WHY YOU (YES, YOU!) SHOULD WATCH JAPANESE WRESTLING

Given the collapse of two thirds of the American wrestling industry over the last few months, we North American fans have ended up in the rather odd position of having matrats.com as the arguable number two American wrestling promotion. Needless to say, this sucks large, especially if you're the diehard sort of fan who comes to a fine site such as this. So the question is, where do you go now to get your wrestling fix, especially if you're an old school WCW fan or "smark" type who's in search of more actual wrestling in your wrestling than the WWF is likely to provide anytime this century? Well, as far as weekly television goes, you're pretty much out of luck unless you are among the fortunate few who get the AAA/EMLL television blocks on Galavision Tuesdays. So what to do then, if this isn't an option?

Well, as you probably guessed from the title of this thing, I'm going to try to sell you on the Japanese wrestling. If you're not the kind who already watches this stuff, you've probably heard a bunch about it and the people who watch it: on the one hand, the hard core fans of it proclaim it to be head-and-shoulders above anything done by the WWF; those less enamored of it pronounce those fans to be "puro elitists" intent of trashing the WWF to maintain a sense of their own superiority. I'm not one to pronounce on the validity of that debate other than to say that while there was a time when the WWF couldn't touch Japan for in-ring quality, that time is not now; and while some people do seem to have a bit of ego wrapped up in their fandom, most are honest in their opinions.

Either way, you stand to do nothing but gain by sampling the Japanese product. No matter what your taste as a fan, there exists some promotion in Japan with a style similar to what you enjoy. Examples: