Minoru Suzuki Interview (Part 1 of 5)

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William C

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Sep 6, 2015
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They Stopped Showing Their Backs to Me: The Minoru Suzuki Interview

Part One of Five: Training Gotch Style Wrestling

By William Colosimo | wcolosimo@yahoo.com

Minoru Suzuki is a highly respected mixed martial arts (MMA) pioneer. A decorated amateur wrestler who entered the professional wrestling world, Suzuki took to the hard style of wrestling in Japan and competed in several legitimate MMA matches before assisting Masakatsu Funaki in creating Pancrase- the second MMA organization in Japan, and the one that led to the sport’s widespread popularity there. Pancrase had already held three shows before the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) debuted their first. Many great Pancrase fighters migrated to the UFC and secured their place in fight history. Suzuki was a top fighter through the early years of Pancrase, a time and place that produced many MMA legends.

My translator for this interview- Taiki Yamamoto- was able to visit with Mr. Suzuki and ask my questions, presenting his own follow up questions to flesh out answers as needed.


William Colosimo: Why did you originally begin training in amateur wrestling?

Minoru Suzuki: Before I started fighting, before I started (amateur wrestling), when I was in middle school, when I was fifteen years old, I wanted to become a pro-wrestler so I went to Tokyo to submit applications to offices for that purpose, but I was turned down wherever I went. But then someone recommended to me to go into amateur wrestling and that’s when it all started. The idea was that if I became a champion in amateur wrestling, that I might get scouted.

Taiki Yamamoto: So, you graduated middle school at the age of fifteen then…

Suzuki: I went to the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) office and submitted an application informing them that I wanted to enroll, but was told to go home. I didn’t know what I should do, but my teacher at the time told me that Riki Choshu, Masa Saito and Jumbo Tsuruta and others all got scouted due to their appearances in the Olympics. He told me that I should follow that same path. I then said “OK, I will go become a high school amateur wrestling champion,” and that’s how it started.

Colosimo: Do you recall any titles or accomplishments from your amateur wrestling days?

Suzuki: Yes, I do have some, but prefer not to talk about it. I lost in some finals, and I think anyone who isn’t the champion is a loser.

Colosimo: Why did you decide to make the move to pro-wrestling with NJPW?

Suzuki: When I was a kid, there was only NJPW and All Japan Pro-Wrestling (AJPW). I watched both of them, but I was a big fan of Antonio Inoki, and at the NJPW’s first IWGP (International Wrestling Grand Prix) Championship, that was where Inoki got knocked out and lost against Hulk Hogan. It was a true shock to my child’s mind and I declared that I’d avenge him. That was my first motivation to become a pro-wrestler. My determination to beat Hulk Hogan was the trigger for me to become a pro-wrestler. That was when I was fifteen years old.

Colosimo: Was your debut in NJPW at nineteen years old on an April, 1988 Battle Royale that featured Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Masakatsu Funaki among others?

Suzuki: My proper debut was June 23rd, 1988, in Yokohama. It was a single match against Takashi Iizuka. I think that Battle Royale was in 1987, the year before that. This was one of the fan appreciation events before my actual debut. I don’t know if that would be considered as a debut as it was only part of the fan appreciation event.

Colosimo: In that era, before Pancrase, who taught you the most about submission holds?

Suzuki: Yoshiaki Fujiwara taught me.

Yamamoto: Was it only Fujiwara?

Suzuki: Fujiwara and Masakatsu Funaki. Funaki and I were the same age but he was my senpai (Editor’s Note: A senior wrestler under the hierarchical system). We trained a lot with each other and he taught me a lot. I got better through training with Funaki and then I learned from Fujiwara after that. Then, Fujiwara introduced me to Karl Gotch. I then learned from Gotch as well.

Yamamoto: So, you were learning from Funaki before learning from Fujiwara?

Suzuki: It was actually at the same time.

Colosimo: How extensively did you train with Karl Gotch? How much of what he taught was grappling technique versus conditioning training?

Suzuki: It was fifty percent grappling and fifty percent conditioning. It consisted of six hours of training per day, half of each, about three hours each.

Yamamoto: So, it was like a morning session and an afternoon session?

Suzuki: No, there was no break in between. It started from ten in the morning and ended around four in the afternoon.

Yamamoto: There was no lunch in between?

Suzuki: Lunch was after training was over.

Yamamoto: Did you train conditioning first then submissions?

Suzuki: That’s right. We usually moved location and drank our water during that.

Yamamoto: Then there was a grappling session?

Suzuki: Yes, and Gotch assigned who would go against whom. But you have to understand that the structure and how to teach grappling techniques were not established like they are today.

Yamamoto: So, it was like grappling or like a real match?

Suzuki: Well, of course it was sparring, but we would spar and spar without Gotch saying a word and only when the sparring was over- he had a really good memory- so Gotch would say “You do it like this, and you do this like this,” one by one. Other times, he would have us pause the sparring if he saw a great set up or entry. He would explain the technique and position then restart the sparring. It all depended on what day it was.

Yamamoto: It was like there was no set training plan.

Suzuki: No, it was not and that’s why it was scary. Even in conditioning, he would suddenly say “Squats!” He would get us in a circle and start counting one, two… if there were ten people then you would start to think like “If one person does one hundred squats, then the total will be one thousand,” but then Gotch goes “One thousand one.” We’d get scared, you know, wondering when the hell it was going to end. If you thought it was up to one thousand five hundred, then he goes “One thousand five hundred one.” So, I never knew when it was going to actually end.

Yamamoto: There was no way that you could pace yourself or predict what would happen that way!

Suzuki: That is the teaching style of Gotch.

Yamamoto: So, it was never like we will do this how many times? It would change depending on his mood.

