ShikariFC

July 2020 Hanshiro Furusawa was feeling the pressure of being the CEO of such an historically great company, month by month he carefully watched the finances, the work towards meeting Japanese Sports Vision’s demands had begun, music and production levels had been upgraded though not to the desired level, he would admit that the broadcasting deal had now seemingly become more important than ever, SAISHO had signed a Shogun TV deal which in turn made GCG the only company in Japan not available to watch in one way or another. Though this ambition from his peers to get their product on screen did have its drawbacks , it had got back to him that joshi promotion 5SSW were beginning to lose money rapidly and they've had to downgrade certain broadcast elements to save on money, come to think about it he wasn't sure how SAISHO were affording it either. June saw GCG’s first financial losses since January but this was largely due to one off fees that came along with the upgrades made. It was mid July when Hanshiro received a phone call from one of his many contacts informing him that it was “almost certain” that Tatsuya Toshitara would be leaving BHOTWG, Furusawa was also told Toshitara would probably be looking at ¥253,895 ($1,700) per show, which would make him the second highest earner. This would need be ran through the executive committee, another meeting incoming. Head booker of WLW Haru Kurofuji aside from forcing a few guys out of WLW has now also put the WLW Universal Title on himself.... Hanshiro could only imagine how that was going down in the WLW locker room. Elsewehere in Japan BHOTWG put on what was frankly an incredible Best Of The Super Juniors show to a sold out Izumo Football Stadium, a show which in the coming days was widely recognised as a point where the company had broken through to the next level of popularity. PGHW was beginning to hand out more and more exclusive written contracts meanwhile Hanshiro Furusawa was waiting on a verdict as to whether he would be allowed to pay out a few hundred thousand yen per show to bring in Tatsuya Toshitara. July continued to be significant for BHOTWG, White Samurai whom had previously quit both WLW and EXODUS (Furusawa had looked at him but didn't feel like his locker room needed another negative attitude) signed for them, this started off a string of signings, WLW and PGHW both raided, WLW losing Necromancer, Akio, Little Dragon, Reaper Dante and Shogun Watoga – PGHW losing Stone Yoshikawa, Avalanche Takano, Bison Yano, Dean Waldorf and Marv Statler.

June #3 It appeared any possible improvements in backstage atmosphere were coming too slowly for Shingen Miyazaki whom on the morning of Nagoya Nights 3 walked out on the company without giving notice. Miyazaki had featured in every GCG event since the rebirth and was amongst the better workers. It would also appear that he held ill feeling towards Furusawa so, theres another name to add to the list. The positive that Furusawa clung to was that he was on a higher contract and given the recent push for a broadcasting deal from the executive committee it did give him some room to bring someone in for relatively big money (for a company of this size) if the right person became available. Yuki Horigoshii became the first serious injury GCG would have to contend with, a torn Achilles would put him out of action for a year. THE TIGER RISES 10 Nagoya City, Attendance: 834 MAIN EVENT GCG WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP Casey Valentine vs Masashi Urogataya Casey Valentine became the 34th Champion and the first man to hold the belt since Takayuki 2000 in March 2017. Whilst Hanshiro felt the event overall was probably their best so far he still felt the depth of quality in the card was lacking, and arguably the Semi Final match of Ieyoshi Shimakage vs Harumi Okazawaya was the better match.

An email had dropped into Hanshiros inbox to start his morning, his head busy with booking ideas for the two shows this month, especially The Tiger Rises 10 where the Heavyweight Championship would be won, the email whilst relatively short would impact the company going forward, it was from Shinji Miyoshi of the Executive Committee -------------------- Dear Mr Furusawa We hope this email finds you well. As you know from the previous committee meeting we at the Aichi Prefectural Government were disappointed that Golden Canvas Grappling would be unable to run a touring schedule from June and we reluctantly agreed with the committees decision to delay the schedule change indefinitely. The APG now would like to shift focus and the companys efforts towards securing a TV slot, we find that Shogun TV is wildly over saturated with puroresu and would not find such a deal desirable. We have through our own contacts and with the help of committee member Mr Nishimuraya been in negotiations with the Japan Sports Vision network and have come to an agreement for Golden Canvas Grappling events to be shown on their third channel, this is providing that we make certain upgrades to our production values. We have looked over the necessary upgrades required and whilst not immediately possible we feel this can be done on a relatively short time scale. After the recent high value contract signings of Casey Valentine and Ieyoshi Shimakage we feel it now appropriate to priorities company money elsewhere We look forward to seeing progress in this matter Sincerely Shinji Miyoshi, Aichi Prefectural Government -------------------- Furusawa knew this was the price of his bad reputation and thus needing an executive committee in the first place, though he had hoped that if he did this then the funding idea for the Dojo may be within grasp, either way it seemed like unless guys went out nobody was going to be coming in for the foreseeable future.

