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Who Carked it in 2022?


Devon Malcolm

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I was in Llandudno earlier this year and hearts gangsters paradise blasting out. It was this guy playing it on an old school tape deck pushing a trolley with a toy chimp wearing a frock sat in it.

 

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This is another sad one. Coolio was a big part of growing up with my mates. Even the ones who didn't like hip hop liked Gangsta's Paradise. And we could all recite the Kenan & Kel theme. Hand On My Nutsac is still a banger too.

But the best Coolio memory for me was going round my grandparents one day. I wouldn't say they disapproved of my choice in music, but the only thing I ever remember being played round there was ABBA. Then one afternoon I went round and noticed a copy of C U When U Get There by the CD player. Turns out my Grandad heard it on the radio, took a liking to it and bought a copy. Then took it home and converted my Grandma too. They liked that it had a positive message. Not like "all the angry stuff I listened to". So Coolio brought me and my grandparents closer.

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One of my fondest memories of Coolio was when he was in the BB house and rightly reigned as Lord Supreme over them all. He had a back and forth with Tina Malone and she said something like ‘no man speaks to me like that.’

Followed by Coolio bellowing ‘Bitch I just did!’ Always tickled me that did. 
 

 

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That's going to be a big deal in Japan. He, Rikidozan, and Baba were like the Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks or the Hogan and Andre of Japan - they were actual household names (even if they weren't the level of Grado).

RIP Antonio Inoki.

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On 10/1/2022 at 10:38 AM, Carbomb said:

That's going to be a big deal in Japan. He, Rikidozan, and Baba were like the Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks or the Hogan and Andre of Japan - they were actual household names (even if they weren't the level of Grado).

Much, much bigger. At the risk of turning this into an on-topic discussion, I'd say Inoki is the most influential figure in post-war professional wrestling bar maybe Vince McMahon, Rikidozan and El Santo, and arguments could be made for him surpassing all of them in some areas. Someone described him as "imagine Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan combined", and that barely scratches the surface.

"Strong style" is all pretty meaningless these days, but that philosophy/ideology of presenting wrestling as a legitimate combat sport that could hold its own against other disciplines, and of "fighting spirit" has had a huge influence on modern wrestling, and through the gradual distillation of that mentality into various off-shoots and breakaway promotions, different iterations of the UWF, all the way down to RINGS and Pancrase, more or less directly births PRIDE, and prevents the UFC from being purely a Gracie infomercial in its early running, so there's a real chance of MMA never becoming a thing without his influence. How much you want to credit him with promoting the likes of Tiger Mask and Jushin Liger, and the massive influence they and their style have had, is up for debate, but it's not a hard case to make that without Inoki's NJPW you don't get the WCW Cruiserweight division, and everything that spins off from that, depending on how much the Lucha/Japanese style crossover happens regardless. Without the UWF/NJPW feud, you don't get the New World Order. The "shoot style" promotions that spun off from NJPW, and NJPW-aligned wrestlers like Stan Hansen and Riki Choshu jumping ship to AJPW, forced Giant Baba's hand to change up his own booking and preferred wrestling style, directly leading to their critically acclaimed mid-90s period. 

Going further back, I don't think you get Wrestlemania without Antonio Inoki. NJPW were paying the WWF a fortune for the rights to use the WWF name on some of their championships, to maintain a working relationship, to exchange key talents, and so on. Without that income bolstering the leaner years, they'd never have been able to take the financial gamble on Wrestlemania I. It's been argued that it was NJPW's success in merchandising wrestlers that convinced Vince McMahon that was where the real money is, too. 

Beyond that, there's the North Korea show, his political career, shows in Pakistan and Russia, bringing wrestlers from the USSR to the wider world for the first time, the Muhammad Ali fight, the Vader gimmick, work with Roland Bock in Germany, the UWA in Mexico, NJPW excursions to the UK, and so on and so on. 

Some of it can be overstated - by equating NJPW and Inoki, you risk sidelining Hisashi Shinma as a booker and ideas guy within the company as well - but I don't think there's anyone else whose influence can be so directly traced to so many things that genuinely shaped and transformed how wrestling is booked and presented. Between Inoki and Vince, I'd say you'd have to look back to the '20s and '30s before you'd find another single individual who changed and influenced the direction of wrestling as much as either of them.

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Jules Bevis uncle of Saraya died at a charity boxing event in WAW PC Norwich yesterday.

 

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