ZERO FANS: The Wrestling Show Nobody Attended

                              (Written by jom)

     I am distressed by fanless wrestling shows. It's certainly ironic for me to feel that way, considering a lot of the stuff covered on here has had attendance numbers closer to the size of the average American household than to an actual wrestling show, but there's just something about an entirely hollow arena that perturbs me. Like many who share my sentiment, my disdain was born from the COVID era, where every TV product committed themselves to filming matches in ghost towns, or worse, with LED screens for people. It was an awful time then, and it's usually an awful time now whenever companies make the baffling decision to do it on purpose.

    There are, of course, exceptions. Empty Arena matches are cool. There's a freedom in them that you wouldn't get with an audience, and the intentions there feel fleshed-out enough to make it work as a one-off. Similarly, matches like the Backyard Brawl series from XGF work because the "arenas" are weird dingy warehouses or dirty parking lots. For the environment, the complete absence of people feels fitting, save for maybe a homeless smack addict here or there.

    The biggest exception of them all has neither of these excuses, though. On November 26th, 2006, the uber shindie Shitamachi Pro ran their third ever show, and not a fan was in sight. They weren't running the show in an abandoned trap house. They weren't planning on using the empty arena to their advantage. It was business as usual, which begs the question: what kind of explanation could they have for me to consider this the biggest exemption from my fanless show hatred?

    And that's the thing: there was no explanation. They didn't plan an empty arena show. There was no coordination or theming or grand scheme at play. It had no excuse, because it had no intentions of being a fanless wrestling event.

    Zero fans turned up to watch the show. 

Tarzan Goto's Professional Wrestling

     There are a couple of dates you could pick for the start of the Tarzan Goto Indie Revolution. An easy one is April 23rd, 1995, the day that he and his Shin FMW compatriots left FMW proper. Skipping ahead a few years, November 9th, 1999 stands out as a strong option, the day Goto opened the Indie Wrestler Training School in Sagamihara. For my money, I'd place the revolution's start on June 17th, 1997, the date of the first proper Shin FMW show where Goto wrestled in every single match. It was one of those grand statements of intent that Goto was always great at, and felt like the beginning of a legacy of rookie development, as well as the first instance of Goto creating a place for less known indie workers to prosper.

    Regardless of the exact day, it's undeniable that by the mid-2000s, the Goto Sphere of Influence was in full swing. Wrestlers from the sphere were spread all across the indies, and at least three different arenas had been built just for Goto's wrestling. The most recent of these, Asakusa Indies Arena (a combination wrestling arena and hot pot restaurant), was hosting wrestling on a nearly-daily basis, giving the more obsessive indie fans a chance to watch Goto's finest wrestlers while chowing down on Goto's finest chanko. Many of the wrestlers working in Asakusa were from Goto's own dojo, or at least had spent enough time working there to get a few training sessions under their belt, creating a smaller-scale indie scene almost entirely exclusive to the Asakusa arena.

    One of the groups regularly running in Asakusa, maybe the strangest of them all thus far, was Shitamachi Pro.

The Asasuka Misfit Parade

    Started by Jiro Kurumashita in 2006, Shitamachi Pro was an immediate standout among the lineup of Asakusa promotions, mostly for how weird it was. The first show featured an offer match from Gatokunyan (the Ice Ribbon predecessor), a battle between Australian indie workers, and the debuts of Shitamachi regulars Kanabun and Kurumashita in incredibly weird and awfully worked matchups. Asakusa already had a couple "so bad it's good" companies appearing there irregularly, but none had ever been as trashy as Shitamachi. From the moment the main event ended with a pinfall count where the ref skipped the 1, a star was born.

    Shitamachi's next show was more of the same, including the debut of future ace Bakabon no Papa, Stalker The Great Otakuman's transformation into Asakusa Presley (a weird Elvis gimmick complete with an eyemask with eyes on it), and a big main event between Kurumashita and standout amateur scene freak The Bosconian. The show also drew a solid crowd of 50 people, a perfectly respectable number for the intimate environment of Asakusa. 