Sticking with GCG originals is something i WANT to do but it is getting more difficult haha

June #2 Hanshiro Furusawa had decided The Tiger Rises 10 at the end of June would be a marquee show, the Golden Canvas Grappling World Heavyweight Championship would be fought for, he was still mulling over the names in the match up. June was turning into a big month that at least in his own head Furusawa had concluded was make or break, the backstage atmosphere threatening to implode on itself – in the past two weeks there were fights between Yasuhide Tayama and Shingen Miyazaki, Tayama and Lenny Mochin, Tayama also had heat with Yuki Horigoshi, Tayama had rapidly become a bigger pain in his ass than even Shikitei. Furusawa decided it was time to let Tayama go, at 39 he was one of the easier ones to decide to move on, he also picked up the 3rd biggest wage in the company. Tornado Nagai wasn't popular in the locker room due to some less than tasteful ribs, he also wasn't keen on both Furusawa himself and one of Furusawas favourites Masashi Urogataya so Nagai was the next to be let go. The final release was Colour Commentator Ryuzaburo Sugiyama – the man was just obnoxious and Furusawa at this stage thought (hoped) that they could do without a colour guy. This all lead to the company being light on numbers and coming off amateurish due to having a small roster size – he got back to his list of talents and made some phonecalls, at this stage he was more so looking for good guys, good personalities more than in ring qualities. The first person to come in was Shino Ko to replace the late Motoichi Arakida as second road agent, Ko was a BHOTWG guy during his in ring career and was known for his professional attitude. Koetsu Shinozaki was next in, a second referee as the need was becoming apparent for one. The following in ring talent was bought in together: Hidekazu, 50 – Most famous for his spell with BHOTWG a highly experienced worker with a driven personality, like with all of the signings Furusawa hoped this could balance the dressing room Beetle Kimura, 34 – Furusawa wasn't keen on having too many small workers and probably already had too many, however Kimura was widely regarded as a people person and was coming in on a very cheap deal Fuyuhiko Wakabayashi, 30 – This was a curious one, living and working in Australia for DIW under the name “Shogo” GCG would be the first company from his own country he would work for, Furusawa felt he was taking a gamble here and would be paying out in travel but he looked decent in ring and by all accounts was a pretty relaxing guy to have about the place Wataru Kikumoto, 21 – With only two years experience Kikumoto would fall into the young lion category bringing the number back up to three. Furusawa personally spoke to Kikumoto in the weeks running up to his signing and was convinced he was a good personality for the locker room As Furusawa was putting together the card for Nagoya Nights 3 in June the backstage situation couldn't get much worse, he hoped it was up from here after the personnel shuffle.

Thank you! ill be honest im being forced to go slow with it really - froma diary writing perspective its very different to my previous one I'm not exactly sure at what point the diary will feel more like my BHOTWG one, mainly because financially we aren't near being able to run tours really, though I do have one or two storyline things to get me out of that problem should I need to. Its been very tough backstage yes, more detail to come in future posts.

