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The World According To Dutch: Wrestling In Japan

Posted: Nov 17th 2009 By: CMBurnham

Thus far, the response to my book has been great and I want to thank all the fans who have emailed about the book.

There's a ton of things that I need to update you on in this Special Edition of The World According to Dutch. I'll update you on my match with Jeff Jarrett over the weekend and plus a great story below about wrestling in Japan which is a completely 100% true story.

Last Saturday night, I stepped back into a wrestling ring for which could have been my last match ever. Princeton, Kentucky is a town 100 miles northwest of Nashville, Tennessee that is like a thousand other little towns across this country. The place was sold completely out. Attendance was around the 3,000 range...OK it wasn't sold out but it did in the 600/700 range which is phenomenal considering the size of the town. Great old school crowd with a lot more adults that kids. A lot of long time Memphis fans were there. I had a lot of people coming up to me and telling me that they are reading this blog so thank you for that.

The match was good. Don't get it in your head that the Dirty Dutchman went out there and turned it into a A. J. Styles high flying X Division encounter because that didn't happen but nobody walked away that night disappointed. I'll have to give it to my opponent, he was good last Saturday. He looked rested and relaxed but that was before I kicked the crap out of him. Then he didn't look so relaxed. Believe it or not, I taught Jeff Jarrett some manners that he should have learned a long time ago. I actually drug Jeff Jarrett's lazy butt around that ring for 15 minutes before he somehow changed all the rules and turned it into a tag match. I don't know how he got that stuff by the Kentucky Athletic Commission but he's a Jarrett and he's used to dealing under the table. Bastard. So for all intents and purposes, I claim victory in the match by default. It's a long story but for the fans who were present, they got a good night last Saturday night.

Being in that town brought back a lot of memories. Princeton, Kentucky looks the same today as it did 25 years ago. It reminded me of the town they filmed Slingblade in. Some of those fans came from 3 hours away to see the match so the interest was still there. Of course, a lot of kids didn't know who I was so to punish them for their ignorance, I took a bunch of them around the back and bullwhipped them a little. I'll teach them not to know their wrestling history. That town will never be the same again.

Now the new blog.

Wrestling in Japan!!!

Not for the Faint of Heart

I wrestled in Japan several times but early in my career, I went for a brand new group that I found out later was called the UWF. I didn't know the UWF from the VFW. This was in the mid 80's and at that time, I had been wrestling for 8 years or so. Terry Funk was handling the booking of all the American talent for the group and Jimmy Hart had called me and told me that Terry wanted a cowboy type for the next tour. The money was good and Jimmy suggested my name to Terry. I had met Terry in Puerto Rico a few years earlier so Terry got in contact with me and we made a deal. We agreed on everything, they sent the contracts and I sent them the passport information...you know all the legal things that needed to be done to go over there. I was set to go. This would be my second official tour of Japan.

When I had gone to Japan before, I had gone for Giant Baba's promotion, All Japan, so going for another group was exciting. Or so it seemed at the time. I was living in Nashville so I flew to Los Angeles where I boarded a Japan Airlines flight to Tokyo. The flight time from LAX to Tokyo's Narita airport hovers around the 11/12 hour mark which is a long time to be in the air.

On the trip with me were Scott Casey and Big Bob Sweetan who I all met when I arrived in Los Angeles. I had known Scott since we worked together in Florida a few years earlier but this was the first time I had ever met Bob. Both were good guys. Sometimes on long extended trips with guys, you'll find out things that you never knew about them and really didn't want or need to know. Such was the case with Scott as he revealed to me, after we had been in Japan for about a week, that he had been married 7 times. Scott was a young man at the time and he must have changed wives like he changed shirts. Since this trip was close over 25 years ago, Scott would have had time to get married 10 more times. I haven't seen or heard of Scott since then but if anybody has any new information about him, I would love to hear it. I didn't find out much about Bob Sweetan because Bob wasn't much of a talker.

Funny thing about leaving the States headed to Japan is that the flight departed that day at 1PM in the afternoon and 11 hours later, when we arrived in Tokyo, it was still 1PM but the next day. International flights such as LA to Tokyo screw every one's internal clocks up. It takes several days for the jet lag to wear off after you make such a trip like this.

11 hours on a plane is brutal. Anything over 4 hours is too much for me. The flight was so long that I got drunk and sobered up...TWICE on the way over. We chased the sun west all day long and, as you can imagine, by the time I got to Tokyo, I had spent close to 15 hours in the air. So by the time the plane touched down, all of us were ready for some rest. Our itinerary said that we would have one rest day before we went to work in Japan. But no sooner than we landed, we found out that the schedule had changed. We were going to work a TV taping that night that had just been added at the last minute. We grabbed our bags. cleared customs and hopped right onto a bus headed to the taping. The tour was underway. Even though it was 3PM in Tokyo, my body clock was showing 5AM in the states. I could already feel the jet lag effects coming on.

The bus was a nice travel bus with TV's and a seating capacity of about 30 people. On the tour with us were about 6 Mexican wrestlers with the most notable being Perro Aguayo who, at the time, was one of the best that Mexico had. This trip would be my first introduction to the lucha libre style and it fascinated me. When the Mexicans worked, they never took time to slow down and I tried to watch their matches every night. Later on, I stopped watching their matches. You'll understand later on.

When everyone was aboard the bus, we started driving...and driving...and driving. I had never seen a city so large. Our first night we were on the outskirts of Tokyo and we had to have driven 2 hours from the airport to get just 30 miles outside the city. I can't even begin to tell you what the name of the place we were in. All I knew was that I was somewhere in Japan headed to an unknown place to wrestle some unknown people. I was in the dark as to where I was going and who I was going to be doing it with. So was everybody else.

We finally arrived at a nice little arena at about 5PM local time. We all grabbed our bags and headed inside the arena. On the wall outside the dressing room, they had posted the lineup for that night. It was written in English and Japanese. The first night I found out I was booked in a title match with someone named Maeda, who I didn't know from Adam's House Cat, but he was the champion of the group. Or he was going to be champion. Or something like that. At the time, I didn't know the name of the group...I didn't know the name of the belt...I didn't know the guy I was wrestling...hell, I didn't even know the name of the town I was in. All I could have told you was that I was in Japan. Truthfully, I had never heard of Maeda but, by the end of the night, I knew more about him than I cared to know.

I tried to get some sleep but I was too tired. Plus laying on a floor to sleep isn't very conducive to restful slumber. Little did I know that I would be an expert on floor sleeping before this tour was over.

The little arena would hold probably 3,000 people and it was full the first night. Japanese crowds are so completely different from American crowds. The fans are very polite and sit and wait for big moves and then they respond by collectively sighing...OOH!!!! Or AHH!!! Then they applaud a little bit and then quieten down. Japanese crowds didn't respond the way I had seen American or Puerto Rican crowds respond. When I say they sit...I mean, they literally sit on the floor.

Since this was a TV taping, all the TV cameras were in place and the arena was full. The night started out with the Mexicans up first and they were great. Then Sweetan and Casey went out and did their thing. Then it was my turn. Since the promotion was taping TV that night, none of the matches went long. I met with Maeda, maybe 2 minutes before our match, and that was it. He was a big kid, 6'2" and about 230 which for a Japanese pro wrestler is pretty big. It was a title match and, of course, I would be doing the honors that night, of making Maeda look good. By the time the match was over, Maeda looked great and I looked and felt like hell.

By the time I went to the ring for my match, my internal body clock was telling me that I had been up for 24 straight hours. I was young but even at that age, the trip coupled with the jet lag was kicking my ass. The match started and, as usually the case in Japan in those days, there were about 10 photographers surrounding the ring. Maeda wasn't the easiest guy to work with. I should have known with TV cameras rolling tape and the Japanese press present, the match would be extra solid. I was right. It was.

When the match started, Maeda came after me like a banshee. I don't know how banshees really come at you but I figure they must be pretty aggressive little bastards. He attacked me and started wailing away like I'd stolen something from him. I started wailing back. He hit hard and I hit hard. Hell, I had to hit hard. He was killing me. He wasn't hitting me in the face but he was throwing forearms and kicks out of nowhere and they were connecting. But Maeda had more juice that night. Hell, he should have had more juice. I had been awake for 24 hours. I didn't know that sleep deprivation was included on the job requirements. I finally got him stopped or should I say he stopped himself when blew up beating the crap out of me. The finish of the match came unexpectedly. Out of nowhere, Maeda delivered a spinning back heel kick from HELL that knocked my ass out. He bloodied my eye, my mouth and my nose all with one kick. If I didn't know better, I would have thought I'd had sex with his wife or something. I don't think I've been hit harder in street fights. I don't even remember him getting the pin. The only thing I remember after the match is being helped back to the dressing room and thinking to myself that this tour hadn't really gotten off on a positive note. What had I gotten into I thought?

