Shoot Pro-Wrestling

oneofakind32

I always thought Pro-Wrestling was fake and had been for years but aparently in Japan, in some circles ist still real?
Alot the moves used here are familiar to pro-wrestling fans. Surly with the popularity of MMA in the USA today WWE could market shoot Prowrestling to the US fans. Iv herd that Linda Mc Mahon said at the last board meeting that WWE had plans to move into MMA, so why not stick with what they know, maybe blur the lines a little with ocasional cross overs

Fozzy

There have been a good few "worked-shoot" style promotions in Japan, but for the most part, they haven't "tricked" the fans. Japanese people are a lot more respectful towards pro-wrestling than Americans would be, and they know that the matches are worked, but they appreciate the artform, as they know they're not being fooled

I actually read a very very good column on this topic a couple of weeks ago at http://thewrestlingvoice.com/columns/benacheampong/headlines/172050987.shtml It explains the history of how the worked-shoot style of wrestling came about, I was shocked at the end of it, the guy who wrote it is only 16. He's very knowledgable about his wrestling. Perfect grammar too!

As to whether it would work in America....never. American fans would hate to feel that they are being tricked in any way. MMA fans would **** on the matches because they're not real. Wrestling fans would find it very different to what they're used to and I can't imagine many liking it. Still, if you're open-minded enough to try it, there's some brilliant matches in this style, and there's a good few links to some in that column

Many Japanese wrestlers have competed in MMA events, and vice versa. There's a lot of respected MMA fighters who've branched into pro-wrestling aswell, Josh Barnett being one. Even Fedor, probably the best fighter in the world right now, competed on a wrestling show. It's a whole different world in Japan

oneofakind32

OK but then theres Pancrace and according to wiki

"Its founders were pro wrestlers with particular skill in the art of shoot wrestling and they founded Pancrase as a sport wrestling promotion"

Fozzy

Pancrase started out as a shoot promotion, but mainly featuring pro-wrestlers. Japanese wrestlers often tend to be skilled in martial arts aswell, so they were able to legitimately compete. I'm sure a good few of their fights were worked, that match you linked to being one. Hume wasn't trying very hard to get to the ropes at certain stages, although it's counted as a win in Shamrock's official MMA win/lose record. Shamrock said in an interview I heard that when he flew in for the first UFC show, he didn't believe that it was actually going to be a shoot, because he didn't think that they'd allow that in America, and he spent all the time waiting for someone to tell him who was to win up until the bell rang. I think he actually said in that interview that he'd done both worked and shoot fights for Pancrase

I actually mentioned in another thread recently (the Pride 33 one I think) about how there's been shows with both worked and shoot fights on the same card in Japan, and that the crowd respect each one for what it is. I couldn't see that happening in America. Josh Barnett is a current Pancrase champion (or King of Pancrase as they like to say), and I think they're 100% shoot these days. They've changed the rules anyway, no rope breaks or stuff like that

oneofakind32

I found this on an MMA board after doing a bit more research

Q. This fight is a work! I'll quickly start a thread about it!

There's a recent influx of newbs that seem to think most fights are works, which is fine provided there's a feasible explanation. First of all the term "work" is often misused. A "worked" fight is one in which both fighters agree to work toward a predetermined finish. A "thrown" fight is one in which one of the fighters takes a dive or allows himself to be defeated - his opponent may or may not be aware of it. For example Oleg-Macias was not a work because Oleg was clearly not aware that Macias was going to take a dive.

Fights that are generally considered by consensus to be worked or thrown:

Oleg Taktarov vs. Anthony Macias (UFC VI) - According to Macias, Buddy Albin the local site promoter and manager of both fighters threatened that Macias' career would be over unless he took a dive against Oleg. Oleg was unware of this. Macias went on to win titles in several Albin-promoted events. Buddy Albin was a total sleeze bag BTW.

Dan Severn vs. Mitsuhiro Matsunaga (U-Japan) - Severn denies that his fight against pro wrestler Matsunaga was worked, but watching the fight itself leaves little doubt and the general consensus is that this was a worked fight.

