Wrestling Under Watchful Eyes - NJPW / WCW Collision in Korea (1995)

Collision in Korea 1995 is one of the strangest events in wrestling history. WCW and New Japan brought a massive show to North Korea, drawing over 300,000 people… but something felt completely off. The crowd barely reacted, the atmosphere was eerie, and even solid matches felt lifeless. We break down the weird vibe, standout moments like Flair vs Inoki, and why this is a “watch it so you don’t have to” show.

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Music by Bradley Palermo & The Shadow Queens.

Created by  Bradley Palermo & Aaron Fink.

Transcript

00:00.19
Aaron
Hey everyone, this is Aaron Fink from Grapple City Rewind. If you like what you hear on this episode, give us a follow or leave us a review on whatever platform you listen to. Anything will help. It'll go a long way in helping us to be discovered by more wrestling fans like you.

00:14.57
Aaron
All right, cue the music.

00:53.84
Bradley Palermo
It's 1995's Collision in Korea. But... Oh,

00:58.82
Aaron
Hold on, scoot your mic a little bit further away from your face. You're you're pretty hot right now.

01:03.33
Bradley Palermo
oh really? Okay.

01:04.42
Bradley Palermo
But before we get into all of the peculiar... oddities of collision in Korea. I'm Bradley Palermo here as always with Aaron Fink and Aaron last night I went to W's revolution.

01:18.75
Bradley Palermo
You were watching from home. I know you weren't, we were under the weather, unable to make it in person, but, um, pretty, pretty fun event. Did you, uh, what'd you think of the outcome?

01:28.09
Aaron
I thought it was a lot of fun overall. I mean, know, it was very long as as they always are.

01:32.87
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:34.52
Aaron
um But yeah, I i enjoyed it a lot. um Some matches I enjoyed a bit more than other matches, but I think overall it was a pretty solid pay-per-view.

01:46.69
Aaron
Let me just look at the card again.

01:48.49
Bradley Palermo
I mean, the main event with hangman and MJF was really good and he always just brings out the best to his opponents.

01:48.80
Aaron
two, three.

01:54.47
Bradley Palermo
I can't believe though that hangman's now no longer to challenge for the W or for the AEW world title, which is kind of limiting for a top guy to to take that role.

02:04.41
Aaron
It's very, it feels very limiting. I don't know what they're going to do, if they're going to go back on it in some way or whatever, but yeah, it's, uh, he's never supposed to be able to challenge again. um I, I can't say I was super surprised that he lost. I thought that was probably what the outcome of the match was going to be.

02:24.34
Bradley Palermo
better for business.

02:24.42
Aaron
ah but, Yeah, it's just a man. What an insane match that one was there. But there were a lot of good matches. The the opener, the actual opener, FTR versus the Young Bucks was pretty good.

02:37.96
Bradley Palermo
Oh yeah.

02:38.40
Aaron
Tony Storm Marina Shafir was pretty good. Moxley Takeshita I liked. um Swerve Brody was pretty good. Tekla Statlander was good. Andrade versus Bandito I thought was really good.

02:50.90
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

02:51.99
Aaron
I couldn't, I could deal with, uh, without the tag matches except for the first one, like six man tags were only okay to me, but, um, I don't know.

02:59.83
Bradley Palermo
yeah

03:02.94
Aaron
It sounded like y'all were having fun the entire time. Pretty loud.

03:05.99
Bradley Palermo
it was it was good it was loud the crowd was rowdy it was sold out you know it felt intense you know some of the people in the crowd were assholes but you know that that happens whenever you have a big group of people we had um some guy at the end of our row who wasn't letting people in and out he was kind of had like a tough guy sort of thing which uh

03:16.71
Aaron
Yeah.

03:24.78
Bradley Palermo
people always debate like our wwe fans or aw fans you know better and i think i think it's hard to say i think when i've seen really hostile people i've seen more fights and stuff at aw shows because wwe skews a little more family friendly um

03:29.16
Aaron
worse

03:42.01
Aaron
right

03:42.58
Bradley Palermo
But yeah, I don't know. I mean, it was still a lot. It was a lot of fun. And i had a pretty good vantage point up there as usual per usual. So AEW doesn't disappoint with those with those pay-per-views.

03:55.25
Aaron
Yeah, absolutely.

04:10.40
Bradley Palermo
1995, Collision in Korea, a split promotion event between New Japan Professional Wrestling obviously out of Japan and WCW out of the United States.