June was here, the initial date that Furusawa had set to have the company rolling on a traditional touring schedule. A meeting had taken place between Furusawa and the Executive Committee where Furusawa had aired his concerns about the financial aspect of a touring schedule, an agreement was made that the touring schedule would be put back indefinitely – that didn't mean that all were in agreement though, Shinji Miyoshi the representative of the Aichi Prefectural Government was not pleased, he had wanted the area getting weekly shows by now, given his bad mood it probably wasn't the time for Hanshiro to push the idea of additional funding to get the dojo running. The boys had started to complain about the “toxic” atmosphere backstage – the removal of Fujisaki had a small positive impact upon this but Furusawa could see the number of negative personalities he had (and also he would admit his own) not working well together, the crux of the issue was many of these negative personalities were amongst his better workers and he really couldn't risk losing some of them, one person that did head out was KAZ – employed by SAISHO as well the two had a fairly amicable discussion and KAZ was out of the door for now. The year had started off well for a couple of companies around them EXODUS and 5SSW had both experienced an increase in popularity – 5SSW had also got themselves a TV slot. Furusawa whilst not immediately concerned about this as the rebirth of GCG was only 6 months old, was well aware he was now in charge of the number 6 company in the country – with number 7 (EXODUS) not a million miles behind. The hope was Valentine and Shimakage could really help them kick on. Pro Wrestling SAISHO being the number 8 company were also steadily losing money, and whilst they had a talent trading agreement in place with GCG and had a healthy relationship too, Furusawa couldn't help but look over their roster and wonder whom he could pick up if they did go under.

Casey Valentine signed a per show deal with Golden Canvas Grappling on May 22nd Pete Halls influence all over the deal, Furusawa admittedly was very impressed they were able to get him in, a former USPW Television champion, Sam Keith Classic Winner, Rip Chord Invitational winner and aside from his accolades in ring he was arguably the most popular guy within Japan on the roster without having even wrestled a match in the country. Pete Hall had spoken to Furusawa earlier in the day and confirmed what Hanshiro had thought, Valentine was a GCG wrestler but for how long who knew, it was very surprising that neither SWF or TCW had picked the lad up, especially TCW and aside from that if he could put on a good match in Japan it would surely not be long until BHOTWG came knocking and GCG were in no financial position to be handing out exclusive deals yet. Speaking of Finances, since February they had managed to make money each month, Hanshiro was extremely keen to get the dojo back up and running as soon as viable but the executive committee seemed to think it was much further off than he would like. ------------------------------------ Yunosuke Fujisaki Managed to last until the end of May before Hanshiro Furusawa terminated his contract, Fujisaki had come in as one of the young lions but showed a poor attitude, something that Furusawa was not going to take, this left the company now with two young lions – Shuga Amano and Ritsu Ibata. The Casey Valentine signing had pleased Furusawa though it wasn't his signing, his first big signing of note came shortly after the Fujisaki release when BHOTWG released Ieyoshi Shimakage, Shimakage at 32 was a former BHOTWG Japan Champion and former member of the Senmatsu-gun stable, in terms of popularity he would be by far the most popular – very good in ring and Furusawa was very excited at the prospect of working with him. Shimakage came in on a pay per appearence deal – the biggest deal in the company at ¥268,776 per show ($1,800), Casey Valentine on the second biggest per show ¥223,980 ($1,500) this was some way clear of the third biggest.

Any rules for BCG?

(May) Sat in front of the PC in his office Hanshiro Furusawa was staring at a list of names, all potential talents. The tab next open was a compilation of footage from the GCG that he had currently ran – the collection of best matches so far Shingen Miyazaki vs Omezo Shikitei (The Tiger Rises 7) 64 Omezo Shikitei vs Danjuro Kikuchi (The Tiger Rises 1) 61 Azumamoro Shimizu & Danjuro Kikuchi vs Shingen Miyazaki & Edo Phoenix IV (The Tiger Rises 6) 60 Shingen Miyazaki vs Azumamoro Shimizu (The Tiger Rises 6) 60 Azumamoro Shimizu vs Omezo Shikitei (The Tiger Rises 5) 60 It was clear to see who his top guys were, one was a monumental pain in his ass (Shikitei), Shingen Miyazaki wasn't overly keen on Furusawa due to his handling of one of the many backstage incidents that had risen up over the last few weeks, on the other hand he was pleased to see Kikuchi and Shimizu doing well. It was then that an email popped up in the corner of his screen “From Pete Hall” Furusawa sighed, Hall on him again, he opened it and stared at the screen for a while, it wasn't a worded email, just a screen shot from a popular wrestling publication His phone started ringing, it was Pete Hall....

