A Primer for Puroresu.

Today’s article: “a primer on Puroresu.”

As is sometimes the case people might say something so stupid, so utterly deviant from the basic concepts of truth, that they must be dealt with. This is the case with Glen Gilberti. He has forced me to explain Puroresu, calmly and slowly.
First off, I will deal with Glen Gilberti’s assertion that somehow Puroresu is nothing more than people elbowing each other in the face non-stop is beyond ridiculous. It is not strange to hear this from him though, considering that he works for a promotion that has a roster who by-and-large enjoy Puroresu as an art form, and have in some cases worked in it. Furthermore, it is also not strange to hear this out-and-out dismissal of a non-American art form from someone that works for a promotion whose head booker alienated an entire promotion by booking a title change for one of the most respected titles in the world with a tequila bottle used by a Mexican wrestler as the base for the finish.

Let us be clear though: Puroresu is not merely the concept of no-selling violence that Gilberti and the other detractors of it seem to think. Matter of fact Glen should know this better than most, considering that he was once upon a time booked in WCW with a young man named Tokyo Magnum and then returned the favor by flying over to Japan to appear in Magnum’s Toryumon X promotion. Truthfully Puroresu has influences in a vast majority of styles, whether it be the layered escalations of maneuvers commonly found in All Japan during their “Four Corners of Heaven” period in the 90’s or the serpentine and heavily involved submission work of Toryumon, Toryumon X, and their forerunner T2P and most of all the rapid-fire exchanges found in New Japan’s stocked Junior Heavyweight Division.

The trouble with Puroresu is not what people think it is not, but it is what people think it is. Truthfully… Puroresu achieved its exalted space in the minds of wrestling fans because of its greatest moments. The passing of the torch by Tsuruta to Misawa in 1990 that left fans crying in their seats, sad that they had seen their previous hero felled but happy that a new one emerged. The Benoit\Sasuke classic of the 1994 J-Cup where the man who would sadly later be known for a horrific crime proved that he was a worthy heir to his own idol’s throne. THAT is Puroresu, not what Glen Gilberti imagines it to be as he listens to his boss down everyone who is not American.