[NEED INFO] Akira Hokuto
ches...@acavax.lynchburg.edu
Hokuto, and the moves I saw her do were unbelievable! I don't know much about
her, though. Could someone give me a breif history of her career, (age, titles
won, who she's worked for, etc.), and/or let me know where I could TRADE for
tapes of her matches? I've got a lot of stuff I can trade for it. Most of it is
WWF/WCW, but my collection of Japan, ECW, SMW, and others is growing. If anyone
can help with a history and/or trade info, it would be greatly appreciated.
Spencer Chestnutt
Ches...@acavax.lynchburg.edu
Scott Lacy
Amen brother! Anyway, Akira (real name Hisako Uno) is 27. Until the
end of 1993 she had worked exclusively for AJW, but lost a
loser-must-retire match to Shinobu Kandori (hi Cheetah!). At that point
she went to Mexico to work for EMLL (where her hubby works as Mascara
Magica or Talisman Jr. being a mid-card babyface). She won the CMLL
world women's title this past July. In Japan, she hasheld 3 All-Pacific
titles, 1 AJW Junior title (as Hisako Uno), and has been part of 4
World tag title teams (1 w/ Yumiko Hotta for 2 weeks in '85, and 3 with
Suzuka Minami from '89-'91, when Hokuto/Minami were called the Marine
Wolves). This is correct to the best of my knowledge, but if Hisaharu
says otherwise, he's probably right...
If you want to trade, e-mail me at the falcon address in my sig, and
we'll talk...
--
Scott Lacy Mercer University, Macon GA
lac...@falcon.mercer.peachnet.edu or lac...@compsc.mercer.peachnet.edu
Parts Unknown High School: State Wrestling Champs 1970,1971,1972,....
Andy Patrizio
>Amen brother! Anyway, Akira (real name Hisako Uno) is 27. Until the
>end of 1993 she had worked exclusively for AJW, but lost a
>loser-must-retire match to Shinobu Kandori (hi Cheetah!). At that point
>she went to Mexico to work for EMLL (where her hubby works as Mascara
>Magica or Talisman Jr. being a mid-card babyface). She won the CMLL
>world women's title this past July. In Japan, she hasheld 3 All-Pacific
>titles, 1 AJW Junior title (as Hisako Uno), and has been part of 4
>World tag title teams (1 w/ Yumiko Hotta for 2 weeks in '85, and 3 with
>Suzuka Minami from '89-'91, when Hokuto/Minami were called the Marine
>Wolves). This is correct to the best of my knowledge, but if Hisaharu
>says otherwise, he's probably right...
Just to add:
Akira debuted in 1985 along with Suzuka Minami, who used her real name,
Mika Suzuki. In 1987 (or 1988, I forget), Akira was in a tag match with
Suzuki against Yumi Ogura and someone whose name I don't know. Ogura did
a Tombstone piledriver from either the middle or top rope. The story is
conflicting here. Hokuto's neck was broken. After the second fall, she
got up and worked the third fall, doing all kinds of high spots and crazy
dives with her neck bent like a question mark. If anyone has this on tape
he hasn't said so publically.
That made Akira a legend in Japan. Of course she needed a year to recover
from that. She came back as Akira Hokuto with the ninja gimmick. She went
to Mexico for some time in 1988-89 with a young protege, Etsuko Mita, who
emulated Akira's entire look. They came back in 1989, and I have their
first match back on tape against The Sweet Hearts, Manami Toyota and Mima
Shimoda (Shimoda and Mita are now regular tag team partners). Hisaharu
once told me of a funny episode in the match when Mita tags in and tries
to tag out almost immediately. Akira smacks her in the head, yelling "You
haven't done anything yet."
Mita and Shimoda would ally themselves with Akira, but it wasn't quite
as pronounced as Dump Matsumoto and Bull Nakano's "Gokumonto" heel gangs.
Dump in particular had a crew that could beat the crap out of the Four
Horsemen. :-) Anyway, as Hisaharu pointed out in his report on the Dome
show, Akira's mouth is comparable to her wrestling ability. She
frequently yelled at her opponents during matches, draw laughs from the
audience. Shimoda tries to emulate that trash mouth but isn't as good
(although she really pissed off JWP last March. Long story).
Last year, Akira pushed herself a too far for her own good and was in
worse shape than Sabu. At All Star Dream Slam I in April, she juiced a
gusher in her match against Shinobu Kandori so bad her bleach blond hair
turned Peg Bundy red, and was slipping on her own blood all over the
ring. That was too much, IMHO. At Dream Slam II, Kandori yanked Akira's
arm out of the sicket with a submission move. In August, Akira wrestled a
match against Aja Kong with a bone chip in her neck and her knee out of
the socket. She could barely walk down the stairs from the entry ramp.
Finally, in December, Akira had given her notice to AJW, since she'd
married a Mexican wrestler (as reported above), and AJW sent her off with
a loser-must-retire match against her nemesis Kandori. The two punched
each other worse than two boxers and their faces were all puffed up after
the match. That match was probably the most emotional I've ever seen.
