Introduction

I came from Hokkaido to Tokyo and got a job at a security company and which was a lot of time spent. It might have been a happy life, but the profession I longed for most was "professional wrestler". In pursuit of that dream, I became a professional wrestler at the age of 23, and since then I have continued the over-the-top death match that I have devoted myself to for over 20 years. Of course, it hurts, but to be honest, my body is full of fun. Thanks to the immeasurable amount of blood shed, there are people who know the name "Jun Kasai" no matter where you go in Japan. There are death match fans all over the world who will welcome me chanting "Kasai!".

Boyhood

I was born and raised in Obihiro, Hokkaido. I lived in a family of four with my parents and my older sister who is two years older than me. It was a common family that you see everywhere. Obihiro is out in the country, but I was born in 1974 and there were a lot of children around the area. There were many children of the same age in the neighborhood, and when I was in kindergarten, I played with them. Growing up I used to watch TV, read manga, and play like a normal child. I also liked Ultraman and Kamen Rider, but as I got older, I became more interested in the monsters than the heroes. I've always tended to be into the creepy things, and since I loved painting, I used to draw when I had free time. I saved the one with the white back of the advertisement in the newspaper, and drew a caricature or an original monster on it.

My grandpa and grandma lived far away, but they said, "Jun loves painting," and they kept a lot of newspaper advertisements with white backs, and when they came to see me, they gave me a sneak peek. Even so, I drew enough pictures that I didn't have enough. What I think is different is that I also drew a female body secretly. My dad hid an erotic book behind the bed, and I drew it. Partly because I found it with my sister and looked at it secretly, I also drew a picture of a woman nude with reference to the erotic book. It didn't feel unpleasant at all, but I actually drew something like this as a child. I was wondering if I shouldn't do it, so I kept hiding those pictures under the table where the phone was placed so that my parents couldn't see them. I still remember this vividly.

On that day, the kindergarten was closed or something, and I was taking a nap at home, and then I heard my mother calling someone, saying, "My Jun is drawing a naked picture of a woman!" Even though I hid the picture and stored it under the telephone stand, I didn't know it would be this bad.

I was listening to my mom being upset about it while pretending to be asleep, and while thinking "It's bad and was crude," I sometimes wondered if  I strange.

Antonio Inoki vs. Umanosuke Ueda's Nail Death Match.

At that time, there were times when my relatives got together and had a banquet on someone's birthday or something. Adults would have a good time drinking alcohol, but at that time, the TV was turned on and showing Antoni Inoki vs. Umanosuke Ueda's Nail Death Match (February 8, 1978, Nippon Budokan). While watching the match of people trying to throw another person on the nail board, the uncles of the relatives were excited watching. This was the first time I learned about "professional wrestling" in my memory. When I think about it now, it is unusual for Mr. Inoki to wrestle in a death match, and I think it was a valuable battle in the professional wrestling world at that time, considering the form of sincerity.

But in that match, no one fell into the nails after all. I was watching it as a kid and wondering what was so fun about this. I didn't really understand what wrestling was, so I didn't have anything to convey to myself at that time. I lived a little east, but when I entered elementary school, my parents decided to move to a different town in Obihiro. Enrolling in elementary school will give everyone a new start, but for me, I don't have any kindergarten friends anymore, and I don't have any neighbors.

I'm a kid whose personality has changed a little because I have to make friends from the beginning because of the new environment, so I can get used to the environment quickly and I can make friends, but after all I felt like I wasn't familiar with it for a long time, and I became more and more shy. Even when my friend came to my house saying "Can Kasai-kun come out and play", I asked my mother to say "he's not here" and used my absence to draw pictures all by myself. I still think I'm introverted, but it was more obvious around this time.

All Japan better than New Japan

Around that time, I remember that All Japan Pro-Wrestling came to Obihiro, and there was a kid in my class named Sakae-kun with a picture of giant-like man standing in position. "Now, All Japan Pro-Wrestling is coming to Obihiro," he said with great tension. I thought that that only adults watched wrestling, so I asked Sakae who that giant like man was, and he said, "Giant Baba. He's a crazy professional wrestler that's coming. He's the size of a two-story house, and when he walks down the aisle, he knocks down the approaching children and people with a karate chop!"

When I think about it now, it's a ridiculously crazy story, but when I heard that, I was excited to say, "I was excited to see if that person!"

"And many foreign wrestlers will also come!" In Obihiro at that time, I had hardly seen any foreigners, and even if there were foreigners who were riding bicycles with their backpacks on their backs, sometimes because of Christian missions or something, the children around me would say, "Gaijin! A foreign wrestler is coming to the east of Japan in such a town like mine and a big man who is about two stories tall and beats a kid with a karate chop will wrestle a match! If such a ridiculous thing happens, I want to see this, and as soon as I got home after school, I tell my father, "All Japan Wrestling is coming to Obihiro. Please, take me it can be all my Christmas presents.

