DEATH OF A HERO
Gavin Marshall
There was a damp chill in the December air as the mourners murmuring in hushed tones of reverence and disbelief, clustered forlornly in the compound of Tokyo's Ikegami Honmonji Temple. Wreaths in such profusion as to suggest a state funeral lined the compound walls. Fashioned like giant flowers and mounted on stilts, the puffs of color contrasted brilliantly with the gray sky. All through the long afternoon the mourners came. They filed in by the thousands, crowding the pagoda-like temple and then moving restlessly around the compound, looking solemn and stunned and lost. They had come to honor a man they regarded even more highly than the storied samurai warriors of old - a man whose very name, Rikidozan (meaning "rugged mountain road"), attested to his towering strength. It was a mighty tribute to Rikidozan, who almost singly-handedly had fathered and nurtured modern wrestling in Japan. But the homage was even more impressive in view of his background.
Though born in Nagasaki in Kyushu, Rikidozan was of Korean descent. And in Japan, Koreans are usually objects of contempt, often discriminated against. Rikidozan fought hard to overcome this stigma. In the process, he developed a trigger-like temper, rebelled constantly against authority. "Nobody tells me what to do" he used to boast. In later years, after he had become a millionaire through extensive business interests, he contributed lavishly to charities. Yet he continued to thrive on violence both in and out of the ring. Characteristically, he met death in the same way - in the chrome-striped restroom of a plush Tokyo nightclub - when he defiantly refused to knuckle under to a knife-wielding gangster. It was an inglorious end for a national hero who had battled to success from an impoverished childhood. Riki, who was given the Japanese name of Mitsuhiro Momata (literally "Bright Child of the Hundred Ricefields"), never dwelled on his early years. But he was known to have been a sullen, bad-tempered youth who, shunned by his prejudiced schoolmates and deserted by his parents, left home at the age of 13 and journeyed 800 miles to Tokyo.
Seeing a living - and an outlet for his repressed hostilities – he enrolled in a sumo training gymnasium and after three years of incredibly arduous training was ready for his first match. All the bitterness erupted out of him as he tackled his opponent. Riki now weighed 300 pounds, with the big, blubbery but tough-as-steel belly characteristic of sumo wrestlers. Despite his weight, blown up from downing 18 rice bowls and four cases of beer at a single sitting, he was as fast and agile as a cat. He could run the hundred yards in 11 seconds flat and was so superbly trained that he could write a letter by holding a pen between his powerful toes. Riki pounded his foes savagely, with every blow, every kick, he avenged the hardships he had suffered in the gymnasium - getting up at 2 AM to work outside in the freezing cold... smoldering at a thousand humiliations... absorbing insults and beatings from advanced classmates... well, things were going to be different from now on, he vowed, as the fans hailed his victory. With dynamic drive, he battled his way up in the sumo ranks. At 23, he make the sekiwake grade and was on the verge of entering the ozeki domain which would put in line for the grand championship. Then he destroyed a brilliant future by quarreling in the gymnasium official over a technical decision. In a rage, he quit sumo forever.
Out of a job and missing the adulation of the fans, Riki was at a loss in the big metropolis. But not for long. Tokyo was starting to boom - it was during the MacArthur occupation - and he easily found work as a construction laborer. Swallowing his disappointment, he worked for a year. In his spare time, he continued to train hard, concentrating on karate, the deadly art of open-handed fighting that later became his trademark. Then, with a small nestegg, he rented a hall for wrestling exhibitions. In no time he built up a rabid following. As his fame spread, he accepted an offer from promoter Al Karasick in Honolulu. Riki was a sensation there. He followed with triumphal tours, capturing a fistful of titles all over the world, beating Haystacks Calhoun, Freddie Blassie and even the great Lou Thesz. He was now down to 250 lbs. A siege of illness had melted off 50 pounds and Riki decided to stay that weight after he saw what happened to Tamanishiki, a prominent sumo wrestling. Tamanishiki - a 400 pounder - joined his honorable ancestors when doctors were unable to cut through the mountain of blubber during a stomach operation. Except for Thesz, Riki had nothing but contempt for American grapplers. He sneered at their hippodrome showmanship, called them soft compared with the
Japanese. He called Blassie "the dirtiest wrestler" he ever met. In the boxing and wrestling stables that formed part of his vast business empire which also included hotels, night clubs, golf courses and apartment houses, Riki was a hard taskmaster, demanding the utmost from his men and whipping them with a bamboo stick when they failed to measure up to his stringent standards.
By December 1963, Riki had successfully defended his International Title 19 times. A few days before his death he had told reporters "I am going to the United States again in a few weeks to wrestle Lou Thesz. I hope to bring the world title to Japan". Then, on the night of December 8 tragedy struck. Riki, whose business interests brought him into contact with one of the numerous gangs which dominate Tokyo's night life, was in the restroom of the New Latin Quarter when a gangster approached him. The gangster reportedly warned Rike to "stay out of this territory". Riki, who never took any lip from anybody, told him to go to hell. They tussled. A switchblade flashed... and Riki collapsed, spilling blood. Rushed to the hospital, Riki was told
the wound was minor and would soon heal. But a week later, after bleeding copiously, he died of peritonitis at the age of 39.
