It Could Be Said #17 The War of Minoru’s Earworm
A look at why The Suzuki Incident illustrates how some of the Japanese legend's biggest fans misunderstand him and his place in modern pro-wrestling
It would be fair to say that All Elite Wrestling is on a roll at the moment, achieving rare critical and commercial success. They’ve not only just came off a pay per view in All Out 2021 that is being talked about as one of the greatest in pro wrestling history, but for once put together a Dynamite that most people agreed capitalised on the prior momentum. Not only did the pay per view break the record for the most purchased non-WWE special since WCW’s business imploded over the summer of 1999, but the follow-up Dynamite was behind only the show’s debut in terms of American viewership.
There was however an issue. Not just an issue but a problem. Not just a problem but an outrage.
A pro-wrestler didn’t get their entrance played in full.
The Real Intergenerational Violence
On the day of Dynamite, if I hadn’t been shouting at Wallmart for taking my money whilst rejecting my order, I would have been writing about how British leftists are wrong to believe that politics is defined by a clash between more fortunate older people and less fortunate younger people. But boy should those leftists love Jon Moxley, who has quietly been taking the war to New Japan’s murder grandpas over the past few months. He had a mini-feud with the old-at-heart KENTA, before besting Yuji Nagata on a random episode of Dynamite and then Satoshi Kojima at All Out. Speaking to PW TORCH’s Rich Fann before the pay per view, I suggested that the logical conclusion of the matchmaking was for the most murderous of murder grandpas to resume his rivalry with the former AEW Champion. I was proven right more quickly than I expected.
It was a simple angle but it was brilliant one. Moxley was celebrating his victory only for Kaze Ni Nare to start playing. Minoru Suzuki sauntered to the ring as the hardest of hardcore fans belted out his song, and then the former King of Pancrase had a fun mini-battle with the American superstar, which the invader won conclusively. But this was more than an incredible moment, it was a smart piece of matchmaking. AEW’s next show was in Moxley’s hometown of Cincinnati, and they needed a high-profile opponent to do the job to him in the main event. Rather than hotshot a match with one of their own upper mid-carders, which would risk wasting a marketable match they could make more use of in the future, they brought somebody else in. Somebody they knew would have an awesome match with Moxley.
Which is indeed what happen. It was a more succinct version of their match in Osaka just before the pandemic really started to bite, and was a testament to their natural chemistry. They hit each other hard, busting out things like headbutt exchanges that you don’t normally see on American television. Moxley even bit Suzuki’s forehead, a call-back to him having a “blinded” eye during their previous match. The gory visual of blood rushing from Suzuki’s face further elevated what was a good and unusually fresh TV main event.
Sadly, rather than praise the performers for their efforts, many people were focused on the arena’s DJ.
Top of the Pops
It goes without saying that Kaze Ni Nare is one of the greatest combat sports theme songs of all time. I’ve been present at shows ranging from crowds of 600 to 6000 people present when that song was played, and the only entrance that to my mind comes anywhere close is seeing Yoshihiro Akiyama enter the 02 Arena to Time To Say Goodbye at UFC 120. What makes Kaze Ni Nare such a brilliant entrance theme, is it’s not only a beautiful peace of music in its own right, but it does everything you could ask of an entrance song. It has a distinctive opening sting so people immediately know who’s coming out, it builds in tempo to match the building of excitement as the fighter approaches the ring, and sets up a communal war cry from the crowd; one that Suzuki never fails to flamboyantly conduct.
So I get it. If I was a big Suzuki fan in the Cinnancti crowd, I would be extremely disappointed to not get the full entrance. Well…except for the fact that I would almost certainly have purchased my tickets before he was announced less than three days beforehand, and so actually getting to see Suzuki live would actually be a cool bonus. Indeed, it was noticeable that whilst fans on Twitter complained about being taken out of the match by what has become known as The Suzuki Incident, the live fans happily sung along to Moxley’s theme song, and then enjoyed the match.
So it was actually fans on Twitter complaining about not getting to see Suzuki’s full entrance on their television. Which I’m sorry, just seems absurd to me. Less than three days ago we all got to saw an AEW crowd get to participate in the extra-long version of his entrance. Had they missed it? Had they forgotten it? If neither was the case, was were they so mad about not getting a reprise less than 72hours later? After all, there’s no way a smaller and less hardcore crowd would manage to top the welcome Chicago gave Suzuki.