My father was also a fan of professional wrestling, so he said, "OK, I understand." My cousin's brother also wants to go, so let's go together! He bought me a ticket and I couldn't wait until the day of the show. The ticket at that time was a real ticket printed properly, and there were pictures of Giant Baba, Bruiser Brody, and famous powerhouses, and I was looking at them. that just raised the tension

I can't wait for a while, I can't control my feelings, so I went to a bookstore and asked him to buy a lot of thick books such as "Wrestling Gate" and "Wrestling Encyclopedia" and read them every day at home to prepare for the show. Brody's rampage that I experienced live is finally on the day of the show. The first time I watched my professional wrestling was another year's "World's Strongest Tag Team League Match". The participating teams were the Bruiser Brody & Jimmy Snuka team, Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta, and the Funks. Also participated on the show was Tiger Jeet Singh, Harley Race, The Sheik, Baron Von Raschke, Killer Karl Krupp. The guys are so big that they don't seem to be humans in this world. I was so excited when Giant Baba came out.

At that time, it was a special match. It was a card with Giant & Great Kojika vs. Bruiser Brody & Jimmy Snuka. As expected, Baba didn't come out hitting a child, but I was overwhelmed by his huge size. But it was the opponent Bruiser Brody that caught my eye more than him. Brody started an out-of-field brawl with Mr. Kojika and flew Mr. Kojika into the chairs where I was sitting. I stepped over Mr. Kojika and saw the barking of pro-wrestling up close, and I was already crazy. My head was so excited about wrestling that I came home and said, "Brody is amazing, wrestling is amazing." After that, I started thinking about professional wrestling, and I read the encyclopedia so much that I could wear it, and I learned kanji with professional wrestling.

Even though I don't remember the kanji I learned in the class at Kogaku, I got a professional wrestling doll who was able to write "the rough eagle of the world" and "the fighting spirit of the world" in a small size. I was in a state where I always felt like wrestling when I drew a picture of wrestling.

However, since Obihiro is a countryside, the performance of professional wrestling is about whether New Japan or All Japan will come once a year or not. The only thing left is to watch it on TV. The New Japan Pro-Wrestling broadcast "World Pro Wrestling" would air at 8 pm on Friday night, so I could watch it normally, but the "All Japan Pro-Wrestling Broadcast" was broadcast from about 2:30 am on Sunday in the middle of the night. At 2:30, is an unknown time for me.

I can't stay up late because there is school the next day, but I can't help but want to see it, so I asked my parents and asked them to forgive me, "If you want to stay up that badly, you can." However, it was 2:30 when professional wrestling begins, so I have to watch programs such as Shingo Yamashiro's "Ai Ai Game" and "Amazing World Travel" that I don't want to watch. "Amazing World Trip" always reflects a relaxing landscape, so I often exhausted myself and fell asleep there.

Also, I tried my best to get up, and when I did and would expect it to finally start, a completely different program would come on and I was wondering what was this, "Today's All Japan Pro-Wrestling broadcast was canceled due to the extension of the baseball broadcast." I cried for whatever reason. That made me hate baseball a little.

I liked All Japan Pro-Wrestling more than New Japan at that time, and it was around the heyday of Tiger Mask. I liked the slightly minor atmosphere of All Japan Pro-Wrestling, and I'm the type who was more attracted to monsters than heroes, so I don't usually know want to see Tiger Mask or gorgeous wrestlers. At the end of the TV broadcast I would go crazy for the announcement of the foreign wrestlers, as there would be an introduction of the foreign wrestler who will participate on the next tour, and it was strangely exciting as I felt like they would be dangerous. I also had a favorite of professional wrestling magazines, and I read "Monthly Big Wrestler" and "Deluxe Wrestling" which I got more often than "Weekly Pro-Wrestling" and "Weekly Gong".

There was a poster, so I bought it for that purpose and put a poster of Terry Funk in my room. When I got hooked on professional wrestling, I naturally wanted to become a professional wrestler, but after all I was a kid. So, I didn't really think about how to become a professional wrestler, and as a small child who didn't even know that he had to actually train to bleed blood said, "I want to become an Ultraman when I grow up." I guess I wanted to be a pure wrestler in a sense. In those days, the idol boom, the strongest tag team poster ... I entered elementary school in the form of a transfer, and I was doing well as it was, but professional wrestling around me there were not any fans, and it would be rather lonely elementary school life. I was either drawing pictures or thinking about professional wrestling for the next two years.

My parents, who had been with me for a long time, worked together and worked during the week off, so on my days off, I often stayed at home with my sister. My sister was different than me, so she told me a lot. When she was about 3 years old, the world became an idol boom. When "The Best Ten" or "The Top Ten" started on TV where Match, Toshi-chan, and Seiko-chan came out and my sister became an idol lover without exception, I put a tape on the radio cassette player and put the microphone on the TV.

I was recording it by sticking it to a speaker, and then my sister said, "Jun, you should love idols too." I'm absorbed in professional wrestling, so I say "Idol is okay", but while flipping through the magazine, I'm asking "Which one do you like?" It's getting annoying, so I noticed Yu Hayami casually "If you force me to pick, I pick her." The next day, my sister went to the town of Obihiro and bought a huge poster with Yu Hayami in a bikini, and she gave it to me "Jun, this is a present". I said, "No, I don't need it," but she said "I don't care!"

