EXTREME PURORESU

My views on Pro Wrestling from the East and West

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Bad year for tournament tours?

With Takayama forfeiting his place in the G-1 Climax due to injury (see below), it's not been a good year for the promotions in Japan who have run tournament tours.
Starting out with All Japan's Hold Out Cup, which the winner would get a place on the annual Champion Carnival, the event was cancelled completely due to multiple injuries to the participants.
Then, on the actual Champion Carnival itself, No. 1 seed Toshiaki Kawada fractures a finger in a Carnival match with Nobutaka Araya and has to forfeit the rest of the tour to heal his finger. This marred what was probably the biggest Champion Carnival of the Mutoh-run era of All Japan Pro Wrestling.
Next was the annual New Japan Pro Wrestling Best of Super Juniors tour, where Curry Man (Christopher Daniels), was making big waves till he was sidelined with an injury and had to forfeit his place in the tourney.
Zero-One would be the next victim as one of their top stars, Masato Tanaka, would injure himself during a tag match and would not able to continue the annual Fire Festival tour. Had Tanaka not been injured, would Kohei Sato really have won?
And now is the case of Takayama and the G-1. Takayama was definately the top outsider with Kensuke Sasaki that had the best chance of winning it. How the rest of the tournament plays out now should be interesting.
There are two big tournament tours left this year, the New Japan G-1 Tag League and the All Japan Real World Tag League. Lets hope all goes well when those tours come around.


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