Former wrestling uploader & longtime children's aid supporter. I'm enjoying life's peaceful moments. I'm no longer online in the broader wrestling community, I just may do the one-off AJPW upload every now & then.

The only wrestling thing I do now is watch AJPW shows, especially the "Dr. Death" Steve Williams years, my role model since childhood & motivational hero. At 4 years old, the 1st match I saw was Dr. Death vs. Kenta Kobashi, the 5-star 1993 match. Then, I watched my first WCW Saturday Night episode (March 5, 1994) when the show rebranded. Began taping shows & collecting after.

I'm living a relaxed life with my wife since 2022, Nini @Nini-yc8hc & I'm also happy pursuing my other hobbies (regular person stuff). Charity, retro gaming, computers, music, movies, drawing, you name it Simple wrestling stuff now. Often times, Nini watches those shows with me as she's Japanese. Her favorite is Toshiaki Kawada.


Al Balog

Hi, I wanted to let you know I had to take down my full WWF and WCW shows because of copyright issues that recently came up. 🙁 I currently have a 1/3 and I want to keep it that way (see my previous community post), and I don't want to get a 2/3 copyright strike. WWE has been extra strict lately, and I want to keep my channel safe so I can continue sharing with you all & keep everything I still have online, especially the AJPW stuff. It’s a bit sad seeing parts of the old wrestling days go, but life shifts, and so do our priorities. Thanks for your understanding and support. It truly means the world to me. 🙏

To be more precise for those asking, it was a copyright removal request from WWE via Youtube. I had just 7 days to remove the flagged videos. Thankfully, it wasn't an instant copyright takedown strike, so I had time to react and avoid having 2/3 copyright strike.

Personally, to be fully honest given where I'm at in my life, losing these full WWF and WCW shows was not the biggest loss for me, but it's still rather sad seeing it go knowing the effect it will have on the people that enjoyed these videos.

The AJPW videos and WCW Saturday Night videos will be fine, as the latter was segmented properly & not flagged. I'll let you know if anything else happens. But to repeat, I only have a 1/3 copyright strike, NOT a 2/3 copyright strike, which is what I'm trying to avoid by doing this purge.

Unlikely to put them back up as a result of this copyright issue, and also because of my frustration at the WWF/WWE in general. The company has been bonkers in more ways than one, but I think you already know my thoughts on that, lol. I don't need to work myself up into a shoot. 😋 Thought I'd end this post on more light-hearted note.

3 weeks ago (edited) | [YT] | 15

Al Balog

Hi, 👋😎 Nini just published 4 AJPW shows on her channel (Nini The Chao). These particular AJPW shows were from an on-demand TV thing called "Battle Station", which I've had sitting around for several years but I've done little with them. The reason why is because after all these years, I had no clue what the copyright status of the shows are & were compared to the rest of my AJPW collection. 😶 Now, I know the facts. 😃 She said that "Battle Station" wasn't an AJPW show, but rather an on-demand thing that aired every type of pro wrestling imaginable (particularly indies) but used AJPW as their mainstream anchor. As I expected, Mrs. Baba loaned out the episodes individually to "Battle Station", but they were the same exact episodes aired on local television (syndicated abandonware & lost footage like WWF Shotgun is).

Nini and her dad basically said, "You'd see some female sports entertainment in Arsion or some cruiserweight matches in BattleArts, but then at the end, Battle Station is hyping up AJPW episodes and pay-per-views like Steve Williams vs. Keiji Muto or Toshiaki Kawada vs. Keiji Muto. And the so-called exclusive AJPW episodes Battle Station claimed to have were literally copy-and-paste from the episodes we saw air on the Hokkaido local stations. Same matches, same promos, same order, same everything. Only different regional intro"

Her channel "Nini The Chao":

youtube.com/@Nini-yc8hc/featured

With that, Nini was kind enough to publish these 4 AJPW episodes on her channel. My sweetie cakes. 🤗💖 Mind you, 3 out of the 4 episodes she uploaded are the "WWE version", due to a TV station that's too controversial to even name. 🤐 The episodes are from July to September 2002, and of course there are appearances from Keiji Muto, Bart Gunn, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams (who wears a rare attire on the July 17th episode), Satoshi Kojima, Mike Rotunda, Masa Fuchi, etc. All those types of guys.