Some hilariously argued that not playing his music in full couple with a relatively short match time1 would deeply annoy New Japan. That’s something that nobody who has engaged with how his current home promotion treats Suzuki could say. New Japan have not only not given him a singles match at Wrestle Kingdom since 2018, but they exiled him to NOAH for a prolonged period and currently believe that Chase Owens can add more to the G-1 than him. CHASE OWENS! And they’ve not been above monkeying around with his entrance either!
Suzuki isn’t Kurtis Chapman or The Sandman. It is possible to enjoy his work in the ring even if you don’t get the joy of singing along to his entrance beforehand. It’s baffling that people forgot this whilst he was having a short and sharp banger with Moxley.
What Went On?
So what actually happened? Let’s take the explanation that most people rushed to – that AEW had failed to time their show out properly, and so due to running long, they cut Suzuki’s entrance. This led to people going through the show with a fine tooth comb identifying points where they could cut time to give Suzuki his entrance. This ignores two things; firstly that timing issues are an inherent risk in running a live television show with some semblance of spontaneity. WWE already exists if you want a product where everyone is micromanaged to the point that time cues are rarely missed. Secondly, Suzuki isn’t a member of the AEW roster. I agree he’s better than Dan Lambert, Matt Hardy, Will Hobbs, etc but for better or worse, it’s actually those guys the promotion is making a sustained investment in.
But I’m personally not convinced that the time being cut was an accident. My initial suspicion was that this was about them being worried about devoting too much time to an entrance the television audience wouldn’t have been familiar with. We know AEW is looking for small wins in how they structure their television show, and dedicating two minutes to the entrance of a pro-wrestler that many (probably most) of their audience had never seen before would be begging for people to change the channel2. Indeed, it’s worth noting that the final quarter of Dynamite was the least watched of the second hour, suggesting those concerns were valid.
Over the course of the past few days another possibility has arisen, that this was all a ploy to create a rationale for a match at Arthur Ashe stadium. AEW quickly announced that Suzuki would join former Suzuki-Gun member Lance Archer on this week’s Dynamite, whilst on the weekend’s AEW Dark tapings, Eddie Kingston issued a challenge to the two of them to face him and Moxley in New York. Some have speculated that this was the promotion scrambling to make lemonade out of a lemon, but I’m not sure. Everything about last Wednesday screamed that Moxley was being treated as a bigger star, and it would be very AEW to use that to give the heels a rationale for coming after him again. And it’s worth noting that Archer was hinting at doing stuff with Suzuki before last week’s Dynamite.
The reality is that we got to see something amazing last week. Minoru Suzuki headlined a live pro-wrestling show on American television, something that not even New Japan wouldn’t do with their specials on AXS TV3. I really think this weird obsession with his entrance theme not only overlooked what an incredible moment that was, but was disrespectful of the match him and Moxley presented. We not only got him hitting hard and fighting through a cut that needed seven sitches, but he literally drank his own blood on American television.
The song is excellent. But it’s a curtain call for the real attraction. It’s not about the singer or the song, but the fighter. Too many people forgot that last week.
I thought the match length was fine although the picture-and-picture gimmick was even worse than normal in a match where the sound of both men’s verbal taunts and physical blows add so much. And as I’ve written about before, the only way to get major main events down to a reasonable length is for lesser main events and mid-card matches to be shorter so that a twenty-minute once again feels epic. I think AEW have actually done a good job on this score recently.
My impression is that AEW usually cuts entrances short on television unless there’s a good reason not to i.e. the crowd singing Judas or a hometown hero making a hot entrance. Noteworthy that neither PAC nor Andrade got an entrance on last week’s Rampage before their match
I always thought the post-Dominion 2019 Being The Elite should have ended with Cody Rhodes walking towards Kenny Omega’s hotel room only for both Omega and Kota Ibushi to be thrown through the door by Suzuki-Gun. Suzuki would have been a fresh opponent for Omega, that I think would have done big business in the States, and would have been truer to the evolution of the Omega/Rhodes dynamic.