There was a time when I peeled off the poster of "All Japan Pro-Wrestling World's Strongest Tag Decision League Match" that was in my room and I put the poster of Yu Hayami's bikini up. Well, I liked professional wrestling so much and I wasn't interested in girls. However, it was my first little love, or something which surprised me. I was supposed to going into in the middle of elementary school in grade 4, but I was transferred to a different elementary school in Obihiro City again. On the first day of the transfer, the teacher introduced me to "Jun Kasai, who will be in this class starting today," and I was so nervous, everyone in the class looked the same. There's only one shining girl sitting in the front seat. In her eyes, it looks like she has the glitter that appears in the manga.

She was cute and I became crazy in the meantime, but at that time I wasn't the type to take action, so I just looked at her and reached the day of graduation without doing anything. I think that because I had to transfer to another school twice when I was in elementary school, I didn't go forward, or have a good personality. I was the type who acted according to the atmosphere of the class without insisting on anything from myself. I have hardly ever had a fight. I only remember having been involved a couple of times when I was little. Looking back at my fighting style since I have become a professional wrestler, I would say I was pretty bad at it since I was little. You might imagine, "Kasai was crazy back then," but that's not really true. I didn't do anything bad.

However, I was good at drawing, so I sometimes I became a hero for a while during my drawing time. Kuzuga is a good picture, and everyone gathered to see it. The most memorable thing is that when I was 6th grade, there was a local newspaper called "Tokachi Mainichi Shimbun" that looked for a caricature of a celebrity, and when I applied for a caricature of singer Naoko Ken, I was selected. However, even though my relatives told me "Jun-chan is amazing!", I don't remember why I drew a picture of Naoko Ken, other than I was not allowed to draw a scary picture. I used to draw horror or creepy pictures. At that time, scary manga was popular, and I often read "Lullabies from Hell" by Hideshi Hino.

Mr. Hino's picture is creepy and ugly, but there is something strangely fascinating, and I draw it by imitating it. When I drew such a picture, my mother worried again, "My Jun it's full of blood. You are only drawing pictures of people who have become ill, I wonder if that's okay." She even consulted with my teacher. Then my home room teacher came up to me said, "Kasai-kun, your mother was very worried you were drawing a bloody picture at home. So she told me if I see Kasai-kun drawing a bloody person at school, I need to stop it." So he told in front of the whole class that anyone drawing bloody pictures needs to stop. At that time, during my summer vacation, there was a psychic program called "The World You Don't Know", and I always watched that. I remember seeing it with my sister.

Also, I would watch horror movies such as "The Amityville Horror" on TV. On TV in the Showa era, even if you watch a peaceful program, a horror movie commercial suddenly comes on. It's creepy music, and "Eguru!", "Eat!", "Skewered!", This is amazing I want to go see this movie! I once went to the cinema with my mother to see "Cannibal Holocaust". It was a little stimulating for elementary school students, and it was a little uncomfortable. I like scary things and I like creepy manga, but in fact I'm not good at "blood". At that time, the minor professional wrestling magazine I used to read would show blood. There were a lot of sensational pictures of matches, and I was trembling when I read articles like "Kengo Kimura, Blood Dharma on the Mexico Expedition!" Looking at the photo of Kengo Kimura, who lost in a haircut death match and was full of blood and had his hair shaved, I thought I would never want to go to Mexico even if I became a professional wrestler.

Even when I entered junior high school, my professional wrestling fever did not cool down. But unfortunately, I didn't have any professional wrestling friends around me, and I was still absorbed in professional wrestling by myself. In junior high school, I joined the soccer club. I didn't really want to do it, but I joined an extracurricular soccer club from the 4th grade of elementary school, so I just tried it.

In my hometown, the only clubs that elementary school boys can enter are the "soccer club" or the "baseball club". I was asked which one do I want to play, but I didn't like baseball because I had a grudge against the time of the TV broadcast of All Japan Pro-Wrestling. That's why I didn't like having to choose soccer, so I didn't get good at it and was a substitute for a long time. I couldn't play at all in the game, but the practice was tough. It's an era when there is no such thing as sports training theory, so it's illegal to drink water while practicing!

Thanks to that, I feel like I have gained endurance. Even after becoming a professional wrestler, it is said that you need stamina, but I wonder if the base I trained at this time is useful. However, I didn't like club activities in the vertical society of seniors and juniors. At that time, I was the type to be swept away, so sometimes my seniors and friends could mess with me. If you practice and do something wrong, your friends in the same grade will say, "Hey, Kasai should be firm!" I've heard that kind of thing several times, but one day when I was bullied as usual, a senior in the soccer club came up and said, "Hey, don't bully Kasai. You will be scared of his sister. I stopped getting bullied. I'm in the same junior high school as my sister, when I was in junior high school, my sister was in junior high school, and by the time I was in junior high school, I became a yankee (delinquent youth). Instead, my hair was bleached to yellow and I wore a long skirt. Even in the neighborhood, it was well known that "Kasai's older sister is dangerous".

