No One Loves a Loser
We’ve been told this by any number of PE teachers and “feel good” films about plucky sports teams overcoming the odds to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. But victory is for the few, not the many. Statistically, the average person loses more often than they win. Frequent winners are outliers, defying probability. Michael Jordan said you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take but he was also two meters tall and had hands the size of dinner plates, so persistence maybe wasn’t the only factor. The top performers are not only hard workers – they are also for whatever reason freaks – gifted in some way that makes them worth watching.
But what about those on the other side of the bell curve?
A lot of sports have perennial suckers – teams who never win, for whom loss is a running joke or habit. There are people who qualify to perform at the top level, but can’t quite compete with those who are constantly draped in gold. Of course they might one day – the competition might falter or the environment change in such a way that they start winning when we all least expect it.
It’s different in wrestling, where the winners, no matter what kayfabe tells us, are booked ahead of time. We all know, watching wrestling, that the outcome was decided, months or years ago, by a person or committee. All results are subject to not only the wrestlers’ skill but their narratives and injuries and contracts and visas and other demands of the industry. The function of a wrestler is not to win, but to perform. A wrestler enters the ring already knowing, as other competitors in real sports might only suspect or fear, when they will lose. Sometimes they know that their job is to lose, that they’ve been hired for the express purpose of making someone else look good.
There are different responses a wrestler might have to this loss, which they know know is inevitable.
Almost no wrestlers admit that the game is rigged – if they did, they’ve failed at wrestling. They’d be blackballed. Nearly all wrestlers tell cameras and audiences that they are sure they’ll win. Some subvert the narrative of honourable wrestling, they turn to cheating, or to clowning – tricksters and snitches and bullies, people for whom it is right and proper to lose. Some, and here’s the heartbreakers, remain loyal to wrestling. They stay dedicated to their factions and the fiction of wrestling.
The most heartbreaking of heartbreakers is Yoshi-Hashi.
Yoshi-Hashi doesn’t have a lot of the things wrestling stars have. He’s not beautiful like Ibushi, or charming like Taguchi, or hard like Ishii. He doesn’t have the natural charisma or athleticism of Nakamura or Okada. He’s not comfortable on mic or powerful in his crowd work. He’s pretty awkward, usually, visibly anxious and vocal about being in pain. His shoulder is always taped, and unlike other wrestlers who wear sleeves or pads or black support wraps, he just wears tape. He’s open about injury in a way most wrestlers, pretending to be gods, aren’t. He’s a good wrestler, technically, but there are lots of good wrestlers.
He loses all the time. He loses so often it’s what he’s known for.
Instead of acting, as some do, that loss is an indignity, he takes it boldly in stride. It’s hard, for him to lose. It hurts, there’s no doubt that it hurts.
He just doesn’t give up. He gets back up. He keeps fighting. He keeps trying.
This is what defines him.
To Falter is Not to Fail
Two anecdotes sum up Yoshi-Hashi qua wrestler – one at the beginning of his career, one recently.
Firstly, his origin story: when he first applied to join the New Japan dojo, he was rejected. Most wrestlers, when rejected, go to another company, or train another year, or go into another field.
Yoshi-Hashi applied again, and was rejected.
He applied again, and was accepted on his third try.
Secondly, Yoshi-Hashi’s fall. Late last year, his friend and faction partner Kazuchika Okada was being beaten down, post-bell, in-ring, by his former manager.
It was a shocking betrayal of Okada, the former money man of the company, whose stock was allegedly falling since he lost his long held championship. Against the backdrop of this complex narrative, Yoshi-Hashi ran in, as many wrestlers run in to support their partners. It’s a show of strength in numbers.
But Yoshi-Hashi? Slipped. He fell. He cut his face open on the ring apron – the hardest part of the ring – in a moment grotesque in its honesty. This could not have been scripted, it was impossible to fake or plan. He then, wildly, incredibly, got up, got into the ring, bleeding heavily, only to be suplexed and pinned by the heel. He was no help at all.
The thing is, he was scripted to be no use. He was set dressing to Okada’s desolation.
The other thing is, the fall and injury were outside the script, could have been incorporated in – he could have laid down and nursed his wounds, been pinned outside the ropes.
He didn’t. With a possible concussion and broken skin, he got into the ring to perform a doomed defence of his friend, a performance of loyalty against the odds, against the prevailing powers.
There’s a contradiction here – is it inspiring or inane to keep going in the face of deafening, inevitable defeat? A defeat dictated by management? Can it possibly be both, in this apocalyptic landscape late capitalism has imposed on us?
This is the dialectic of Yoshi-Hashi.
Suffering
In 2019’s New Japan Cup, Yoshi-Hashi made it to the quarter-finals. He beat veteran champion Nakanishi, in an impressive opener. He beat Chase Owens, who was cornered by the cheating Jado, establishing something like legitimacy.