04:21.98
Bradley Palermo
They somehow put this together, i guess as some sort of cultural global unity attempt. I'm not, I'm not exactly sure how this all came together. It was Inoki, I believe the wrestler who was a big deal in North Korea and was and was able to put this together. But the event took place in Pyongyang, North Korea at the,

04:42.08
Bradley Palermo
Rungarado 1st of May Stadium, which is one of the largest stadiums on the planet. Day one had 150,000 people day two was reported at 190,000 people, combining that to 340,000 340,000 people total, making it by some some say the largest, I'm sure that can be disputed in some shape or form, but the largest crowd in professional wrestling history.

05:08.66
Bradley Palermo
but before you picture like um a WrestleMania level energy, that's not what this is. These people haven't seen professional wrestling or Americans.

05:18.89
Bradley Palermo
It's there's not an energy at all. It's, There's no cheering. There's no booing. There's no chance. Picture a mall with a hundred and something thousand people in it where there's just kind of chatter in the background. Like that's what it sounds like. There's no, there's no pop.

05:34.64
Bradley Palermo
Um,

05:34.88
Aaron
Yeah, not to mention that what we do here doesn't sound like it's the actual crowd that's there. like It seems like they were just overdubbing some sort of crowd noise over it sometimes.

05:47.45
Aaron
like I had to really struggle to hear what actually sounded like the North Korean crowd that it was happening in front of.

05:55.93
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. And we, okay, to be fair, we watched the version that was released on WCW pay-per-view months later, edited down to a couple of hours. This was a two night event with, know, some ridiculous amount of matches. I think we only saw a handful of matches and what we watched. we saw the the, the portion that was sort of presented for the Americans.

06:17.66
Aaron
Yeah, we saw eight out of 15 15 matches total.

06:17.72
Bradley Palermo
Um,

06:21.50
Bradley Palermo
emma And so this has Eric Bischoff and Mike Tenet sort of doing commentary and trying to explain what the fuck's going on. I think there was a New Japan pro wrestling announcer with them, but it was all, all that announcing was done, you know, overdubbed after the fact for sure.

06:38.21
Aaron
Yeah.

06:39.08
Bradley Palermo
um but yeah the card itself is a mix of wcw wrestlers and the new japan guys culminating in a main event which is rick flair and antonio enoki but it is there's nothing like weird about the wrestling here it's the weirdness is it's the atmosphere the atmosphere atmosphere is weird um

06:54.01
Aaron
It's just the vibe of the place. Yeah. Yeah. Not to mention that, um you know, we're not even well. So there's a there's a dark side of the ring episode about this whole event and the traveling and what all of the wrestlers and Bischoff experienced while they were there.

07:10.86
Aaron
And I rewatched that ah recently.

07:13.22
Bradley Palermo
Me too. Yeah.

07:14.18
Aaron
And, you know, paints an interesting picture because, The wrestlers, you know, everyone immediately got their passports taken when they got to North Korea and nobody, it seemed like nobody really wanted them there.

08:02.09
Aaron
Yeah, basically.

08:05.72
Bradley Palermo
hotel or talk on the phone and blah blah blah so um i believe it was certainly not the first match of the evening but the for the first we saw was two cold scorpio versus chris minois is that correct yes

08:15.04
Aaron
But the first match we saw.

08:20.83
Aaron
Yes, and they both were under different names. Too Cold Scorpio was Flying Scorpio and Benoit was Wild Pegasus.

08:29.71
Bradley Palermo
that's a terrible name wild pegasus

08:31.10
Aaron
Wild Pegasus, yeah, that's bad.

08:33.50
Bradley Palermo
um Yeah, so, I mean, it's just funny seeing Scorpio go out there and do his dance. You know, it's, I mean, just an American.

08:40.84
Aaron
Especially after his part in the in the in the Dark Side episode.

08:46.34
Bradley Palermo
Cold Scorpio in in the Dark Side episode is plotting the death of Road Warrior Hawk.

08:52.69
Aaron
Hawk. Yeah.

08:53.81
Bradley Palermo
who'd also, I guess Hawk wasn't, you know, kind of following the rules and he was, he felt like he was putting a Scorpio felt like he was putting everyone's life at risk. And then Hawk called him the N word, I believe.

09:03.97
Aaron
Yeah, I think so.

09:04.45
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. ah Um, so there was like a, he was thinking about, well, gotta kill him. So, you know, he doesn't get us killed and it's pretty dark. He didn't seem like he was joking. You know, he ultimately did not kill.

