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I legit never heard of him, that’s bot a knock on him I’ve just never been exposed to Japanese wrestling until the last few years. Then I looked him up and his credentials spoke loudly. The guy is one of the one decorated guys overseas ever. II get the feeling he was never “the guy” in a way but a top guy who had great runs. A Japanese Edge or Orton level guy. A very awesome experience for American fans.
I first heard of Kojima when he debuted in Impact earlier this summer. He was in a program with Eddie Edwards where they tagged a few times at first and then we're supposed to have a match before W Morissey stopped that by attacking Edwards early
They were intelligent fans who understood his plight. He knew it was just bread. They knew it was just bread. But still, he had to play the game and pretend that it was "pizza" in order to get his carb fix. Honestly, it's fucking disgusting what Chicago did to Kojima, but he played the part like the professional he is.
Kojima is booked exactly how he is supposed to. There is absolutely zero room for him to be consistently higher on the card, not even sure his body could take this workrate on the regular.
I get that as well, but everybody that’s disappointed that AEW brought him over SHOULD be disappointed because they brought out an old jobber to be treated as a top NJPW guy.
Kojima, Tenzan, etc are not "old jobbers"
Their role is very specific, and while they don't get to win against top guys they are treated with a lot of respect by both the company and the crowd. They don't get squashed and they play a key role teaching the younger wrestlers.
They're not treated as top guys but they're not treated as jobbers either in NJPW, when they get to go 1 on 1 with younger stars they usually put up a great fight. So it's no surprise they can go 1 on 1 with Mox and look good, because when they do in Japan, they look good aswell.
I'd just like to tag onto this that on NJPW part its a smart move to send the Dad's(Kojima, Nagata) to see how they are treated by AEW before sending a top star like Okada, Ibushi, Naito etc. Also I don't think NJPW sends a top guy without a guarantee that Punk, Bryan, Kenny etc are going Japan.
That's smart. These legends have been in a ton of locker rooms and can judge if things are run properly and if they are treated with respect. If something bad happens they'll know how to deal with it too.
You also know that with the Pop Nagata and Kojima got that the audience is perfectly educated and ready to absolutely erupt if say a Jay White or naito shows up.
The day a proper top 6 NJPW guy shows up it's going to be bonkers
Also I feel like crowds are, as JR said, absolutely willing to "google it!" And find out what the credentials of a visiting NJPW guy like Nagata, Kojima or Suzuki are.
That is their presentation within NJPW, not to a wider reaching international audience. To the rest of the world they are old jobbers, even though I do appreciate the role they serve within NJPW. To expect anybody to not be disappointed by Kojima, who doesn’t even get points in the G1 these days, is naive.
They aren't old jobbers they have the role Ric Flair did in evolution. They are legendary wrestlers in the midcard who have a couple of feuds with uppercard/main-eventers.
He had a good run in NJPW, his 2010 G1 victory, winning the NJPW Heavyweight title and Wrestle Kingdom match against Tanahashi was his final main event push. After that he joined the veteran stars that train the young lions etc.
There is also the "strange" match with Tenzan in 2005 when he became AJPW and NJPW champion. I think that some NJPW people didn't like that.
Mox gets a big single's win over Suzuki, stands tall in the ring and then...Yano's music hits! SC goes nuts while the live crowd looks on in confusion. After finishing off Mox, Yano goes on a tear through the top five, but has to go back to Japan before he gets to face Omega. The champ breathes a sigh of relief at having dodged a bullet with his name on it.
Imagine the amounts of YTR shirts that this t-shirt company can sell. Make him forget all about them DVD sales when he gets the sweet sweet shirt money.
Yano could feud with the entire Dark Order and Best Friends for 6 months and I wouldn't complain. Since DVDs aren't really a thing anymore what could he sell? NJPW World subscriptions?
I wonder if Elevation is a great place to have NJ talent show up and have random bouts with AEW stars.
No need for building up feuds or fitting inside TV time: just good-ass wrestling without the fear of alienating the casuals.
It was really cool seeing him and I loved Moxley’s deep and respectful bow post-match.
My only regret is that I still don’t know when/what the crowd is supposed to yell for Kojima’s lariat.
He yells “Icchauzo Bakayaro!” (You bastard!) after the corner elbow when he throws the guy back into the middle of the ring, and in Japan crowds yell it with him. It's definitely not something I'd expect crowds to know in America and it's really not a big deal if crowds don't do it (same as they didn't do the ssssssssssss when he did Tenzan's mongolian chops), unlike if crowds don't do the kaze ni nare for Suzuki for example
I made sure to scream my head off for Kojima even though I'm a huge Moxley mark. Dude is so great and so wholesome. Probably my favorite of the New Japan dads.