After a watch-along recently, Nini offered on her own accord to upload them since a few weeks ago I got a "1 out of 3 style copyright takedown strike". ⛔ 1/3 😕 With that strike, I did learn more about how AJPW's tape library works. Based on my strike experience, _*everything*_ starting right after the February 22, 2004 AJPW PPV, is most definitely owned by Gaora TV. With the way Gaora TV's copyright takedown claim message looked to me & their highlighted claimed segments, they have no real cases of "lost media" during 2004 and after. They claimed & _*copyright library correlated the majority of the segments*_ across a variety of episodes. 😮 I'm on good terms with Gaora TV, and their copyright takedown spree only applied the loose collections of shows I had from 2004 (which revolved around Jamal, a young Umaga) and a couple from 2008 (which revolved around an older Keiji Muto).

Gaora TV and I have always been good, and I've always put their stuff in my big playlist & promote them as an official AJPW source. I take that 1 out of 3 copyright strike they gave me, along with their video claimed segments & messages, as a warning for me & others to _*not*_ upload anything after the February 22, 2004 PPV. If anyone in the company is reading this, I won't make this mistake again, I promise you. 🙏

For background history, it was in early 1998 when Mrs. Baba started doing TV deals with PPV providers and syndicated TV stations, since Giant Baba's health declined. The way Mrs. Baba did it, it was done by the TV channel paying for each episode, segment, or PPV. Much of these shows literally became "abandonware", Nippon TV and Gaora TV only have a handful of Mrs. Baba era shows, mainly the more "mainstream" AJPW shows and not so much the "underground" AJPW shows (like I have).

The January 13th, 2003 AJPW PPV was Mrs. Baba's last known backstage appearance (and thus Dr. Death's last showing), but apparently, I learned she was still helping the new owner Keiji Muto throughout 2003. He had 75% ownership stake, while Gaora TV had 25% ownership stake. However, I learned that Mrs. Baba's help to Muto was over the phone & not in person to my knowledge, so my guess is that she helped him lease & sell TV episodes. It explains why most of 2003 "abandonware" is safe to upload, despite Mrs. Baba technically not owning the company.

I guess right after February 22nd, 2004 show ended (AJPW's last PPV in the Budokan) was when Muto made his deals exclusively through Gaora TV, giving them each tape archive of the episodes in full form. No cases of "abandonware" like from 1998 to 2003. The January 2004 tour was the last "Valis Home Video" release, which went out of business not long after & their tape library got lost.

So, with that said, everything AJPW on my channel is going to be primarily from 1998 to 2003, while segments from 1990 to 1997 on my channel (when Giant Baba did the TV rights) being only Dr. Death related stuff. Gotta play it safe & copyright respectful. 😎👍

1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 18

Al Balog

Hi, I'm alive and well. 👋😊 This 2025, I've felt the best in my life in ages, especially after retiring & living with Nini every day. She and I have been going on the Internet Archive looking at Dr. Death's old website and I found the posts where he started putting over Bart Gunn (Mike Barton) after their "revenge feud". I remember these statements Doc made well as a kid, but I forgot that Doc actually got injured a second time in a Bart match? 😮 This time, his ribs. I fixed the grammar through ChatGPT as Doc wasn't the best typer (he admitted that in interviews) when he got a laptop around 1996 and started his website before social media:

April 2001 post:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010405000034/http://www.oklastamped.com:80/index2.htm

I did the Dome show back on January 28th with Bart Gunn. I was fired up for this one. I had six weeks off, so I believed the ribs were A-OK. We were ready to have a barn burner. So there goes the match—back and forth. Then I went behind him for a takedown. He chopped me, I chopped him. He ducked my clothesline, then I kicked him and threw him into the turnbuckle. I went for a splash in the corner... and then it happened.

Crunch. My ribs hit Bart’s shoulder. Oh boy—it hurt bad. I was trying to breathe, and if you’ve ever had broken ribs before, you know what I’m talking about. But the match went on. Bart hit me with everything he had. It was a hard-hitting match. I tried to do the best job I could with three broken ribs. Hats off to Bart—he worked hard. But when it was all over, the Doc gave him one of my side suplexes. I pulled him out to the middle one more time for the 1-2-3 count.

December 2001 post:

https://web.archive.org/web/20011228183330/http://www.oklastamped.com:80/index2.htm

Then, further down the card: Kawada and Nagai vs. Chono and Mike Barton. After about five minutes, Jim Steele and Mike Rotunda went down to the ring and stood by Chono’s corner. Then I came out and stood at the end of the runway. The match ended with Mike B. and Chono beating Nagai. The people thought there was going to be a fight afterward, but we had already been talking to The Man, Chono—and in the future, there could be a great team starting.

Believe me, there’s some power in that group. We’ll let you know what happens with the team and how Budokan goes. I’ll pray that all of you and your families are well. Keep the FAITH — GOD WILL REVEAL.

DOC

3 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 34