(The following takes place between March and Early May) Once the financial figures slid across his desk for February the final tally for the month was a loss of ¥725,243, the attendance of the Tiger Rises shows had slid from the inaugural show, most of them sitting around the early 500’s. Furusawa was still viewing June as the kick off point for the company proper – Titles were planned to be defended from then on but the finances were worrying, as it stood he wasn't sure the company could financially support a touring schedule as early as June. The Aichi Prefectural Government had been happy enough with the progress but they were hardly forthcoming with extra funds at the moment, it wasn't something Furusawa wanted to rely on either. The executive commitee had been easy enough to work with, Furusawa did though on occasion feel Pete Hall breathing down his neck, Hall was very keen on bringing in more American talent, the roster at the time had zero, Furusawa had since being in charge always looked to the UK first as he felt it was a better match stylistically, for instance Furusawa had bought in Kevin Yashere whom had been released by 21CW where he wrestled under the name of Edison Silva, at the age of 23 he was already well rounded and Furusawa saw enough to want to bring him in. --------------------------------------- As the company got a few more shows under their belt Furusawa continued to worry about the quality of some of the guys he was able to bring in, increasingly the agreement he had to make with Maeda to not sign any BCG talents seemed damaging. It wasn't just in ring where Furusawa was feeling underwhelmed with the talent, backstage problems continued, Masashi Urogataya and Tornado Nagai had heat with each other, Omezo Shikitei continued being a bad influence backstage when he started a fight with Billy Robinson, even more damaging as Robinson was on loan from SAISHO – Mito Miwa wasn't best pleased. Shikitei continued to be a headache but mainly because he was arguably the best in ring talent Furusawa had, there was only so long he could turn a blind eye and not piss the rest of the boys off. Furusawa had a rethink of the schedule due to the losses in February and reduced the number of shows through March and April with just two shows in March and one In April – The Tiger Rises 7 in March and 8 in April, the third show was the first of a new series of monthly shows Furusawa had launched called “Nagoya Nights”. Nagoya Nights was an idea Furusawa had to give longer matches and more exposure to the younger or frankly poorer members of his roster, he still had great worries about the quality of the guys at his disposal and by April he found himself pouring over notes he had made on unsigned guys looking for anyone who could be a good fit – but more so a good fit mentally and in terms of attitude, backstage feeling was rapidly becoming more and more of a problem. --------------------------------------- At the end of APRIL WLW let go of Mokuami Maita, Furusawa asked around and apparently he had many disagreements with their booker, Haru Kurofuji, a man whom Furusawa was familar with, WLW had also come to terms with the release of White Samurai and Dark Wing for similar reasons, whilst the latter two didn't really interest Furusawa too much in ring Maita was definitely someone he looked at closely. Eventualy Furusawa decided against approaching Maita despite his want for talent, Maita could potentially just add to an already gloomy backstage environment. The company was then hit with deeply upsetting news as right at the start of May, Motoichi Arikida, road agent and mentor of Ryobe Uno tragically passed away at the age of 62 – The first show of May had a ten bell salute to start the show in honour of Arikida and all proceeds from the show went to his family Motoichi Arikida 1958-2020

(The following takes place between January 2020 and March 2020) The launch had gone smoothly, GCG held their first show back on January 15th, The Tiger Rises 1 drew 755 people (headlined by Miyazaki & Nakao vs Okazawaya & Tayama) which was a sell out. As Hanshiro Furusawa had told the press the initial schedule would be made up of stand alone shows – he had booked about two months ahead of time, financially the first show went well but he was anxious about how the next few would go – The Tiger Rises 2 was the following week followed by 3 shows in February. Shortly after the first show PGHW had announced they were cutting ties once and for all with SAISHO and ended their talent trading agreement, this would surely only be bad news for SAISHO. The Executive Committee’s first move came shortly after this news, due to Sadakuno Nishimuraya’s obvious past ties to SAISHO he moved quickly to set up a talent trading agreement between them and Golden Canvas Grappling, although initially Fursawa didn't feel one way or another about this a few weeks later he moved to bring in KAZ and Billy Robinson on short term loans. -------------------------------------- EWA (European Wrestling All-Stars) took a hostile stance towards GCG in early February which was a puzzling move to Hanshiro Furusawa, he knew full well he was hardly liked (despite his continuing efforts) but what he could possibly have done to upset the owners of a sports entertainment product in Europe was totally beyond him. Furusawa unfortunately had more pressing issues, by this time GCG were three shows in and on the eve of the fourth, the first month bought a ¥ 550,000 profit which was pleasing though hardly remarkable – however February was on course to be making a loss, Furusawa would have to look once more at the schedule and at this time he felt a long way from being able to run traditional tours. Aside from this his workers were mostly .... fine? But nothing more than that, it was hard for him to not judge other wrestlers by his standards and without being overly arrogant he knew how good he was, but he had hoped for a little better. Early on the standouts in ring were Omezo Shikitei, though he wasn't great with the boys and didn't help what was already proving to be a worrying backstage atmosphere, but more about that later, Shingen Miyazaki and Yasuhide Tayama had been consistent though both of these were turning 40 the following year, Furusawa was pleased that Marimasa Kato had settled in and was performing steadily, but mostly Furusawa had been watching out for the trio of Azumamaro Shimizu, Danjuro Kikuchi and Masashi Urogataya – due to their age and training he was hoping these three could be the platform to build around long term, Shimizu also had strong loyalty to the company and would be unlikely to leave if BHOTWG came calling (or anyone else for that matter) however Furusawa had to battle with his own expectations once more when assessing these three, they had been okay, Kikuchi probably the better of the three. As earlier mentioned the backstage atmosphere wasn't hideous but also not great, despite his best efforts Furusawa felt like he just didn't mix with some of the boys very well – English lad Lenny Mochin and he didn't really see eye to eye, colour commentator Ryuzaburo Sugiyama was much the same and Furusawa was definitely ready to entertain the possibility of letting him go, aside from these two Furusawa was experiencing a bad attitude from Yunosuke Fujisaki, which considering he was a young lion really didn't sit well with Hanshiro and Fujisaki was staring down the barrel of a release by the time March arrived.

