Pro-Wrestling NOAH замесени в якудза скандал

[nWoHulkster]

Това се знаеше от известно време насам и даже в Япония се появиха две книги по въпроса, но сега вече детайлите започнаха да се появяват в Интернет и масовите японски медии. Далеч съм от идеята да превеждам, така че прочете следните три статии и вижте за какво става въпрос:

Pro Wrestling NOAH just announced that General Manager Ryu Nakata and Counselor Haruka Eigen had ties to the Yakuza from 2003 to 2010, working with them to sell tickets to the company's live events.

All of the major Japanese media covered the story, which will give the promotion a bad public image. Virtually every promotion in sports and entertainment in Japan has Yakuza tie-ins, but it's probably best analogized like the steroid issue in sports in the U.S. It's commonplace in every major sport, deep down everyone knows it, but if it comes out that somebody used it publicly, it's a black mark against them. Pride went down largely because of these revelations.

Exactly how this will fall out is unknown, but expect fall out very quickly.

NOAH was, at least among Japanese sports fans, the most popular promotion in the country for much of the last decade, but fell on hard times in recent years once losing its network television outlet. A financially-strapped NTV, due to the recession, canceled pro wrestling, one of the longest lasting shows in the history of television in any country, dating back more than 50 years. The death of president Mitsuharu Misawa was another gigantic blow. Without strong television, the company was unable to create new stars who could sell tickets like Misawa and the frequently injured and physically destroyed Kenta Kobashi.

Many of you are fully aware of the financial issues behind NOAH in the last few years, but as of late, following Misawa's passing, the information behind illegal funding and such means have started seeing the light of day to the normal public. Apparently Ryu Nakata has been connected to organized crime groups since 2003 and has used this connection to help in tickets and financial backing. NOAH has recently held a meeting to take make an effort to see that all issues are resolved. Akira Taue, the acting President of NOAH, announced 3 key points today (3/23) via a letter on NOAH's website.

1. Ryu Nakata and Haruka Eigen will both be demoted within the promotion, Nakata as active GM and Eigen as Advisor. They both will remain within the promotion, but nothing more than normal employees, no power within the promotion itself. It should be noted that Nakata has been a main financial backer for the promotion since day one and even owns the Differ Ariake which is NOAH's main building for holding shows.

2. NOAH will be developing and introducing new Compliance Regulations.

3. They will also be implementing a means to counteract organized crime and will be holding a special course for employees and wrestler to make sure this never happens again.

Given how close we are to the fifth anniversary of PRIDE’s transactional death to Zuffa, this story seems all too fitting… and predictable.

When Cyzo first came out with information last January regarding a ‘black money’ scandal in NOAH involving a yakuza couple taking 50M yen from the widow of Mitsuharu Misawa, it created a ripple effect. NOAH, no longer on broadcast television (Nippon TV), basically saw their chances of getting back on network TV crushed.

According to Cyzo, the yakuza couple got involved in essentially being a glorified money mark of sorts for NOAH wrestlers to keep them around by gifting them. The classic term ’sponsor’ in Japan often means a yakuza money mark in the fight game. What blew up in the face of Misawa’s wife is that she trusted the couple and didn’t know they were yakuza. Read our link from January to find out how deep the yakuza scamsters got their hooks into Misawa’s wife, now the owner of NOAH. She ended up going to civil court in Tokyo to seize the couple’s house.

As would soon be revealed, it was long-time veteran hand Haruka Eigen & Mitsuharu Misawa right-hand man Ryu Nakata (the famous ring announcer from All Japan) who had hooked up NOAH with the yakuza money people. Eigen essentially took over the role of Mitsuo Momota (Rikidozan’s son), who promptly left NOAH after Misawa’s death. Nakata became the GM of NOAH and the iron fist after winning a political battle with Kenta Kobashi over how to manage the company. It is Nakata who has taken a ‘hardline’ tact of releasing wrestlers.

What blew up the black money scandal for NOAH is that it was revealed that the yakuza couple in question were basically stealing money from senior citizens and financing their charades with the NOAH boys. In other words, a Bernie Madoff-type scandal.