In the quarter-finals, he meets the Stone Pitbull, Tomohiro Ishii – tough as nails, neckless, no sell Ishii, who Yoshi-Hashi has never beat.
He comes into the match confident. He lariats Ishii, headbutts him in the jaw. When they both fall, Red Shoes and the whole crowd yell for Yoshi-Hashi to get up. He tilts his head back and screams at the sky, shakes, fights, again, and again. Neither of them can be put down, neither of them are dominant. Both kick out over and over. The fight is just over twenty minutes but feels much longer.
When he loses, it hurts. His loss was not a surprise – Yoshi-Hashi in the finals is impossible to imagine, was a joke to other wrestlers – so he can’t progress from this stage. However, a win here would have been so satisfying. Not because Ishii had ever been his enemy – they’re peers from the same faction, they’ve tagged together, ride in the same bus and go to the same bars. It would have been satisfying because the respect of your peers is more valuable than that of your enemies.
Ishii took the match seriously because he already respects Yoshi-Hashi, because he takes all his matches seriously. His violence in this match, savage though it is, shows that he has high expectations of his friend.
Yoshi-Hashi has shown himself worthy of this respect by standing again and again, even when Ishii tears the tape off his shoulder and berates him. He stands after chops that must be impeding his breathing, after blows that must have impaired his function.
He loses, and afterwards, in front of the camera he spits, gasps, says that this is the furthest he’s ever gotten. He seems neither relieved or disappointed, only exhausted. He is in pain and tells the camera that he will fight again.
Nothing has been altered by this match except for the amount of suffering these men have experienced, and thus the amount of determination they have shown.
Defeat
Yoshi-Hashi has never held a belt. He’s something of an odd man out in CHAOS, full of champions of various kinds. He’s an odd man out in all kinds of ways, if we’re honest – CHAOS when he joined it was the cool, edgy faction, fronted by Shinsuke Nakamura. Yoshi-Hashi has always struggled to hide his natural, earnest awkwardness. I said before that Yoshi-Hashi doesn’t have the good looks or charisma or raw ability of other wrestlers. What he has is often called heart. He cares deeply about each contest, respects the rules of wrestling and would never mock an opponent the way Nakamura often did, the way heels frequently do.
He has challenged for belts before, and put all his heart into those matches, but never won. He has also never challenged for the biggest belt in New Japan – the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.
However, a 2016 upset victory over Kenny Omega in the G1 (a contest Omega went on to win) meant he had the right to challenge for the Wrestle Kingdom briefcase – more precisely he had the right the challenge for the right to challenge the IWGP champion to a match.
He went about this challenge in his typically awkward fashion, approaching the flamboyant and verbose Omega almost shyly, having a bilingual conversation about who deserved the challenge. Omega, in full heel flight, says that talent beats heart every time.
In the match, Yoshi-Hashi is cornered by Goto, Omega by the Young Bucks. Goto has a towel, for surrendering, the Bucks have a rubbish bin and cold spray, for cheating. The crowd chants for Yoshi-Hashi because they hate Omega, because Yoshi-Hashi’s win in the first round of the G1 was such a shocking joy. Omega, for the first half of the match, maintains the blatant cruelty and arrogance he’d carried through the G1. He trash talks and throws Yoshi-Hashi into the barriers. The Young Bucks grab his legs, blind him with the cold spray. Yoshi-Hashi is almost counted out. He takes punishment for almost fifteen minutes before finally gaining any ground. He fights back, righteously furious. He rolls out of Omega’s finisher into a DDT, powerbombs him, like he did in that last match, the match he won – maybe he’ll win again.
He’s pinned at 26 minutes. Like the Ishii match, his loss isn’t really a surprise. The G1 briefcase has never changed hands. The idea of Yoshi-Hashi in the main event at Wrestle Kingdom boggles the mind. Again, it hurts. Omega is just beginning his reign of dominance, and it would be a relief, a respite, to see someone not tied up in Omega’s dramatic rise.
But he’s helped out of the arena by Young Lions as Omega talks about his big heart, but more importantly, his own next match. Yoshi-Hashi has shown is Omega’s dominance and a lot of heart.
Justice
It’s hard to pick a stand out feud that exemplifies Yoshi-Hashi. He has a lot of fights that are exceptional – but he loses too often to be anyone’s rival. Other wrestlers know this, acknowledge it.
In early 2018, he had a singles match with Naito. If Ishii is defined by how seriously he takes his opponents, and Omega by how dramatic he makes his interactions, Naito is defined by how unserious and undramatic he is – he doesn’t get angry in commentary, he only gets cooler and calmer.
In the weeks before their match, Naito dismisses Yoshi-Hashi – as many audience members also do.
In a backstage comment, Naito addresses the cameras, mocking.
“He says he’s absolutely going to beat me. Absolutely? I don’t think you know what that word means. Are you okay? Maybe you should go on an excursion, to Mexico.”
