Japan, Pro-Wrestling | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Any illicit drug in any amount is serious in japan. He could have been caught with a pound of coke cooking on his stove and a box full of crack vials and it would be no different in the eyes of the japanese public.
One only needs to be reminded of what happened in the 90s with Giant Baba having to save his boys from getting deported for good, due to drugs.
It’s amazing more gaijin wrestlers aren’t busted or haven’t tried stupid things in Japan as far as drugs are concerned. Or at least wrestlers getting caught.
I smuggled an illicit substance into Japan last year:
Beef jerky.
Mr. Ditch, you have a very weird sense of humor.
Are you smoking a bit of that wacky tobacky?
I think an internet intervention is in order….
American beef is outlawed because apparently it’s rife with Mad Cow, even though it’s considerably more likely that Japanese will be infected by random diseases carried by tourists such as myself. Beef jerky, which is cooked until it’s nigh-onto leather, in theory is Mad Cow-proof… yet it’s also against the law to be imported just because it came from cattle.
Whats the big F’n deal it’s just pot. Hell it should be leagal. George Washington said in a speach that ‘we should look into the medical uses of marijuana’.
Heh..
What is Vinny to do, make an example out of these guys and suffer some big losses or do his best to turn a blind eye.
Assuming his general stubbornness my immediate guess is a bleak future for ECW if any.