SlamWrestling.net boasts one of the largest and most comprehensive archives of book reviews in all of professional wrestling. Aside from featuring a master list that might be longer than Chris Jericho’s list of 1,004 holds, SLAM’s book archive is also one of the few that also features books on pro wrestling written in French, courtesy of occasional contributors Pat Laprade and Bertrand Hébert. But there’s one group of wrestlers notably absent from this list: Japanese wrestlers. There’s an obvious reason for this: there have been few people, if any, that’ve been willing able to take these texts and bring them to an English-speaking audience.
Until now.
In February 2024 I visited Japan for the first time. As it was my first visit I was overwhelmed with the sights and sounds and found it impossible to see everything that I wanted to. But while there I did get the chance to indulge in a few pro-wrestling-related activities. I visited four of the most famous wrestling venues in Tokyo: Sumo Hall, Korakuen Hall, the Nippon Budokan and, of course, the hallowed Tokyo Dome. I managed to find a few shops selling wrestling merchandise, including Minoru Suzuki’s Piledriver shop tucked away in an underground shopping center in Harajuku, which sold pieces of merchandise not available anywhere else or even online. I got to eat duck ramen prepared by Toshiaki Kawada. And as a matter of incredibly good luck I was blessed with the chance to chat about wrestling with Japanese wrestling historian Koji Miyamoto, who handed me some special wrestling magazines covering one of my favorite wrestlers, Mitsuharu Misawa.
But what was the point of having these magazines if I couldn’t understand them? Yes, having collectibles on their own is fine, but books and magazines aren’t meant to just sit on a shelf, unread. And so, once I came home I tried to have these magazines translated…which proved to be an immense challenge, both practical and financial.
While Canada promotes itself as a diverse country some ethnicities and linguistic groups are bigger than others. According to data from the 2021 Census there are around 130,000 Japanese people living in Canada, most of whom live in British Columbia. In Ontario, demand for Japanese language text is relatively low, as reflected by my attempts to find someone who would be willing to translate these documents from Japanese to English. Not want to rely on machines or online programs I reached out wherever I could to find a person who would be willing to translate these texts for me.
I approached wrestling journalist Fumi Saito and Koji Miyamoto and asked what translating these texts would entail. Both of them, naturally, were too busy with their own projects to help.
I reached out to the University of Toronto’s School of East Asian Studies to see if either a faculty member or a student would be able to help, even for a fee. I was refused.
I reached out to the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre. No translators were available.
I reached out to three local companies that provide translation services. One flat out refused because they only handle technical documents and not personal documents. The other two would’ve charged me between $0.15 and $0.40 per character. In other words, to translate a single $20 book or a $15 copy of Weekly Gong cover-to-cover would’ve cost me around $27,000.00.
Not willing to give up a friend recommended I search online for an AI tool that could work for me. Luckily I found one in OpenL, which I’ve been using for the past several months to surprising results. Not only does this tool translate quickly and effectively for a relatively low price, but it also understands the particular nuance and context of wrestling verbiage through words like “suplex” and “Frankensteiner”, words that an ordinary translation tool wouldn’t comprehend. And as much as I would’ve preferred to rely on a person to translate these documents over a machine because a person would’ve been better suited to interpret context, I found that this tool being readily available 24/7 and so easy to use has made it indispensable.
With this tool I bought every single Japanese wrestling book I could think of. Starting with the individual biographies of All Japan’s Four Heavenly Kings and branching out from there, I managed to amass a huge collection of books not likely to be found anywhere else, certainly not in Canada. One by one I’ve begun translating books and magazines written by or about: Misawa, Kawada, Kenta Kobashi, Akira Taue, Jun Akiyama, referee Kyohei Wada, Masanobu Fuchi, Jushin Liger, Keiji Muto, Jumbo Tsuruta, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Yoshihiro Takayama, Hirooki Goto & Katsuyori Shibata, Shinsuke Nakamura, a collection of Japanese wrestling scandals, an 800-page book on All Japan Women in 1993, and much more. Though this collection is far from complete I think that this initial collection is full of insightful commentary about one of the most historically significant group of people in modern wrestling history.
From these initial translations some interesting stories and anecdotes have been uncovered. In Toshiaki Kawada’s 2003 autobiography he described how physically demanding his high school amateur training schedule was and how it set him up for the rigours of being a full-time wrestler for All Japan. The following is verbatim from the second chapter in his book:
“To briefly explain the daily routine, I would wake up at 5 AM, wash my face, and immediately start preparing for the seniors. Since I was the only first-year student in the dorm, I had to do everything myself. Morning practice would start at 5:30 AM. The seniors didn’t necessarily want to practice diligently, but they couldn’t slack off because they never knew when the teacher might show up. Well, the teacher came almost every day.