Last week, publisher Takarajima released a new scandal book on NOAH. The angle of the book was from ‘an insider’s perspective’ on what happened. It turns out that the face of said book is Jun Izumida, former All Japan & NOAH wrestler. Izumida’s reputation is well-known — permanent mid-carder for life, coffee boy like Tamon Honda was for Misawa. Izumida made a lot of money during his wrestling career, way more than you would expect. So, for him to publicly be the guy to lay the hatchet down, that was quite a statement.

Around the same time as the release of the book, Kodansha publication Flash soon jumped on the black money scandal story. At that point, NOAH was in crisis mode.

Today, the company released a statement saying that both Haruka Eigen & Ryu Nakata would be demoted, at the very least, if not resign. Akira Taue claimed that NOAH would implement new anti-yakuza protocols and that management would undergo training soon on how to avoid yakuza connections.

Whether the resignations are real or not, Japan has always been about saving face and image first more than substance — especially in the fight game. Last year, Keiji Mutoh ‘resigned’ as President of All Japan after a major scandal involving a wrestler (Nobukazu Hirai) getting beat up & crippled backstage at a show in Hyogo. Despite said resignation, Mutoh is still the face of All Japan. No one’s batted an eye and nobody brings up Hirai’s name any more.

So, yakuza involvement in the Japanese fight game is nothing new but it’s still as corrosive as ever. Without yakuza money, it’s hard to see where money is going to come into play for promoters in the fight game. As one friend put it to me recently, they see the Japanese fight scene as having their own version of a ‘lost decade’ if not longer over what has happened.

DREAM is dormant and basically Real Entertainment is a booking agency at this point. Despite all the big talk & promises about a come back, Kazuyoshi Ishii is impotent as far as his power goes. He’s also aged very much in the last few years. New Japan is the only real player because of the fact that they are backed by Bushiroad, which isn’t afraid to throw around cash. However, it should be noted that Bushiroad acquired New Japan from Yukes when it was revealed that Bushiroad had made a significant loan to Yukes to keep things afloat.

All of this is bad news for the Japanese scene. The police are furiously moving into territory they haven’t gone after before with such aggression. Will they win the war? Can a fight scene exist in Japan without yakuza money or scamsters looking to glom on? History says no.

[Jericho]

Просто нема медиен ентъртейнмънт у Япония, който да не се изхранва от пари на якузата. Ако искате вервайте, но дори и Рейнджърите са перална.

Шляканото е, че преди ако имаше некаква минималистична надежда, състоянието на федерацията да се стабилизира, сега вече, просто ЕПТЕМ нема. Факта, че публично изтекаха тия помии им затваря всички възможни врати. Просто нема кой да им пусне фъндък да прават тв-шоу. Сички ТВ, ППВ договори, нема да се учуда да бъдат прекратени. Сигурен съм че и Сасаки че прекъсне сички връзки с тех моментално.

Най-оптималния вариант е организацията да се закрие и ростера да бъде откупен от AJPW. Това ще е като животворен сок за AJPW и след неколко години и кадърен буукинг, би могло отново да ги дигне до нивото на NJPW.

Сега се молим па тех да не ги разкрият...

[teddy_hart]

Просто нема медиен ентъртейнмънт у Япония, който да не се изхранва от пари на якузата. Ако искате вервайте, но дори и Рейнджърите са перална.

Шляканото е, че преди ако имаше некаква минималистична надежда, състоянието на федерацията да се стабилизира, сега вече, просто ЕПТЕМ нема. Факта, че публично изтекаха тия помии им затваря всички възможни врати. Просто нема кой да им пусне фъндък да прават тв-шоу. Сички ТВ, ППВ договори, нема да се учуда да бъдат прекратени. Сигурен съм че и Сасаки че прекъсне сички връзки с тех моментално.

Най-оптималния вариант е организацията да се закрие и ростера да бъде откупен от AJPW. Това ще е като животворен сок за AJPW и след неколко години и кадърен буукинг, би могло отново да ги дигне до нивото на NJPW.

Сега се молим па тех да не ги разкрият...

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