After the match, I stumbled back into the dressing room, a trainer grabbed me and was checking on me. Maeda came up to me and he was so apologetic. He was bowing and and nodding and saying...so sorry..so sorry...so sorry. Sorry my ass. Here, I had a guy who damn near decapitated me and then he was asking for forgiveness. Out of professionalism, I accepted his apology. But this day wasn't one of my shining days in the pro wrestling business. When we got back on the bus for the trip to the hotel, my head was still ringing. I checked the schedule for the rest of the tour. I wasn't booked against him again and I was glad. At least I had something to look forward to.

The trip to the hotel were were staying that night was another hour ride. Tokyo was one big ass place I found out. Tokyo was home to over 30 million people so imagine the traffic. I actually passed out from exhaustion as did the entire crew of foreigners who were on the bus. When we arrived at our hotel, we were in downtown Tokyo at a large hotel named the Kiel Plaza. For those of you who are more familiar with Japan, I think that was the name of the hotel. It was a nice western hotel with western style beds. Later on in the tour, western style beds became an issue.

We were off the next day and I slept until 5PM in the afternoon. Everybody did because we were all resetting our internal clocks to Japan time. When I got up, the office had delivered just the sports section of a newspaper to my room and slid it under my door. Of course, I couldn't read Japanese but the photos in the sports section were self-explanatory. Pro wrestling in Japan, at the time, carried almost rock star status and was covered hugely by the press. Wrestling shared the same stage as sumo wrestlers, baseball players and movie stars. Funny, with my busted eye and mouth, I didn't exactly feel like a movie star.

As I looked at the main sports page, there was a photo of me and Maeda taken the night before exactly at the time of impact when he threw his spinning heel kick. Yep, he took my head off with it. It looked exactly like it felt. Brutal.

The first few days in Japan, your body tries to acclimate itself to a time that is 10 time zones away from your normal time. It's a weird feeling so it takes a full two to three days for your body to adjust.

The next morning, the tour was supposed to start in earnest. We all met downstairs in the lobby so we could all board the bus. The tour was for 17 days with 12 events scheduled. On this tour were three Americans, 6 Mexicans and the rest were Japanese. The Mexicans were all booked together every night and only Sweetan, Casey and me were booked against the Japanese guys. On the bus trips, we had three languages all going on at the same time and nobody knew what the other groups were saying. You're only see that on wrestling tours and baseball teams. The trip that day would be a 5 or 6 hour bus trip to some other arena south of Tokyo and the bus had probably 20 guys on it with all our bags as well.

FYI, while we were in Japan, we used every form of transportation possible. We traveled by bus, by plane, by train and by ferry boat. The train was the world famous Bullet which traveled in excess of a 100 miles per hour and it was a smooth ride.

Photo to the right: On the ferry boat in the Sea of Japan. Where was I going? I have no idea but it was to one of the islands you see in the background.

Since I wasn't wrestling Maeda, which I was damn glad I wasn't, I felt pretty good about the rest of the tour. At least, I wouldn't be getting my head knocked off. Thats what I thought. That night, I found out dirrerently. Even though I had a different opponent, the wrestling was brutal again. As soon as the bell rang, my opponent, without warning, attacked me like I owed him money or I'd called his mother a crackhead whore or something. This time I was more rested up and the kid wasn't as big as Maeda so I literally beat the crap out of him. I tried working with him but I found out quick that wasn't going to work. So I beat him up. Damn, what had I gotten myself into?
The next night was more of the same. I had a different opponent every night but damn, these guys were hard to handle. The more I tried to work with them, the more of a fight they put up. I had to guard against leg sweeps, leg kicks, body kicks, head kicks, head butts. Damn I thought? Who trained these MF'ers? F'n Bruce Lee? It was all I could do to keep from getting hurt. I didn't want to hurt anybody either but the ole Dutchman took priority. I finally found out that I was much safer if I stayed on offense most of the match. I adopted the role of ass kicker instead of ass kickee. I didn't even want these SOB's to even touch me because everytime they did, it hurt. They apparently had no clue as to what they were doing unless they were trying to beat you senseless because apparently, nobody had taken much time in instructing them. Or they had instructed them too much in making it as realistic as they could. If that was the plan, they did a good job.

Since none of them spoke English, it was a battle every night. I began to think what was the deal with these guys. It was a fight every night. I knew that this was an entirely new group but I thought that maybe this is just how they worked. I surmised that they were really into this 'realistic' style wrestling thing.