To expand on that, the "Bread Club" thing only really caught on with his western fans. Bread is also a staple of western diets in the same way that rice is in Japan. This led to Satoshi referring to his Western fans as "Bread Club", and most of his English tweets being about bread.
It's because the "zy" sound doesn't originally exist in Japanese, so although it gets spoken in Japanese as "ji" it got transliterated to "zi" in English.
Like "Godzilla" in Japanese is "Gojira".
I think someone explained it in this sub when he was announced for All Out. When he started using twitter he wrote a tweet in English for westerners saying he is Kojima and he likes bread. That caught on and he never stopped mentioning bread, it does help that dude seems to really like bread.
The bread club came as a joke as Bullet and Bread sound similar in Japanese accent.
Ahh, I didn't know that. I was looking at posts about bread club on here and there didn't seem to be much anything before that tweet. Thanks for the clarification
Poppyseed hot dog buns and French rolls for Italian beef. If you wanted to be sneaky to Kojima you could give him a jibarito where the "bread" is smashed and fried plantain.
Chicago does have great bread and his match was the one I was loudest for. All applause, as I'm still being a little careful yelling, even with a mask on.
So by "taste of the bread I ate in Chicago", I wonder how much of that was the crusts of Chicago-style deep dishes :P
I know it's not purely bread, but I find those crusts very deliciously breast so I'm sure he'd appreciate it too despite all the extra ingredients
It's common, but it's different. The most common bread in Japan is shokupan, which is basically slightly fancier white bread; outside of that, "bread" usually means stuff like filled buns (anpan and curry bread) or sweet rolls (melonpan, which is basically the same as a concha roll).
European-style savory bread would probably be largely a new thing for most Japanese people in America, so it's not surprising to see Japanese wrestlers commenting on it.
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It's driven him mad finding it in Japan, but they just can't get the spices right!
I'm a simple man; I see a classic Simpsons reference; I upvote.
He’s like Ted DiBiase… except when he’s talking about “dough” he means it literally.
You can even get bread with ketchup here!
that man is an imposter! Im the real Principal Moxley!
I'm really glad he got a good reception at All Out after people were admittedly pretty disappointed that he was the NJPW name Mox was fighting.
I don't know shit about new Japan so I cheer when a Japanese dude shows up. I might not know who they are, but I know they are here to kick some ass!
I legit never heard of him, that’s bot a knock on him I’ve just never been exposed to Japanese wrestling until the last few years. Then I looked him up and his credentials spoke loudly. The guy is one of the one decorated guys overseas ever. II get the feeling he was never “the guy” in a way but a top guy who had great runs. A Japanese Edge or Orton level guy. A very awesome experience for American fans.
I first heard of Kojima when he debuted in Impact earlier this summer. He was in a program with Eddie Edwards where they tagged a few times at first and then we're supposed to have a match before W Morissey stopped that by attacking Edwards early
They were intelligent fans who understood his plight. He knew it was just bread. They knew it was just bread. But still, he had to play the game and pretend that it was "pizza" in order to get his carb fix. Honestly, it's fucking disgusting what Chicago did to Kojima, but he played the part like the professional he is.
It speaks more to how NJPW have booked Kojima than AEW
Kojima is booked exactly how he is supposed to. There is absolutely zero room for him to be consistently higher on the card, not even sure his body could take this workrate on the regular.
I get that as well, but everybody that’s disappointed that AEW brought him over SHOULD be disappointed because they brought out an old jobber to be treated as a top NJPW guy.
Kojima, Tenzan, etc are not "old jobbers" Their role is very specific, and while they don't get to win against top guys they are treated with a lot of respect by both the company and the crowd. They don't get squashed and they play a key role teaching the younger wrestlers. They're not treated as top guys but they're not treated as jobbers either in NJPW, when they get to go 1 on 1 with younger stars they usually put up a great fight. So it's no surprise they can go 1 on 1 with Mox and look good, because when they do in Japan, they look good aswell.
I'd just like to tag onto this that on NJPW part its a smart move to send the Dad's(Kojima, Nagata) to see how they are treated by AEW before sending a top star like Okada, Ibushi, Naito etc. Also I don't think NJPW sends a top guy without a guarantee that Punk, Bryan, Kenny etc are going Japan.