Thank you! sorry to hear of your problem, long story short my game wouldn't load because my antivirus just randomly decided it was a threat Its certainly starting from more or less the bottom in 2020! and whilst hiring unemployed / exc GCG isn't a hiring rule as such I feel like this vision of Furusawa would try his best to stick by that so, adds a challenge to it.

It’s been a challenge but also probably the most consistent fun I’ve had with TEW in a long while, I’m a few months ahead of the diary and there’s been a few shock free agent names pop up.

Golden Canvas Grappling Relaunch Press Conference - Mr Furusawa, can you talk to us about how you feel sat here as the CEO of GCG? I am happy to be given the chance to bring GCG back to the forefront of puroresu, I wouldn't have been able to do this without the support of the local authorities, specifically the Aichi Prefectural Government, the Golden Canvas Grappling Executive Committee and many others. - How much of this is a personal redemption story? Id be a liar if I said that wasn't part of it, at this stage of my life I am hoping to be able to do some work towards righting previously made mistakes, give some people second chances and I guess that does include myself and again as I just mentioned, do what I can to bring GCG back to the public eye. - Can you talk to us about the roster? As you can see I've bought in a lot of people who have been without regular work since GCG closed its doors, this ties in with what I just said in answer to the last question, giving people second chances, it can be argued that I cost these guys a career before so I want to do what I can to help them now. You'll notice that with the exception of Lenny Mochin these guys were all unemployed, that's a recruitment model I would like to stick to. - Could you elaborate on that recruitment model? What I mean by that is I would rather have a roster 90% at least made up of guys who just work for me here at GCG so as to avoid availability problems - That's surely going to restrict you massively if you are unable to hand out exclusive contracts? It may do, we shall see. - What is the status of the Golden Dojo? We have a training space with a ring and some equipment but in terms of a fully functioning dojo with graduates I think we are still some way off that happening, I 100% want to have the dojo operating fully as soon as possible. - The company has moved from its traditional home to Nagoya, can you tell us some more about this? I wanted to move to an area that currently didn't have a "named" promotion, Nagoya and the wider Aichi/Chubu area seemed perfect, from there I was able to get support from local authorities there and that's what got the move off the ground really. - Lenny Mochin coming in whilst working for CWW suggests there's a working relationship there? Yes of sorts, I wouldn't expect to see any joint shows or a mass of workers between the two but I had spoken to Mr Jenkins, he is a good man and we both have similar ideas about Pro Wrestling, he was happy for me to have Mochin on the roster here. - How about your relationship with Japanese companies? specifically with Black Canvas Grappling? This venture is about making GCG as good as it can be, I'm not interested in any hostilities with anyone. I've spoken to Yoshifusa Maeda, we have spoken productively, we have a no talent stealing agreement in place between both companies and he has also made it clear that he doesn't want BCG talents working with us, some of you might feel like that's a hostile move in itself but I would disagree, I am well aware of my reputation and I would rather do what I can to focus on mending that and focus on things here at GCG, if such agreements are a means to that end then so be it. - The Golden Canvas Grappling Executive Committee, can you talk to us about that and how that works? Again, given my history with GCG before I felt like this was a necessary measure to lead towards myself being trusted to be in this position again. The Executive Committee is made up of great people whom all want to see this venture succeed, that's a good thing and I look forward to working with and alongside them. - What kind of schedule can we expect? Ultimately like everyone else, a traditional touring schedule. In what I hope will just be the short term though I envisage at least one show a month whilst we build up some finances and get people attending shows again, the first series of shows will be called "The Tiger Rises" - What championships will be available? Initially none, the GCG World Heavyweight will be the first to return but that's probably a way down the line, eventually the tag and openweight will be back. - The companies branding now features the Tiger not the Lion, what lead to this decision? Traditionally GCG carried the Tiger in its logo and I wanted to go back to that time, the Lion is with BCG now. ***** Journalists in the room at this point were told we were down to the last two questions ***** - Sorry to be blunt but what if this fails and falls flat on its face? Then I have failed, I'm not sure what else there is to say there. - Ultimately Mr Furusawa what do you think the chances are of Golden Canvas Grappling making an impact in todays market with much more financially powerful companies in the same country? Financially we will have to be careful, for probably quite a long spell of time , in terms of talent I'm confident we can bring in the right people but ultimately luck will play a big part in it too. There are some great companies in Japan and we also have our own history to try and attempt to live up to, I knew all of this when I decided to do this, I am under no illusions how hard this will be, ultimately if GCG can be around for the next 10/20/30 years putting on good quality shows then it will all be worth it