Mita and Shimoda were hysterical. Even Aja was crying. Akira juiced
(hardway, I think) from her mouth. How often do people blade their lip?
Anyway, 1994 was the countdown to retirement. She had three matches,
including the finale in the Dome last weekend. The other two were tag
matches, one where she teamed with her enemy, Kandori. They didn't work
too well at first. Akira "tagged out" by smacking Kandori hard in the
head. In the end, though, it turned into a match more brutal than some
UWFi matches.
That's all I remember. I'm sure Dave and Hisaharu will correct all of my
mistakes. :-)
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Patrizio "God I hate being right all the time" - Ian Malcom
patr...@netcom.com "Jurassic Park"
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Dave Scherer
the hows and whys of the Flair is Dead chant.
Hopefully it will clear some things up for you folks.
As usual, send any replies you want read to me in email because if you
post them here, I won't read them.
Flair is Dead! by Dave Scherer
On August 27, 1994 an amazing thing happened at the ECW Arena\Bingo Parlor
in South Philadelphia. The setting: The final of the NWA Title tournament
with Shane Douglas facing Too Cold Scorpio. After a very good match,
Shane, who had won the title, took the house microphone and, in essence,
spat upon the NWA Title and declared himself the new Eastern Championship
Wrestling World heavyweight Champion. The around 1000 fans in attendance
nearly unanimously, in spite of what a newsletter or two may lead you to
believe, began chanting "Flair is Dead!" Since I was the one who started
the chant, and it was the brainchild of the ever brilliant Greg "The Rat"
Angelucci, I thought I would do for you what the WON or the Torch didn't,
and that is, explain it's significance to you and tell you how it all
came about.
A few weeks earlier, on their TV show, Shane Douglas did an interview
where he ran down Ric Flair, calling him "Dick" Flair and a few other
extremely unflattering adjectives. He said that he had challenged the WCW
booker to matches, which of course had fallen on deaf ears, and said that
when he won the NWA title, he would fly to Atlanta or Disney world, in
Flair's back yard, and wrestle him in a shoot. Interviews like this are
one of the reasons that ECW has become the hardcores darling promotion,
surpassing the recently moribund SMW.
As some unfortunate people reading this saw, Ric Flair booked the most
boring Clash, from a hardcore perspective, of all time a week after the
above interview aired on the ECW TV show. This Clash took place three
days before the NWA Title tournament in Philadelphia. I don't feel the
need to relive the agony that was that Clash, as I am sure some of you
already have been subjected to it while the others who were smart, or
lucky, enough to have missed it. Suffice it to say, it was not the Mona
Lisa of wr estling shows.
This brings us to 8\27. During Douglas' first tournament match, against
the Tazmaniac, my section of psychotics, who Tod Gordon refers to,
affectionately, as "my bleacher bums," started a chant of "Dick Flair
Sucks." We always start chants, so on the surface this was no big thing.
Earlier in the evening, we started a "Kill the Clown" chant when Doink was
announced as the wild card opponent for the incredibly over 911. In a
great bit of booking, 911 squashed Doink with three chokeslams and pinned
him. Paul E. then took the mic and said how this wasn't the circus, it
was ECW! Anyway, unlike our usual howls, very few people joined in on the
Dick Flair jingle. There was even a scary looking mutant behind me who
seemed to be getting more than mildly a nnoyed at our making sport of one
of the great wrestlers of all time. Being offensive and being a wrestling
fan seemingly go hand in hand though, so we didn't sweat it in the least.
Before Shane's semi final match against Dean Malenko, the bleacher bums
were talking about how pathetic we found the 8\24 Clash. We ripped Flair
for his creativity, or lack thereof, for lamely using the Black Scorpion's
illegitimate baTonya weilding nephew to whack out the knee of the
Anti-Christ, Hulk Hogan. In spite of w hat Dave Meltzer wrote in his
recap, I don't believe for one second that that angle is what made people
tune into that Clash. Ratings rose because Dusty fans knew he'd be on in
the middle and Hogan fans knew he'd be on at the end. Period. Any angle
for this free TV match would have ensured the same result.
As the Title tournament continued, in the Arena, booker Paul E.
Dangerously continued to show why ECW is the nation's best promotion, both
in booking and actual wrestling. Paul was faced with a decision. Douglas
had beaten Dean Malenko to get into the final. During the match, we
started the Dick Flair chant again, and it picked up considerable steam.
Now, the winner of 911 vs Too Cold Scorpio, who had beaten Chris Benoit in
a match at least 20 people described as 5 stars WON correspondent report
notwith standing, would face Douglas for the title. On the one hand, he
had 911, who is incredibly over with the fans even though some would say
inconsequential things like "He can't work" even though his character
really doesn't need to, and on the other, he had Scorpio, who would give
the fans a far better match, and one worthy of a title tournament final.
Paul also wants to get over a 911 vs Douglas feud down the line, so the
Flairlike way to book this match would have been for Mr. Hughes, who is
Shane's bo dyguard, to come out and attack 911, possibly with a baTonya.