So about a week goes by and I still have another 10 days to go and I'm fighting off these Japanese bastards like I'm repelling a friggin human wave attack on the beaches of Iwo Jima back in World War 2 and frankly, I was getting the dog shit beat out of me every night trying to beat the shit out of them. I was bruised up and sore from all the shots I was taking. I was begging somebody to work with me. At the time, I was aobut 30 years old. Some of these kids were 22 and full of fire. None of the Japanese boys spoke English. Hell, they couldn't even say yes or no. They literally didn't speak or understand one word of English.

So since I knew no Japanese, when I did try to talk to them, they would all smile and bow their heads and say hi, hi, hi. I learned later that 'hi' meant yes in Japanese. When they said 'hi', I just thought they were being friendly. We had a translator on the tour with us but he was about as useless as tits on a boar hog. He wasn't a Mensa candidate by any stretch of the imagination. He actually was dumber than a box of rocks. I don't think I've ever seen a dumb ass Japanese kid but this guy was slow. I tried to enlist him to help me communicate with these young kids but he made it worse. Where was Google when you really needed their language translator program?

My little communication sessions evolved down to pantomime sessions in the back but it didn't matter. The language barrier was too much to overcome. No matter how friendly they seemed to bebor how much Marcel Marceau I did, they all morphed into Godzilla on the way to the ring. Unless they all possessed some type of character disorder, their personality changed dramatically from the dressing room to the ring. I knew the group was young and they were trying to eke out an identity in the world of Japanese pro wrestling but they were making headway the hard way.

I was beginning to dislike the tour. I didn't think 17 days could actually feel like 3 months. This was a tour in which we only spent the first night and the last night of the tour in Tokyo which meant the rest of the time we were in smaller towns without the amenities of the larger city hotels. We spent almost every night in a traditional Japanese hotel which sounds great on a travel brochure until you realize that traditional means simple and basic. Simple and basic meant sleeping on the floor like the older Japanese people did years ago. I don't know about you but sleeping on a floor isn't very comfortable especially after a match in which you've gotten the dog s**t beat out of you. In traditional Japanese hotels, the bathrooms aren't even in the hotel room. To go to the bathroom or to take a shower, you had to leave your room to do. It was February and and it was cold and there was very little heat in the rooms too. So not only was I sleeping on the floor but I was freezing my ass off doing it.

This tour wasn't like we were laying around in our rooms all day waiting to leave for the matches. When we left the hotel in the morning, we didn't go to the next hotel where we would spend the next night. We went directly to the next arena and spent all day there lollygagging around. Then after the matches were over, we'd head to the hotel. That got old quick. The other Americans on the tour with me were getting a little testy too but who were we going to complain to? Nobody spoke f'n English. I would watch Scott and Sweetan in the ring during their matches and they were having to beat the Japanese guys up too.

I actually started thinking about leaving early but they had taken all our passports when we arrived in country so I couldn't just up and leave if I wanted to.

After the first 10 days, I was tired. I was over the jet lag but the effects of the matches were getting to me. Plus eating rice and curry every night, drinking green tea and sleeping on the floor wasn't helping too much either. I asked our tour guide, you know the one who was dumber than a rock, did they have Western style beds in Japan and he said yes. But I had only seen one on the tour and that was the first night in Tokyo at the big hotel where we stayed. Staying at traditional Japanese hotels and sleeping on the floor isn't my idea of getting peaceful rest. The tour guide told me that the traditional hotels were in vogue in the 40's and were very popular in Japan at the time. I thought to myself, if this was the way the Japanese lived in the 40's, I can see how the Japanese might have gotten a hard on for Americans and attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Hell, they were looking for a bed with 800 thread count sheets.

I asked the other two Americans on the tour with me why we were staying at traditional Japanese hotels and Bob Sweetan gave me the answer. He told me that the tour we were on was financed and funded by the Japanese Mafia. He told me that the Mafia controlled and financed a lot of wrestling in the country and they also controlled or managed a majority of the traditional Japanese hotels. The Mafia controlled a lot of the legitimate businesses including the tour bus we were traveling in and the restaurants we had been eating at. So now it became clear that it was one hand paying the other hand.