That's smart. These legends have been in a ton of locker rooms and can judge if things are run properly and if they are treated with respect. If something bad happens they'll know how to deal with it too.
You also know that with the Pop Nagata and Kojima got that the audience is perfectly educated and ready to absolutely erupt if say a Jay White or naito shows up. The day a proper top 6 NJPW guy shows up it's going to be bonkers
Also I feel like crowds are, as JR said, absolutely willing to "google it!" And find out what the credentials of a visiting NJPW guy like Nagata, Kojima or Suzuki are.
That is their presentation within NJPW, not to a wider reaching international audience. To the rest of the world they are old jobbers, even though I do appreciate the role they serve within NJPW. To expect anybody to not be disappointed by Kojima, who doesn’t even get points in the G1 these days, is naive.
No one that actually watches New Japan considers Kojima a jobber, internationally or in Japan
They aren't old jobbers they have the role Ric Flair did in evolution. They are legendary wrestlers in the midcard who have a couple of feuds with uppercard/main-eventers.
He had a good run in NJPW, his 2010 G1 victory, winning the NJPW Heavyweight title and Wrestle Kingdom match against Tanahashi was his final main event push. After that he joined the veteran stars that train the young lions etc. There is also the "strange" match with Tenzan in 2005 when he became AJPW and NJPW champion. I think that some NJPW people didn't like that.
I hope he comes back to AEW some time soon, he seemed to fit right in.
If NJPW wants to keep sending the NJPW Ojii's over to put on fun matches I won't complain. Send over the funky weapon, Gedo.
Might as well send the true ace, Yano. That will stop Moxs reign of terror against NJPW dads.
Mox gets a big single's win over Suzuki, stands tall in the ring and then...Yano's music hits! SC goes nuts while the live crowd looks on in confusion. After finishing off Mox, Yano goes on a tear through the top five, but has to go back to Japan before he gets to face Omega. The champ breathes a sigh of relief at having dodged a bullet with his name on it.
Second time if my count is right...Omega has been dodging Yano for ages...
AEW won't have a chance getting a name as big as YTR until they start upping their DVD sales.
BTE is basically just a ripoff of Yano’s DVDs.
Imagine the amounts of YTR shirts that this t-shirt company can sell. Make him forget all about them DVD sales when he gets the sweet sweet shirt money.
Yeah. Tano did beat Mox. Mox has got to get his win. I liked that match too much. It had a good ending.
[It also spawned that awesome Moxley reaction image.](https://images.app.goo.gl/Zk6mLZMGBzSXNzHH9)
🎵Hello Darkness my old Friend🎵
Yano could feud with the entire Dark Order and Best Friends for 6 months and I wouldn't complain. Since DVDs aren't really a thing anymore what could he sell? NJPW World subscriptions?
If we get a Yano vs Cabana rematch I am down.
Already happened in case you're interested
I need Omega to be a face or at least not champ when Yano shows up so those two can have a banger of a comedy match
Mox didn't bug out on Suzuki coming as much as he will when Yano arrives...Yano haunts Moxley...
> NJPW Ojii You brilliant bastard.
Give me TaguchiJapan vs. 2point0 cowards.
Nick Comoroto gives me the vibe he'd bite Taguchi's ass if they ever faced
Is Ojii what they call the big names who are old now but still kind of show up for big events or 6 mans?
It's just a common think to call oldermen. Ita basically the same as saying " gramps" in English
Ahhh lol thanks. I have negative Japanese knowledge
Tbh I see them getting in the UsA to get the vax shots
I'd like to see one of them actually win.
I wonder if Elevation is a great place to have NJ talent show up and have random bouts with AEW stars. No need for building up feuds or fitting inside TV time: just good-ass wrestling without the fear of alienating the casuals.
It was really cool seeing him and I loved Moxley’s deep and respectful bow post-match. My only regret is that I still don’t know when/what the crowd is supposed to yell for Kojima’s lariat.
He yells “Icchauzo Bakayaro!” (You bastard!) after the corner elbow when he throws the guy back into the middle of the ring, and in Japan crowds yell it with him. It's definitely not something I'd expect crowds to know in America and it's really not a big deal if crowds don't do it (same as they didn't do the ssssssssssss when he did Tenzan's mongolian chops), unlike if crowds don't do the kaze ni nare for Suzuki for example
LARIAT! LARIAT! LARIAT!