09:13.32
Aaron
No, he was not joking at all.

09:15.11
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Um,

09:16.13
Aaron
It was intense.

09:17.78
Bradley Palermo
So, but yeah, so I mean, just imagine, you know, um an American muscly pro wrestler, black guy doing like hip hop style, like dances to the moon. Like these people haven't seen any of these things.

09:31.88
Bradley Palermo
Like, I don't think they'd seen an American.

09:32.10
Aaron
Yeah.

09:34.02
Bradley Palermo
i don't think they've seen a black person. i i certainly don't think they've seen someone move the way Scorpio does. Like, like, it's just fucking fascinating.

09:40.46
Aaron
Sure.

09:42.73
Bradley Palermo
You know, it's like, and they're just sitting there just, you know, completely blank.

09:46.44
Aaron
Yeah, they're dead quiet.

09:48.10
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

09:49.38
Aaron
It's just, you know, and so like you said, it's a solid wrestling match. um It's not very long. The crowd is so dead quiet that like, you get You just feel like there's no energy to the match at all. um But it's not a bad match. it's It's like six minutes long. Benoit hits Scorpio with a pile driver and then his flying headbutt and gets the pin.

10:12.05
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, that's about all that was. um But awkward, it's just because no one really knew what to do or how to react. then I think the second one we saw was the Yuji Nagata versus Takamitsu Nagata.

10:26.78
Bradley Palermo
Ishuwa. This is going to be a hard episode for me. Takamichi. Can you say these people's names for me? er

10:33.44
Aaron
Yuji Nagata versus Takamitsu Ishizawa was the second match.

10:38.42
Bradley Palermo
Okay, cool. um These guys have the same haircut. They're both Japanese, the same color tights, the same knee pads, the same boots.

10:43.47
Aaron
Same color tights.

10:48.86
Aaron
Same general body type, except one guy was like a few pounds heavier than the other one.

10:48.93
Bradley Palermo
So,

10:53.95
Bradley Palermo
but like, dude, I mean, they should have been a tag team because they were really hard to tell a apart. And it i don't know. I mean,

11:00.11
Aaron
It also doesn't help that that what we were watching was like very low quality like digital transfer of a VHS from the 90s. So you can't really see anyone's face clearly to begin with.

11:09.70
Bradley Palermo
yeah.

11:12.46
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it's true. the the faces aren't clear. And then, but like, you're like, okay, it's the guy that weighs 240, not the guy that weighs 225.

11:21.100
Aaron
Right. Nagata was the one who who weighed a little bit more than Ishizawa did. So that was how I was able to tell them apart.

11:28.77
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, but um but they did, you know, the athletic sports style, like like sort of legitimate presenting wrestling, like the the japanese Japanese champion.

11:37.86
Aaron
Yeah, it was like, um yeah, kind of kind of strong style ish, you know, a lot of submission stuff, but they had like aggressive kicks and punches and stuff, but like a lot of like ground based submission things as well.

11:52.22
Bradley Palermo
And then the Japanese announcer was talking to Eric Richaw. He's like, we are very superior. You can tell our our style is very superior to the American style, which in wrestling commentary, you're always supposed to kind of talk shit to each other or whatever, but Eric's like, I don't know about superior, but I mean, it does look more real.

12:06.57
Aaron
Yeah. ah

12:11.03
Bradley Palermo
I mean, you know, we kind of like our shit fake and full of mud stomps here in America, but you know, but, um, it ended up with a submission.

12:16.100
Aaron
Sure.

12:20.54
Bradley Palermo
the gut, uh, got that, that, uh, cross on bar on, uh, each of Waza, whatever the fuck, however you say his name. Yeah.

12:37.59
Aaron
Yeah, it was okay.

12:52.35
Aaron
Yeah, it just doesn't feel right.

12:57.14
Bradley Palermo
was the third one um that we got, uh, the hero, uh,

13:00.24
Aaron
Yeah, Hiro Saito and Masahiro Chono versus El Samurai and Tadao Yasuda.

13:00.94
Bradley Palermo
all right.

13:06.93
Aaron
And this was another good match. I i know about Masahiro Chono. I've heard of him before. i don't think I've seen very many Masahiro Chono matches. So he was the the person that I enjoyed the most in this. I felt like he was the most intense.

13:22.30
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

13:33.42
Aaron
And they kept talking about how he was like, he's only been wrestling for a year or two.