Kimo vs Kazushi Sakuraba (S-Cup) - This was billed as a legit NHB fight on a Shootboxing card, but it turns out it was not legit (another NHB fight on the card, M. Illioukhin vs Mestre Hulk was legit). The fight looks very real and Kimo lands a number of really solid shots and headbutts. There are several versions of what took place in this fight, but perhaps the closest thing to the truth is the version that has Sakuraba carrying Kimo for most of the fight before finally taking a dive without Kimo's knowledge. That would explain Kimo throwing real shots and Sak playing defense the whole time and also the fact that Kimo vehemently (and convincingly) insists it was legit, yet Sakuraba has said on several occasions that his first shoot MMA fight was the Conan Silviera fight, not the Kimo fight.

Murakami Kazunari vs. John Dixon (Pride 1) - It was well-known in the fight community even before the first Pride took place that the Kazunari-Dixon and Kitao-Jones fights would be works. Pride's initial intent was to showcase different types of fights in addition to NHB - full contact karate, kickboxing and also shoot-style works like RINGS and PWFG. Later Pride would be more secretive about its worked fights.

Koji Kitao vs Nathan Jones (Pride 1) - See above.

Nobuhiko Takada vs. Kyle Sturgeon (Pride 3) - All of Takadas "wins" were blatant works. This is pretty much common knowledge.

Nobuhiko Takada vs. Mark Coleman (Pride 5) - See above.

Nobuhiko Takada vs. Alexander Otsuka (Pride 7) - See above.


Fights that are suspected of being works but there is no consensus agreement:

Don Frye vs. Mark Hall 3 (Ultimate Ultimate 2) - Several months after the fact Hall claimed that in the locker room before the match Frye had offered him $50,000 to take a dive so he would be fresh when he fought Tank in the finals (Frye had had a grueling match with Goodridge in the opening round and was exhausted). Hall came out with his accusations because, he said, Frye never paid him. Frye vehemently denied it and said Hall was a disturbed individual. Hall was blacklisted by the fight community and never fought again. The jury is still out on this one.

Naoya Ogawa vs. Gary Goodridge (Pride 6) - Anytime a pro wrestler (other than Sak) gets a win in Pride people will claim it was a work. Gary denies this was a work but many people suspect it was. Hard to tell for sure.

Naoya Ogawa vs. Masaaki Sataki (Pride 11) - See above.

Vitor Belfort vs. Joe Charles (Ultimate Japan 1) - Vitor was sick and refused to fight unless he was able to pick his opponent. He chose Charles who was one of his training partners at the time. No strikes were thrown in what turned out to be a grappling match, with Vitor winning by armbar. Whether this was a worked fight or they simply had a gentleman's agreement not to strike is open to question.

Mark Schultz vs. Leopoldo Montenegro (Jungle Fight 1) - Schultz claims this was work but everyone else involved denies it. There have been questions about some of Montenegro's other fights in the Inoki run promotion as well.

Pancrase works: - The Pancrase organiztion admitted that there had been some worked fights early on, but did not say how many or which ones. Fights that most people agree were works are Shamrock-Hume, Shamrock-Suzuki 2, and Suzuki-Funaki. A number of others are suspected. Bas Rutten claims that he never participated in a work in Pancrase.

Fozzy

Interesting. I was doing a little more reading, and here's what Dave Meltzer said about Takada doing worked fights early on in Pride:

Coleman-Takada was a work. I can tell you that 100% because weeks before the fight I was involved in a discussion regarding how they would work the finish. There's a lot more to this story but people who don't understand Japan, wrestling and the fight business will never get this, but had Takada not been given some bought and paid for wins early on, Pride would have folded long before Sakuraba got hot and turned it into what it turned into. Business was not good those early years and Takada was the only guy over, and people were losing faith in him. He needed a big win at that moment. It's never been an issue in Japan because all they were drawing were pro wrestling fans until probably 2001 anyway, and they understood business is business.

Takada's a legend, he was the big star who made the shoot-style of pro-wrestling popular. He's also drawn a 15 minute match with Crocop, although he did basically run away from him for the entire fight

I enjoy watching some shoot-style wrestling, and I enjoy mma, but I'm not that big on it when they're mixed together like some of those matches. Takada vs Sturgeon isn't exactly a good match if you look at it from the perspective of either style

I didn't know Matsunaga fought in mma (or worked mma, whichever it was). If you search for him on Youtube, I'm sure it'd come up with a lot of exploding-piranha-wrapped-in-barbed-wire-thumbtacks style matches. That's the sort of match UFC needs if they ever want to capture the average person's heart