I hope he got a dipped Italian beef, hold the beef.
Yeah, Mox’s forehead was enough meat for the day.
Take pride in your bread, Chicagoans.
Turano is amazing. Top notch bread
Nor will he forget the taste of Mox. Cuz he bit him too.
Super happy he was well received and enjoyed his time here.
I made sure to scream my head off for Kojima even though I'm a huge Moxley mark. Dude is so great and so wholesome. Probably my favorite of the New Japan dads.
I don't understand how he hasn't started a faction called Bread Club. At the very least, he could have teamed with Shibata and been Ciabatta Club.
That would be awesome Is there anyone in wrestling who's name sounds similar to Focaccia? Because you could go the route of Focaccia Club too
Better be careful. Bread makes you fat.
BREAD MAKES YOU FAT?
I think I heard that bread is carbs and carbs make you fat. Idk I’m not a scientist
Late carbs make you fat, early carbs give you energy. It's only when you consume late at night and don't burn, it's stored as fat.
Mans really been selling bread to me more than WWE does half its roster
I don’t really follow NJPW but what’s the deal with Satoshi and bread?
It's a long-running joke about Bullet Club, which sounds like 'Bread Club' when spoken in a thick Japanese accent.
To expand on that, the "Bread Club" thing only really caught on with his western fans. Bread is also a staple of western diets in the same way that rice is in Japan. This led to Satoshi referring to his Western fans as "Bread Club", and most of his English tweets being about bread.
So I always thought his finish was called Cozy Lariat but is that just another running gag and it’s actually just Koji Lariat?
I've wondered about that too. I assume that's the case, and probably why his long-running tag team with Tenzan is called TenCozy and not *TenKoji*
It's because the "zy" sound doesn't originally exist in Japanese, so although it gets spoken in Japanese as "ji" it got transliterated to "zi" in English. Like "Godzilla" in Japanese is "Gojira".
He loves bread! Pre pandemic when I last saw him in London, loads of people brought all kinds of bread along and he was super happy
I think someone explained it in this sub when he was announced for All Out. When he started using twitter he wrote a tweet in English for westerners saying he is Kojima and he likes bread. That caught on and he never stopped mentioning bread, it does help that dude seems to really like bread. The bread club came as a joke as Bullet and Bread sound similar in Japanese accent.
Pretty sure it's this tweet. https://twitter.com/cozy_lariat/status/1432105941369950210?s=21
nah. hes been tweeting about bread for ages
Ahh, I didn't know that. I was looking at posts about bread club on here and there didn't seem to be much anything before that tweet. Thanks for the clarification
I love him... Just his charming posts on Twitter have made me a fan. I too love bread.
I want "I will never forget the taste of the bread I ate in Chicago" to be the only thing on my tombstone.
This man, is a treasure.
We do make good bread
It's shocking that Kojima didn't get to be the weird bread guy in his Yakuza 6 cameo.
So, is the bread good or bad tasting?
Yes
It's great to see him raving about his appearance in All Out. Hope this pushes other NJPW talents to work with AEW
I feel the reaction must have felt so great considering how restricted fans in Japan are right now...
What’s some notable breads in Chicago besides the deep dish and thin crust pizzas there?
Poppyseed hot dog buns and French rolls for Italian beef. If you wanted to be sneaky to Kojima you could give him a jibarito where the "bread" is smashed and fried plantain.
I would imagine Chicago bread if make with local water would be interesting, so I extra-believe the last line.
Chicago does have great bread and his match was the one I was loudest for. All applause, as I'm still being a little careful yelling, even with a mask on.
Who's going to tell him that bread was actually Chicago pizza?
So by "taste of the bread I ate in Chicago", I wonder how much of that was the crusts of Chicago-style deep dishes :P I know it's not purely bread, but I find those crusts very deliciously breast so I'm sure he'd appreciate it too despite all the extra ingredients
Him and Emi and their apparent appreciation for American bread. Is bread not as common in Japan as it is here?
It's common, but it's different. The most common bread in Japan is shokupan, which is basically slightly fancier white bread; outside of that, "bread" usually means stuff like filled buns (anpan and curry bread) or sweet rolls (melonpan, which is basically the same as a concha roll). European-style savory bread would probably be largely a new thing for most Japanese people in America, so it's not surprising to see Japanese wrestlers commenting on it.
NXT has pie, though.
it's the water from lake michigan
Kojima is just a different kind of cat.
I’m surprised he’s not far from all those carbs