13:33.70
Bradley Palermo
Right.

13:37.98
Aaron
and

13:38.80
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, he's green, but he's, you know, has his history with sumo.

13:42.07
Aaron
he used to be a sumo. Yeah. So he...

13:43.73
Bradley Palermo
And he still does that sumo like kick and stuff to the sides. Like.

13:47.41
Aaron
And the like, I don't know what you would call them. They're like palm thrusts, you know, like how you're pushing your opponent backwards with with palm thrusts.

13:51.38
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

13:55.31
Aaron
um

13:55.48
Bradley Palermo
He seems a little light to be a sumo guy. He wasn't, he wasn't huge.

13:59.06
Aaron
Well, yeah, he definitely lost some, must've lost some weight, but he was like a, he was pretty tall.

14:02.51
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

14:03.86
Aaron
um

14:04.14
Bradley Palermo
you know

14:04.82
Aaron
So yeah, this was, you know, another good match. Like I said, Chono hits a shoulder tackle from the top rope and gets the pin. So ah him and Saito are the winners of this one.

14:18.66
Bradley Palermo
We'll save that one for later too. Okay. And what do we have for the fourth match?

14:23.42
Aaron
The fourth match ah was Mariko Yoshida and Manami Toyota versus Akira Hokuto and Bull Nakano, ah the women's tag match. And um I got to say, just after like maybe four or five minutes, like, yeah, some of it was a little messy, but overall, I felt like was so much better than anything from the ww WWF, like from 1998 to 2002 or whatever, you know, that chunk that we've been watching repeatedly.

14:50.82
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

14:51.23
Aaron
Like they're doing real moves here, but it was very, yeah, yeah.

14:54.15
Bradley Palermo
Oh, for the women, you mean? Yeah, of course. Yeah.

14:57.19
Aaron
Yeah. Like this was very impressive for a women's match in 1995. And I know, ah you know, I've obviously seen Bull Nakano before. um

15:06.19
Bradley Palermo
I bet those North Koreans have never seen anything like bull's hair.

15:06.40
Aaron
it was good.

15:09.38
Bradley Palermo
I mean, we've talked about it before, but it's...

15:09.50
Aaron
Right.

15:12.33
Bradley Palermo
it's like she's blown it dry up while hanging upside down and then froze it with, with hairspray.

15:16.92
Aaron
Yeah.

15:23.80
Aaron
Yeah, like a mohawk, sort of.

15:29.54
Bradley Palermo
I don't know. I mean, i don't think there's like style in North Korea. Like there is one style, like it's a conformity sort of like everyone has like a uniform look. I don't think can see, you don't see people with fucking green hair that's spiked up, you know?

15:38.05
Aaron
Yeah.

15:41.30
Bradley Palermo
So I, I don't, I almost wish I could interview some of these guys that were there, you know, be like, what is.

15:46.86
Aaron
Yeah.

15:48.85
Aaron
Right?

15:48.85
Bradley Palermo
often

15:49.09
Aaron
Like, what were the reactions to some of these things? But um I thought this was my favorite match so far, like of everything of of the three that we've seen before.

15:51.89
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

16:14.76
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Bull dominated that match for the most part. Um, and finish was a pinfall, I think.

16:22.60
Aaron
Yeah, Nakano won with a leg drop from the top rope and then pin, and then the pin.

16:22.90
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

16:27.24
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Um, I do. If we pause for a second, I have the Meltzer, the Dave Meltzer ratings from the wrestling observer newsletter at the time.

16:36.01
Bradley Palermo
Um, The Scorpio match, he yeah the Benoit Scorpio match, he gave three and a half stars to the Nagata match two and a half.

17:11.24
Aaron
It's just hard because it's like, well, like we've been saying, like the vibe of this place is just all wrong.

17:11.24
Bradley Palermo
um

17:17.68
Aaron
It just doesn't feel like it's, it's whatever they did to the, to the audience, like however they decided to deal with the fact that they weren't making any noise, it just comes across not genuine to me.

17:17.70
Bradley Palermo
It's so wrong. Yeah.

17:29.89
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. um Like, they're not fans. There's no way they had an opportunity.

17:33.06
Aaron
Right. Therefore they're being forced to be there.

17:35.68
Bradley Palermo
Right.

17:36.61
Aaron
ah like

17:37.85
Bradley Palermo
Let's just say it. Yeah.

17:39.33
Aaron
That's exactly what it is.