My sister's first day in high school she seemed to have a fight with a senior in high school three years older than her. My homeroom teacher came to my house one time and cried and complained, "Please tell your parents for your sister to quit school." I couldn't ask what happened because I was scared. Well, in honor of her sister, when I think about it, my sister at that time was just a rebellious period, and by the time she became an adult, she calmed down. She's living normally now. Perhaps because I had such a hardcore sister, I lived quietly in junior high school and tried to thicken my trousers, but I didn't do anything wrong because of poor fashion.

Anyway, when I got home, my parents and my sister were fighting, so I didn't have time to get into a rebellious period. It was also a quarrel. I was thinking about professional wrestling by myself, but when I became a junior high school student, I was sometimes interested in other than professional wrestling. I think it was about the middle of winter. Suddenly I woke up to eroticism. I was curious about the AV package photos on the leaflets of the nearby Video shop, so I just collected and looked at them. After that, my sister would read a magazine like "somehow teens" that contained stories of girls experiences, so even if I sneaked in and read it, it gradually became unsatisfactory and I just wanted to get an erotic book. That's why I got up in the morning of the day off and went to a bookstore to buy erotic books.

However, since I am so nervous, I can't just go in and buy an erotic book suddenly, so I look at various books I'm not interested in, and go back and forth inside the store. In the end, I sandwiched the erotic book I picked up with a professional wrestling magazine and headed to the cash register. I already picked up with just a little information on the cover, so I sometimes get lost. I repeated it several times, but one day I bought it without looking too much as usual, came home, wondered what kind of erotic book it was, and opened it, something Western-style, where the cover girl had amazing big tits. It was one about having an older sister? This was too intense, or I was overwhelmed by the momentum like a beast, and I was driven by a great sense of guilt saying "What kind of erotic book did I buy?" At midnight that day, I snuck out of my house and rode my bicycle to the distant forest to throw away the erotic book. That was also a trembling experience.

When it was time to decide what high school was going to, I had difficulty. My father was in the construction industry, so I couldn't think that I would join the company in the future. However, I wasn't motivated, so I thought I'd get a job after graduating from junior high school, so I wasn't going to take the high school exam. When I answered, "I'm thinking of helping my father's construction industry," he said, "No, you may be fine, but you should go to high school." So the teacher said. "I've found a high school, and with your grades you can get into that one, so take the exam."

I went to take the entrance exam for it, there were questions like "Write your name with the alphabet", I was at a loss, but the teacher came up and told me the answer. I thought that was dangerous, but the result was that I passed brilliantly. I'm going to a high school dairy department, which is about an hour away by train from my house. The training road farming department that squeezes chickens is early in the morning. As you enter the mountains, there is a school training farm where you can take care of cows and milk. I used to keep a lot of livestock that had various trainings such as making silage, which was stuffed with grass and fermented, but in the Christmas season, there is an annual event called "chicken squeezing training". I'm bringing the chickens that I used to love and raised to a place like a farm square.

They also run away desperately because they have guessed something is going to happen. When we finally catch a chicken that run away with the determination to live or die, they suddenly become quiet and close their eyes as if they were prepared to die. Do it all at once ... "in an atmosphere like that. So I cut the head artery of the neck with a sickle and hang it to drain blood. It's not a pleasant thing. So I peeled my hair, cut the gate into a diamond shape, thrust my hand into it, took out the internal organs, and finally made it into a fan, and ate it.

Well, I did a lot of study that I couldn't learn from textbooks. The harsh agricultural department had an atmosphere like a gathering of bad guys, but there were few fights and there were only Japanese people, but there were only three girls, and it was almost like a boys' school. As a matter of course, I didn't like any of the girls, but the bad boys around me were going out with ordinary girls, holding hands together and walking back to the station.

Looking at my situation, I regretfully said, "I'm not the one to waste my youth," and decided to join the judo club in the fall of grade 11. I didn't want to do judo. When I wanted to move something, I glanced at the pliers press stand in the judo club room, and at the time when there were some other small weight training equipment, and a professional wrestling magazine. I often saw pictures of Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada doing pliers press in Japan, so I was excited to say, "The equipment that professional wrestlers are practicing is in my judo club room!"

I wanted to train my body with that, so I decided to tighten my with that intent. The judo club was almost insubstantial because there were only about 5 members when I joined. There is no teacher and no coach. When we seniors graduated, I had the most seniority, and I put up posters of Mr. Misawa and Mr. Kawada on the wall of the club room, and I was devoting myself to the activity of weight lifting.

There was a dummy that was used when practicing throwing, just tied up the exercise mats together, but it may have been like a little professional wrestling club, as I was using to hit a German Suplex on it, cheating on rolling sobats, etc. At that time, I was in love with professional wrestling, so I went to see anything at the professional wrestling event held in Obihiro, regardless of the group. When I was in grade 12, New Japan Pro-Wrestling came to Obihiro and I talked my friends into going to see them. There was a trainee with a great body was moving around the entrance of the venue, and when I thought that the level was high on the new day, the trainee came out in the first match and said, "I'm Satoshi Kojima, and I am going to be making my debut today." Fortunately, I was able to witness Satoshi Kojima's debut match, but after all I would like to see a U-type match that made me feel the difference between a real professional wrestler and myself. He was 180 centimeters (6'0) and I was only 170 centimeters (5'5) but we were around the same weight.