    At least, it was on the surface. The fact of the matter is almost the entire crowd were there for a company farewell party. In actuality, only one person had shown up in Asakusa with the intentions of watching Shitamachi Pro, and it just so happened that 49 other people had arrived and simply stuck around for the show.

    Still, Shitamachi's third show in November was set to be the biggest one yet, with sleaze scene top guy Dragon Soldier LAW on the card and a main event set to decide the first Shitamachi Openweight champion. If any show would ever draw in a crowd, it would be that one.

"What if no one comes?"

    The start of the day was business as usual. Ring announcer (and excellent source for this story) Wonderman arrived for the show at 6:00 PM, and began helping the rest of the crew finalize a schedule for the show. For the next hour and a half, nothing seemed too out of the ordinary. Around 7:40 PM, cameraman Yoshino (as in Mutoha's Yoshino, and another great source for the story) arrived from filming that day's NEO show for highlights on a news broadcast. Yoshino was set to film this show as well, which he would then give to SamuraiTV in case they had any interest in including footage on Occupation Of The Indiez.

    It was around that time that the crew realized that nobody had showed up for the event yet. Everyone started to joke around about the situation, asking "well, what are we gonna do if nobody shows up?". Twenty minutes later, the clock struck 8:00 PM, the show's start time. Nothing had changed. The wrestlers and staff continued to joke around, guessing that people would start turning up shortly. Around 8:15 PM, everyone realized that their jokes may not have been too far from the truth. They waited even longer. Time ticked away.

    Finally, at 8:30 PM, Wonderman, Jiro Kurumashita, and Tarzan Goto began discussing what to do. As far as I'm aware, we've never gotten word on how their discussion went in terms of the finer details. What we do know, however, is that Tarzan Goto made the final call, both as on-site manager and the most senior official at the event. Goto's decision was to run the show regardless of whether any fans had arrived. Inspired by his empty arena match against Onita in 1990, Goto saw the potential held by Yoshino's camera, and decided it was worth running the show just for the sake of it being filmed. As reported in Weekly Pro, the only ones in the building were the wrestlers, the ring crew, ring announcer Wonderman, cameraman Yoshino, on-site manager Goto, the representatives of Mizukami Pro and Gatokunyan (there to discuss unrelated business with Goto), and a boiling pot.

You Wrestle, You're A Wrestler

    The events of the show itself were, surprisingly, very spirited. Tarzan Goto decided to stand ringside with Yoshino, which seemed to motivate all the Shitamachi workers to do their best regardless of the lack of fans. For most of the show, Goto and Yoshino yucked it up, cracking jokes about the wrestlers and the circumstances. Goto mentioned that fans had said before they only wanted to see "a little bit" of Shitamachi, and Yoshino responded that they seemingly didn't want to see any bit of it. It's the kind of thing that makes me wish I actually tried on Duolingo, so I could understand more of what they're saying than just the captioned stuff. 

    Notable happenings of the show included Dragon Soldier LAW's burial by the newly-debuted "Executioner" (Shitamachi's Undertaker), a referee thinking that the English word "four" meant "five" in Japanese (which made Goto nearly die laughing), and Kurumashita becoming the first Shitamachi Openweight champ in a 21-minute match, winning after hitting Bakabon no Papa with seven backdrops in a row. Even if not a single fan was in the building, everyone in Shitamachi Pro put on the kind of show only they could, and the show only happened because of the man running the building. As Wonderman put it, "it's a decision only Goto could make."

Shitamachi Revolution

    The impact of the show was almost immediate. Wonderman sent a fax release of the show's results to Mobile Gong (a now defunct wrestling magazine and website), only for a Mobile Gong reporter to call him right after to confirm whether the details of the show were correct. Gong and Weekly Pro soon published the results, and Shitamachi became the talk of the town as the first genuine "no customers" show in Japanese wrestling history. The footage aired on Occupation a few weeks later, finally giving people visual proof of the complete absence of fans and causing interest in Shitamachi to explode. It was, as Goto had predicted, Yoshino's camera that had made running the show worth it.