Thank God that Flair doesn't book ECW. Instead, after a few minutes of
work, Doink comes and lays out Paul E., who is 911's manager. So, of
course, 911 has to come to his manager's rescue ri ght? And now you are
probably saying "real creative Dave." Well, after 911 makes the save,
Matt Borne, sans costume but still wearing the face paint, comes out and
nails 911 with some nasty chairshots, which by the way barely faze the big
man. As Borne and Doink leave, the Clown pulls off his mask and reveals
himself to one......Shane Douglas. So, Heyman: 1. Gets the two guys
he wants in the final. 2. Keeps 911 as an undefeated monster. 3. He
furthers his own storylines all the while getting ov er what he needs to,
and doesn't take the easy way out doing so.
So now we move onto the final with Douglas vs Scorpio. Again, during a
few slow spots, we start a few "Dick Flair sucks" chant. As the match
progresses, I say to the Rat that we need a killer chant at the end of the
match. He says, "I got it." And he did. We tell the rest of the great
bleacher bums, and they agree it is fitting. The match itself runs its
course and Shane wins. Scorpio takes the stick and congratulates Shane.
We start the chant, "Flair is dead." We do it three or four times, and the
people pick up on it. Shane takes the mic and does his now famous
speech where he spits on the NWA Title, after he names all of the great
former NWA Champions. When he gets to Flair, we start the chant again.
It is much louder than the first time. Douglas then tells us that ECW is
taking wrestling in a new direction. At the end of this stirring
soliliquy, the fans in unison chant "ECW!" Scorpio then takes the mic
again, saying he wants to challenge for the NWA Title. We barely listen
because, quite frankly, there is an explosion about to happen. And it
does. As soon as Scorpio finishes, the monster chant starts. "FLAIR IS
DEAD!" The way the WON reports it, it would seem like there were only a
few people yelling. In truth it was a deafening roar which, if anything,
a few were not. The chant got so loud that Douglas stood in the ring and
said it with the fans.
So what does all of this mean? I can say without hesitation that I had no
idea what Shane was going to do in the ring, and he surely had no idea
what the bleacher bums had planned. Does this mean that WCW and the WWF
are destined go out of business or t hat ECW will be the next mega
promotion? Not in the least. WCW has showed the world that there are
still Hogan fans who will pay to see him wrestle, and watch his matches on
TV. All it really means that there is a group of fans that have had it
with wh at the two promotions are feeding them week after week. They have
had enough of laser light shows during PPV's. They have had enough of the
pathetic booking-by-numbers that has come to exemplify Ric's Flair's
stewardship at WCW. They have had enough of watching guys work matches in
a way that it makes it impossible for a fan to suspend their disbelief,
even when they want to do so in the worst way.
People have said for years that the wrestling business is cyclical. There
is a reason for that. There is a large contingent of wrestling fans who
are not going to simply watch whatever is put on by a promotion just
because it's there. They want to see Pro Wrestling at it's best. They
want the management of the promotion and the wrestlers themselves to work
hard at their jobs and repay the fans support of their efforts.
I have read numerous sheet types rip Tod Gordon for many things. "He's a
mark who's willing to lose money to get his face on TV." "He spends
thousands of dollars just to get beat up at his house shows." "He puts on
the matches he wants to see, at his o wn expense." Uh, excuse me sheet
types, which can often be substituted with the phrase sheet-for-brains,
but it IS his money right? And the wrestling product IS great right? And
it IS the best booking this country has seen in a long time right? So
what's your point Sheetsters? I am left wondering why these guys don't
actually go to a show at the Arena and see what it's all about and enjoy
the wrestling, especially those who continually rip the Big Two for their
lousy product. I wish I had a dollar for every time a fan told me that if
they hit the lottery, they'd promote the kind of wrestling shows they like
to see. And here, we are lucky enough to have a guy who can afford to do
just that, and people rip him.
ECW's motto is "It's not for everybody" and that is the truth. There are
a slew of people who enjoy watching dueling Undertakers. There are a
myriad of fans out there who would rather watch Hogan wrestle Flair for
the Depends Championship of the world, all the while not even noticing
that Flair is pathetically past his prime and in truth is a parody of what
he once was. They are the lucky ones. WCW isn't going anywhere, and I
can't see the WWF folding up their tents any time soon either.
As I write this, ECW has just aired the TV show after this historic card.
On this show, they aired the entire final match. If you can get your
hands on a tape of this show, which aired in Philly on 8\30, you will see
the entire thing unfold. You will s ee the bleacher bums, and me,
yelling, screaming, chanting, and having the kind of fun that I had at
wrestling shows when I was a kid watching the greats of the NWA. How
long will ECW last? I don't know. All I know is that even if ECW has
alread y run their last show, one thing is crystal clear to me.
Flair is Dead.
* "ECW: This Sure as Hell ain't Chess!" Iron Mike Palij, 7\16\94 *
* "Rob is Cheap!" Many, many mutants, 8\13\94 *
* "FLAIR IS DEAD!" Damn near the entire ECW Arena 8\27\94 *