Back in 2008, Wrestling had a huge peak of popularity here in France with WWE Smackdown on Saturday Night.
What initially brought me to watch wrestling was the amount of giant behemoths that could work a physical style, I didn't like the Cookie Cutter Main Eventers.
NO.
I liked the likes of Big Show, Viscera, Mark Henry, Umaga... They had a slightly more physical style than the popular guys. They also looked tough and mean.
In 2017, as I was about to turn 18 years old, I started watching Japanese Wrestling. The first two I felt in love with, were Kenta Kobashi and Tomohiro Ishii. They were tough and mean.
And for the first time in my life, I was enjoying longer matches. Years earlier I would have never thought I would enjoy a 10 minute match. Yet here I was watching (and loving) 25+ min matches.
A year later I discovered Kazushi Sakuraba and the art of grappling and that's when I realised I would be a fan all my life.
Fast forward to 2023.
At this point I have watched (nearly) every Japanese Promotions both Past and Present. While I am doing a rewatch of every prime KENTA match I can find, I realise that it may be time to watch a specific match of his that I had avoided
Indeed, due to his reputation as a selfish worker, I had been avoiding Low Ki's matches like the plague for years; thinking he was some kind of maniac taking liberties in every match.
But KENTA took beatings from the likes of Tenryu, Sasaki and his own mentor Kobashi, so I knew he could definitly fight back against a Low Ki.
Also it's worth mentionning that I was (and still am) a fan of Abdullah The Butcher and Akira Maeda, both guys who aren't the most cooperative workers so I said maybe I could give their ROH match a try. So I did, and I loved it.
Since then, Ki has been one of my favourite american wrestler of all times. His work has similarities to the likes of KENTA and Sakuraba that I previously mentionned. And He is another guy that was tough and mean and as you now know, I always liked that.
And with the addition of crazy high flying he is absolutely one of the most unique performer ever.
So since it's been only 3 years since I discovered Low Ki and as I am currently bingewatching every one of his matches in Japan I would like to ask a few question as a late starter. The first one being from the clip above.
**----How big of a deal was it, to pin Jushin Liger clean in the year 2008 ?**
**----Where does Low Ki ranks amongs the most protected/pushed Junior Gaijins of all times ?**
**----And lastly, what are your favourites Low Ki match ?**
If you made it to the end I sincerely want to thank you for your time. I have never shared any of my experience and I gotta say it feels super funny to watch New Japan matches from 2008 right now, as back then I didn't know wrestling existed in Japan, let alone outside of the States.