The fantastic Matt Charlton joins me for another round. This time we're talking about his latest book, J-Crowned: An Illustrated Guide to Champions of Japanese Wrestling, Vol. 2. When last we spoke, volume 1 was hot off the press, and the pandemic was just beginning. We dive into the past 8 months of living, a little bit of parenthood, and a whole lot of puroresu goodness. The names, the titles, the matches, and more are all a part of our conversation. We hope you enjoy and, as always, find the podcast on Twitter @kopw72 and Matt @ShiningWizardDs. Thanks for listening! ...
In this episode we pick up pretty much where we left off in Chapter I. Genichiro Tenryu is the new AJPW Triple Crown Champion, but his feud with Jumbo Tsuruta continues. How does it end and where do we go from there are the big questions we answer in this outing. The Four Pillars of Wrestling also make their first appearances in our story and we chart Mitsuharu Misawa’s life up until May of 1990. What elements of his upbringing drove him to wrestling greatness? What obstacles did he overcome? And who helped him along the way? All of these things and much more are covered in Chapter 2 of King’s Road: A 90s All Japan Retrospective. In addition to the context and background information discussed, we also take a look at the following four matches: * Tenryu vs Tsuruta 10/11/89 - Triple Crown III * Tenryu vs Tsuruta 4/19/90 - Final Outing * Tiger Mask II & Toshiaki Kawada vs Fuyuki & Yatsu 5/14/90 - The Mask Comes Off * Misawa, Kobashi, & Taue vs. Jumbo, Kabuki, & Fuchi 5/26/90 - New Generation Emerges Missing Pieces - Genichiro Tenryu left AJPW after his defeat in April of 1990 at the hands of Jumbo Tsuruta to be the spokesmodel for Megane Super - an eyeglass maker in Japan. However, the company seemed to have a dual motive in hiring Tenryu as they would launch a wrestling company shortly thereafter - Super World of Sports. The SWS was founded with the motto “Straight and Strong”. Megane threw a ton of money around to recruit wrestlers - mostly from All Japan - in an attempt to form a legitimate threat to the other big two ...
Paul & Sam are back to cover nights 3 thru 7 of NJPW Best of the Super Juniors 25! We've got some news and notes (Harold Meij's aspirations for the company, G1 Special news, injuries, & more) and, of course, our classic matches! As always, special thanks to the Hails for our intro and outro music and don't forget to check out our friend, Wilfred, over at the [NJPW US Blog](http://njpw-us.com) Classic matches for next time around: [Kazuchika Okada (c) vs Kenny Omega 1/4/2017](http://http://njpwworld.com/p/s_series_00412_2_10) [Kazuchika Okada (c) vs Kenny Omega 6/11/2017](http://https://njpwworld.com/p/s_series_00442_1_09) [Kazuchika Okada (c) vs Kenny Omega 8/12/2017](http://http://njpwworld.com/p/s_series_00447_23_10) ...
