#MOSTLY american sorry tsora

[breadclubrising]

This is probably a ‘you had to be there’ sort of thing, but i FREQUENTLY think about this one cultural trainwreck moment that happened at the show NJPW did at Hammerstein Ballroom a few years ago.

The show started over two hours late. From where I was, it seemed like most of the crowd didn’t even notice until the first hour had elapsed, because it’s fuckin’ New York City, where tbh your show is kind of a dork if it starts on time. To my memory, the crowd was pretty chill—the delay was clearly out of New Japan’s hands and they were doing everything they could to fix it, and in the meantime it seemed like most people were chatting about wrestling while getting plastered off $18 beer in plastic cups. 

However, as you may imagine, the long delay made the Japanese execs running the show extremely anxious and deeply embarrassed (and perhaps a little worried for their safety, given the history of wrestling crowds at Hammerstein). When they finally announced the show would for real this time start in 15 minutes, they sent out an executive of some variety to apologize. He got into the ring, announced the apology, and then did that all the way down face-to-the-ground bow of deep sincere apology. A full one takes like 10 seconds, and he then proceeded to do it three more times, facing the other 3 sides of the ring.

The crowd reaction was VISCERAL. Time began moving in slow motion as Japanese religious reverence for corporate reputation crashed violently against deeply-ingrained American sensibilities about public shame and being made to take the fall for one’s employer. The audience tried briefly to clap politely through our discomfort, as we figured was likely proper, but after the second bow began, the crowd fell into chaos—no one wanted to boo, but seemingly everyone wanted to convey OH MY GOD STOPPP PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS. People were shouting ‘no! no!’, drunk dudes in the front row were wildly waving their arms for him to get up, and lots of people were instinctively looking away to avoid being forced to witness public debasement.

The thing that is so inexplicably funny to me is the juxtaposition of a Japanese corporate scapegoat performing a gesture of most profound and humble apology with a few thousand horrified drunk American pro wrestling fans desperately chanting “IT’S OKAY! IT’S OKAY!” at him.

#njpw #you probably did have to be there but this is a perfect crystalline moment in my mind #hayley and tsora and tsora's mom WERE there iirc #and i know others were too #i am pretty sure he also had his shoes off (you're not supposed to wear street shoes into a wrestling ring but execs usually do) #but someone will have to confirm that for me #MOSTLY american sorry tsora #it was one of those horrible social moments that seemingly takes SO LONG that you have time to go through all the stages of grief #hard to say what it's like now as i haven't been to a show of ANY kind since before the pandemic #but this was at a time when NJPW was first expanding into the US #meaning if you went to a show it was likely everyone around you was also a huge dork about japanese pro wrestling #i imagine that is what made the crowd a lot less rowdy than one might expect for the venue #we were all chatting with the people near us about japanese wrestling bc we never get to talk about japanese wrestling in real life #anyway