(NOAH) The story of The Budokan and Yoshinari Ogawa
Translated from an article by Kazusaku Sakuma
What is the foundation that Yoshinari Ogawa cherishes?
On February 12th, Pro Wrestling Noah, will hold a Budokan event for the first time in eleven years. For Noah, The Budokan is a place that has been called sacred from the All Japan era. Considering the slump that forced us to withdraw from the Budokan, I am honestly pleased to be able to hold a big match at the sacred place again.
While this Budokan is a special event, I feel we have to make it a non special event. In it's heyday, running The Budokan was commonplace five to six times a year, and younger wrestlers such as Marufuji, KENTA, Rikio, Sugiura and Kotaro, grew dramatically each time they experienced the big stage. By fighting in front of a large crowd on a big stage, they grew up to be wrestlers who could handle the vessel of the big venue.
At present in Noah as well as younger wrestlers such as Kaito Kiyomiya and Yoshiki Inamura, there are many who have come in from other promotions, who have not experienced The Budokan. They will grow even more if they frequently experience the big stage, and that will be power for the promotion. That is why I hope that this Budokan event will be the first step towards continuing to hold it in the future.
Now, I would like to write about Yoshinari Ogawa, who will fight for the GHC Junior tag (Champion team = Yoshinari Ogawa & HAYATA vs the challengers, Kotaro Suzuki & Ikuto Hidaka), at The Budokan. Ogawa is 54 years old, and is a veteran with a 35 year career, and is active in the juniors. If you are an old Noah fan, you will probably remember him as Mitsuharu Misawa's tag partner, who stood toe to toe with the super heavyweights.
To tell an old story, when Ogawa was young, it was an era when wrestlers of over 190cm and 130 kg, abounded, and he gave the impression of having too small a build and being slender. In addition, he suffered many injuries, and there was no one of the same generation (Kensuke Sasaki was a young member of Japan Pro), and so it was an not a blessed environment.
However, Ogawa didn't think he wasn't blessed with this environment. In matches, he was able to fight with older seniors each day who had different careers, and he was able to learn directly from many of the top wrestlers who came to Japan as he was the only second attached to foreigners. Yoshinari Ogawa was formed by learning pro wrestling from a number of wrestlers such as Dory Funk Jnr, Dynamite Kid, Terry Gordy, Ted DiBiase, and so on.
It is the basics that Ogawa cherishes above all. In Noah, he thoroughly teaches young wrestlers to do the basics. If you have the basic foundation down, you can handle opponents who have many unknown things, and foreigners visiting Japan for the first time, etc. Because there is confidence in this, the phrase "I can match anyone" comes out. No matter how tricky a wrestler with excellent reflexes is, pro wrestling needs an opponent, and so a match cannot be done by itself. A wrestler who has a skill that anyone can do is far superior to a wrestler who can perform a skill that no one can imitate. The flashy skills of wrestlers without basics, are just self satisfaction, and there is no wrestling that is as boring as a bargain sale of tricks. First of all, you need the basics to be able to fight anyone.
So, what are the basics?
Let's start with one easy to understand move. Noah's youngest wrestler, Yasutaka Yano, has been wrestling for less than half a year since his debut, and has a small repertoire of skills, but he wrestles faithfully to the basics that he was taught in Ogawa's classroom. My favorite move of his, is the dropkick from the dropdown. To do this, Yano will slide as deep as he can underfoot to his opponents. This will make the opponent jump over Yano, who is lying down, even if he doesn't want to. Because Yano has profoundly slid down, there is sufficient distance from the opponent who has jumped over him and gone to the rope at the other side. As a result, Yano has plenty of time to stand up and attack (drop kick) at the right time.
Those who are beginning pro wrestling often ask, "Why do you jump over people?" As you can see from Yano's drop down, sliding under their feet gives them no choice but to jump over you to avoid falling. Ogawa teaches not to do the dropdown as a "type", but to keep to the basics and use it firmly as an effective weapon. With this story in mind, remember Ogawa matches. When the opponent's dropdown is not satisfactory, Ogawa will never jump over but rather crush them with a foot stamp or use a headlock, he will always strike back. This is one of the basic techniques that gives depth to Ogawa's professional wrestling.
Producing logic with structure throughout the match
Explaining these techniques one by one would be insanely long, so lets omit them, and talk about the overall match. I have talked to him about this, and Ogawa's match is very easy to explain as pro wrestling has a solid theory.
For example, soccer has a type of team tactics, and there is a team resolution on how to take the ball from the opponent, and how to break down the defense and score a goal. Ideally, it is best to design the rough shape of the goal, and ideally you should score by carrying through your tactics. Of course, points can also be scored from your opponents mistakes and difficulties with shoots and crosses. However, chances do not happen many times, and that is why we need tactics and scoring patterns to intentionally win points.
Ogawa's match theory is the same as the soccer tactics here. Based on the type and appearance of the opponent, and whether it is a pre match or a title match, from the myriad of tactics he will consider the basics of how to fight, and proceed with the match, while designing how to win. Whether he is attacking the arms, the legs, or increasing the speed of the touch in a tag, it is easy to explain as he is doing it in an easy to understand manner. The same can be said for Marufuji and Kotaro, who learned from Ogawa and Misawa when they were young. At first glance, their match looks flashy, but actually it is carried out under a detailed theory, so it is very fun to talk about. Although this is an aside from the wrestler in question, but Hajime Ohara also thinks about various constructions for each match.
Last June in particular, the match between Ohara and Masa Kitamiya was a very interesting match to explain. In Ogawa's words, a match that lets you explain "using your head" is interesting and worth talking about.
So, let's return to the story. Since there is an opponent in the match, it may not always be possible to finish it in the way that you want. With that in mind by setting out Plan B, Plan C and preparing the next route, the match will never run out of stuff. Even if you don't use flashy big techniques or dangerous techniques, the persuasiveness of the finish is born because there no waste in what you have put together up to that point. There is a sense of conviction that says, "If your legs are attacked this much, you will give up", a sense of conviction that says, "If you have changed position this much, then I can manipulate you." Instead of creating force through a one-shot finisher, he creates logic by putting it together throughout the match. This kind of match is possible because the basics are perfect, and this is the biggest reason why he can compete over the age of 50, with the younger wrestlers on an equal footing.
I was going to summarize it briefly, but it has become long.
A few years ago, at the end of the year, I was drinking alone with Ogawa for twelve hours from 17:00 to 5:00. During that time, we talked about various things, and I heard a lot of Ogawa's theory of pro wrestling. I also heard stories of Misawa, which Ogawa does not talk about in public...at that time I was drunk, so I said, "Please talk about it to the media", but Ogawa said, "When it's time to talk"
That stance hasn't changed.
I have always wanted Ogawa to talk about Misawa, but I don't think that is necessary now. This is because during the pre-match practice and the fight in the ring, it feels like he is telling both the Noah wrestlers and the fans about Misawa.
Marufuji, who has been supporting Noah for a long time, said about the difficult times "It's great that Ogawa stayed". His mentality and his skill is a great asset to Noah, and this is a tradition that must not change, even if various things change.
At the Budokan event on February 12th, for the first time in eleven years, I think there will be some people who have never experienced The Budokan and so it doesn't matter if you have been watching Noah for a long time or if you are newcomer, it's best just to purely enjoy the matches. I hope you can fully feel Yoshinari Ogawa's exquisite skill and physical attractiveness at the big venue.
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