What? Battle royale? You’re asking what a battle royale is? Don’t you know? Then what are you doing coming to a wrestling show? What? No, it’s not the name of an offensive move. No, it’s not the name of a championship title, either. A battle royale is a type of match. What, you mean today? Here? No, there’s not gonna be one here today. They’re held at bigger arenas than this—you know, a special occasion kind of thing. Hey! Hey, look! See, that’s Takako Inoue. She’s pretty hot, am I right? Oh, sorry, where was I? Right, battle royale. All Japan Pro Wrestling still puts them on. A battle royale is, well … Okay, so wrestling is usually one-on-one, or with two teams of two, something like that. But a battle royale has ten, maybe twenty fighters, just a big, big number of ’em, all in the ring at once. And anyone can go after anyone, one-on-one, or one-on-ten—anything goes. But no matter how many people get pinned—wait, you don’t even know what a pin is? That’s when your shoulders are on the mat and then comes the count, one, two, three, and on that third count, that’s it, you’re done. Same in a battle royale as with a normal match. Wrestlers can also forfeit, and sometimes there’s even a knockout. Oh, and countouts too, when someone stays outside the ring too long. And there’re disqualifications. In any case, pins are usually what does it in a battle royale.
Go! Takako, go! Take her out! Oh, ah … Sorry, sorry. Anyway, the ones that get pinned lose and have to leave the squared circle. And the match keeps going like that, with fewer and fewer competitors as it goes on. Of course, in the end, it’s down to two. One-on-one, and there’s the real match. One of those two is gonna go down. When it’s over, only one man’s standing. The winner. Victory. They give out a giant trophy and hand over the prize money. Get it? Huh? You mean the ones who are friends? Well, you see, at first, they work together. But when the end comes, they’ll have to fight each other. Those are the rules. That means that sometimes, if you’re lucky enough, you can see some really rare match-ups. You know, like way back with the tag team Dynamite Kid and Davey Boy Smith. And it happened once with Road Warriors Animal and Hawk. Well, with that one, one or the other of them stepped out of the ring to let the other guy win. A real display of love, like they were brothers, you know? A letdown, if you ask me. Now see, two people who didn’t always get along can still team up. But you’re workin’ with one guy to take out another, and your ‘partner’ can stab you in the back just like that! Who would I like to see in a battle royale? Well, with all the rival federations that’ve popped up now, I’d like to see the best of each face off. Keiji Mutoh, Shinya Hashimoto, Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada, Nobuhiko Takada, Masakatsu Funaki, Akira Maeda, The Great Sasuke, Hayabusa, Kenji Takano, also Genichiro Tenryu and Riki Choshu, and Tatsumi Fujinami and Kengo Kimura could probably still pull it off. It’d be fun if Yoji Anjo and Super Delfin could be in it too. You never know, they might make it to the end. For the women, you have to go with Takako there. Then there’s Aja Kong, Manami Toy, Kyoko Inoue, Yumiko Hotta, Akira Hokuto, Bull Nakano, Dynamite Kansai of course, Cutie Suzuki and Hikari Fukuoka, Mayumi Ozaki, Shinobu Kandori and Chigusa Nagayo, and … what’s that? You don’t know any of them? And you really came here to watch pro wrestling? Hey! No no no, Takako, fight back! Takako! Niiice.