    While attendance numbers didn't skyrocket following this show, they certainly began to climb. Most of that had to do with the popularity of the fanless show, but a solid chunk came from the sixth event on April 8th, 2007. A few months before then, DDT had ran an angle where Kota Ibushi asked for special stipulations to his new contract before re-signing with the company. One of these requests was the ability to work a date for Shitamachi. While this was just a one-off joke, Jiro Kurumashita decided to take a chance on it, contacting Ibushi and DDT to ask if they had any interest in actually having Ibushi work Shitamachi. Both said yes, and Ibushi main evented the sixth show, going to a 15 minute draw against Asakusa Presley before working an impromptu ten man tag. For this show, Shitamachi drew 60 fans, a number they would hover around on every show for the next two years.

    Shitamachi continued to run shows on a regular basis until 2009, when the Asakusa Fight Club closed its doors. After an extended hiatus, Shitamachi returned as "Shin Shitamachi", and returned to running shows irregularly for the next three years. Many of the older characters began to cycle out, as new faces like Kunihiko Mitamega, Tsuneo Yoshie, and Kani KING took over the cards. Shin Shitamachi Pro ran their final show on July 15th, 2012, ending with Bakabon no Papa, now Shitamachi Openweight champion, defending the title against Kunihiko Mitamega. The show drew a reported 50 fans, a number Shitamachi could've never imagined would be legitimate back in 2006.

    If there's one overall lesson to learn from the story of Shitamachi Pro, I'm not exactly sure what it is. Maybe that funny doesn't equal money until it does? Always film everything in case it makes you famous? Bank on Kota Ibushi? I'm just not sure. The only thing I can say with certainty is that Shitamachi Pro's explosion in popularity proves something I've never doubted: always trust Tarzan Goto.

Ballad Of The Frontiersmen

                     (Written by jom)

     Watching early FMW tapes with friends has reminded me that FMW is probably the greatest promotion of all time. Hell, you can chop off everything that happened after Onita's FMW retirement match and it'd still comfortably sit near the top. Early FMW scratches an itch for me that nothing else from the era does, standing as one of the final bastions for weird gimmicky territory-esque brawling and shenanigans. It's also one of my favorite things to groupwatch, and everything I talk about here comes from the latest instance of me hopping into a voice call and shooting the shit with the buds. I hope you don't have a Tarzan Goto allergy, because if you do, fuck you!!! 

Tarzan Goto vs. Invader #4 (05/29/1991)

     1991 Tarzan Goto deserved a run in Puerto Rico. At least two or three weeks, enough time to get a tag with Carlos Colon and singles matches with TNT and Miguel Perez under his belt. Here he is stepping up to Invader #4 (Jose Estrada Jr.) and completely knocking it outta the park with a great little gem of a brawl. They're tied together with a bull rope and it really has no effect on the match itself, as neither man concerns themselves with the rope. All they care about is hitting each other in the face and chest real hard. Both guys are great punchers, and when they aren't punching, they're chopping, something they're equally great at. Mr. Pogo plays a great manager here too, cutting off a big Goto house of fire with interference and eating his comeuppance a few minutes later. All it takes is four minutes for these men to put together a well-told story, and Tarzan Goto comes out of it looking like a complete badass. Probably one of the best sub-five minute matches of all time, or at least one that speaks to my interests more than many others.

Sambo Asako & Ricky Fuji vs. Big Titan & The Gladiator (09/23/1991)

    Big Titan and Gladiator are such a great team of big ass white guys. They are so good at throwing people, which is a wonderful skill to have when you've been given free reign to throw people. They do a lot of throwing in this match, an Elimination Stretcher Street Fight against two of the biggest fan favorites of the era. Seeing Gladiator somehow pull off a nasty nasty powerbomb on the massive Sambo Asako is a sight to behold. Asako in general is a sight to behold here, hitting weird avalanche DDTs and throwing himself cannon ball-style onto both men on the outside. He also gets hit with one of the gnarliest bumps I have ever seen to start the match, which does a great job of setting the bar for how much his ass would get kicked. Ricky Fuji is really hot in 1991 and I get why he was the way he was after seeing him be so hot. The finish is something I saw happen a good bit in IWE and it fills me with joy to see FMW bring it back, as FMW was IWE's true spiritual successor. Can't go wrong with this one.