Golden Canvas Grappling Talent Roster January 2020 Azumamaro Shimizu, 29 - Golden Canvas Grappling Dojo graduate 2013 Brother Yoshitaka, 38 - Formerly of Hinote Dojo Danjuro Kikuchi, 25 - Formerly of Golden Canvas Grappling Edo Phoenix IV, 28 - Formerly of Hinote Dojo Harumi Okazawaya, 46 - Formerly of Golden Canvas Grappling Kyuichi Matsumoto, 26 - Formerly of WEXXV Lenny Mochin, 29 - Championship Wrestling From Wigan wrestler, working for Golden Canvas Grappling as part of the good relationship between the two Masashi Urogataya, 32 - Formerly of Golden Canvas Grappling, 1x Golden Canvas Grappling Openweight Champion Morimasa Kato, 36 - Formerly of INSPIRE Omezo Shikitei, 30 - Formerly of Hinote Dojo Quick Kick Nakao, 37 - Formerly of Golden Canvas Grappling Ryobe Uno, 22 - Golden Canvas Grappling Dojo graduate 2016 Shingen Miyazaki, 39 - Formerly of Golden Canvas Grappling Tornado Nagai, 37 - Formerly of INSPIRE Yasuhide Tayama, 39 - Golden Canvas Grappling Dojo graduate 1999, Former Golden Canvas Grappling Openweight and Tag Team Champion Yuki Horigoshi, 33 - Formerly of World Level Wrestling ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Young Lions Ritsu Ibata, 20 - Formerly trained at The Ling School Shuga Amano, 22 - Formerly trained at The Tokyo Dojo Yunosuke Fujisaki, 21 - Formerly trained at The Tokyo Dojo

Thank you! the roster and press conference will go up soon.

OOC POST First off thanks to everyone liking and commenting! very nice that there's so many of you interested. Its taking a while longer to get to the point where the diary reverts to more like my BHOTWG one, there's a fair few more "story" based posts yet - a bit out of my comfort zone but I'm enjoying it all the same. The save itself is proving quite challenging which its actually a new experience for me and TEW 😂 I lucky dipped Hanshiro's user talents and it gave me a 0 in leadership which is making life interesting 😂 A few different events have cropped up which actually play out in story terms quite well so yes, in the short, this diary is still going to look and feel a bit different to the event roundup style of my BHOTWG one for the foreseeable.

