News Archive

Crazy has returned to Mexico to spend full time recovering his hand. ZERO1-MAX will announce his replacement on the March tour directly.

Otani also made good on his attempts to humiliate and insult Misawa, from flipping him the bird to sticking his middle finger up the NOAH boss' nose before giving him the Facewash. The match was very physical, and Takaiwa was happy to gain the victory. The last time ZERO1-MAX was in NOAH it was Takaiwa that lost a Jr. titles match against Kanemaru.

Minoru Fujita and Kohei Sato were ringside as seconds for the match.

This would most likely be the 3/27 show as Otani has a poster for this event and showed his artistic talent by pasting a photo of Misawa on it and also drawing the AWA World Heavyweight title on his shoulder (that show has a 3-way pitting current champ, Takao Omori, again Otani and Steve Corino in a 3-way dance). He also announced that since Hidaka and Fujita have just made their 5th defense of the PWF Universal Tag Team title that they should face the well traveled team of Corino and CW Anderson (a pair Otani is familiar with from battling for the NWA Intercontinental Tag Team while he was in Team Emblem). He also told the media that even though CW Anderson doesn't have a huge body, the size of his head more than makes up for it...

Other comments regarding the 3/27 show has Otani mention that if Hidaka and Fujita lose their PWF titles on the 23rd they will have a chance to gain new titles when they face Spanky and Alex Shelley for the NWA International Lightweight Tag Titles which were apparently stipped from Spanky and Kaz Hayashi (probably when ZERO1 and the NWA parted). The NWA UN Heavyweight title will also be decided in a singles match with CW Anderson and Kohei Sato. The Z1-MAX/AWA/UPW/W-1 International Jr. championship will also be defended by Super Crazy on the show against Sonjay Dutt.

1. The ZERO1-MAX/UPW/WORLD-1 International Jr. championship is one title. It represented 3-companies. We have added the AWA name also to the championship making it a 4-company title. There is only one belt and it represents all of these companies. The AWA/Z1-MAX/UPW/W1 International Jr. title should not be confused with the AWA World Jr. champion (which the AWA office in MN has the rights to, not Z1-MAX).

2. The ZERO-1 United National title will be decided on the March tour. Takao Omori has vacated the belt due to winning the AWA World championship.

3. The ZERO-1 United States title has been vacated by Steve Corino, who gave up the title to spend more time challenging the AWA World title. It too will be decided on the upcoming March tour. It will now be an Openweight championship where wrestlers from both the heavyweight and jr. heavyweight class can challenge for it. Expect most US title matches to have a E-Style stipulation added.

4. The PWF Universal tag team titles are the main tag team championship in Z1-MAX. There will be a announcement on the Intercontinental tag team titles within the next week or two. Don't be surprised to see them unified with the PWF titles.

5. W-1 and PWF are both part of the same company and owned by Z1-MAX and Yoshiyuki Nakamura (Z1-MAX Vice President). There are no immediate plans to run as W1/PWF in the US but nothing is for sure.

6. The AWA has its own titles. The only title that the AWA and Z1-MAX share is the World heavyweight title (all of the AWA promotions have a share in this).

There may seem like a bunch of championships but you have to remember that in Japan the titles are not defended on every show, sometimes not even once a tour. That is to give it a more important feeling to the titles.

Below is a list of the current Z1-MAX titles and their holders:

AWA World champion: Takao Omori

PWF Universal tag team champions: Ikuto Hidaka & Minoru Fujita

Z1-MAX United National (UN) heavyweight champion: Vacant

Z1-MAX United States (US) Openweight championship: Vacant

Z1-MAX/AWA/UPW/W1 International Jr. championship: Super Crazy

Z1-MAX International Lightweight tag team champions: Spanky & Kaz Hayashi (AJPW)

Championships like the W1 heavyweight, UPW heavyweight and tag team, and other AWA titles are recognized but not considered Z1-MAX championships.

I hope this clears up the confusion.

If the Apache army is involved you know the blood is going to start flowing, and that's exactly what happed in the Ikebukuro City Cultural Center, as the participants used the spiral staircase and numerous balconies to jump off of, throw each other off of, and even moonsault off of.

The show started off late due to a snowstorm covering the area and making travel very slow, so the fighters were all very tired upon arrival to the venue. Before the show there was a charity auction held with the fans to help alleviate Naohiro Hoshikawa's hospital bills.

Along with the Apache Troop, freelance wrestler Dick Togo was also on the show in the main event teamed with Kintaro Kanemura against Tanaka and Crazy. As imagined it was a bloody affair, with all but the "Insane Luchador" being busted open. Numerous tables were broken, and one dangerous moment saw Kanemura get superplexed by Takana, who was sitting on Togo's shoulders, who was being power bombed by Super Crazy, through a contruct made of chairs. In this match Crazy hit another one of his suicidal moonsaults off the balcony of the venue (see above). Togo hit the topei con hilo on a Tanaka while Tanaka was seated in a chair on the outside. Tanaka put Kanemura through a table with a brainbuster, but Kanemura got his revenge when he dove from the top of the staircase to splash his former FMW compadre through a table.

After Tanaka won the match in just over 17 minutes with the Roaring Elbow, Ikuto Hidaka presented the bloodied victor with a birthday cake to celebrate his 31st Birthday.

Other matches saw Hido and Kuroda defeat Sai and Fudo, Ikuto Hidaka and Minoru Fujita once more defend their PWF Universal Tag Team belts against Takashi Sasaki and GENTARO (V5 defense), and Otani and Yoshihito Sasaki lose to the formidable team of Kohei Sato and Tatsuhito Takaiwa.

The surprise for Omori wasn't anything too challenging as it turned out to be DJ Nira, a minor member of the Apache Army. Omori dropped him in 211 seconds with the Axe Bomber for the 1-2-3 and the easy win. Apparently this was more a test for Nira then it was for Omori.

As for the Osamu Namiguchi Advanced Challenge Series, it hasn't turned out too well for Namiguchi as he hasn't won a single match.

The names of those he'll be bringing in will be familiar to most: Tetsu Kuroda, BADBOY Hido, GENTARO, and Takashi Sasaki. Kanemura has also mentioned that on the 2/27 show he will have a surprise opponent for current AWA Heavyweight Champion Takao Omori.