The activity of the "weight club" resulted in me having a fair amount of meat, but it was crunchy and I thought that a person with such a body could not become a professional wrestler. Around that time, when UWF was split into Rings U-inter and Fujiwara, I started watching U-type matches a lot. I found out that the judo club advisor teacher was in WOWOW, and asked me to "record the Rings", and borrowed the video, and not only collected "Weekly Pro" and "Weekly Gong" but also "Martial Arts News". I started to buy "Martial Arts News", and I became interested in not only professional wrestling but also kickboxing and shooting. There are middleweight martial arts, and I started to think that I might be able to do it with my height. By the time I graduated from high school, the bubble was about to end, and free training was being touted. So somehow, when I graduated from high school, I wanted to go to Tokyo and became a martial arts professional. I drew an illustration on the reader page of "Kickboxing" In the corner, I wrote many illustrations under the pen name Salza Man.

I wanted to go to Tokyo and become a professional in martial arts, after I made the debut I would reveal I was Salza Man. It was a grand promotion plan that I would talk about.

Before I graduated high school my teacher asked me, "What will Kasai do when he graduates?" It was almost the same pattern as when I was in junior high school, and while my classmates decided to go on to college or get a job, I didn't know what I wanted to do. So when I told my teacher that I was thinking, "Go to Tokyo, become a part-time worker, and do martial arts," he said, "No, it's not the time anymore. you have to get a job properly." "I'm going to find a job that suits you, so just take it for the time being" was introduced to "Sohgo Security Services Co., Ltd.", which has its headquarters in Tokyo, and now it's a security called ALSOK. When I took the trial that was a company, I passed brilliantly. When I was supposed to be a guard man in Tokyo. My parents understood that I was going to need to move. By the way, at this time, that bad sister got married and had a child, so with my parents now had a grandchild and thought that I would like Tokyo.

I was assigned to guard a computer company in Shinjuku. I was used to running for the training, but the guards don't have to be physically strong, but rather the world of spiritual theory. The dormitory of the company that started going to the gym of the bodybuilding that was struck by such things as making a big voice and observing the rules firmly is in Kawasaki's Washinuma, so I decided to live in the dormitory It's only one room for each person, but it's a fairly large dormitory, and as a matter of course, there are only men and no women. Well, from my point of view, I had to get to Tokyo to do martial arts, so once I got used to my work, I wondered if there was a martial arts gym near the dormitory, so I searched around and started researching. When I read "Kakutsu", I realized that there was a shooting game called Washinuma Gym, and I went to Tokyo aiming for a wrestler.

I was busy with work, I was not with a woman, but it was fun to spend time with the same statues, and the boy who dreamed of coming out from the day when I felt that I was gradually buried in everyday life was the hustle and bustle of the city I'm addicted to the pattern of losing the purpose and losing the temptation ... It's been a year since I moved to Tokyo after pumping up the fact that I moved to a dormitory near the drinking district. I was in the dormitory, but then I decided to move to a place near "Inokashira-koen Station" on the Keio Line. This is close to Kichijoji, and there is also a drinking area, so the temptation at night is strong. At times other than drinking, I have no hobbies, so I train myself at the gym. I have youth, a healthy body, money and time ...I went sledding down into the profane. At first I went with a colleague, but gradually I started to go by myself.

On my days off, I don't go drinking, I just meet do customs (choosing the fantasy with an escort). At the same time, when I was imposing a mysterious routine of going to the gym to train, making my muscles fluffy, and then heading to the store, there also was a former professional wrestler in Kichijoji. Ishinriki opened a shop called "Dorinkubaa". When I started going as a professional wrestling fan and eventually Ishinriki remembered my name and face, " "You told me you want to be a professional wrestler," Ishinriki said, "Kasai-kun, if you like professional wrestling, that body is a waste. You should take the introductory test to become one."

I came to Tokyo with the intention of becoming a professional in martial arts, but now I'm a man who seems to be alive just to go to do customs. One day I was working as a guard in a waiting room and I was looking at the magazine "Hot and Top less", there was a page that said "Are you okay? Get an HIV check"

If you casually read it, it all applies to you. Do you feel that your immunity has fallen recently? "... "Yes," "Is it easier to catch a cold?" "Yes," Are you having sexual intercourse with an unspecified number of people? " "...Yes," Have you ever had sexual intercourse with a foreigner?" "...Yes." Most of the list with about 100 items is yes. Wait. My body is dull these days, and I don't feel good. I also has sexual intercourse with different women in different countries. This is dangerous, I thought that my life was over.

I went to Tokyo to be a professional wrestler or a fighter and forgot my dream of becoming one. After going to the office, I was wondering if I was infected with HIV, but when I was unable to stand, I found out that there is an institution at the south exit of Shinjuku where I can get an HIV test for free.