17:39.87
Bradley Palermo
hu

17:40.49
Aaron
Like nobody is attending this thing willingly.

17:40.90
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

17:43.81
Bradley Palermo
right or and inter spliced in between all these matches there's like olympic opening ceremony style

17:44.87
Aaron
So, you know, it takes, it takes two nights for them to really finally have some sort of a reaction. And it's literally not until the last match of the second night that anyone does anything.

18:01.11
Bradley Palermo
events happening where performances yeah we're like a thousand people have like a sheet over their hair like a like some tapestries and it flows and it looks like the ocean or whatever and then the mountain comes in like it's actually very cool like it's very it's impressive you know again like it sucks that probably no one has a choice on if they do that kind of art or not but it but it is very cool it's very pretty yeah

18:02.07
Aaron
Perform. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

18:12.52
Aaron
Right.

18:15.83
Aaron
Super impressive. Yeah. But...

18:21.44
Aaron
Right. Yeah.

18:25.12
Aaron
yeah It's, it's, it's, it's rather chilling, I suppose, when you think about the fact that like, yeah, there's thousands of people in the stands, you know, with the different color poster boards and they're like switching them to make cool images in the background of like the ocean or flowers or whatever.

18:46.10
Bradley Palermo
yeah it's pretty crazy um then we get into sort of what looks a little bit like a american wrestling match we got scott norton in there versus uh

18:58.67
Aaron
Shinya Hashimoto.

19:00.76
Bradley Palermo
shinya hashimoto thank you um and these are two big old dudes doing like big guy stuff i think it's

19:07.47
Aaron
And this is for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship too.

19:15.56
Aaron
Yeah, he's he's built like a like a brick wall.

19:15.69
Bradley Palermo
this

19:18.73
Bradley Palermo
And stiff strikes from Hashimoto, of course. Who was the champion?

19:23.70
Aaron
Hashimoto was the champion.

19:24.45
Bradley Palermo
okay.

19:24.98
Aaron
And they and they um they apparently had wrestled each other before this match for the belt that they're wrestling for now. they had The commentators mentioned it. um And this is another one of the things that I remember from the Dark Side of the Ring episode is Scott Norton was talking about this match.

19:40.74
Aaron
And he was like, this was the quietest crowd I have ever been in front of. you know We tried all this stuff to get a rise out of them, but they just didn't make a sound.

19:49.85
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

19:50.66
Aaron
And so that's where like you can kind of feel like I can feel like the crowd is not really reacting to anything. And then when there are slight little noises, it feels like they were added in. Like it just doesn't just doesn't feel natural. You know what I mean?

20:05.71
Bradley Palermo
Right, right. No, I agree. um It went to a time.

20:09.10
Aaron
But yes, Norton did hit did to hit him, Hashimoto, like super hard a lot from the get-go.

20:14.27
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

20:15.12
Aaron
I liked it. I liked the match for sure. It's just, I wish the crowd was making any kind of noise whatsoever for the entirety of this 20-minute match, and they didn't.

20:24.80
Bradley Palermo
they went to a 15 minute time limit draw, which I think for, ah well, for a two and three quarter star from Dave Meltzer, I think that, well, I was surprised, I guess, that they gave the Asian dude in front of the Asian audience, you know, a time limit draw and not just a clean defeat over the imperialist American or whatever, you know, cause they fucking hate Americans, you know,

20:45.14
Aaron
Well, they do, but they also don't like Japan either. That's that's another part of the um the Dark Side episode is like Japan had colonialized Korea for a very long time.

20:50.33
Bradley Palermo
earth thing Right, yeah

20:58.44
Aaron
And the last hundred years prior to this, like had, you know, killed a lot of Koreans um some sort of like feudal occupation or something.

21:08.26
Aaron
So it's not like they love Japanese people either.

21:11.71
Bradley Palermo
right right. But at least they can...

21:13.41
Aaron
Except for Inoki.

21:14.75
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I just think... And they, they like him for some reason and they like Muhammad Ali a lot. They talk, they have him there. seems like he'd been there before he was at this event.

21:23.69
Aaron
So they like the reason why they like Inoki, um and this is something that I read about in that book that I read like six months ago or whatever, is Inoki was trained by someone named Ricky Dozon, and he was another wrestler who made his name in Japan, but...

21:23.81
Bradley Palermo
They.

21:35.86
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

21:40.32
Aaron
it came out before Ricky Dozon's death or maybe right after that he was actually North Korean and had and had escaped a long time ago.

