Nobuhiko Takada Bets It All Against Shinya Hashimoto at the Dome and Loses
Nobuhiko Takada Bets It All Against Shinya Hashimoto at the Dome and Loses
Weird vibes and Pyrrhic defeat as Battle Formation 1996 brings a close to the NJPW/UWFi invasion angle.
Man, I don’t know.
On the one hand, Shinya Hashimoto vs. Nobuhiko Takada is a perfectly fun way to spend 15 minutes. It’s a statement victory for Hashimoto in front of 65,000 people in the Tokyo Dome, all of whom feast for his rounds of offense against the defending IWGP Heavyweight Champion, all of which I can get behind. That brainbuster at the end? A gnarly, beautiful piece of work.
On the other hand, I take no pleasure in watching Nobuhiko Takada and UWFi get humbled in the Tokyo Dome. I won’t pretend to be an expert on the ins and outs of the political landscape of Japanese professional wrestling, but even without the backstory that I do know, that’s what the match feels like. Nobuhiko Takada, a man who left New Japan for the dream of shoot style wrestling twice, comes back and wins the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, only to be shown the door in decisive fashion by one of the Three Musketeers, all of whom Takada had at one point looked down his nose at. His comrades in UWFi were similarly unsuccessful, not only at Battle Formation 1996, but over the course of the 1995-1996 invasion angle that famously influenced Eric Bischoff in sabotaging the long-term viability of his promotion for the sake of short-term financial gain creating the new World order, boldly asking the genius-level question “Hey, what if we made Hulk Hogan the Takada figure?” in the process.
UWFi is an important promotion to me, but as it was something I cottoned to in the early days of wrestling on YouTube, I never went all the way down the rabbit hole, focusing most of my time on Vader, Gary Albright, and Takada. By 1995, Vader and Albright had left the promotion, either for more money (Albright jumped to All Japan) or because there wasn’t enough of it, leaving Takada without any credible challengers for his Real Pro-Wrestling World Heavyweight Championship, represented by Lou Thesz’s 1950s NWA Title. The decision to co-promote with New Japan would leave Takada without his championship, as Thesz, who was UWFi’s commissioner, withdrew his championship and support for the promotion in response.
He was, I think, wise in doing so. Worked or not, UWFi was predicated on the notion that wrestling was a real athletic endeavor in some form or fashion, and the only outcome of working with NJPW with no real say in the booking was going to be a loss to NJPW. Riki Choshu, in charge of NJPW’s booking, took umbrage with Thesz and Takada’s trolling, so that loss was less a case of the home team repelling an invading force than it was a definitive statement as to the superiority of strong style wrestling over shoot style. Yes, UWFi vs. New Japan was a hot angle, drawing over 60,000 to the Tokyo Dome three times in eight months, but that’s cold comfort knowing that UWFi won’t make it out of 1996.
That wouldn’t become truly apparent until after UWFi’s fifth anniversary show and the conclusion of their deal with Genichiro Tenryu’s WAR, so I am honor-bound to take this match at face value, putting aside the real sadness of the situation and instead focusing on the lesser sadness that is a guy I like a great deal getting kinda stomped. It’s weird seeing Takada in this mode, when what I’m used to is him as the conquering hero of a nation, but he’s effective in the role, getting caught off-guard by the strength of Hashimoto’s kicks early (when it’s Takada who was known for his kicking prowess) and mostly trying to wrestle at some distance from Hash, who is so dialed in that he hits Takada with a “Just bring it” at one point.
The epic scale of the match is largely due to the Tokyo Dome crowd being very into Takada’s comeuppance. Nevermind that he’s the first wrestler in history to win the IWGP Heavyweight, Junior Heavyweight, and Tag Team Championships, that he is, for a long time, the only wrestler to capture both the Heavyweight and Junior Heavyweight crown. This is Shinya Hashimoto’s house, and Hash gives them everything they could possibly want, thoroughly repelling the invader at the gate and proving, with some measure of finality, the superiority of strong style wrestling.
It’s a good story. It’s a well-told one, too. But it’s missing something that keeps it from true greatness. Whether or not it’s fair that that something is my foreknowledge that this is the beginning of the end of an incredibly special wrestler’s career is immaterial — I’d probably like it a little more if it was something of a Pyrrhic victory, but this is something worse than winning at all cost and having nothing left for the next battle. Pyrrhic defeat isn’t a thing, but if it was it’d look a lot like this.
Rating: *** & 3/4
I've always enjoyed this match for what it was, but I absolutely agree with you that there is a feeling of "the beginning of the end" for the mystique of Takada (that wouldn't be fully broken down until the PRIDE stuff) and shoot-style in general. Shoot-style was still great after and continues to be great, but there's a certain melancholy about it. Especially if you are a deep fan of the style like I am. Actually, you can probably tell the history of shoot-style through a series of phyrric victories. "One more victory like that and we are done for." - Phyrrus