Aiming to be a wrestler

I went to get a test, took blood, and wondered which one. When I was prepared to accept any results, I was told, "The test results will be 10 days later." I was surprised because I thought I could see the result soon, but the 10 days after that was really hell. Isn't this infected after all? So what was my life like? Ask yourself, and if this is negative, do what you really wanted to do. I decided I was going to quit current job as a guard and take an introductory test for professional wrestling. Two days later, I got the result and it was negative. At the same time as I was relieved, my feelings were settled, so three days later I resigned and quit the company. I got a retirement allowance, so I decided to go back to Obihiro to rebuild my body based on it.

I should aim to become a professional wrestler. I declared to my family that I would train to become a professional wrestler, and started weight training at the Obihiro City Gymnasium, which is about 10 minutes away by car from my parents' house. At that facility, there were old men who were training their bodies as a hobby, but at first they looked at me with the eyes of "What is this guy who suddenly comes to our territory and trains hard?" That's why. So when I approached, "I'm training to be a professional wrestler!", He said, "Yes! Then you should eat yakiniku next time!" .. After that, I often went out to eat meals with the old men there. Even in the country side, there are many other temptations, such as reuniting with a classmate from junior high school and high school for the first time in a while, drinking around, and making new local friends. Such a life was comfortable as it was, and I spent about a year with it while training and drinking.

Then my father told me "You are aiming to be a professional wrestler! You can't just be drinking around!" I was angry, but it woke me up. I have to take action. Finally, I started thinking seriously about professional wrestling organization I was going to apply for. My dad said, "You shouldn't do hitting and kicking wrestling, it would hurt too much." I wanted to do painful wrestling so my dad wouldn't say that to me. I sent my resume to Battlarts. At that time, Battlarts was famous among the many professional wrestling for its enthusiastic shoot style. I sent my resume to Battlarts and for some reason at the time there was a "Write an essay" portion about why I wanted to become a professional wrestler. The result was unsuccessful. This is bad.

This is bad. After all, if a person with a physique like me becomes a professional wrestler, I thought that I should do something that people in the group think "this is not normal". Yeah. I thought it was useless to write and send my resume, I had no choice but to act, so I bought a round-trip ticket with the rest of my retirement allowance and went to Tokyo for the time being. I didn't, but I thought I'd take an introductory test even if I rushed to the dojo of some group. When I arrived in Tokyo, I decided to stay at a capsule hotel in Kabuki-cho for the time being. However, since the capsule hotel was kicked out in the daytime, I arrived at Shinjuku Central Park at the west exit. I read "Weekly Pro" magazine while lying on the bench, and I found out that Big Japan Wrestling will have a show at Korakuen tomorrow.

Speaking of Big Japan Wrestling Death match. The style is different from Battlarts, but when it comes to professional wrestling that conveys pain, it hurts no matter how you look at it. I thought it was a good way to silence my father, so I went to a nearby pay phone and called the office number of the Big Japan Wrestling office listed in "Weekly Pro". "Yes, it's Big Japan Pro-Wrestling," I think, and I think it was Eiji Tosaka who answered the phone at that time. I asked him straight, "Would you like me to take an introductory test before the Korakuen Hall show tomorrow?" It's a pretty annoying story, but mysteriously, I was told, "It's okay. Then the ring will be set up around 6 o'clock tomorrow, so please come to Korakuen Hall." I went to take a test.

I still remember the introductory test at Korakuen Hall. A ring has been assembled in Korakuen Hall, where there are no customers yet. The examiner was a wrestler named Yukinojo Echigo, who was the lowest in Big Japan at that time. The test menu was 500 squats, 50 jumping squats, 5 sets of push-ups, abs, back muscles, and 3 minutes of pledges. It was an introductory test that was more orthodox than I expected, and I might have done a bridge turn, but I was able to do everything even though I was sick.

When I thought that this would be enough to pass because I passed the test, Ryuji Yamakawa came out from the back and said, "I think it's impossible because you're old and you're short. I'll let you know later if you pass or fail." Again, the results were not immediate. So I was told, "Watch the show today and go home," and I watched in the audience.

Actually, it was the first time I saw Big Japan Pro-Wrestling. Certainly, in the semi-final, Ryuji Yamakawa & Yoshihiro Tajiri (currently TAJIRI) group vs. Minoru Fujita and Tomokai Honma and Mr. Fujita beat Mr. Tajiri. The main event was a Cactus Death Match of Great Pogo (Mr. Pogo) & Shadow WX & Shadow Winger (now The Winger) vs. Mitsuhiro Matsunaga & Shoji Nakamaki & Jason the Terrible (March 5, 1998 Sunday, Korakuen Hall).

After that, I was in Tokyo for a few days, but for the time being, I took a test and decided to go back to Obihiro because I had achieved my purpose. I was able to complete the menu for the "5 year" promise test I had with my mother, so I felt like I had already passed it, but I couldn't get in touch with him even though I was waiting. I didn't get any contact after about two months, so I thought I should call the office and ask if I passed or failed, but I found out that Big Japan Wrestling would come to Obihiro for great timing. I thought that I had to go directly to the venue and listen to it rather than calling, so I bought a ticket and headed to the Obihiro City Gymnasium.

