Introduction - Rant

[A pro wrestling fan's rant in an alternate world]

What? Battle Royale? "What's Battle Royale?" Come on, don't tell me you don't know that!? Why bother coming to a pro wrestling match, huh? The name of a move? The name of a tournament? No, Battle Royale's a pro wrestling match. What? "Today?" Today, here, you mean? No, it's not today's program. It's only held in large arenas for big events. Look, there's Takako Inoue. O-oh, sorry. That's right Battle Royale. It's still held in the All Japan Pro Wrestling League. In a nutshell, let's see Battle Royale is—you know how your usual pro wrestling match is one on one or between paired up partners, well with Battle Royale, ten or twenty wrestlers all jump into the ring. And then you're free to attack anyone, one on one, or ten against one, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how many wrestlers pin someone down—what, you don't even know what a pin is? Once your back's on the mat, the count goes, one, two, three, you lose. It's no different from a normal match. Players can also forfeit, and occasionally someone'll get knocked out. Oh yeah, and there's the count out. You can also be disqualified by breaking the rules. Most wrestlers lose by falls in Battle Royale. Hey, go Takako, go! Go, go! O-oh, sorry sorry. In any case, the ones who fall lose, they have to leave the ring. Fewer and fewer players remain in the game. There're only two left in the end. One on one, a very serious match. One out of those two will eventually take a fall. Then there's only one player left in the ring, and he's the winner. He wins. He's given a huge trophy and prize money. Get it? Huh? What about players who've been friends? Well, at first, of course they help each other out. But in the end they have to fight each other. You have to follow the rules. Which also means you get to watch some rare matches. Like way back when the tag-team partners of Dynamite Kid and Davey Boy Smith were the remaining players. Same thing happened with tag-team partners Animal Warrior and Hawk Warrior. In that match though I don't remember which one, but the guy intentionally went for a count out letting his partner win, a display of camaraderie which was kind of a letdown. Oh, you can also team up with players who used to be your enemies.

But the moment you think you're teaming up to get rid of someone else, this sneaky friend can suddenly betray and beat you. Let's see, a Battle Royale I'd like to see now? Well given how many federations there are, I'd like to see a Battle Royale between the leaders of each federation. Keiji Mutoh, Shinya Hashimoto, Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada, Nobuhiko Takada, Masakatsu Funaki, Akira Maeda, Great Sasuke, Hayabusa, Kenji Takano, also Genichiro Tenryu, Riki Choshu, Tatsumi Fujinami, and Kengo Kimura could still be in the running. It'd be fun to add Yoji Anjoh and Super Delfin. They might actually end up being the last two remaining players. For women's first of all, Takako, then Aja Kong, Manami Toyota, Kyoko Inoue, Yumiko Hotta, Akira Hokuto, Bull Nakano, of course Dynamite Kansai, and Cutey Suzuki and Hikari Fukuoka, Mayumi Ozaki, Shinobu Kandori, and Chigusa Nagayo and…what? How could you not know any of them? Did you really come here to watch pro wrestling?

Oh, no no no no no, Takako, fight back ! Takako! All—right.