This suggestion that Yoshi Hashi go train in Mexico – as Young Lions do, as Naito did – is particularly scathing, because Yoshi-Hashi already trained in Mexico, and Naito well knows, because they were there together.
These insults are too much. In the opening of the match, as Naito enters, Yoshi-Hashi attacks him from behind. He drags Naito towards the ring, flips and lands in Naito’s own sarcastically disinterested pose. Naito pretends for a while to be still dismissive, but Yoshi-Hashi stays on the offensive until he has all of Naito’s attention. The match is brutal, both men using the barriers, apron, turnbuckles and ropes to trap or injure each other. They spill onto the ramp and exchange backbreakers.
Unlike the other two I’ve discussed, it seems possible that Yoshi-Hashi could win this. Nothing is at stake but his own reputation, no meta-narrative long term booking reason he shouldn’t beat Naito. He scores several near falls, puts Naito in a butterfly lock in the middle of the ring for nearly a full minute. Naito really struggles – he has to dump Yoshi-Hashi on his head three times before he stays down for the count of three.
But yes – Yoshi-Hashi loses.
After, Naito says, “That was a nice attack. Did you seen his face? I haven’t seen him like that in years. Maybe since the last time we were in Mexico.”
This is the closest someone like Naito is going to get to an admission of respect. It’s a hard fought loss for Yoshi-Hashi, and a moral victory. He has shown that he will not be forgotten or ignored.
Rancière and Wrestling
There’s an assumption made about education that I, as a teacher, hear a lot of. Many people think a teacher must have a great deal of knowledge, and feed this knowledge to their students, like a jug pouring water into a cup. Jacques Rancière’s in 1987 wrote The Ignorant Schoolmaster, positing that the teacher needs no specific knowledge to be a good educator. He argues that all are of equal intelligence, and if we appreciate this fact we may progress in such a way that any effort proves itself educational. The teacher’s job is to make students feel that they can learn, and should seek knowledge out. He claims that the disenfranchised should feel and be able to access any knowledge they have interest in. Furthermore, anyone can lead, and the oppressed should not feel bound to experts or reliant on others for their intellectual emancipation.
I’d like to expand this to not only intellectual achievements, but all achievements: a champion needs no specific talent to be a champion.
We are all equals, regardless of our success or failure. We are all capable of growth and development, though our end goals may not look like anyone else’s. We are all capable of teaching others, capable of inspiring others, capable of verifying to others that we are all equals.
Some people – most, in fact – will never win on a big stage.
Despite what PE teachers and capitalism have told us, this isn’t the worst thing in the world. There is dignity in never winning.
Most never win. Most people have a degree of talent that will never make them famous or wealthy. Many of us have unrealised potential – potential which perhaps will never be realised. Is this potential enough to make us famous and successful, if realised? Probably not, but let’s be honest – that’s not the point.
Experience Confirms Equality
Yoshi-Hashi is never going to get a singles belt. He’s still fighting, despite this incontrovertible fact. You don’t need to be at the top of the pile to be an inspiration. He’s not fighting in the hope that he will one day win, but fighting with the knowledge that it doesn’t matter, that him trying his hardest makes him the equal to those around him. Yoshi-Hashi has power because he’s shown he can survive anything. His friends beat him, his enemies beat him, and he stands again, spitting, sweating, struggling to speak – and he says he will try again.
He is admirable, if we agree that effort, struggle, persistence, are admirable qualities. He doesn’t need a championship belt. He just needs to be someone who tries his hardest, who keeps going, who gets back up, no matter the number of losses.
Remember that Yoshi-Hashi took a terrible, accidental bump, rushing in to help (read: not remotely help) Okada?
They weren’t always friends. As Young Lions together, Okada had beaten him over and over. They had an embryonic rivalry, before either of them were recognisable as they are today.
In January of 2012, Yoshi-Hashi made his return from Mexican excursion at Wrestle Kingdom, in a match against Okada. He’d already announced that he was joining Chaos, Okada’s stable, since it was the heel stable at the time, and he had been a heel in Mexico.
He starts strong – presenting as a real rudo. He assaults the ref. He attacks Okada before the bell rings, lariats him from behind. He keeps Okada on the back foot a while, including pushing him out of the ring and taking a daring tope suicida dive through the ropes onto the ramp. This could be the moment he takes revenge for all those losses against Okada, this could kick off a tense, competitive dynamic for the new stablemates.
Okada pins him five minutes from the bell.
Yoshi-Hashi is, and probably always will be, a foil in other wrestlers’ narratives. He’s there to fill the card. But by maintaining his own strange dignity, by refusing to ever give up, to ever become a true heel, he becomes an inspiration. By his example, we learn not how to win but how to get back up, after our hearts are broken.
Tell me you’ve never loved a loser and I’ll call you a liar.
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