("HOLY WAR") Notes from the Toshiaki Kawada vs Naomichi Marufuji talk battle

26th April 2018
ShinKiba First Ring

As Toshiaki Kawada is physically unable now to wrestle (he says his "bones rattle"), he elected to have "a talk battle" with Naomichi Marufuji. A "talk battle" is basically a match where two people sit down and talk; they may tell stories, jokes or trade barbs. In this situation Toshiaki Kawada wanted to discuss the All Japan days when back in the dojo in the late nineties and early 2000s, before the split with Noah, he was hostile to Naomichi Marufuji. This was all due to the fact that Kawada was a rival of Mitsuharu Misawa, Misawa trained Marufuji and Marufuji was close to him as his attendant. Since the split from All Japan in 2000, and then Misawa's death in 2009, there has been little contact with Kawada (although he was the guest commentator for the finale of "Winter Navigation 2017"), and this was Toshiaki Kawada's way of clearing the air between them.
I am happy to say that reconciliation of sorts has taken place, with Kawada being invited to Naomichi Marufuji's 20th Anniversary Show on the 1st September 2018. Marufuji has stated that he wants everyone from any promotion who ever helped him to be there, and I guess even the senior "who taught fear" (and all the trainees were terrified of), was a part of it too.

Here are some snippets I have managed to gather (and a big thanks goes out to Twitter users Tobi, Abeshin and Maybach Metapoko)
ご協力ありがとうございました!

It appears to have been a stroke of fate that put Marufuji with Misawa, as All Japan management assigned trainees. Kawada said that he wished that the wrestlers had gotten to decide, his first trainee was Masao Inoue!! He later said about him that his gut hung out, and he made you not want to eat.

Back then if you feuded with someone, you had zero contact with them (not that there was such a thing as texts or e-mails in the mid nineties), so Kawada completely withdrew from Misawa (except on situations like the famous scene where Misawa winds him up on TV and Kawada glares), so as a result, Kawada had nothing to do with Marufuji either (Marufuji said that in the two years he was there, there was little to no contact with Kawada).

Kawada: So, who did you like the best out of the Four Heavenly Kings?
Marufuji: Probably you
(Audience laughs. Marufuji probably had a flashback of the terrified trainees)

Kawada mentions that he is an established pro wrestler, and is still an established one in his retirement.

Kawada mentions that he was not given the Tiger Mask character when he was a rookie as his technique was not as good.

Marufuji tells a story about aiming a missile kick at Baba's shoulder, and imitates Baba's voice in his response (the story doesn't translate well)

Kawada says that recently he has noticed that Marufuji is using a lot of psychological techniques (he doesn't really moonsault anymore) and it seems that he is doing a lot of his (Kawada's) moves and skillset, he wants him to study them a little more.

They discuss Akiyama at Champions Carnival yesterday. Kawada said he participated in it, and Marufuji said he could see a lot of Kawada in Akiyama on Monday.