Tarzan Goto vs. Leon Spinks (03/25/1992)

    Realistically speaking, this is the most culturally relevant opponent Goto has ever faced, right? Onita and Tenryu are icons of wrestling in Japan, and his stints in Memphis let him face relevant names stateside like Snuka and Lawler, but Leon Spinks goes beyond all of that by quite a bit. Simply put, I could namedrop Snuka and Lawler to my dad and probably get a few words about each, but Spinks would get at least a paragraph. All of that is to say that Goto enters this match with the exact sort of reverence for Spinks' boxing abilities that he deserves. Goto completely controls the first half of the match, but he does so via pure pro wrestling, diving for single legs and drop toe holds while doing everything he can to avoid any jabs or hooks thrown his way. It's a fantastic display of Goto's ability to work to the situation, as well as how explosive he can be, lunging at Spinks with quick and impactful lariats to pulls off some great close down counts. Once Spinks finally gets rolling with the punches, it's lights out for Tarzan Goto, who takes the shots like a champ and sells like death, all while building to a desperate and bloody final stand. Onita, deservingly, gets most of the praise for the early FMW different style fights, but this feels like it could stand right alongside the Onita/Soos or Onita/Matsunagas of the world. Goto finds himself in the Different Style danger zone, and he never once flinches or backs down. What a fight.

The Shooter vs. The Sheik (04/23/1992)

    Hello to The Sheik! I truly love the old man Sheik run in FMW, such a fun time even if Sheik nearly burned to death halfway into it. Very few old man wrestlers have possessed such a powerful fluoride stare, eyes like a dead fish that shoot right through you and into something much darker. Sheik running through crowds with the spike pointed directly out in front of him had to be one of the most terrifying things to witness in 1990s Japan. The Shooter, little rookie Katsutoshi Niiyama, surely knew exactly what he was in for here. That's probably why he jumped Sheik before the bell and punched him in the face as much as he could before Sheik could even get his hands on the spike. This is a demonstration in inevitability, a proof that sometimes things have to happen and no amount of struggle can prevent fate. Shooter certainly puts that to the test with all his fighting, but at the end of the day, the Sheik will be covered in blood, and none of it will be his own. If you like stabbing, you'll love this one.

Tarzan Goto & Atsushi Onita vs. Grigory Verichev & Koba Kurtanidze (12/09/1991)

    Man, Tarzan Goto sure was fighting a lot of gold medalists during the early 90s. Four months before he would face olympic boxing gold medalist Spinks, here he is teaming with big man Onita against judo gold medalists Verichev and Koba. The soviet judokas are super interesting to me, both because they absolutely rule and because I've seen barely anyone ever talk about them. Around 2017, there was this massive push online for a greater reverence for Gary Albright, motivated by a few music videos, a larger push for UWFi footage, and other miscellaneous factors, and the end result was a resounding success. Honestly, if that same effort was put towards canonizing Verichev and Koba, I think it would go the exact same route (even if there's significantly less Koba footage). The two are grappling monsters, eating Goto and Onita alive with tons of throws where they make the stocky wrestlers look as light as feathers from how easily they're manhandled. Verichev stands with his willingness to eat big bumps and great counter-play abilities (including a gargantuan ippon on Goto onto the floor), but Kobe really brings it home in the ending stretch by hitting Goto with some of the scariest belly to belly suplexes I have ever seen, somehow turning each one into a neck drop halfway into the motion. Onita and Goto deliver all the usual fireworks, complete with amazing Goto headbutts and tons of Onita fire, and they never relent in their attempts to conquer the soviet judo forces with the spirit of pro wrestling. It may not be as climactic as the previously-discussed Spinks match, but it makes up for it by being sooooo god damn fun. Fantastic match from four fantastic wrestlers in a fantastic company. I fucking love FMW!!!