Retirement Matches Should Suck a Little

I’m being fatuous, obviously, but think of the narrative inherent to the retirement match. One party is at the end of their physical capacity to wrestle, the other stands to benefit from sending a legend packing. Neither person wants to lose, so they pull out every weapon in their arsenal, find reserves of energy they didn’t know they had, because their goal, in this final moment of someone’s career, is immortality. 

Forget for a moment that this is not Akira Hokuto’s final match, and that this match is actually fairly middle-of-the-road for her. This, the main event of Big Egg Wrestling Universe, is huge doings. The modern era of New Japan Tokyo Dome shows dulled its shine for me a little, but man is it a filmic arena – a massive space that lends a certain weight to the shows that run there. The scale is accentuated by huge, showy stages (like the Y-shaped one here that was probably an influence on WWF InVasion) and dramatic entrances filmed at extreme distance. 

In other words, it’s pretty.

And there’s the emotional aspect of the match to consider, too. Coming at the end of a 10 hour show, it’d be easy, perhaps even forgivable, to lose sight of the significance of this match, to let it pass without celebration or solemnity, but Akira Hokuto is moved, crying before the bell rings, exchanging slaps with Aja Kong, and bowing to the red belt champion in that hurried way that suggests that she’s ready for the fight of her life.

It is not the fight of her life. Far from it. Akira Hokuto is one of the greatest to ever do it, a wrestler who offers as much to a fan who likes classic wrestling as she does to fans who enjoy the more modernized style that she had a hand in crafting. Most of what makes that so is not on display here.

It just doesn’t feel like she’s wrestling a smart match, which feels intentional at first, before devolving in the second half, where things meander. The thing is, Aja Kong is a difficult wrestler to figure out. She’s big, her strikes are brutal, her moves are lethal, and she has stamina. Until she barrels out of the ring on an ill-advised suicide dive that practically gift wraps the match for Hokuto, the bout is hers for the winning. Hokuto outsmarts her a few times, but her suplexes and submissions feel probing, and she never quite builds momentum. 

This changes with the suicide dive. Hokuto takes advantage immediately, crushing Kong’s leg with a somersault splash, and that’s it for Kong’s knee. A long stretch of time passes with Kong on the outside. The referee tries to straighten it out, a doctor or official brings out the world’s tiniest roll of athletic tape, and Hokuto takes the moment to adjust her gear. This kind of injury spot isn’t uncommon in wrestling – more often than not, the lack of action is meant to convey the severity of the injury – but it sucks the wind out of this match, right when it needed to go to second gear.

It’s a shame, too, as Kong is excellent on the sell. I taught a college course on professional wrestling once, and when I showed my students an AJW match, they asked why there was so much screaming. My reply was “because this shit hurts.” Aja Kong is really good at making sure you know it. The way she guts up a few times, punching her knee to get the blood flowing, talking herself up when she’s outside the ring, the torment on her face when Hokuto is working her leg – this match is Akira Hokuto’s, but in a much larger sense, it belongs to Aja Kong.

Hokuto is … kind of listless, really? Initially, when Kong gets back in the ring, she’s an explosion of focused energy. She wants Kong’s knee, which has been inadequately taped up for the sake of the jawns in the cheap seats who need a big tell as to Kong’s wellbeing. My favorite spot in the match is Hokuto’s, when she runs in place on Kong’s knee; a perfect little moment of spite. But Hokuto soon ditches the legwork, turning to head drops instead.

In a way, it makes practical sense – it gives Kong brief moments of hope when she lands a backfist or a suplex that aren’t possible if Hokuto is sitting on her leg – but it doesn’t make narrative sense and, frankly, makes Hokuto look not like Aja Kong’s lesser, which would be fine given Kong’s standing as ace of the promotion, but a lesser wrestler in general. 

Making a worked injury the narrative focal point of this match is a huge flaw. At the end of a brutally long show, a match with big, sustained swings of momentum would have been welcome, but instead the second half of this match sees Hokuto wrestle Kong at some remove, allowing her injured opponent space and time to gather herself. 

During the Samoa Joe vs. Bryan Danielson match Joseph and I covered a couple of weeks ago, an announcer makes the claim that a lot of modern wrestlers wrestle for a draw as opposed to a win. I couldn’t really picture what he meant – that is decidedly not the vibe of modern wrestling, which often utilizes match length as a secondary endurance test, pushing from 30 minutes to 60 minutes and beyond. That’s the “appeal” of iron man matches and whatever Kenny Omega and Kazuchika Okada were up to a few years ago, at least, but those matches often go the distance because neither party wants to lose, not because they’re being pensive. 

It feels like Akira Hokuto is wrestling for the draw here. She’s so laid back that it feels at odds with what Kong is doing. It’s not bad, per se – it just doesn’t quite feel right. Again, I think that has to do with the decision to work a leg injury in the first place. The three Dangerous Queen Bombs Hokuto employs at the end feel are a narrative letdown, as this match should have ended in a submission. But wrestlers often end signature matches with a flourish rather than logic, so we’re left with a match that is mostly notable for main eventing the Tokyo Dome – an incredible achievement, but not even the best match on the card.

Obviously, this is not Akira Hokuto’s last match – she has yet to blow a young Colette Arrand’s mind through her WCW appearances in 1996 – but it is worked to feel like one, including a long post-match ceremony where the Dangerous Queen is given the V-TOP title belt, a number of trophies, bouquets of flowers, a big check, and a giant picture of a fish. She and Kong cry and trade respect, and it’s a legitimately touching scene, though I imagine the folks still at the Tokyo Dome by this point were crawling in their skin to get out and go home.  

I’ll be frank: it’s good that this is not Akira Hokuto’s retirement match. Beyond the pageantry, the bell-to-bell aspect of this match is worthy of neither her nor Kong. It’s a good enough match, but the premise is off and the aggressor doesn’t wrestle the way the premise suggests she should. Instead of existing as a celebration of its victor, the main event of Big Egg Wrestling Universe mostly stands as a moment in time – the culmination of an event that gathered the best joshi from around the world and put them on the largest stage possible. It’s a legendary show. Akira Hokuto and Aja Kong are legendary wrestlers. It’s too bad the match did not live up to its circumstances.