Dragon Screw: The Comprehensive Survival Tobita

Friday, November 11, 2022

The Comprehensive Survival Tobita

(Written by jom)

Honestly, I'm kinda shocked it's taken me so long to start this.

Masaru Tobita made his professional wrestling debut in Pro Wrestling Crusaders on April 17th, 1994. Originally a student wrestler, Tobita's career began quietly... and by quietly, I mean that within a year, he had already donned the "Doku Gas Mask" persona, quickly setting the stage for his future career path with wild brawls and flamethrowers.

Tobita would stick with PWC for two years along with working in promotions like WXY and West Japan (under both his real name and the Doku Gas Mask gimmick), before leaving PWC in 1996 to become a freelance wrestler. He would quickly take to working for DDT along with other PWC alumni like Sanshiro Takagi and Kazushige Nosawa, and on May 25th, 1998, Tobita would officially change names, becoming known as Survival Tobita.

Tobita's legend would truly begin on March 29th, 1999, with the first Saitama Pro Wrestling Company event. Saitama Pro (also known as SPWC) would be Tobita's first venture into promoting his own shows, and would also mark the first battle in Survival Tobita's long and storied career as a monster hunter. In the main event of the show, Tobita would take on "Genshi Enjin" Virgon, a massive ape-man possessing extreme strength and a wild temperament. Tobita would be beaten horribly, constantly thrown around by this monstrous creature, until, finally, he found a way to overcome Virgon's inhuman power and dropped him on his neck with a brutal piledriver, slaying the beast and changing wrestling forever. Tobita was no longer just a normal professional wrestler.

Tobita had become a bonafide superhero.

In the coming years after this, Tobita would take on different oddities invading our normal world, including swamp monsters, robots, phantom swordsmen, the living incarnation of bicycles, and of course, his arch-rival, Mokujin Ken (also known as Ken the Box). Each and every time these monsters came, Tobita would fight with his life on the line to not only gain victory, but also to save the entire world from their villainy. Tobita became the final line of defense between Earth's peace and impending doom. Even when he didn't win, Tobita's efforts would prove valiant, and he would always end every battle with a long, passionate speech for all those in attendance, creating a rabid cult energy around himself and the conflicts he had against the great dangers of the universe.

He wouldn't only face these monsters, however.

Through a combination of the wild skirmishes Tobita had with the forces of evil and the strange yet deeply engaging charisma he had as an everyman forced to do battle with these malevolent fiends, Tobita's name began to appear on larger and larger events. He appeared in FMW during its dying days. He teamed with Great Sasuke and Ultraman Robin in a Great Space War. He even faced Jun Akiyama in All Japan Pro Wrestling for the GAORA TV Championship. Tobita had gone from just another rookie in the low-level PWC organization to an underground legend of professional wrestling. He even continues to wrestle to this very day, having last wrestled Freddie Krueger in a street fight in August of 2021, while also sporadically promoting his shows for his current promotion, Unemployment Pro Wrestling, or UEW for short.

As a wrestler, Tobita isn't the most technically adept in the ring, but he possesses an energy and fighting spirit like no other. He can throw some mean strikes, including hard lariats and massive cross chops. His powerbombs and piledrivers always land with a thudding impact. His most endearing trait, however, is his gruff demeanor, constantly portraying a slightly angry, slightly drunk ordinary person, facing off against the extraordinary forces that come after him. Watching Tobita engage in combat against some of the most bizarre existences in professional wrestling history, all with a straight face and an almost apathetic demeanor, is truly one of the greatest joys I have ever gotten out of this hobby as a whole.

In my own opinion, Survival Tobita is one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, able to maximize his limited abilities to their full potential and create some of the most memorable matches in history. I can only hope that these reviews will serve to introduce some of you to the legendary "Mediocre Superman", and show you why he deserves his place in the metaphorical Mt. Olympus of professional wrestling.