Growing up, I had an NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). I think my parents initially bought it for themselves, but it quickly became my thing. In the late 80s and early 90s, leaving your kids alone for hours on end with a Nintendo was commonplace, and my party animal parents were no exception.

There were a few games that I had that took over my mind. Zelda II, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and Super Mario Bros., just to name a few. All these games were great, but there was one that I enjoyed more than any of these, and that game was Metal Gear.

Metal Gear was a knock-off version of the Metal Gear game in Japan for the MSX home computer. I didn’t know it was the bastard son at the time, and even though Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima thinks it sucks, I love it. I LOVE IT.

Metal Gear was all about sneaking around, conserving ammo for boss fights, and avoiding combat and traps as much as possible. There are a bunch of weapons and equipment, including a pack of smokes that brings your health down. I had never played anything like it. The game came with all sorts of stuff, like a map that I didn’t have, making it extraordinarily difficult. Much like Zelda II, I just played the game all the time anyway and unraveled its many mysteries on my own. Still, there was a dumb maze, and I NEEDED that map. Thankfully, my Uncle Joey had me covered.

He was a big NES guy, and he was an adult, which meant he had money for so many cool games. He was also a G because he took the time to photocopy all the maps for me, which in the late 80s wasn’t the simplest thing to do.

With map in hand, I would begin my journey through the World that Hideo Kojima had crafted, and Years later, my brother would buy me Metal Gear: Solid for the original PlayStation, and I would beat it in one sitting. It was a near-religious experience and made me a fan of Kojima’s work forever.

Aside from video games, my other big obsession in the 80s was professional wrestling. My dad secretly enjoyed it, and I’m fairly certain he exposed me to it for an excuse to go to the shows at the Springfield Civic Center with me. I even wore my “Hulk Rules” bandana when they made my 3^rd grade class go to Westover Air Force Base to cheer for troops returning from the first Gulf War in 1990.

I went to the video store a lot. We had a locally owned joint across from the package store that my mom worked at. As a child, if you gave me a couple of wrestling tapes or a rented Nintendo game, you wouldn’t hear a peep out of me all weekend. My parents liked to do their own thing, so it was a win-win.

The thing about the local rental place is that there are only so many tapes. I went through all the WWF Colosseum videos, the steel cage match tape, all the old Bruno Sammartino stuff, and more. This is when I discovered Japanese professional wrestling. I think it may have been a WCW event at the Tokyo Dome, with the Great Muta and the weird entrance ramp that’s as high as the ring.

Japanese professional wrestling tends to tell stories in the ring. The holds look painful, the suplexes are basically guys dropping each other on their heads, and it just looks so rough. I fell in love as a kid. As an adult, I still play Nintendo games and yes, I still watch Japanese professional wrestling.

To me, it is a comfort food. It reminds me of a stable and happy time in my life, and I like it. I’m not following Hirooki Goto through the airport or sending gifts to YOSHI-HASHI’s home address, but when New Japan comes to the US East Coast, I’ll try to be there.

Many American wrestlers like Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair, whom I worshiped as a child, often turned out to be racists, sex pests, domestic abusers, etc. In contrast, Toshiaki Kawada is a sweet old man, and the worst thing KENTA does is call the cameraman fat. I appreciate not watching lifelong shit-bags in my wrestling, and Japanese wrestling has given me that.

Imagine, then, how curious I became when I found out that none other than Hideo Kojima himself, creator of my favorite video game franchise, was going to be in the iconic Korakuen Hall for the 2025 Death Pain Invitacional. I haven’t been watching wrestling at all lately, although I catch the clips on social media, so when I heard that the event piqued Kojima’s interest, as one of his loyal fanboys, I had to check it out.

What follows is not going to be a move-for-move review of a wrestling card. I’m assuming whoever is reading this doesn’t care about my thoughts on a Boston Crab. What it will be is my thought after watching a Japanese deathmatch for the first time in my life. The deathmatch, you see, was the main event and the reason Kojima was there.

