Fan-favorite junior heavyweight tag team Roppongi 3K (Sho and Yoh) earned their first shot at the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship earlier this month when Yoh pinned Tama Tonga, half of current tag champs the Guerrillas of Destiny, at Destruction in Kagoshima. R3K vs. G.O.D. II (the teams had a non-title match in Dallas in July, which Yoh and Sho lost) is set for New Japan Pro Wrestling‘s Fighting Spirit Unleashed show in Boston on September 27.
One might say G.O.D. are very unlikely to lose the titles tonight, since this event is a house show that won’t air live on NJPW World, but will be uploaded later. However, one might also say that Roppongi 3K are extremely likely to win the tag titles tonight because Yoh promoted the match with an art installation involving a toilet, which is champion behavior if I’ve ever seen it.
Yoh had his first solo art exhibition this July at the store AB Tokyo. (Yoh also models clothing on their website.) This latest exhibition is at the Art Complex Center in Tokyo and it’s literally a toilet with a cover that looks like a painting by Piet Mondrian. You can see pictures of it on NJPW’s English-language website here.
In the accompanying interview, Yoh says that this piece, which is called “Yoh’s room (no bath)” is based off a piece in his previous exhibit that was called “poo.” Yoh says, “I thought it would be pretty interesting to be an artist who specializes in toilets. Truth is, I’ve always liked poo. My mum came to visit my Yutenji exhibit, and she said ‘come to think of it, you’ve always been interested in shit’. She’s right.”
He adds that he thinks he may have been Marcel Duchamp in a past life and that, “someday, I’d like to have my work not just in galleries, but in businesses or restaurants. Using things like stars and toilets as the basis of my work, it has a lot of different uses.”
Yoh ties this all in with the upcoming Roppongi 3K vs. Guerrillas of Destiny match when he answers a question about if his “approach to wrestling” has “changed since becoming more active as an artist” by saying:
Absolutely. I’ve become more flexible. It’s like in both the (GoD) matches, I was able to think clearly ‘now’s my chance!’ and come up with something that got me the win. I’ve become much more of a clear thinker ever since I started working with toilets. That’s what I want to say to people: if you’re ever feeling lost, go to the toilet. Listen to your loo; it might tell you something…
The toilet’s a fountain. Not like Duchamp’s ‘fountain’ but a fountain of ideas. When I sat on the toilet in “YOH’s room (no bath)” an idea hit me of how to take those tag belts. Roppongi 3K are the best team in the world, and we’re going to come back to Japan as champions!
Does this mean Roppongi 3K’s heavyweight tag title hopes and dreams will come true tonight in Boston, or are Yoh and Sho up sh*t creek with G.O.D.? Only time will tell, but Yoh’s advice seems pretty good either way.
