News Archive

Today at the First On Stage offices, Mr. Nakamura recieved a letter titled "Happy Birthday" from AWA President Dale Gagne stripping him of his title as the ZERO1-MAX representative of AWA Japan and removing him from the AWA Board of Directors. Mr. Gagne turned over these duties to new ZERO1-MAX General Manager, Masakazu Kusama. Six reasons were listed in the official AWA document as to why Nakamura was relieved of his duties and his job given to Mr. Kusama:

1. Not sending current champion, Takao Omori, overseas frequently to defend the AWA World heavyweight title.

2. After being given a list of 10 qualified American AWA wrestlers to face the current champion during his first defense, former ZERO1-MAX fighter Tom Howard was hand picked by Mr. Nakamura to fight Omori for the belt on 4/13. This is a violation of the AWA's rules.

3. Takao Omori has not followed the dress code as set forth by the AWA. Video and eyewitness accounts are cited as evidence, including the account of new General Manager, Masakazu Kusama.

4. When Kusama-san was approached with taking Nakamura's current position, he promised sponsorship of an AWA Italy branch.

5. Verne Gagne is the Father of the AWA and the Uncle to Dale Gagne, but Nakamura invited Nick Bockwinkel of all people to represent the AWA in ZERO1-MAX.

6. AWA Promotors in the US are embarrassed by the lack of ZERO1-MAX fighters sent to the various AWA representative companies. Mr. Kusama has gathered fighters from around the world and multiple companies and has shown great success with HUSTLE.

Kusama reminded the wrestlers that he and the ZERO1 roster are quite familiar with each other from Pro Wrestling HUSTLE, but not on a personal basis. And after viewing the Celebration from the Yasukuni Shrine and seeing the relationship between the AWA and ZERO1-MAX he decided to give a call to Dale Gagne and the two had several conversations via telephone/e-mail and the AWA thought it best that he take over their Japan brand and begin their advancement into Europe.

Kusama went out of his way to put over Mr. Nakamura and his contribution to the company through his tenure as General Manager...

ZERO1-MAX's parent company, First On Stage, has announced a new General Manager for ZERO1-MAX - Masakazu Kusama. Former General Manager, Yoshiyuki Nakamura will now answer to Kusama-san on all operations of the company. Kusama previously worked in the same capacity for New Japan Pro Wrestling for a short time and most recently as theGeneral Manager of the HUSTLE offices.

Mr. Kusama stated that he thinks ZERO1-MAX has much more potential than it's currently showing. He said he remembers when ZERO-ONE ran in larger buildings and had Pay-Per-View, and he would like to shoot for returning to the company to that level. He said everybody in the company will be reevaluated and nobody should feel their job is safe. This reevaluation of talent will be his first step in the company and he wants the wrestlers to know they should work hard to impress him. His opening plan will therefore be to attempt to grow the promotion in size and to shake up the roster.

He also stated he doesn't feel the "charm" of ZERO1-MAX working with New Japan and NOAH.

ZERO1-MAX returned to Korakuen Hall in front of 1,450 fans with a 6-man main event of ZERO1-MAX Juniors versus outside enemy Juniors. International Lightweight tag and GHC Jr tag champions, Ikuto Hidaka and Minoru Fujita, teamed with 2005 "Tenka-ichi" Junior champion Yoshihito Sasaki to take on NOAH invaders Tsuyoshi Kikuchi and Takashi Sugiura. As their partner they had current ZERO1-MAX International Junior Heavyweight Champ, El Dorado fighter, and all around pain-in-the-ass, Takuya Sugawara.

The victory was taken when Sasaki hit an Argentitian Coaster on Sugawara for the win. After the match Hidaka said they had proven once again that ZERO1 Juniors are strong and have lots of pride in the company. Sasaki then said he wants a one-on-one match with Takashi Sugiura.

AWA World Heavyweight champion, Takao Omori had an interesting night, facing Lingerie Muto in a "Special Singles Match." Last year after losing the title to Steve Corino in the US, the AWA punished Omori by delivering to him a match for the G.A.Y. title against Dashoku Dino. So in another attempt to humiliate the new champion the AWA set up this match. Lingerie Muto wasted no time with the shenanigans, as after locking the figure-four he tried to place a bra on Omori! Omori became very angered and fought back, when Kikutaro in Muto diguise suddenly appeared to help Lingerie Muto.

As Kikutaro Muto fought Omori, Lingerie Muto dissappeared and reappeared as Lingerie Muta. In this guise Lingerie Muta delivered a blast of red poison mist to the face of Omori. As Omori staggered and fell, Lingerie Muta took the oppurtunity to pull off Omori's tights and hand the blinded Omori some strawberry print panties. Omori recovered enough to hit the Axe Bomber and get the win, as over the public address was announced, "the winner... Lingerie Omori!" as Omori posed with a title belt Lingerie Muto had brought with him to the ring.

The "P-Force Men" were back in action in a 6-man versus the "Giant" team of Tadao Yasuda, King Adamo and Amazing Kong. The "P-Force Men" introduced a new member, KTP-101.5kg (pictured above) and entirely pink Kikutaro. The "P-Force Men" won the match when Y2P-160kg crushed King Adamo with the "Ham Sandwich."

The remaining matches saw Shinjiro Otani defeat Kamikaze with a dragon suplex hold out of a spiral bomb in the semi-main event. And in the ZERO1-MAX versus KING ROAD series of matches the home team won both battles as Kohei and Ryouji defeated Kaz Miyamoto and Taichi Ishikari. Tatsuhito Takaiwa defeated Shota Takanishi with a Death Valley driver and a crab hold. In the opening match, Rikiya Fudo submitted Fuyuki Takahashi with a crab hold. Masato Tanaka, originally scheduled for this show had to be pulled because of a shoulder injury.

Mr. Nakamura has also announced that Christopher Daniels has been stripped of the ZERO1-MAX US Openweight title belt due to problems scheduling a defense of that title with Total Non-Stop Action (TNA) wrestling.

All ZERO1-MAX fans have noticed the company often putting on Women's matches and mixed tags recently. Women fighters from JD Star, NEO, OZ Academy, M's Style and freelancers have made appearances on Z1 shows with the great reception of the fans. The last S-ARENA show had three mixed tags with Manami Toyota, Hikaru, Saki Maemura and Ayumi Kurihara. Other women appearing on the shows in the past are Amazing Kong, Toshi Uematsu, Kyoko Kimura and Haruka Matsuo.

Now tentative plans exist for ZERO1-MAX's parent company, FIRST ON STAGE, to produce all-woman shows under the ZERO1 banner. Mr. Nakamura annouced the first show is scheduled for 9/27, and said he wants to bring in foreign woman to compete and even mentioned that there is consideration of re-starting the AWA Women's title and bring in the last champion, Sherri Martel.