Backstage News on Who Booked and Produced WWE “Beast In The East”

The latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter has provided some backstage news on who booked and produced WWE “Beast In The East” from Tokyo, Japan on July 4. As previously reported, WWE produced its first WWE Network exclusive Live Event from Japan on July 4, which saw Brock Lesnar in his first match since WrestleMania 31, and Finn Bálor capture the NXT Championship from Kevin Owens.

Dave Meltzer claims that former WWE Executive Vice President of Talent Relations John Laurinaitis produced the show and was the head agent booking matches during the entire weekend of Japanese shows. According to the report, it was Laurinaitis’ idea to have flowers and streamers used at the start of the Bálor vs. Owens match, as that ceremony is something Japanese promotions have been doing for years.

Meltzer writes,

“On the first of the two shows at Sumo Hall, which wasn’t televised, Hideo Itami came out to introduce Fujinami, calling him a legend that we all grew up watching and he did a short speech, clips of which were shown on the broadcast the next night.

The Fujinami ceremony was also a rehearsal as WWE had plants throw tons of streamers at the end of the ceremony, as WWE wanted to have streamers thrown before the Owens vs. Balor match, like used to be done at major Japanese shows (and still is done for some promotions). John Laurinaitis, who produced the shows as head agent on the tour, came up with the idea of the streamers to give it a unique Japanese flavor.

Fujinami was also used to congratulate Balor after his title win. Laurinaitis also had them do the old ceremonies like in big matches in the past where Japanese women in kimonos presented flowers to both Balor and Owens, and like a heel from the 70s or 80s, Owens took the flowers and threw them in the crowd. The idea was to make it look like this is what they do for big matches in Japan, and it is what they did do in another era.”

He goes on to comment more about the “Beast In The East” WWE Network special, saying,

“Michael Cole and Byron Saxton did the announcing live from the WWE studios to save on expenses. It didn’t have the PPV production, so the costs were kept down. The WWE sent a production crew to Japan for the show, which also aired live in Japan on an On-Demand live feed for 1,000 yen (about $8.25), the first time WWE had ever done a live PPV for the Japanese market from Japan. The video was identical, similar to a U.S. show, with one feed with Japanese announcers done live in the arena, and the same video beamed to the WWE studios. Fumi Saito, a well-known Japanese wrestling reporter and historian who has lived in the U.S. in the past and knows fluent English, was one of the Japanese announcers.

Cole and Saxton called the show much different than a WWE broadcast. They spent more time calling the matches and tried to impart history. It was clear neither actually knew anything about Japanese wrestling. They tried, but whoever did the research for them failed them on a lot of facts. Sumo Hall was continually called the largest arena in Tokyo. There are a number of arenas in Tokyo larger, even if you don’t include the Tokyo Dome as an indoor arena, most notably Budokan Hall. The problem is Budokan Hall is one of the most famous arenas in the world, and from a cultural standpoint, not knowing Budokan Hall was the equivalent of doing a show from a mid-sized building in New York and claiming it as the biggest arena in the city, even though there’s Madison Square Garden. The other point historically was in putting over the Balor title win, Cole said there had been two WWE championship changes in Japan, when in actuality there have been more than 20, due to the period from the mid-70s to 1985 when WWF and New Japan were business partners.

Jericho’s appearance, since he’s not on WWE television as a wrestler right now, was pushed on NXT in the original announcement, as was the fact John Cena would appear. But after that first announcement, and never on WWE television was either name mentioned, and Cena is still the company’s biggest full-time star.

Besides Lesnar and the title change, the other difference from a house show was the Hall of Fame ceremony for Tatsumi Fujinami. Fujinami was officially inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in March in San Jose by Ric Flair. But with his limited English, it was very short. On the first of the two shows at Sumo Hall, which wasn’t televised, Hideo Itami came out to introduce Fujinami, calling him a legend that we all grew up watching and he did a short speech, clips of which were shown on the broadcast the next night. 

Tons of wrestlers from smaller independent groups came to the event, including Americans and Mexicans from the Stardom promotion, as well as Kenta Kobashi (who came the first night largely to see Itami, who was Kobashi’s protégé starting out) and Yoshihiro Takayama. Also working as producers were Jamie Noble and Sho Funaki.

Regarding Masa Saito, and when the story got around that Lesnar was coming to Japan to see him, it has led to a lot of questions regarding his condition. He’s not doing well.

The show was considered a major success. The plan already was to do some added network-only shows like this, probably in better time slots. 

The show was announced as drawing 8,646 fans, although the arena was actually only set up for 6,550 fans and was close to full. Although it was reported as sold out after a lot of tickets were sold when Lesnar was announced as appearing, there were still seats on sale at the time of the show, so it wasn’t like a New Japan major show in the arena. The crowd, only getting to see WWE for one tour a year, was hot. Those there knew all the characters and as Japanese fans do when seeing a foreign product, they acted like they thought they were supposed to act, with American chants, as well as the “This is awesome” chants (which were saved for two occasions, late in the Jericho and Owens match, both of which were pretty much awesome)”

Editor’s Note:

People Power in Japan. Who knew?