Insect's Soul: Introduction

            (Written by jom)

    Ryuma Go invented independent wrestling. 

    From as early as the mid-1950s, smaller organizations have tried to stake their claim in a wrestling landscape dominated by the Rikidozan lineage. Groups like AJPWA and Toa Pro Wrestling sprouted up and found mild success only to close their doors within a few years, and while the efforts of these forefathers should not go unnoticed, none of these early operations really befit the term "indie." No, it would take nearly another 40 years for a promotion to come along and take the "indie" moniker and thrust it from the world of music into the wrestling sphere.

    That promotion was FMW.

    From multiple accounts, the first usage of the term "indie" in wrestling came from Atsushi Onita, who declared FMW's status as an indie organization after the first few shows. If we're going to directly credit someone for the terminology, it would be him, and that would seemingly make FMW the first indie promotion. 

    However, I disagree on that last part. While the first promotion to use the term would be FMW, the first group to fit the term would be Pioneer Senshi, started by Ryuma Go, Masahiko Takasugi, and Apollo Sugawara. Pioneer was the actual starting point of what's been called the "indie revolution", the Planck epoch of the soon-to-be flourishing scene. From it, groups like FMW and Universal spread their wings, and the indie world only branched off more and more, all following in the footsteps of Go's vision. Go himself continued to grow and innovate in the scene, starting organization after organization with stronger focuses on video sales and local pro wrestling, ideals that would only grow more prevalent with each passing year.

    Around 1995, Ryuma Go gave this interview following a Go Gundan event. Among his discussions of working a match with a broken arm and running his Atsugi Pro Wrestling shows, Go dove into how he felt about his position in the larger wrestling world, using one of his favorite proverbs to explain his ideology as a wrestler: "Even the smallest insect has a soul." That phrase has always stuck with me. In my opinion, those seven words do an incredible job of encapsulating the indie spirit, more so than anything I could ever think of. It's no secret that I love the indies, and this line really touches on why. Independent wrestling is about screaming your soul into the world, no matter however many people are there to hear your voice. 

    This project is my attempt at amplifying some of those voices.

    With the help of a few friends and with years of being way too deep into this scene, I've constructed a list of 100 matches from 100 different organizations, starting from 1989 and going all the way to 2019. Some groups are long-lived stalwarts of the scene, while others were flashes in the pan, stars that burnt out within as little as a few months. Hell, a handful of matches come from produce shows rather than fully-formed promotions, but a list like this couldn't have happened without at least a few produces being included. 

    I've limited this list to predominately male, professional organizations. I could make an entire separate list for joshi organizations, and the same can be said for the infinite number of amateur feds to spout up over the last 50 years. Those are two cans of worms I have no interest in opening here, simply because I can only do so much without losing my mind. I've also tried my best to showcase a wide range of groups and sub-scenes, but by the nature of the beast, there will be some promotions that you may be surprised to not see appear on this list. Some of these don't have enough viable footage for the project, while others (especially many shoot style companies) teeter the line between indie and major too much. You are allowed to assume I simply hate them and have no interest in showcasing them. There will also be a handful of companies that could arguably be called majors included in this project. For these, I've chosen matches from time periods where the groups were undeniably indies (PWFG after the Pancrase exodus, DDT before their first Ryogoku show, etc). 

    For the purpose of making these matches as accessible as possible, I've tried to make sure a good number of inclusions are freely available on YouTube, and for those matches, the links will be provided. That being said, a large chunk of this list will not be so easily available. There just isn't much Nagoya indie wrestling from the 2000s hanging out on the site, and I have no interest in directly linking to where stuff like that can be found for a number of reasons (rest in peace RealHeroArchive and every other wrestling drive doomed by errant public link-sharing). I've spent over six years of my life tracking down shitty virus-filled websites and exchanging emails with people all around the world to get my hands on some of the wrestling I have, so you can do the bare minimum and go looking beyond the YouTube search bar for anything not found there. I promise you, everything I talk about here exists and is available for you to watch, as long as you put in the work to find it.

    For the rest of this week, I'll be releasing the list in 25 match chunks, with each match having a relatively small blurb providing my thoughts and opinions on the match, the wrestlers, the promotion, and whatever else I think I should talk about. As much as I don't want the sole value of this project to be the list, I also don't think I should do extensive write-ups on a project mostly serving as a roadmap for a journey through the indie scene. This is just as much about the wrestling that I love as it is about getting you to watch that wrestling.

    I hope you enjoy Insect's Soul as much as I've enjoyed creating it.