Suzuki: But he did explain the reasoning behind all of that. If you tell people “We will do one hundred” then people set their objective as one hundred. They won’t give it their all. They’ll save some of it.

Yamamoto: Like not putting in all you can and save energy to meet the objective.

Suzuki: That is right. If you hold back, it is useless for an actual fight. Without any notice, he would announce what we were doing on that day. The playing card training that has been done by pro-wrestlers for a long time is exactly that in a small scale version. You have to flip the card not knowing how many reps of the exercise you have to do. If you get a three in the cards, you have to do three pushups. If you get a five on the card, you have to do ten squats because it doubles. You keep adding on and keep going.

Yamamoto: The purpose is to be able to adapt to the situation?

Suzuki: Yes. Doing ten pushups for ten sets actually has meaning. That’s what you need to do to make your muscles bigger. But the training that I was doing was more for real combat application. Back then and even today, there is a certain group of anti-Gotch people, people who disliked his training style. They would say that Gotch’s training methods are worthless, that they don’t make you bigger, that you can’t use them. They rejected the training and so are missing the important aspects of it.

Yamamoto: Not being able to predict is the core of the training concept.

Suzuki: Of course, we already know how to build muscle scientifically. Everyone is looking for the most efficient way and to find shortcuts. You have to know that there is no such thing as a shortcut in martial arts and that’s true in life as well. It is about how to overcome what is happening right in front of you at the moment. That is the most important thing. That’s what I think.

A real fight is not a video game. In a video game, the enemy attacks using a preset program, but we are facing a real human being. We might think he won’t kick and then he suddenly does. Or maybe he will break the rules.

Yamamoto: So, it’s about how to react when things do not go as planned.

Suzuki: Yes. Maybe this is going off track, but based on my pro-wrestling career of thirty-two years, I had many experiences like this. My senpai thinks that I don’t listen, so they decide to punish me. They might grab my finger and try to break it or try to put their fingers in my eyes. This experience and influence from Gotch made me who I am now. Yes, I received the punishment but my character has not changed.

Colosimo: What kind of relationship did you have with Gotch?

Suzuki: I can say that we were friends. That is the best way to describe it. I asked him to teach me and he taught me, so you could also call him my sensei. Yoshiaki Fujiwara told me something that has always stuck in my heart. He told me that he is not my sensei. I asked him what he meant. He told me that I can call him “sensei,” but that he is not a sensei. I did not understand this for a long time. What he actually meant is that there is no one who is above someone else and so can call himself a sensei. There are people who ask someone to teach them and they can call that person sensei, but it is only from their side. So, his position was that he would teach me if I wanted to learn, but he does not consider himself a sensei. This is the same principle Gotch had. Gotch called me a friend. Or sometimes he would call me his son. He would say that I was his youngest son. There were Fujiwara and others before me such as Osamu Kido. So I was considered to be the last one. So, we were friends.

Colosimo: Was Yoshiaki Fujiwara your main instructor once you entered the pro-wrestling world?

Suzuki: In what context? What he taught me?

Yamamoto: How to do pro-wrestling.

Suzuki: No, I didn’t learn how to do pro-wrestling.

Yamamoto: Was Fujiwara your instructor for grappling and submission?

Suzuki: Yes, that is right. There was a senpai who taught me the basics in pro-wrestling like the lock up and headlock, what to do when your opponent grabs a leg, the body slam and dropkick, but Fujiwara got angry when I tried to do those things in my debut. I felt great with my performance in my debut and was thinking I have a talent for this. I thought I did quite well and went to thank Fujiwara-san in his dressing room. I was told to go to the back area and he punched me. He said “What the hell were you doing? You have techniques that no one else has.” As I was training with Fujiwara every day, he was pushing me, saying, “You have techniques that no one else can do; why aren’t you using them? Use them or you’re going to lose out quickly. Why are you doing things the same as everyone else? A little guy like you is going to fall out of the limelight as soon as possible.” That is why I stopped doing what I learned in the ring from my second pro-wrestling match. But people were getting mad at me left and right. Everyone would come at me like “What the hell are you doing?” But I was fine with that. This is when I was around twenty years old. The funny thing was that the more the guys around me questioned what I was doing and told me I was no good, the more fans started cheering for me. That was funny. Everything was out of whack. I was told to even punch from behind if I get a chance. This I was taught by Fujiwara and Inoki. When I would get submitted in sparring, I’d be on all fours in pain and they would punch me from behind when I was looking down. They would ask me what I was doing facing away from them. They endlessly took my neck and arm. I had no choice but to face them. They kept questioning why I would show my back to an opponent. They would say I only tapped out, and that it was only training. They all told me to protect myself. So, I punched Inoki from behind when he was trying to wipe sweat with a towel and facing away from me. Of course, they would return the punishment, but both Inoki and Fujiwara took good care of me. They thought I was stupid.

Yamamoto: Wow, amazing that that was allowed and accepted.

Suzuki: In the Showa Era (Editor’s Note: The period of time in which Michinomiya Hirohito was Emperor of Japan) of NJPW, senpai were treated as gods and kouhai (Editor’s Note: A junior wrestler under the hierarchical system) were like slaves. That was the mindset of post-World War II Japan. Senpai could do anything they wanted from that upper position. They could justify anything. They would punch me and say I was bad because I was facing away. So, I used the same reasoning. But that’s not usual for a kouhai. When they would say “What do you think you are doing!?”, I would say “Sorry, but you were facing away.” Both Inoki and Fujiwara stopped showing their backs to me after this.

Yamamoto: So, they were prepared in case they would be attacked in return. Wow.

Suzuki: I was different from others, I guess you could say, and many senpai did not like me.