Bad News Allen vs Kensuke Sasaki

Another Bad News Allen backstage fight? Yes, this time against one of the biggest stars of 1990s Japanese wrestling, Kensuke Sasaki.

Fight: Bad News Allen vs Kensuke Sasaki

Date: March 30, 1990
Location: Silver Dollar Center in Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Source: Killing the Town podcast with Storm & Cyrus, Wrestling Observer Newsletter

This was long before Sasaki was a star in Japan, and happened during Allen’s WWF run as Bad News Brown. And it also involved a third person who was an innocent victim: Mike Lozansky.

Background

Mike Lozansky, who passed away in 2003 at the age of 35, was a talented wrestler who worked all over the world. He was never a main eventer, but he was solid and had a great physique, held back mainly because of his short stature. He was also a notorious partier and womanizer, and of course used steroids to attain his physique.

Lozansky was also financially well off, thanks to his father’s status as an oil executive. He didn’t care about payoffs, and when he traveled the road with new guys breaking in (most notably Chris Jericho, whom he was closer with anyone else), he’d pay for many of their road expenses.

He was trained in Stu Hart’s dungeon, and became a protégé of Bad News Allen around 1986. When Lozansky passed away, Allen said he considered him like a son. The two were very tight, and as anyone who knows Bad News Allen knows, he stuck up for his friends and always had their back.

Lozansky found his way to the CNWA, which was the group Fred May headed up and took over when Stampede closed its doors. The CNWA even had Ed Whalen as the announcer, and fans came to nickname it the Can Not Wrestle Association for its relatively poor in-ring product (it really stood for the Canadian National Wrestling Alliance). They ran and taped shows at the Silver Dollar Center in Calgary.

The Confrontation

Lozansky worked the main event on the card, for the first time in his career. His opponent was Kensuke Sasaki, who was using the name Benkei Sasaki. For whatever reason, Sasaki was being really stiff with Lozansky. Gama Singh, another wrestler on the card who was a veteran of the Canadian scene, was in the dressing room and watched the whole match.

Sasaki was taking advantage of him, even though Sasaki wasn’t much taller and certainly not as muscular (although he was still quite thick). At one point he got so stiff that he actually knocked Lozansky out in the corner by kicking him in the face. We found no record of the match result, so we don’t know how the finish went. What we do know is Lozansky’s friends in the back were pissed, including Bad News Allen.

When Sasaki came back to the dressing room, Bad News Allen came charging at him like a mad bull. He looked at Sasaki and pointed his finger in his face, shouting, “You try that with ME!” He then slapped Sasaki twice in the face.

Sasaki was with Tokyo Joe, who wrestled as Mr. Hito and was a legend in Stampede wrestling who helped train Bret Hart. Joe undoubtedly knew of Bad News Allen’s reputation, so he just stood there and stared at him, as did Sasaki. As Gama Singh watched this, he thought to himself, “I’m sure glad that’s not me getting slapped by Bad News.”

Sasaki and Tokyo Joe left, and according to Singh, never came back (which may or may not be true). The next day, Tokyo Joe called Gama Singh and tried to justify what Sasaki had done, saying he was going through some hard times and that his parents were really sick. Sasaki eventually went onto become one of the biggest stars in Japan in the 1990s.

Dan Kroffat, who also became a star in Japan in the 1990s, was a close friend of Mike Lozansky and said he would get even with Sasaki in Japan.  We never heard any stories of that happening, and we don’t know if Kroffat was actually there in the dressing room when this happened (if he was, we figure he’d have attacked Sasaki right then and there).

Lozansky went on to gain some fame in Mexico, where Bad News Allen was able to get him a job with UWA working as Tigre Canadiense (copying the gimmick of Vampiro Canadiense, who had become immensely famous in Mexico).  He also worked very briefly in ECW and WCW, the latter of which he got because he bumped into Eric Bischoff in a urinal (hopefully not while he was urinating) and convinced him to give him a shot.  He got the ECW gig because he and RVD had a mutual friend, and he worked a TV title match with RVD in which he blew out his knee almost immediately once the bell rang.