 I’ll watch an old-school, bloody Dusty Rhodes match, but these guys had fluorescent light tubes, sharpened aluminum cans, panes of glass, and all sorts of other fuckery. I was not looking forward to it, but the match featured one of my absolute favorite wrestlers, El Desperado. Despy wrestles in New Japan, but he also really enjoys doing deathmatches. In America, many of the deathmatch wrestlers are talentless part-timers who hang drywall and drink beer. This Death Pain Invitacional is different. El Desperado and the “Crazy Monkey” Jun Kasai showed the World what they wanted it to see. Was it art? I don’t know, but it was bloody.

Like I said, I won’t be running down the whole card, but it was pretty good. Ryusuke Taguchi had his pants pulled down, and somebody used a Super Famicom as a weapon, so this event was building to a strong finale.

Did Toru Yano stop selling DVDs?

Anyway, the main event. Jun Kasai, although I don’t watch his deathmatches ever, just oozes charisma. He’s always been really interesting, and the sheer number of scars on his body is a talking point in wrestling circles. Opposite Crazy Monkey is the aforementioned El Desperado. He always has great masks, and for big matches, he puts on some skull face paint as well.

I just want to reiterate that these two men do this by choice. El Desperado could never wrestle a deathmatch again, and he would have a wildly lucrative career. They enjoy it, and that is strange to me. It makes me so much more interested, though.

As this match starts up, they are setting up chairs, a ton of fluorescent light tubes, and panes of glass. When Desperado came out for his entrance, he was carrying a wooden crucifix wrapped in barbed wire, presumably to use on his opponent.

Next out came Jun Kasai, and he brought out some tables with light tubes and roses taped to them. The roses, much like the invitation to death and pain, have been exchanged by Desperado and Kasai before. According to a video that played, they have wrestled these crazy matches before and exchanged flowers and cards after. I don’t speak Japanese, so any message beyond that was lost on me.

I knew this was going to be barbaric, but I was in too deep. Kasai was bleeding from the head, and the bell hadn’t even rung.

Surprisingly, the match kicked off with some very legit chain wrestling, it just happens to be in a ring full of weapons.

That did not last. Within minutes, El Desperado ate a glass light tube to the head and was crucified on the barbed wire cross that he brought.

All I could think was, “Why am I doing this to myself?”

The powder from the tubes, as well as the glass, covered the ring canvas, and Jun Kasai was stabbing Desperado in the head with a light tube. What follows is Jun Kasai getting thrown through light tubes and stabbed with them as well. Both men went through panes of glass, stabbed each other a bunch, and bled buckets.

At one point, Jun Kasai was thrown off a ladder about 15 feet down into the table full of light tubes and roses that he brought. Both men’s weapons backfired!

They used cut-in-half aluminum cans, barbed wire, and a seemingly infinite number of light tubes. There was so much glass and powder everywhere that I couldn’t believe referee Marty Asami wasn’t wearing a mask and burly gloves.

Jun Kasai was really digging this as both men were covered in glass and cuts. I must say, as the match kept going, it became less shocking and more interesting. You become numb to the violence in real time. I think I was being corrupted.

Toward the end of the match, I was into it, even as Jun Kasai smashed himself in the head and sliced himself with light tubes to the joy of the crowd. After all the glass is broken, they went back to doing wrestling moves in a ring full of glass. El Desperado pulled out the win and gave New Japan president Hiroshi Tanahashi a bloody hug, ruining his clothes.

I think I’ll watch the next Jun Kasai vs. Desperado match, but overall, deathmatches are still not my thing. That being said, there was something so captivating about this whole thing.

I used to love watching hockey brawls back in the 90s when the American Hockey League was still a warzone, so I’m not anti violence. That being said, I can’t believe I enjoyed this.

I never did see Hideo Kojima in the crowd, but I hope he enjoyed it as much as I did.

Stay Crescent Fresh,

Jared