In this chapter, Sumisu must choose a rival within UWH. Dialogue and the order in which the opponents are fought will change slightly. He will be forced to lose against the rival he picked, and against Akira Saeba.
With the loss of Great Panther, the four U-Warriors start quibbling over the direction that the promotion will take. Each of them espouses their philosophy: Makoto Higaki wants to chase the ideal of a new form of hybrid wrestling, Joe Kajiwara only cares about having a ring to fight in, Nobuhisa Sanada wants to bring Pro Wrestling into the mainstream at the same level as other sports such as Baseball, and Akira Saeba wants to break away from the old men controlling the current world of the mat. Once all four of them have spoken their minds, Sumisu must choose which one he resonates with. He then fights them all, losing against whomever he picked and against Saeba, and UWH is subsequently disbanded, with each of the four wrestlers forming his own off-shoot promotion. Depending on the one Sumisu picked, the fourth chapter in the UWH storyline is going to be completely different.
The second iteration of UWF did split up due to internal strife regarding the direction of the company, though obviously, the loss of Super Tiger was not what instigated it; in fact, Satoru Sayama did not take part in Newborn UWF, and left in 1985 before the original one was disbanded. In reality, the split was instigated by one UWF’s sponsors, Megane Super (メガネスーパー), supporting the rival company SWS, and Maeda accusing corporate of misappropriating funds. The conversation at the beginning of the chapter is based on a real one that happened in Maeda’s apartment in January of 1991 where he tried to convince the others into joining him in a new venture, however talks broke down due to Shigeo Miyato and Yoji Anjo’s protests. Maeda then announced the dissolution of UWF on the spot, and each of the main players went on to found his own off-shoot promotion.
Makoto Higaki is based on Masakatsu Funaki. Higaki’s obsession with a new form of Hybrid Wrestling is based on the fact that Funaki, at this point, also trained in boxing, and showed off his skills in a match against Akira Maeda in 1990. Karl Gotch (Carlos Krauser) was one of his teachers.
His in-game reference to Pankration, an ancient Greek mixture of boxing and wrestling, foreshadows Funaki’s eventual founding of Pancrase (High Class), which focused on Hybrid Wrestling as the successor to Pankration.
Joe Kajiwara, is based on Yoshiaki Fujiwara. The techniques mentioned before fighting him are the Huracan Rana and the Waki Gatame, itself another name for the Fujiwara Armbar, one of the joint techniques he was known for.
Nobuhisa Sanada is based on Nobuhiko Takada. The Shigeo Nagashima he mentions in the game is a Baseball superstar. His speech in the game is foreshadowing the fact that his promotion, after the split, will focus primarily on classic Strong Style Pro Wrestling as canonized by Inoki and Gotch, as opposed to the more experimental UWF.
Akira Saeba is based on Akira Maeda. His speech is based on the various conflicts he had with the management of NJPW, which led to his split with the Newborn UWF. The Red Zone he mentions is the Japanese term for the Redline, meaning a wrestler must break through his limits. It has been kept as such for consistency with the translations of No More Heroes and Champion Road Beyond.
The quote which closes out the chapter, “I now know the ecstasy and anxiety of being the chosen one,” is a real quote uttered by Maeda at the very beginning of the second UWF, implying that he would take on the role previously held by Antonio Inoki.
