Today’s Favorite Quote: The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do - Walter Bagehot
Happy Birthday to those who have passed on and to those great wrestlers still with us:
In Memoriam:
Maurice “Mad Dog” Vachon 1929
“Flyboy” Rocco Rock\The Cheetah Kid 1953
Bam Bam Bigelow 1961
Happy Birthday:
Doug Durdle\Doug Williams (54)
RIP Memorial: We stop & remember those who have passed on this day and gave themselves to the business for us, the fans. We salute you and thank you.
Steven Romero\Jay Youngblood 9-1-1985 at the age of 30
Larry Simon\Professor Boris Malenko 9-1-1994 at the age of 61
Richard Thomas Anderson\Tom. Andres\The Claw\The Intern 9-1-2020 at the age of 83
Shannon Sprull\Daffney 9-1-2021 at the age of 46
The Life and Career of Masahiro Chono
Masahiro Chono is one of the defining figures of Japanese professional wrestling, a performer whose career spanned more than three decades and helped shape New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s identity as both a technician and an unforgettable heel. Born on September 17, 1963, in Seattle, Washington, to Japanese parents, he returned to Japan as a toddler and grew up in Mitaka, Tokyo. His father worked in the paper industry; the family later settled in Japan after a brief American sojourn. Chono’s youth was marked by restlessness and frequent fights. He participated in freestyle wrestling and soccer in school, attended Nagayama High School, and ultimately chose the disciplined world of the NJPW dojo over a conventional university path.
He entered the New Japan dojo in 1984, training under Antonio Inoki, Kotetsu Yamamoto, Lou Thesz, and others, including time with Stu Hart. His professional debut came on October 5, 1984, against Keiji Mutoh. That match launched a lifelong rivalry and partnership. Together with Mutoh and Shinya Hashimoto, Chono formed the “Three Musketeers,” a generation that carried NJPW through the late 1980s and 1990s. He won the Young Lions Cup in 1987 by defeating Hashimoto, then embarked on the traditional overseas excursion.
Pictured: “The Three Musketeers” Chono, Keiji Muto and Shinya Hashimoto
He wrestled in Europe for Otto Wanz’s Catch Wrestling Association, in North American territories including Central States Wrestling and the Continental Wrestling Federation (where he held tag titles with Mike Davis as the Japanese Connection), and in the Canadian Maritimes and Puerto Rico. These tours honed his all-rounder style—technical submissions, stiff strikes, and a developing signature STF.
Pictured: Lou Thesz takes Chono over in a suplex move in Thesz retirement match in 1990.
Chono returned to NJPW as a main-event prospect. He captured the IWGP Tag Team Championship with Mutoh in 1990 and defeated Lou Thesz in Thesz’s retirement match. The first G1 Climax in 1991 established him as a star; he won the tournament by beating Mutoh in a thirty-minute final. He repeated in 1992, simultaneously winning the vacant NWA World Heavyweight Championship by defeating Rick Rude. A serious neck injury from a botched tombstone piledriver by Steve Austin in September 1992 interrupted his momentum, but he remained a central figure. He won a third G1 Climax in 1994.
Pictured: Masahiro Chono wearing the Big Gold NWA World Heavyweight Title Belt after his title win in 1994
That 1994 victory marked a turning point. Frustrated that Power Warrior received an IWGP Heavyweight Championship opportunity ahead of him, Chono turned heel. He adopted a yakuza-inspired persona: black attire, sunglasses, a menacing demeanor, and the catchphrase “God Damn!” He became NJPW’s premier villain, leading factions that included Team Wolf (with Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Hiro Saito), nWo Japan, Team 2000, Black New Japan, and later Cho-Ten with Tenzan. He appeared in World Championship Wrestling as part of the New World Order. In 1998 he finally won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship from Tatsumi Fujinami, though a short reign ended when a neck injury forced him to vacate the title. Across his career he won the IWGP Tag Team Championship seven times, most often with Tenzan.
Chono added two more G1 Climax victories in 2002 and 2005, giving him a still-unbroken record of five tournament wins and the nicknames “Mr. G1” and “Mr. August.” He also booked for NJPW at times and remained a consistent draw even as injuries accumulated. He left the promotion as a full-time wrestler around 2010, working as a freelancer with occasional matches in AJPW, ZERO1, Osaka Pro, and elsewhere. His last regular match came in 2014. Spinal stenosis later required surgery in 2021.
On February 21, 2023, at Keiji Mutoh’s retirement show in the Tokyo Dome, Mutoh challenged Chono to an impromptu match after his scheduled farewell bout. Chono, who had been on commentary, accepted. He won with the STF in a short, emotional encounter and announced his own retirement immediately afterward. The two men who had debuted against each other nearly 39 years earlier closed their in-ring stories together.
Beyond wrestling, Chono built a public profile as an actor and personality. He appeared on WCW Monday Nitro and Thunder, voiced Alien Reiblood in the 2009 film Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy Legends, and took roles in Japanese television and film, including The Way of the Househusband. He has been a frequent guest on variety programs such as Gaki no Tsukai’s No Laughing Batsu Game specials. With his wife Martina Carls (whom he met in Germany in 1987 and married in 1991), he co-founded the fashion brand ARISTRIST in 1999, emphasizing black-based street-formal clothing, sunglasses, and accessories designed from her European perspective. They have two children, a son born in 2006 and a daughter born in 2009; Martina’s daughter from a previous relationship, wrestler Alpha Female, is his stepdaughter.
Chono’s legacy rests on durability, charisma, and timing. He was a capable technician who became an even more compelling character once he embraced villainy. Five G1 Climax wins, world titles in two promotions, leadership of multiple influential stables, and a career that bookended Mutoh’s made him indispensable to NJPW’s modern history. After decades of neck and spinal issues, he left the ring on his own terms, still recognizable as the Black Charisma who once flipped off the crowd and declared war on the company that made him.
One Thing I Learned About Boris Malenko
Before he became Boris “The Great” Malenko, the Newark-born son of a Polish immigrant father and an American mother worked the Midwest as Otto Von Krupp, a post-war German villain with the tufted hair and the whole Cold War-adjacent heat package. That was after he’d already been Crusher Duggan in Texas. Only later, in 1962 Florida, did he settle into the Soviet agent that Cuban exile crowds in Miami wanted to riot over.
“The Great Malenko” was itself a joke: malenko is Russian for “little.” He was 5’10” and billed as The Great Little One.
The gimmick was so locked in that when an elderly woman in Miami Beach once got in his face and told him she knew he was really Larry Simon, a Jew from New Jersey, it only confirmed how completely the character had swallowed the man. He still got the heat.
**Photo Credit: Scott Teal, Crowbar Press Archives
Thank You for Watching and Listening
I’m Tony Richards, Pro Wrestling Historian, Author and Storyteller. I share pro wrestling historical items in each issue of the Time Tunnel Pro Wrestling History Newsletter and each episode of our podcast show. Thanks for your support! If you enjoy my information on select events, matches and insights, please share with folks you think might like to be a subscriber!
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