21:46.67
Bradley Palermo
Oh, Yeah.

21:49.35
Aaron
And so he was kind of like a local hero and him and Inoki were kind of bonded together because Ricky Dozon had trained Inoki. So that that was part of the reason why he was well-received North Korea.

22:01.50
Aaron
And then also because Inoki had like a political career in Japan at the time, this was like, you know, this mission of peace that he was trying to use as a way to like get elected for whatever office he was trying to get into.

22:13.50
Bradley Palermo
yeah Yeah. Fascinating. So, um yeah, then we get the guy that Scorpio was trying to kill, Road Warrior Hawk versus Suong Sik Kim.

22:25.67
Bradley Palermo
Is that right?

22:26.52
Aaron
No, it's Taddao Yasuda again.

22:27.16
Bradley Palermo
long Oh, to da you sit where the fuck did i Oh, no, I put that's a sumo wrestler.

22:34.46
Aaron
Yeah, Tadao Yasuda is the ex-Sumo guy who we've already seen once.

22:37.34
Bradley Palermo
yeah okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. um okay so then we get the road warrior hawk versus who was it again okay and um it was supposed to be a tag it's supposed to be a tag team match um animal found it he had an injury so or he found a way to not go to north korea or two

22:44.07
Aaron
Tadao Yasuda,

22:47.60
Aaron
who we've already seen.

22:57.74
Aaron
I think he had a back injury.

22:59.49
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, so um so we only get ah Road Warrior Hawk, which is, you know, still fun. It's always good to see him.

23:15.06
Bradley Palermo
And, yeah, I mean, this is not much of a match.

23:17.94
Aaron
This was fine.

23:19.52
Bradley Palermo
What?

23:19.100
Aaron
Yeah, I said it was fine because I'm just by this point, I'm starting to get tired of listening to no crowd because like I'm hearing is clearly not from the match I'm watching.

23:30.07
Aaron
Like this one in particular, you couldn't even hear any of the noise from them hitting the ring like when they were being suplexed and stuff.

23:36.62
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. So they doctored that. They were like, well, we got at least have... I don't know.

23:42.16
Aaron
Something I don't know.

23:42.13
Bradley Palermo
I don't know who what the edit concept was, but... um Yeah, I don't

23:46.03
Aaron
It was too short to to care. it was like, what, two minutes long?

23:50.60
Bradley Palermo
yeah I guess you could say it was a squash. It was like... Hawk's like, you know, flying clothesline was like kind of sloppy and that that was his finisher and he got the pin, but i was just thinking he went all the way to North Korea to do a squash, you know?

23:59.76
Aaron
Yeah, not the best.

24:04.46
Aaron
To do a two-minute match, that like kind of sucked. Yeah, he was probably pissed off and almost yeah almost got killed by Scorpio for using the N-word.

24:07.25
Bradley Palermo
Risk your life and like, yeah.

24:12.91
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Which, um you know, he had some choices in that. ah so

24:25.23
Bradley Palermo
Oh wow

24:28.29
Bradley Palermo
wow.

24:28.40
Aaron
And obviously they couldn't drink, they couldn't take pills. like That's the other thing that led to so much tension is no nobody none of the wrestlers could go and do any of the things that they were used to doing after they were done wrestling.

24:31.86
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

24:44.38
Aaron
Yeah, it was crazy.

24:44.94
Bradley Palermo
they're like they weren't They had no privacy. and They tried to go and play pool or whatever. Everyone looks at them like they're crazy.

24:50.80
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

24:51.40
Bradley Palermo
Bischoff tried to go for a run.

24:52.04
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

24:52.58
Bradley Palermo
They looked at him like he had like three heads. and They told him, like you can't do that. you know so

24:56.85
Aaron
Yeah.

24:57.43
Bradley Palermo
Fascinating situation. but The next one was like probably one of the better matches. We had the Steiner brothers versus...

25:04.70
Aaron
Yep, against Hiroshi Hase and Kinsuke Sasaki.

25:08.49
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it's fun to see the Steiners. therere are

25:11.31
Aaron
Yeah, there's never anything wrong with this diners match. This one... I kind of lost interest in before it was over. Um, but there were some good moments, uh, uh, Hiroshi Hase gave Rick Steiner the big swing.

25:25.06
Aaron
So I'm wondering if that's who Claudio Castagnoli got it from.

25:34.92
Aaron
ah

25:37.33
Bradley Palermo
But I did see that. Yeah. And, um you know, power suplexes. What do you expect from the Steiners? Yeah.

