Former KTVU Friday night star, Kinji Shibuya, dies in Hayward.
gvk2
back in the early 60's.
He and is fellow team member Mitsu Arakawa (pronounced avocado) were
well known and loved by all within KTVU's broadcast signal.
A life well lived.
I believe David Kaye was a huge fan of Kinji.
Kinji Robert Shibuya May 16, 1921 - May 3, 2010 Resident of Hayward,
CA Kinji Shibuya of Hayward, CA and Honolulu, HI, a retired
professional wrestler passed away peacefully. He was born in Utah, the
fourth of five sons to Kinkichi and Kura Shibuya. He graduated from
Belmont High School in Los Angeles and attended the University of
Hawaii where he was a 4-year "Hula Bowl" football star. Later he
played semi-pro football and was a champion sumo wrestler before
turning professional. During his successful 25-year career as a pro
wrestler in the US, Canada, Japan and Australia, he held numerous
individual and tag-team World Championship titles. He appeared in
major motion pictures and on television in several episodes of Kung Fu
and other shows. After a long happy life of nearly 89 years, he died
of natural causes with his family at his bedside. He was an avid
Japanese koi collector and was known for his great sense of humor. He
loved his family and his many friends. He will be forever missed by
his wife of 59 years, Janet; daughter Michele and her fianc‚, Jerome
Scherer of Danville, CA; his son Robert Kinji and his wife Michele,
and their sons Robert Kinji III and Richard Noboru of Manhattan Beach,
CA
David Kaye
>
>I believe David Kaye was a huge fan of Kinji.
Indeed I was. My dad used to deliver mail to him in Hayward, which is how we
hooked up with him and the Buddhist temple in Union City where he was
involved. It was quite a feat for Catholics to go visit a "non-Catholic"
church in that era. (We weren't supposed to do that, but he was such a nice
guy.) Robert (how we knew him) got my parents interested in raising koi,
though not to the extent that he did. He had some amazing fish.
Even when being pestered by fans to sign autographs, I never saw him get
upset. He was always the gentleman.
Plaidmoon
wrote:
I'm sorry to hear about this. He played a great villain and one of my
fond childhood memories was watching him and others like Pepper Gomez
and Ray Stevens competing on Friday nights to get a star from Miss
Wrestling.
Sadly, it's yet another case of a pro wrestler dying too soon.
Plaidmoon
David Kaye
>
>Sadly, it's yet another case of a pro wrestler dying too soon.
Well, he did live to 89, that's doing pretty well, considering that fellow
wrestlers body-slammed him, threw salt in his face, attacked him with chairs,
and whatnot....
gvk2
wrote:
>
> Sadly, it's yet another case of a pro wrestler dying too soon.
>
I think he might of lived longer but all those years of having the
"sleeper hold" placed upon you take a toll.
On the other hand, Shibuya's "claw hold" put many a man away for
good.
I had a friend in Los Angeles who was good friends with the daughter
of Kinji Shibuya's tag team partner, Mitsu Arakawa.
Apparently both men were very nice in their real lives.
One of my other friends father, back in 1962, use to refer to the tag-
team as Mitsu Avocado and his brother Fruit Salad.
My "brush with stardom" came twice. Once out at the Pleasanton
Fairgrounds I saw "in person" walking along, Ray Stevens (former
heavyweight champion)
I have no idea why he was there or why I was there. Not wrestling
related.
Also, once in the early 60's I saw Haystack Calhoon walking down a
street in San Francisco. Can't recall where it was in the city.
But my favorite part of the KTVU wrestling were the advertisements.
Jim Wessman, for Gateway Chevrolet, sitting up high on a ladder.
Only to be threatened with attacked by some wrestler, the name of
whom escapes me right now. I know one or more of the Japanese guys
would go into a trance and walk over to Jim Wessman, causing him
apparent great concern. Great bodily harm was always imminent.
gvk2
More on Kinji Shibuya..
http://www.insidebayarea.com/obituaries/ci_15086341
In today's sports world, the name Kinji Shibuya may not ring a bell,
perhaps not even in the corner of a contemporary pro wrestling ring.
But for those who remember the bygone era of the immensely popular Big-
Time Wrestling Cow Palace shows or those wild, live Friday night in-
studio telecasts on KTVU-Channel 2 in the 1960s and '70s, there may
have been no more recognizable sports personality on the Bay Area
sports scene than the evil Kinji, the massive villain everybody loved
to hate.
It was more staged entertainment than sports, of course, and everybody
had a schtick. Shibuya perhaps had the best. He carefully crafted his
persona in the early 1950s as an angry Asian beast at a time when anti-
Japanese sentiment was still running high only a few years after World
War II. He not only made his mock nastiness work for a 25-year ring
career, he parlayed it into TV and movie work after he retired in 1976
at 55.
Shibuya wrestled against and with most of the greats of his era — Pat
Patterson, Pepper Gomez, Mr. Saito, Ray Stevens, Haystacks Calhoun and
many more — and took a back seat in popularity to none of them,
nationally as well as regionally. Pro wrestling was divided into as
many as 30 territories across the United States back in the day, and
according to wrestling historian George Schire, Shibuya touched them
all and was a huge draw anywhere he turned up.