July 2019 Ahead of the Golden Canvas Grappling relaunch press conference, Hanshiro Furusawa and The Aichi Prefectural Government would like to announce the staffing and management structure of the new company Golden Canvas Grappling CEO – Hanshiro Furusawa Golden Canvas Grappling Executive Committee – This consists of three members whom are in place to monitor business activities and oversee CEO Furusawa’s decisions, to advise Furusawa and help create a healthy environment that will see GCG thrive Shinji Miyoshi – A representative of the Aichi Prefectural Government managing the APG’s interests, at any such time where Mr Miyoshi may vacate his post the APG would put forward another person as a replacement. Pete Hall – Highly respected former GCG wrestler, Pete Hall will mostly sit on the committee from his home in America. Sadakuno Nishimuraya – Another highly respected former GCG wrestler, Mr Nishimuraya was also in charge at Pro Wrestling SAISHO and he brings a wealth of experience to the committee. Road Agents – Motoichi Arakida Former BHOTWG & WEXXV wrestler & Junnosuke Fukazawa former 3x GCG Tag Team Champion Referee – Sadanobu Koruba – Returning to the company for relaunch after working for GCG between 2008-2017 Announcers – Masatake Hori – Returning to the company for relaunch after working for GCG between 2003-2017, Hori is also a GCG hall of famer. Ryuzaburo Sugiyama will be on colour commentary The opening Golden Canvas Grappling talent roster is close to completion, please look forward to the announcement.

Thank you! already proving challenging but hopefully it makes for some interesting future posts 😂

July 2019 Dear Pro Wrestling Fans I, Hanshiro Furusawa, am delighted to announce that Golden Canvas Grappling will be relaunching in 2020. In association with local authorities I have been able to make this dream a possibility, the company will now be based out of Nagoya. Golden Canvas Grappling will be reconnecting with its routes and I will be bringing the company in line with the style, passion and desire of the companies glory days. I can understand there will be many questions and doubts about this venture and I am pleased to announce I will be given the opportunity to address these at an upcoming press confrence in a weeks time, I would encourage you all to please tune in, a written version will be available at a later date. At this moment in time I am unable to say much else other than i am grateful to have the chance to bring Golden Canvas Grappling back to the forefront of Professional Wrestling The Tiger will rise again Hanshiro Furusawa, Golden Canvas Grappling CEO

May 2019 Hanshiro Furusawa had thought he knew what having heat with someone felt like, as previously mentioned he had a long list of relationships to mend within Pro Wrestling, but nothing compared to that he had felt from his wife these past 6 weeks since announcing that at the ripe ages of 70 (in his case) and 68 (in hers) that they would be moving to Nagoya, four and a half hours drive away. What started as an old mans remorse was quickly turning into a real life business venture, back in March Furusawa had tentatively contacted the Aichi Prefectoral Government, more specifically their sports and cultural funding arm floating the idea of gaining some backing (both financially and in terms of promotion) for launching a Pro Wrestling comapny, he had initially left out the details that it was his intention to relaunch Golden Canvas Grappling, he had figured it would be a hard enough sell as it was to expect someone to trust him to run a company never mind one that he had previously very infamously ran into the ground. Alongside this Furusawa had been seeking out people with whom he had previously burned bridges, some with more success than others. He and Yoshifusa Maeda were never going to be best friends but they had atleast had a few conversations, over the phone and via email to the point where Hanshiro was able to witness his son wrestle live as one of BCG’s top stars, it was also important to Hanshiro that Maeda knew of his intentions with GCG, Maeda was a hard man to gauge but it was atleast apparent that if this relaunch got off the ground BCG and GCG would not be mortal enemies. One key factor of this was Furusawa giving Maeda his word that he would not go looking for his son Mabuchi to join GCG, Mabuchi would be staying with BCG and with them exclusively. Overall Hanshiro had to agree to a few things to bring Maeda around, an agreement to not steal talent from each other, Hanshiro thought it would be some way down the line before that would be a problem for either but understood why it was asked for all the same, Maeda didnt want any BCG talent working for GCG ... this was harder to agree with but it was a necessity that Furusawa would have to work around. Whilst Hanshiro was pleased with the progress made between himself and Maeda unfortunately Kazu Yoshizawa was not as easy to reconcile with, little had been said between the two and it was still felt that Yoshizawa held a deep mistrust for Furusawa, whether this would cause problems down the road was to be seen, Yoshizawa was Maedas right hand man afterall. Pete Hall was a more complicated one, Hanshiro had plans that directly involved Hall and would require him being on board. Hanshiro knew scepticism about him being at the helm of GCG would be high and he had envisaged conceding some of his powers to a board of directors in some shape or form, a group of people who would not be directly involved in the day to day running of the company but would have a say in business decisions, Hanshiro had hoped this would ease some concerns. The first name on this list of directors or overseers (he still hadnt settled on what exactly these people would be called) was “Pistol” Pete Hall – Hall was universally loved amongst puro, closely linked to GCG and if he was to trust Furusawa then it would be a huge statement of intent.