25:44.69
Aaron
Yeah, some some belly to bellies and um the the whoever it was that was put editing this together, I guess, didn't have Scott Steiner pinning Hiroshi Hase for the win.

25:44.81
Bradley Palermo
as good

25:56.94
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

25:57.69
Aaron
So we didn't see that. We missed it.

25:58.78
Bradley Palermo
We didn't see the pin. noticed that. It's really funny. i think they even said on...

26:02.42
Aaron
And then we heard that silly... Yeah, they said they said like, oh, well, we didn't we didn't see that.

26:04.15
Bradley Palermo
ah Go ahead. Yeah.

26:07.75
Aaron
but But they played that ah Steiner Rise song that you like so much.

26:13.02
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Good music.

26:18.92
Bradley Palermo
And then we...

26:19.03
Aaron
But...

26:19.91
Bradley Palermo
Go ahead.

26:20.28
Aaron
ah But this was all building to the main event of night two, which was the final match that we saw on this pay-per-view broadcast. And that was and Antonio Inoki nature boy, Ric Flair.

26:32.55
Aaron
ah First time matchup, which I thought was cool. um This is where commentary took the opportunity to talk about what Anoki has done in terms of bringing Americans and Japanese wrestlers to North Korea to try to bring people together through entertainment and sport, yada, yada. um And this is the match that actually, according to the wrestlers who were there, is the one match of both nights that actually got a a visceral crowd reaction at all. And I remember i think Scott Norton on the Dark Side of the Ring episode was the one who talked about it like took him a minute, but Flair and Inoki were so good that the crowd really got behind Inoki. And so they were cheering for his punches and stuff. And, know, i

27:17.34
Aaron
I felt like I could maybe sometimes hear it just a little bit, you know, but like not really, never really felt like And that's the thing is I was like, okay, this is the one where they're actually a real crowd.

27:22.27
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

27:30.30
Aaron
Maybe this will be a good match, but I still could barely hear them.

27:31.74
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. You could almost like phantom hear it. Like there was enough rustling that you were like, because you know what a crowd reaction should be for something, ah you know, for a main event.

27:43.72
Bradley Palermo
And so you would almost be like, you hear like, did I just hear him go, oh, and I'm like, I don't think I did, but, but it was so close. It was like almost there. Like there was some gasping.

27:51.96
Aaron
Yeah.

27:52.75
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. um

27:53.44
Aaron
Yeah.

27:54.47
Bradley Palermo
But, um,

27:56.12
Bradley Palermo
the, the video package for this was, yeah kind of framing it as like a serious international showdown Ric Flair and Inoki, you know, are taking this match very seriously. And, um,

28:09.29
Bradley Palermo
And it was good. You know, heel flares always fun. He's not bleeding for once in this one, but he's he's working very American style. He keeps tying Noki up in the ropes and um throwing him into the posts on the outside, um doing the psychological work, you know, oh, don't don't don't hit me. Don't hit don't hit me, you know.

28:27.92
Bradley Palermo
um messing you know uh kind of kind of crowd manipulation as well i mean they're they're they're good at they're good at working with nothing in this situation and you know nokia lands several stiff kicks and wins with a quick pin after countering flare i mean it wasn't a huge long match it was less than 15 minutes still but it was it was solid it was acceptable you know yeah

28:34.84
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. It's a good match.

28:50.96
Aaron
Yeah, it was good. You know, just I it was the same as you. I did feel like I heard the crowd for a very small number of moments, but you do miss out on the vibe because it's just there's they're not cheering.

29:01.27
Bradley Palermo
yeah

29:04.69
Bradley Palermo
Dave gave this one a three star rating. He actually gave the Steiner match a three and a half star rating, but

29:11.97
Bradley Palermo
that is collision in Korea.

29:32.48
Bradley Palermo
Rewind being, it was spectacular. Since the decision to watch Collision in Korea was my call, sticking with tradition, I will give my rating first.

29:44.03
Bradley Palermo
And i

29:46.29
Bradley Palermo
It has a cultural significance. I'm glad I saw it. But I think this is one of those situations where like I watched it so you don't have to. I say fast forward.

29:57.16
Bradley Palermo
It's... It's just not that fun to watch. It's not that fun to watch. It doesn't seem that fun to be in North Korea. it's i that's the That's the closest I've ever been to being there, has is watching this for two hours. And, um you know, ah yeah, no. no and there's there was a There was an okay match, you know, or dar two, but, like, I mean...