There was Mr. Kojika at the reception hall, so I was afraid to say, "I took the test at Korakuen two months ago..." When he didn't know what I was referring to, he called Mr. Yamakawa. Mr. Yamakawa, who came out from the back, looked at me and said, "Oh, that's right...!" So when I asked, "What happened to me after all?", Mr. Yamakawa said in the usual tone, "I'm sorry! Actually, I had lost your resume...I couldn't get in touch. Well, you passed. I was wondering what it was like for the past two months, but Mr. Kojika said, "It's okay to start tomorrow. Come to the dojo with your futon!" Then I moved to Tokyo about a week later. I decided to live in a dormitory after getting started with Big Japan Pro-Wrestling. My mother told me, "If you haven't sprouted in five years, come back." I was 23 years old, but I was crazy because I was training, and I felt like I couldn't lose to anyone with just power.

At that time, while it was raining, I got off at Kamoi Station on the JR Yokohama Line, where the Dojo of Big Japan Pro-Wrestling is located, but I don't know the location. I was told the way by the police box in front of the station, and even though I got lost and arrived at the dojo after about 10 minutes, in a building like a warehouse, when I opened the big shutter and entered, there was a ring, but it was dim. The laundry was dried and it was a gloomy atmosphere.

I thought it was quite different from the dojo of the professional wrestling organization I had imagined. When I stood at the entrance, a trainee came down from the stairs and greeted me happily, saying, "Let's do our best together and become professional wrestlers!" It seems that the trainee entered about a month before me, but unfortunately he quit a few months later. Now he's a business man who runs many osteopathic clinics in Kyushu. There was a space to sleep on the second floor of the dojo, which was the dormitory for the new disciples. At that time, Mr. Fujita, Mr. Homma, and Yosuke Kobayashi (currently Abdullah Kobayashi) lived in the dormitory.

It seems that Mr. Yamakawa was also there, but it was time to leave the dojo and start living alone. Actually, at that time, Big Japan Pro-Wrestling had a lot of noise when Kendo Nagasaki left in the form of a quarrel. At the same time, Mr. Tajiri seemed to have gone abroad without permission, and it was an unstable time for the group. But I was crazy, so no matter who quit, I thought I'd rebuild this group.

It was Mr. Honma who was in charge of the practice at the time when he woke up at 8 am and did the joint practice for 3 hours from 10 am to 1 pm. Mr. Honma was born in Animal Hamaguchi's gym and loved practicing anyway, so it was tough. After the joint practice, we made chanko, and when we finished eating, we did laundry and cleaned until evening. After that, I went to a supermarket in the neighborhood to buy more chanko, weighted it when the preparation was finished, and when we all ate chanko again around midnight and took a bath with it, it was midnight in no time. I went to bed around 2 am. I was living such a daily life. The practice was really tough, but strangely it was cozy. Honma-san, Fujita-san, and Kobayashi-san would be "younger seniors" for me, but there was no unreasonable bullying, and they treated me like a friend except when practicing.

The most exciting thing was that when I did a lot of joint practice and said, "I can't move anymore, I'm sick," Mr. Yamakawa, who had been doing only weights until then, came up to the ring and said, "OK! "It's time to practice!", I thought that it wasn't possible to move my joints, but if it wasn't for that time, I wouldn't be able to become a full-fledged professional wrestler, and I think I was very blessed with people and the environment. There are three trainees who entered at the same time, and four people including me can be said to be in sync. Around the beginning of August, Mr. Kojika said, "Kasai and the others haven't had a holiday in months, so go back to the countryside."

Then the three other than me went back to the countryside saying "Thank you!". I was asked "Kasai, why are you not going back?", I said "I will not return until I become a full-fledged professional wrestler" and thought that I would be praised there, " "Okay, then do not ask for care." When everyone was back in the country, I was the only one who made fantastic rice from Mexico. I was eating properly, but when I first started, I weighed 80 kilograms (176 pounds), but due to the hard training and the intense heat, I lost weight to about 10 kilograms (22 pounds). Around that time, Mr. Yamakawa suddenly said to all four of the students in the dojo, "You will make your debut at the Tsurumi Ryokuchi Park show in Osaka." It's been about 2 months since I started.

At the dojo, I only do passive bumps, and I haven't learned anything about techniques. Even so, I decided that it would be better to debut early because debuting means that I have become a professional wrestler, but some of the other students panicked, "I can't do anything. What should I do?" Then one ran away at night on the day we headed to Osaka. In the end, three people from the same period will make their debut in Osaka.

