Joey Janela‘s follow-up event to his cult favorite annual Joey Janela’s Spring Break over WrestleMania weekend was announced a few weeks ago, a new summer event called Joey Janela’s Lost In New York (once again produced under the Game Changer Wrestling (GCW) banner). The first two matches announced, PCO vs. Matt Riddle and Nick Gage vs. Meng, already had fans salivating at the impending intergenerational dream match ups. But tonight, GCW and Joey Janela announced the main event for Lost In New York, once again following the intergenerational theme. The big reveal came via a cool retro 80s kung fu/action short film.
The man revealed at the end as one of the “bosses” (like in a kung fu video game like Double Dragon, which was a theme with WALTER vs PCO reveal for the first Spring Break), is Japanese legend Jinsei Shinzaki, a 25-year veteran and co-founder of Michinoku Pro Wrestling (MPW) in Japan. The 51-year old puroresu star also had notable matches and runs with both All Japan and NJPW, even wrestling for Pro Wrestling NOAH and recently, WRESTLE-1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuhIO1Z6CfY
But to many North American fans, he’s best remembered for three year stint as the warrior monk Hakushi, from 1994 through 1996. He started off on a winning streak, and had some great matches with the likes of Bret “Hitman” Hart, Owen Hart and 1-2-3 Kid, but he also got held up in feuds with Bodydonna Skip (Chris Candido), Savio Vega and Adam Bomb that stopped most of his momentum. After leaving the WWF, he made a stop in ECW in 1998, teaming with Hayabusa to face ECW Tag Team Champions Rob Van Dam & Sabu at ECW Heat Wave ’98.
A 4x MPW Tag Team Champion and All Japan All Asia Tag Team Champion, this makes the second straight Michinoku Pro legend to face Janela at his shows – at this year’s Spring Break 2, Janela defeated MPW’s other co-founder, 3x MPW Tohoku Junior Heavyweight Champion The Great Sasuke. If these two are the first two “bosses” of Janela’s video game journey, it will be interesting to see if the next boss is another MPW legend, like possibly Dick Togo, GAINA (Shisaou), or current MPW Tohoku Junior Heavyweight Champion Taro Nohashi.