Thanks for the kind words! hopefully I can get some things done that I want to in this save! Im trying to stick to Cverse history/ lore as much as possible - Already this is much more charachter work heavy than my previous diary so im enjoying that side of it too I will say that a couple of months in and I've already had a super random company take a hostile stance 😂

Hello folks! After the untimely demise of my BHOTWG diary (tech issues) I have decided on a Golden Canvas Grappling relaunch as my return!. Anybody who followed the BHOTWG diary can expect the same sort of format – Monthly recaps that by and large read like Wikipedia entrys looking back on the event, incorporated with this I will also have the odd interview type post that you'd see on NJPWS website for instance as well as event previews for some of the bigger cards and also some narrative work, mainly in the intro to this diary, to set the scene. Im Using the following Mods C-Verse Venue Expansion Yet To Debut Dojo Grads Womens Revolution Mod Company Logo and banner for GCG are from Here - Belt Renders from Here - Worker renders are from all over the place - so many talented graphics makers! A few quick points about the save - The move from Kansai to Chubu will be explained in future posts - Moving away from Lion branding, Back to Tiger as GCG was originally - Ive edited the database to reflect certain changes explained in past / future posts, these are mainly to do with a few relationships between Hanshiro Furusawa and others - In the default database GCG pop was 14 across the board in japan and 38 in Kansai – Ive changed Chubu pop to 38 and reduces Kansai to 25 - Momentum & Prestige was hard to decide on – database has both set to 0, I decided to keep momentum at 0 due to the company re opening, prestige I've set to 25 which is roughly the same as SAISHO for comparison - Finances are in line with future posts – There is some money about but early game particularly will be tight. - Production values have all been lowered to reflect that of a new promotion with a bit of shadow backing financially

In March 2019, two years exactly after the tragic collapse of Golden Canvas Grappling, in his Saitama home Hanshiro Furusawa would start a most unlikely chain of events that would lead to possibly the most noteworthy of comebacks in Japanese wrestling history. Furusawa at the age of 70 feeling like he had some wounds to heal and some relationships to mend made the step to reach out to Yoshifusa Maeda, a man whom he in the past could rightfully have been accused of hating and visa versa, this ill feeling between the two stemming back to Furusawas awful judgement in leading Golden Canvas Grappling into the Modern Japan Movement. Maeda was now the CEO of Black Canvas Grappling who had gained some excellent momentum within the Japanese scene, Maeda was also Hanshiro’s sons boss, Mabuchi Furusawa had continually made his father proud though Hanshiro had never had the chance to see his son live for BCG due to the relationship with Maeda, and this primarily was the driving force behind Hanshiro Furusawa swallowing his pride and at least making the attempt to reconcile with Maeda. But Hanshiro knew it wasn't just Maeda and he unfortunately had a sizeable list of people with whom had ill feeling towards him, there was Kazu Yoshizawa, the man whom was Maedas right hand man, Naonobu Murakami who like Yoshizawa was also working with BCG, past those two there was the legendary “Pistol” Pete Hall and probably the biggest of all the wider Japanese wrestling community. So that covers the relationships he was wanting to mend, the wounds though were arguably the tougher task to face. Furusawa more than anything would like to restore the Golden Canvas Grappling name, in turn maybe restoring his but at this stage of his life how possible was that? Financially maybe it was, physically? It was questionable, his wife wouldn't thank him for entering into such a venture at his age but as with hundreds of men and women who've lived through the wrestling industry, it gets under your skin and into your blood, the itch that you can never quite scratch enough. A ding from his PC broke Hanshiro out of his daydream, a reply to an email he had sent two days ago now, the email was from the Aichi Prefectural Governement.....