Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
The fictional term of “The Forbidden Door” is used when a wrestling promotion that normally doesn’t do business with other companies, allows their contracted wrestlers to work with another promotion’s contracted talent. While WWE might be arguably the most forbidden of doors in all of wrestling…it has opened its door on occasion to work with other companies. In the past, they have had working agreements with ECW, USWA, New Japan Pro Wrestling and AAA based in Mexico. It has been accomplished, but more times than not…the WWF/WWE lives in its own bubble. On April 13th, 1990, the World Wrestling Federation cracked open their forbidden door to hold a super show with both New Japan and All Japan Pro Wrestling.
In January of 1990, Vince McMahon traveled to Japan and met with All Japan owner/wrestler Giant Baba. Vince entered the All Japan ring, shook hands with Baba and then announced a joint show that would take place at the Tokyo Dome. New Japan would also join the show with all the promoters involved expecting a sell out with a potential gate of over 3 million dollars. This show would be titled ‘The Wrestling Summit’ and would follow on the heels of the WWF’s own mega show…Wrestlemania VI at the Toronto Skydome.
The planning and booking of the Wrestling Summit almost immediately hit snags and issues between all involved. It began when Hulk Hogan lost his WWF title to the someone Baba considered inferior in the Ultimate Warrior. This, despite McMahon telling Baba upfront that there would be a title change at Wrestlemania and Hogan would not be coming into the show as champion. The Japanese network that would air the show, Nippon TV, refused to air any matches involving New Japan talent because they aired on a rival network. Nippon TV was also the network home to All Japan and executives insisted that New Japan talent wrestle other New Japan talent. That way, when it aired a month later on Nippon, they could edit out those particular matches from the event.
Vince and Baba also butted heads on where the ring should be placed for the show. Baba wanted the ring traditionally more in the center of the dome, while McMahon insisted the ring be placed closer to home plate. Vince’s reasoning was that for television purposes, the Tokyo Dome would look more full. This show was not a sell out by any stretch. With just two weeks before the Wrestling Summit took place, over 30,000 tickets were sold with thousands of seats still available. The show ended up with a crowd of 53,742 with a paid audience of 43,000. The rest of the tickets were giveaways.
The card was also a subject of various disagreements, as Baba wanted the main event to be Hulk Hogan versus All Japan’s top star Genichiro Tenryu. Vince balked at the idea, feeling that Hogan should face another American talent in the ring. Reportedly, McMahon offered the idea of Hogan vs Dusty Rhodes…but that match was shot down. Instead, Baba offered one of All Japan’s top foreign talents in Terry ‘Bam Bam’ Gordy. Vince agreed to Hogan vs Gordy match and it was heavily advertised by the Japanese media. When Hogan lost his WWF title at Wrestlemania, Gordy felt slighted as Baba had promoted a world title match. Gordy wanted no part of jobbing to the now ex champion, as he felt it would hurt his image as a top gaijin in Japan.
With Gordy backing out last minute, Baba and Vince agreed on Stan Hansen as Hogan’s opponent. Hansen was an icon in Japan and didn’t feel losing to Hulk Hogan would damage his reputation in any way. It was rumored for years, that McMahon had intentions of bringing Hansen back with him to the WWF after the show. Hansen would later admit that he had an offer from them, but ultimately turned it down because he was satisfied with the money he was making with All Japan and felt a loyalty to Baba.
The bickering reportedly continued throughout the coming weeks and during entire show with wrestlers unhappy with their positioning on the card, a severe language barrier between McMahon and his staff with the Japanese hosts and other assorted hiccups. For instance, McMahon denied the Japanese media access to his wrestlers for interviews and photo ops. McMahon also refused to have some of his stars that previously had a history in Japan acknowledge that past during the combined press conference. This of course agitated both New Japan and All Japan contingents and created a rift between all involved.
Akio Sato, who was working for the WWF as a member of ‘The Orient Express’ tag team with Pat Tanaka…was used as the liaison between all three promotions. His main job was to convey the wishes of each promotions and what they wanted to do on the show. With all the back and forth arguing and disagreements, Sato had become the proverbial punching bag for every one at the Summit event. Being mild mannered, Sato took the brunt of punishment from everybody involved and was said to be visibly stressed the entire evening.
Despite all the backstage turmoil, the show itself wasn’t a train wreck and had some solid matches. Bret Hart wrestled Tiger Mask II aka Mitsuharu Misawa in the longest match of the night, Tenryu wrestled the Macho Man Randy Savage, the previously mentioned Hulk vs Hansen and Giant Baba teaming with Andre the Giant to take on Demolition. The Ultimate Warrior defeated the Million Dollar Man in a WWF title match which was the shortest match of the evening at a little over 6 minutes.
The show did gross 2.1 million dollars, but by that time the value of the yen had dropped significantly as Japan was going through an economic downturn. The backlash from the Wrestling Summit certainly was greater than the success it had. This was the very last time the WWF/WWE worked directly with All Japan and New Japan. The decision by Nippon TV to blackout the New Japan matches on the show created a greater rift between the Japanese promotions that led to both companies refusing to do business with one another. That lasted for over a decade until working together again in 2000. The relationship however, never fully repaired itself.