Thousands streamed in from all parts of Japan to attend his funeral on December 20. Heading the mourners were his second wife, Keiko and his two sons from a former marriage. Keiko said Riki had planned to retire so he could be with his family. Ironically, he kept delaying the move because he couldn't find a successor he deemed worthy enough to take his place.
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IN OTHER NEWS
The top story this week is going to be something of an OO Editorial Commentary. Some might argue that that's what EVERY BIT of each OO is, but this time, I'm coming right out and labeling it for you. Trust me, there is plenty of real news if you keep reading down....
And just what is it that's important enough for me to go out of my way to editorialize on? Well, put simply, it's the wrestling-related death of Japanese wrestler Rikidozan. I did place a quick blurb about this on the page last Tuesday; it was brief and sketchy, admittedly. Since then, other online sources like Chip Chimney have been able to gather details beyond my initial outline report.
As understanding of exactly what happened increased, so did my desire to address the issue of the genuine danger faced by pro wrestlers inside the ring. You see, the first reports vaguely spoke of Rikidozan passing out [at a nightclub] after a match; but as further details came in, it became apparent that he was brutally stabbed. Despite immediate medical attention, including surgery, he died one week later.
If wrestling were as "fake" as most people would generally like to believe, then something like this would be unthinkable. And even though the true nature of pro wrestling is a lot more "sport" and a lot less "fake" than the mainstream world would have us believe, it's still distressing to be faced with the reality of a situation like this one. When you get right down to it, staring you in the face is the fact that pro wrestling is just as dangerous, if not more so, than any legitimate sport out there.
This is not the first time tragedy has struck in the ring, either. We need only go back to when a Big Japan trainee named Nogai died of head/neck injuries suffered in training. Nor is this the first time a wrestler has died as a result of something that happened in front of a crowd in a competitive match. In late 1993, Oro, a talented Luchadore who was one third of the Los Metallicos team (with his brothers Bronce and Plata), died in the ring during a match in Mexico. My research is inconclusive, but Oro took either a simple chop or dropkick from his opponent, Kahoz, but fell awkwardly. After a brief delay -- during which the other participants in this six-man match assumed Oro was just "selling" the move – it became obvious something was wrong. For all the efforts of the other wrestlers to revive Oro, he was dead before he could even receive proper medical attention. Again, a pre-existing condition was suspected as playing a part in the tragedy, but it was likely a condition that was expedited by Oro's past matches. Bruiser Brody was stabbed to death in Puerto Rico, under similar mysterious circumstances .
This brief overview of tragedies similar to Rikidozan does not even include in-ring deaths unrelated to taking bumps or injury. One example of an in-ring death in that category would that of Larry Cameron -- who briefly wrestled in WCW around 1990. While wrestling in Europe, Cameron suffered a heart attack in the ring, and died before he could receive necessary medical attention. Numerous similar examples pervade the “mythology" of pro wrestling history -- from the in-ring death of "Iron" Mike DiBiase to the pre-title-match heart attack of Buddy Rogers (he still went out and dropped the WWWF Title to Bruno Sammartino in a minute-long match) -- though I will not pretend to be well-versed enough (or old enough) to be 100% accurate in those regards.
The bottom line is we as fans should make sure that we truly understand and appreciate what is going on in a wrestling ring. The tragedies of Rikidozan illustrate that physical danger is a very real element of pro wrestling. It would, perhaps, not be ridiculous to keep this in mind as we're encouraging wrestlers to fly that much higher or hit that much harder. Or at the very least, we should hope that only those most capable (and most healthy) are the ones that fly highest and hit hardest.
* On a somewhat related note, the rumor mill continues to churn in regards to the injured Lou Thesz. The latest word is that his doctors want him to take two months off before coming back to get a final evaluation. And while we might be getting to the point where we completely expect our stars to return quickly and danger-free from "serious" neck injuries (guys like Stevie Richards and Pitbull #1 are examples), let's also keep in mind, especially in light of the discussion on the dangers of the ring above, that there are considerations above and beyond pro wrestling.
It seems most OO Readers agree that they'd prefer not to be discussing the "Lou Thesz tragedy" and wondering what effect a "pre-existing condition" may have had at some point in the future. In the latest OO Weekly Poll, 54% of OO Readers stated that they'd like to see Lou Thesz retire rather than risk life and limb by returning to the ring. The remaining vote was split pretty evenly between those who think that the injury (or at least the extent of the injury) is a work and those who want to see Thesz back in the ring regardless of his medical condition. Be sure to check out the OO Readers' Forum for poll results and the brand new poll question.
RICK SCAIA
CREDITS
RICK SCAIA: The News From Dayton -- 08/25/97
GAVIN MARSHALL: Wrestling Revue April 1964
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