The content of the morning practice wasn’t always the same, but it involved running around the school (about 1500 meters) five times in under five minutes; if we didn’t finish in under five minutes, the number of laps would keep increasing. Then we would do various types of basic training.
After practice, I prepared breakfast for the seniors with the supplies I had bought the day before. Then I had a meal with the seniors, and after that, I had to clean up. Of course, I had to do it alone, so it took a long time. After all, there were eight seniors and just me, so I felt like a housekeeper.
Once the cleaning was done, it was straight to school. School started around 9 o’clock, but I had to complete all the previous tasks within that time, which now seems impossible even for a god. Naturally, once I got to school, I would end up sleeping on my desk until noon. I’m not bragging, but I don’t remember studying even once during high school.”
And at 3:30, the tough afternoon practice begins. After basic exercises, sparring starts, and it goes on for more than two hours. The end of practice varies depending on the day, but it’s usually around 7:30 PM. After that, it’s my second round of housekeeper time. Even though I’m completely exhausted, I go grocery shopping again. I prepare dinner without resting, eat with everyone, and then clean up alone. While I’m cleaning up, the seniors are taking a bath and starting to relax in their rooms. When I get back, I’m asked to go again.”
Then there’s Mitsuharu Misawa’s second book, Idealist, published in 2004, which is less a biographical piece and more of a theoretical and almost academic inquiry into professional wrestling that covers his thoughts on wrestling from different perspectives: those of an in-ring performer, a booker, and a business owner:
Professional wrestling is a sport where one must consider an overwhelming number of factors, such as one’s own movements, the opponent’s movements, the atmosphere of the venue, and the progression of the match. While moving the body, one has to think about all these things simultaneously.
Some people might feel that wrestlers rely solely on their physique and immense strength to fight. However, professional wrestling also has proper foundations as a professional sport and martial art, with techniques cultivated over a long history. Professional wrestling is conducted by gathering various elements, such as martial arts and interaction with fans during matches, so you might enjoy it without thinking about anything. However, the depth of professional wrestling is profound. The more you know, the more you will experience emotions that transcend the framework of martial arts.
Then there’s Kenta Kobashi, whose books are somewhat less matter-of-fact and more filled with emotion and empowering statement meant to convey his personal experiences through the conduit of professional wrestling and what it means to him.
“I can proudly say this: the “professional wrestling” we are doing is something we can engage in without shame and is worth dedicating our lives to! If I were to give a reason why I can say this so confidently, it’s because a great power is born from the unity of feelings between us wrestlers and the audience who pays to come and watch us.”
Given how much information there is to sift through in all of these books and magazines, and how hiring a professional to do it is both financially irresponsible and would consume an incredible amount of time, this might be the only feasible way for these wrestlers’ opinions and experiences to reach an English-speaking audience. It is also very tedious as well: the process involves taking a photo of one or two pages at a time, uploading it into the AI’s online portal, copy/pasting the text, and checking it for errors. Strangely this tool is somehow capable of understanding the very niche language of wrestling but also struggles with both numerics and specific names. Not only have I had to correct years and months to match historic data (the year 1997 has come out as ’99 for some reason), but for a tool that can translate the most obscure and niche verbiage it cannot translate TAUE (田上) correctly: it has come out as “Tanoue”, “Tagami”, “Tamagami”, “Tanahashi”, “Takagi” at different points, the latter two being especially frustrating since there were/are wrestlers bearing those names.
There is also the matter of built-in linguistic difference. It is almost guaranteed that things like subtext and inference might be lost, even with such sophisticated tools as these. Japanese is a difficult language to understand on its own. This problem is amplified by the culture as well: the language is naturally evasive and not necessarily direct when it comes to conveying strong emotions or opinions. The best example of this that I have come across so far has been Kawada’s book. Written in 2003 when he and most of his peers were still active in the business, he uses much more muted language to describe Tenryu’s departure from AJPW to SWS, likening it to a transfer and not an outright defection. This, combined with the general cultural mentality of maintaining harmony and not rocking the boat, may leave some honest opinions muted, omitted, or distorted as they’re translated into English.
That being said, this method is still the closest thing to direct translation that’s readily available. Though it’s a painstaking process it’s one that I’ve accepted to take on with gusto. Having been a fan of professional wrestling more or less my whole life I figured this is the least I can do to give back to the medium that has brought me so much joy over the decades. And considering how influential some of these men and women are and have been, it only makes sense for the things they’ve said in the past and recorded elsewhere to reach a wider audience than their fans in their home country.
