Jun Kasai
Quick Facts
Biography
Jun Kasai (葛西 純, Kasai Jun) is a Japanese professional wrestler, primarily competing for Pro Wrestling Freedoms. Dubbed the Crazy Monkey (クレイジーモンキー, Kureijī Monkī) for his violent and often self-harmful style of hardcore wrestling, Kasai is considered a breakthrough talent in Japanese wrestling, able to work both hardcore and technical styles. Outside of Freedoms, Kasai has worked for Hustle, Ice Ribbon, CZW and Big Japan Pro Wrestling.
Professional wrestling career
In 1998, Kasai made his debut in a Big Japan Pro Wrestling event in Osaka during the Deathmatch Wrestling boom of the late 90s. As BJW established a working relationship with American promotion Combat Zone Wrestling at the turn of the millennium, Kasai joined the stable "CZW Warriors" (CZW Army) and feuded against the "BJW warriors". Kasai formed the stable "Big Dealz" in 2001, with John Zandig, Nick Mondo, Wifebeater, Z-Barr and Trent Acid.
Since then Kasai has wrestled mainly for BJW and occasionally for other promotions such as Pro Wrestling Zero1, K-Dojo and Apache Pro-Wrestling. Kasai's body is covered in scars, from all the hardcore wrestling he has done. Including from a Fans Bring the Weapons Match from Combat Zone Wrestling show "Un F'n Believable", in which he took a bump onto a light tube board which ripped open his left elbow, exposing bone. In 2006 he won the first-ever IWA East Coast Masters of Pain after defeating Toby Klein, Mad Man Pondo and J. C. Bailey.
Kasai has participated five times in an extremely bloody "Razor Deathmatch"; a hardcore match where boards are fitted with many razor blades. The first of these deathmatches was held in 2005 with Jaki Numazawa, in which Jun took a powerbomb onto the razor bladed board. In the second one, held in 2008, Kasai's match was against the American wrestler MASADA. On November 20, 2009, he defeated Ryuji Ito in another razor match after a double underhook facebuster on a cactus.
The fourth time was on April 5, 2010 Kasai competed in a Barbwire Treaty Death Match that pitted Team CZW (Jun Kasai, DJ Hyde, and Nick Gage) against Team BJW (Jaki Numazawa, Isami Kodaka, and Masashi Takeda) in which a razor blade board was used in several bumps. On June 21, 2010 Kasai competed against the Necro Butcher in a Hardcore match for the FREEDOMS promotion; the razor blade board came into play mid way through the match.
He was born in Hokkaido and now lives in the mainland, but he is claiming that he is from Hiladelhia, America on his official website as a joke; he described Philadelphia as his second homeland. While Kasai wrestled in the US, he was a lodger in Wifebeater's house. He has described Wifebeater as a real mad man unlike many deathmatch wrestlers who are in fact gentlemen outside the ring.
In wrestling
- Finishing moves
- Pearl Harbor Splash (Diving splash, sometimes onto a fluorescent lamp, with theatrics)
- Sudden Impact (High-angle implant DDT)
- Signature moves
- Backslide
- Brainbuster
- Corporal Punishment (Elevated powerbomb)
- Diving headbutt
- Double underhook piledriver
- Enzugiri
- German suplex
- Reverse Tiger Driver (Lifting double underhook facebuster)
- Saito suplex
- Sitout double underhook powerbomb
- Schoolboy
- Seated chinlock
- Snap suplex
- Nicknames
- "Blood"
- "666"
- "The Crazy Monkey"
- Entrance music
- "Devil" by Cocobat
- "Monkey Magic" by Godiego (Hustle)
- "Monkey Business" by Skid Row (ZERO-ONE)
- "Wait and Bleed" by Slipknot
Championships and accomplishments
- Apache Pro-Wrestling / Apache Army
- WEW World Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Jaki Numazawa (1) and Tomoaki Honma (1)
- Big Japan Pro Wrestling
- WEW Hardcore Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with The W*NGer
- BJW Tag Team Championship (3 times) – with Jaki Numazawa
- Combat Zone Wrestling
- CZW Ultraviolent Underground Championship (1 time)
- CZW World Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
- CZW World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Men's Teioh
- CZW Tournament of Death (2014)
- DDT Pro-Wrestling
- DDT Extreme Division Championship (1 time, current)
- Freedoms
- King of Freedom World Championship (3 times)
- King of Freedom World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Masashi Takeda
- Ice Ribbon
- International Ribbon Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Miyako Matsumoto
- Independent Wrestling Association East Coast
- Masters of Pain (2006)
- Pro Wrestling Illustrated
- PWI ranked him #340 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2016
- Wrestle-1
- UWA World Trios Championship (1 time, current) – with Nosawa Rongai and Shuji Kondo
- Wrestle-1 Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Manabu Soya
- "H26.9.15 岩手・一関市総合体育館ユードームメインアリーナ大会". Freedoms (in Japanese). Retrieved September 20, 2014.
- "H27.12.25 後楽園ホール大会「葛西純プロデュース興行」". Freedoms (in Japanese). Retrieved December 25, 2015.
- "H28.5.2 後楽園ホール". Freedoms (in Japanese). Retrieved May 7, 2016.
- "H26.9.23千葉・東武スポーツクラブ プレオン船橋アリーナ大会". Freedoms (in Japanese). Retrieved September 23, 2014.
- "Pro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI) 500 for 2016". The Internet Wrestling Database. Retrieved September 1, 2016.
- "「Wrestle-1 Tour 2016 Shining Winter」". Wrestle-1 (in Japanese). 2016-12-09. Retrieved 2016-12-09.
- "Wrestle-1 Tour 2015 Symbol". Wrestle-1 (in Japanese). 2015-07-12. Retrieved 2015-07-12.
- "「Wrestle-1 Tour 2016 Symbol」". Wrestle-1 (in Japanese). 2016-07-29. Retrieved 2016-07-29.