The technique that came out at once for the debut match

On August 23, 1998, at the Tsurumi Ryokuchi Park in Osaka was an outdoor venue, and I was in charge of selling drinks at the shop. While the sun was shining, I sold the juice I bought from a discount store in that area for about three times the price, saying, "It's getting cold!" The announcement that "We will have our first match!" then "Jun Kasai will enter from the red corner" echoed. Wow, it's my time to come to the ring! I thought, "Yeah!", I took off my T-shirt, and headed straight from the juice counter to the ring. It was a memorable debut match, but I can hardly remember the content of it. I just remember that the ring was insanely hot due to the shining sun, and that in about 5 minutes I decided to "tighten the knee cross" and won by give-up. Even though I wasn't taught anything, I was surprised that my technique came out. After winning the debut match in Osaka, I wrestled the other matches on a tour, but the opponent was disappointed with the synchronization, so I won a series of consecutive wins each time.

I felt like I was Bill Goldberg, but I decided to have a match with a senior wrestler for the first time at the Okayama Wholesale Center Orange Hall. The other wrestler Makoto Saito is now K-ness. At that time, he showed his face. It was completely different. He struck me like he was hitting me with a lumpy rag, and he hit me such tension. Of course, I lost the match, but I got the feeling that I became a professional wrestler for the first time when my seniors made me bump.

The practice and the match were tough, but otherwise it was really cozy. At that time, I felt that I was not in a hierarchical relationship with Mr. Honma, Mr. Fujita, and Mr. Kobayashi, who lived in the dojo, but we were connected side by side. Of course it was tough during the practice, but it wasn't like a weird vertical society. At midnight, Mr. Honma got in a promotional car saying, "I'm going to train at night!" And we all went out to eat ramen in the neighborhood. At that time, I didn't talk about professional wrestling, I just talked about silly idiot stuff.

Introduction to Ryuji Ito

Before I knew it, all of the students that made their debut the same time as me quit, and I was the only newcomer, a serious bean sprout wearing glasses from Hyorohyoro came to take the introductory test. At the dojo, Mr. Yamakawa told him to squat 500 times, and I remember him doing squats silently. The name of this bean sprout kid, who was supposed to play an introductory course on a sunny day, is Ryuji Ito. Ito and I have different debuts of about half a year, but the introduction into the dojo is only a couple of months difference. Ito is smart, so he does all the chores and everything. He has good motor skills and swallows quickly, so Mr. Yamakawa often said, "Kasai has no sense compared to Ito." Mr. Yamakawa liked Ito, he was tall, and he looked like an otaku (someone who consumes interests in manga) at the time, but he was hoping that if he would got polished, he would be squeaky. I was all about spending my days by myself, so I hadn't been aware of Ito as a rival yet.

When I was a newcomer I only wanted to quit professional wrestling once

I didn't have any trouble with professional wrestling, there was an never event that I thought that "I should quit" besides once and that was in October after about a month since my debut. We wrestled in Kushiro, which was a pretty series of battles due to the tour of Hokkaido, which is a specialty of Big Japan Pro-Wrestling, and we were moving in a promotional car aiming for a ferry terminal in Tomakomai or Otaru. I'm driving, and Mr. Fujita is in the passenger seat. Ito, who had just started in the back seat, and Suzuki, a ring announcer at that time, were on board, and Mr. Honma was lying on the loading platform behind it.

Perhaps because it was still before the winter season, the promotional car was running hard on the mountain road called Nissho Pass on normal tires, but it started to snow gradually, and when I noticed it had become a snowstorm. I am driving on normal tires and I have no choice but to move forward, so when I drove up the mountain while slowing down, the crosswind blew and the car was taken away, and the road was an ice pan on the road, so I just spun on the road and in the oncoming lane. I bumped the vehicle into the guardrail.

Well, it was a accident. I still remember it vividly, but while I was spinning, I felt like slow motion, and Mr. Fujita in the passenger seat suddenly got up and shouted, "What are you doing Massan?" At that time, I had a muscular muscle body, so I was called Massan. After hitting the guardrail, Mr. Honma jumped up and shouted, "What's wrong!" In a voice that hasn't rattled yet. When I apologized, "I'm sorry Mr. Honma, I had an accident ...", he calmly said, "I can't help what happened." In the car, when I consulted to call the police for the time being, a truck rushed from the oncoming lane, and when he saw our accident car, he started honking, but it didn't stop and had to swerve to miss our car. I turned on the hazard lights. As a matter of course, the police came and I was trembling outside in the cold as we jumped out together to see the car was scratched.

I thought, "I've done it," but only Mr. Honma got angry, and for some reason I couldn't blame him. However, I have the feeling that the car was ruined, so I told Mr. Honma that night, "I will take responsibility and quit." Then Mr. Honma said, "Driving on normal tires in Hokkaido is bad. Kasai doesn't feel responsible." He said, "You have become a professional, so don't stop doing this. There's something more difficult in the future, so don't give up on being a professional wrestler." That saved me. Mr. Honma himself would say that he doesn't remember that. Well, at that time, if the car jumped over the guard rail and fell to the bottom of the valley, the names of Jun Kasai, Tomoaki Honma, Minoru Fujita, and Ryuji Ito might not have been engraved in the history of Japanese professional wrestling.

Click here for Jun Kasai's Autobiography Part 2