The "4 Pillars" of All Japan were top notch at psychology, selling and connecting with crowds in their home country. So why did they start resorting to such dangerous head drops and bumps? It's not like they were modern shitters who couldn't get over any other way. They still would have been some of the best in the world without it. Just seems like a waste of their amazing talents and pedigree.
To make it real it's gotta look real. Dropping someone on their skull is a very believable way to injure them. These guys were not afraid of getting hurt for the honor of the sport.On top of that, the entire King's Road booking philosophy was built around escalation. There's only so far you can escalate with perfectly safe moves.
they were over because they were reckless
>>16287424OP, I love you, but this is an utterly SOVLLESS question
>>16287424All Japan's Wrestling was incredibly boring and the only thing they had going for them was appearing more shoot than the competition. Without dangerous moves this illusion could never be solidified.
>>16287424i liked njpw better
>>16289409We're all entitled to our opinion and are free to like any promotion. (: Thank you for sharing, friend.
>>16289409>10 hour bumpWhat thread are you sliding?
>>16289409chono > misawa
>>16289409They're both very different, but great. I still like AJPW better. AJPW was better in the 2000s than NOAH or New Japan too.
>>16287424I’ve been under the impression that early on in AJPW, the neck and head drops were botches that became intentional moves. Why they persisted, I don’t know. I assume for the sake of emotional impact and for the honor of puroresu. Whether it was worth it or not is another discussion entirely. Japanese people are insane about their work, OP.
I don’t disagree. Jumbo and Tenryu did it first. While not as outlandish as the burning hammer or emerald flosion, jumbo and tenryu’s matches from the late 80s marked a change in the all Japan style. For such a conservative promotion until then they pretty much go from wrestling like it’s still the 70s through the 80s and then by 88/89 jumbo’s back drop is no longer a cradle pin but attempted murder and both guys are trying to turn the other’s lights off with power bombs. I say this about American wrestlers all the time but it also rings true for the Japanese. Most wrestlers are retarded and even if they’re among the goated have no idea what works or why they got over. If I were to guess after Tenryu left and they had to make new stars real quick, with both baba and jumbo winding down their careers it made more sense to keep putting on hard hitting bangers. Otherwise they’d be reeling the style back in at a time they’re still establishing themselves which could lead to resentment. “Why can’t these young guys go as hard as Tenryu?” And then we end up in a world where people actually watched sws and war.
>>16291024Excellent points but I wonder if there's any timeline where SWS and WAR are even half the size of prime AJPW
>>16291073Other than giving Vince a stake is SWS so he can order the WWF guys to put in an actual effort I don’t know what SWS could have done to succeed. It’s perfect on paper, at that time period every giant white guy was over in Japan.
>>16287424>Hansen was stiffing the fuck out of their ass every month so they thought they needed to outshow him>New Japan was being considered "strong style" so All Japan guys acted like they could do that too in their own way>The Japs have a weird masochistic fetish culture
This is why we say wrestling has never been better. All the aew guys do much better moves and it’s way safer.
>>16291210I wish Tenryu had just stayed in All Japan. Misawa vs Tenryu in the early 90s would have been insane.
>>16292272>I wish Tenryu had just stayed in All Japanfuck no. jesus christ, no. we'd have missed out on some of the best shit ever if he stayed
>>16292298That's true. Ok I wish he hadn't pissed Baba off so much and he at least came in for some shots.
I like how when people make threads or articles about the Pillars they have to use one of the three known photos of Akira Taue. No others exist.
>>16287424Nah they just did sick ass slams and that’s what sells. That’s what all you stupid ass marks don’t understand, “muh psychology” is just a buzzword for weak pussies that can’t do sick ass power moves
>>16292353the trick is to use kanji in google searches. There's plenty of photos of him there.
>>16292353Taue is kinda proof they didn’t need to get all nutty with it. He was as over as everyone else except the tape traders who were pirating the shows
>>16287424According to Stan Hansen, the TV people asked for head bumps. He didn't want to give or take them so he would just pretend he didn't understand them. The weird thing is in certain Hansen matches, you will see Kenta Kobashi attempt to take a head bump from a flat back back suplex.
>>16292386They were making wrestling video games Virtual Pro Wrestling series at the same time and were asked to imitate how ridiculously sawdusting the moves looked but in real life
>>16293102Because slams sell