30:32.34
Aaron
ah Well, it was definitely, like you said, it's a unique part of wrestling history. There were some matches that were not particularly interesting to me.

30:42.22
Aaron
The vibe is super weird a lot of the time. ah There were some good matches on here for sure, but I think I'm going to follow suit and give this one a fast forward.

30:57.27
Bradley Palermo
And we always love to hear from you out there, the grapple gang. You can call us at 626-657-SLAM.

31:09.70
Bradley Palermo
Tell us your thoughts about the show. Tell us what you think we should watch next. Tell us whatever you want or cut a promo on us if you just feel like being mean. We're down for it. um Yeah, 626-657-SLAM is our Google Voice message system so you're not gonna like we're not gonna pick up you can just drop that message right in there send us an email grapple city pod at gmail.com find us across social media at grapple city pod all those links are going to be in the episode description today i believe i have caller from an ohio number let's see what this one says

32:40.90
Bradley Palermo
Have we covered early WrestleMania's before?

32:49.84
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I know two two kind of sucks. Three is, you know, the the one, i guess, that really takes it all off. One pretty slow-paced.

33:00.50
Bradley Palermo
Like, it's it's surprisingly more difficult to watch than then i think it's going to be every time I put it on. I'm like, oh, my God, it's so, like, dark and slow.

33:06.42
Aaron
Yeah.

33:08.25
Aaron
Yeah.

33:08.42
Bradley Palermo
um But I'm down, I mean, to go through it all. I'm sure we'll get to them all. I don't think we'll cover... all five of them at once but

33:15.96
Aaron
That would be pretty wild. It would take a lot of time to watch them.

33:18.52
Bradley Palermo
yeah

33:19.00
Aaron
but i But I do think we should watch them for sure.

33:21.61
Bradley Palermo
cool all right so this this episode was my call making the next one your call do you know what we're gonna watch for uh the next episode

33:30.03
Aaron
Yes, I have made a choice. um We're going to watch WrestleMania 12 from the year 1996.

33:44.28
Bradley Palermo
Oh, wow.

33:45.84
Aaron
And ah this is the WrestleMania that had the Iron Man match between Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart for the WWF Championship.

33:54.00
Bradley Palermo
Hell yeah.

34:02.41
Bradley Palermo
an hour.

34:03.24
Aaron
But ah we got... Piper versus Goldust in a Hollywood backlot brawl, which I remember pretty well from when I was a kid. It's pretty funny.

34:14.11
Bradley Palermo
That be funny.

34:14.34
Aaron
ah Stone Cold versus Savio Vega. Undertaker versus Diesel.

34:22.05
Aaron
Ultimate Warrior versus Triple H. ah Hunter Hearst Helmsley is what they're calling him here.

34:28.13
Bradley Palermo
Oh, wow.

34:28.49
Aaron
British Bulldog, Owen Hart and Vader versus Ahmed Johnson, Jake Roberts and Yokozuna.

34:34.05
Bradley Palermo
Oh, that's great.

34:35.37
Aaron
Yeah, and that's it. And then Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart. There's only one two, three, four, five, six matches.

34:41.93
Bradley Palermo
And that's like a new generation era. So it's kind of more in my, uh, sort of my childhood era, which is kind of fun.

34:47.08
Aaron
Yeah, i I remember that. I mean, i definitely um rented this on VHS as a kid, for sure, because the Shawn Michaels-Bret Hart match is very good.

34:53.10
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

34:58.89
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. All right. Well, that was our shortest episode yet, but, um, I don't really mind.

35:03.10
Aaron
but What can you look? Yeah, what can you really say about collision in Korea like wrestling good crowd bad vibe weird?

35:11.90
Bradley Palermo
yeah i mean that's all there is to it and if it wasn't for this podcast i probably would have only seen the dark side of the ring on it and that would have probably been enough but i'm i'm glad i have that in my you know in my knowledge bank now i actually sat there and watched well i mean i watched what we were allowed to watch i'm i'm i'm glad we didn't watch the other 18 matches or whatever that would have been too much but um i see why those could they cut those out so

35:30.05
Aaron
yeah

35:37.10
Bradley Palermo
Thank you guys for listening. Don't forget to call that that number and let us know your thoughts and feelings on the show. And we'll get back at you as soon as we possibly can with a breakdown of WrestleMania 12.

35:48.87
Aaron
Catch in the cheap seats. Adios.