JAPAN is a Country where Combat Sports dominate the Culture!- Thus Wrestling-
be it SUMO or PROFESSIONAL has an almost Fanatical Following!!
Accordingly nearly All of our Top Mat Men at some point or other went over to Wrestle
in the Land of the Rising Sun!From Heavies like BILLY ROBINSON and KENDO
NAGASAKI down thru the Weights- PETE ROBERTS to HVY MIDDLEWEIGHT and
MARK ROLLERBALL ROCCO who Wrestled 38 times in JAPAN as the MASKED
BLACK TIGER! But it was not all one way traffic! Japanese Wrestlers visited our Shores-
and one of the Best of these arrived in 1968 and stayed well down into the following Year!
SHOZO KOBAYASHI was a solid,tough and skilful Heavyweight clearly Destined for
great things!-His impact was immediate-demolishing some of our Top Contenders-and
some in very short order!!-He seemed Hard to Hurt and even had a mini-series of Bouts
with ALBERT WALL!- Other Top Heavies he met included WILD ANGUS and AL HAYES!
Leaving for AMERICA and points West in 1969 he left behind a String of Victories!
The HI-LITE of his Career was a Bout against ANTONIO INOKI-the then WORLD
HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION-Wrestling as STRONG KOBAYASHI!
Did Anyone see SHOZO Wrestle??-How would you rate him??
Posters/Programmes to follow!
MAIN MASK
Only saw him the once at Wimbledon PALAIS, he was quite nifty on his feet for a big guy. Alan
I only remember him from television> It seemed that every overseas visitor was presented as a geat champion but Kobayashi was a apparently a novice when he came over. Britain was seen as a good training ground and certainly did no harm for the likes of Whipper Watson, Karl Gotch, Jean Ferres and Kobayashi.