But to the Bay Area, in particular, he was its most renowned and
reviled
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bad-guy face, usually teamed with another Asian baddie in his tag-team
specialty. He claimed numerous titles, for what they were worth, but
it was his stage presence that made him an instantly recognizable star
figure.
"Back in the '60s, he could walk into the fanciest restaurant in San
Francisco and get seated right away," said his son, Robert Shibuya.
"It was like he was Sinatra."
That golden era long gone, Shibuya, a resident of Hayward since 1967,
died quietly at age 88 on May 3, initially with very little fanfare.
Fortunately, in the time since his death, there has been a tidal wave
of fond recollections and tributes on several Internet wrestling
sites, attesting to his importance as a wrestling pioneer.
Moreover, fans and friends have been resuscitating the scope of
Shibuya's large legacy at a grass roots level, revealing the real
Kinji — a quiet, thoughtful family man who in his later years raised
champion koi carp and strolled his Hayward neighborhood with a pair of
garden shears, trimming people's shrubs just so he could spark a
friendly conversation.
"People out of the blue have been contacting me and my brother on our
Facebook pages, giving their warm recollections and memories of our
father," said Michele Shibuya, Kinji's daughter. "He had one of the
richest lives anybody could ever want. Externally, he portrayed
himself as this very mean, tough guy. But internally, he was a very
kind, gentle spirit with a great sense of humor. He could engage
people in a way that was nonthreatening and loving, too."
That was in direct contrast to the personality who engaged and enraged
audiences through his ring menace. Shibuya claimed to be from Japan
even though he was born in Utah. He was a football star at the
University of Hawaii and played against the likes of Jackie Robinson
and Kyle Rote, and according to his family, the Washington Redskins
were interested in signing him but backed off because of his Japanese
heritage.
He turned to pro wrestling in 1951, and discovered he could use those
biases to craft his ring persona. He started out as a good guy, but
one night at a show when an old woman stabbed him in the side with a
hatpin all the while screaming insults, he realized he could get more
mileage (and money) out of being a dangerous heel.
So it was told, through his alleged study of ancient Oriental martial
arts, he could supposedly paralyze an opponent's nervous system in 27
different ways. He also reputedly possessed a lethal karate chop with
which he once killed a man in the ring, which was all conjured fluff
for the act. He could talk the talk, too, particularly in blustery
interviews with the legendary announcer Walt Harris on the old black-
and-white KTVU broadcasts.
"Wrestling and roller derby actually helped put KTVU on the map," said
longtime Channel 2 sports anchor Mark Ibanez. "And Kinji was as big a
part of that as anyone."
Shibuya's wife of 59 years, Janet, as well as his children, accepted
such wrestling antics as just part of his regular job. He was a
normal, loving dad at home, but they nonetheless experienced plenty
themselves tagging along with their famous father.
"Can you imagine being a kid, sitting in the family car driving across
the Bay Bridge or San Mateo Bridge, and having people in other cars to
left and right looking over and imitating his moves or the karate
chop?" said Robert. "People from all walks of life, too — a guy in a
Cadillac one minute and a guy in a pickup truck the next."
Michele recalled going to some of the arena shows in which she and her
brother would have to wait until the house lights went down so they
wouldn't be recognized as Kinji's children. Before the show was over,
they would run outside, get in their pajamas and into a running car
with their mother. As soon as dad exited the ring, he would jump in
and the family sped away.
"I always used to joke with my mom that she was driving the getaway
car," Robert said.
Happily, in the wake of his passing, many people are remembering
Shibuya and won't let his legacy get away. It's a just epitaph for a
man who entertained so many.
barm...@aol.com
James Duncan
He did die in Hayward, but it was in May 2010. He was about 80.
I used to regulary watch wresting and roller derby on KTVU and saw him
many times. It was local TV production at its best!
David Kaye
> He did die in Hayward, but it was in May 2010. He was about 80.
>
> I used to regulary watch wresting and roller derby on KTVU and saw him
> many times. It was local TV production at its best!
with his son at the time, who was most gracious.
Kinji (Robert) Shibuya had been a family friend back in the day. My dad
used to deliver mail to him when he lived in the then upwardly mobile
Fairway Park neighborhood of Hayward. He was very big in the Buddhist
church in Union City, and called bingo and signed autographs, etc. He got
my parents interested in raising koi.
Shibuya basically created the "bad guy" wrestler personna. He told us that
he had been wrestling in college and took to the pro circuit. This had been
in the 1950s when pro wrestling wasn't much different from college
wrestling. Audience response was lackluster. There wasn't much money in
the business, and it had been difficult to fill the bleachers.
One night after he won a match, an angry woman came up to him, slapped him,
and called him a "dirty Jap". This was not that many years after World War
II, and there was still a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment.
This woman was so emotionally caught up in the bout that she didn't see that
he was an American. Hi figured that the emotional anti-Japanese sentiment
could be a good hook to get larger audiences. So, he became a "bad guy"
wrestler and started speaking in a fake tortured Japanese accent. This new
character made him an instant hit. In his publicity photos he started
posing with a snarl.
All 100% fake. He was a real wrestler, though, and there's no doubt that he
was strong. But the entire "Kinji" Shibuya personna was all fake.
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