I had learned on my very first trip to Japan that the Mafia is not to be messed with . Of course, Mafia in Japan and Mafia in the States meant that these guys didn't live by same rules the rest of us were required to recognize. So it was best not to get on the wrong side of them. You could more or less tell who was a Mafia member. They all dressed the same. Black suit, white shirt, black tie and sunglasses. It could be 12 midnight but they'd still have their sunglasses on. From what I'd heard about the Japanese Mafia, they were some bad dudes. When we would go out after the matches to eat, a lot of the Mafia guys would show up. After I learned that the Mafia was in control of the tour, I didn't say much more because it was common knowledge that the Japanese Mafia didn't play around. By this time in the tour, I just wanted to get through it without reenacting a scene from the Godfather.

Usually on most Japanese tours, the office takes the entire crew out to eat several times during the tour. One night after a match, after I was beat up again, we headed out to a traditional Japanese restaurant. By this time, I was getting about burnt out on all this Japanese cultural crap they had us doing. They could have taken us to McDonalds because I saw one right down the street that night. I would have enjoyed it more. But no...since the Mafia probably owned this place too, it was the place to go. I enjoyed Japanese food but there was a point to where I wanted something else to eat. Curried rice and green tea leaves a lot to be desired.

So, of course, this traditional Japanese restaurant had no seats to sit on or in. We all had to sit bowlegged on the floor around this big area where we would be served our food. A meal in Japan isn't a quick affair. In the US, a meal will be over in 45 minutes. Not in Japan. It was almost a given that you were going to be there for, at least, two hours. Two hours sitting bowlegged in a traditional Japanese restaurant trying to use f'n chopsticks to eat, drinking green tea or Korin beer or sake, which I hated, and eating curried rice isn't my idea of a great time. But I had to pretend that I was having the time of my life because the Mafia was watching me.

So as I sat there with the other two Americans on the tour with me, Scott Casey and Bob Sweetan, I knew they were having the same problem I was having with the Japanese boys. I had watched their matches and they were having to beat the living crap out of these younger kids too. I saw Sweetan beat one kid up pretty badly and when the kid came back, he had tears in his eyes. I just marked it up to the kid being stiff and Sweetan straightening him out in the ring.

So as I sat there in the traditional Japanese restaurant, eating curried rice for the 100th time and healing from my semi-UFC match earlier that night, I oft handedly remarked to Casey and Sweetan that the "Japanese boys didn't know how to work."

They both looked at me like where's this guy been for the past 10 days? Casey looked at me and replied, "can't work? They're not working. They're not supposed to be working. This is almost a shoot group!!!"

I replied back, "What do you mean, a shoot group?"

Casey replied, "Yeah this isn't a normal group. This is an 80% shoot, 20% work group. They're trained to take you down if they can and make everything realistic as they can. Why do you think you're so banged up. I thought you knew that?"

I told Casey, "This is a shoot group? You gotta be bulls****ing me?"

But he wasn't. Casey responded to me by saying that the group was trying to make it's name through realistic looking punches and kicks to make it seem more real. I don't know how much more real they wanted it to be as I was nursing busted eyes and a sore mouth for the entire time I had been in Japan plus I was one huge walking bruise. Casey and Sweetan were also a little banged up themselves.

Finally, it dawned on me what was going on. No wonder these guys were so stiff. They were legitimately trying to hurt me, the little cheeky bastards. I just thought that they couldn't work worth a crap. But it wasn't the young Japanese boys that were fostering the idea of realism inside the wrestling ring. It was the brainchild of the Mafia types who wanted it to look like that. Since everybody feared the Mafia guys, they had told the young boys that if they didn't lay their punches and kicks in, they would deal with them later on. The young kids were scared to death of the Mafia guys. To make it clear, it wasn't a 100% shoot but it was around 80% just like Casey had told me. But even at 80%, that was 79% more than I wanted it to be. In reality, I've been in easier street fights.

It's been a long time since I even thought of my Japan exploits but thinking back on it now, I think I could have won some of those fights...if I had I just known that I was in one. I made good money while I was there but one trip was enough for me for this group.

After the tour, I went home and Funk called me again about 6 months later and wanted to book me again. I asked him if the group was still doing the 'realistic' style thing and he told me that they were still using it and it was doing great. I said that was wonderful but I was doing great in the States and I would have to decline his offer which I did.

I made one more trip to Japan after that but I went back for All Japan. By that time, the wrestling business was changing in Japan as well as in the United States. That was my last trip to Japan and I don't regret ever not going back.

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Tags: Dutch, Mantell, Jeff Jarrett, A. J. Styles, Terry Funk, Bob Sweetan, Scott Casey