In today’s sports world, the name Kinji Shibuya may not ring a bell, perhaps not even in the corner of a contemporary pro wrestling ring.
But for those who remember the bygone era of the immensely popular Big-Time Wrestling Cow Palace shows or those wild, live Friday night in-studio telecasts on KTVU-Channel 2 in the 1960s and ’70s, there may have been no more recognizable sports personality on the Bay Area sports scene than the evil Kinji, the massive villain everybody loved to hate.
It was more staged entertainment than sports, of course, and everybody had a schtick. Shibuya perhaps had the best. He carefully crafted his persona in the early 1950s as an angry Asian beast at a time when anti-Japanese sentiment was still running high only a few years after World War II. He not only made his mock nastiness work for a 25-year ring career, he parlayed it into TV and movie work after he retired in 1976 at 55.
Shibuya wrestled against and with most of the greats of his era — Pat Patterson, Pepper Gomez, Mr. Saito, Ray Stevens, Haystacks Calhoun and many more — and took a back seat in popularity to none of them, nationally as well as regionally. Pro wrestling was divided into as many as 30 territories across the United States back in the day, and according to wrestling historian George Schire, Shibuya touched them all and was a huge draw anywhere he turned up.
But to the Bay Area, in particular, he was its most renowned and reviled bad-guy face, usually teamed with another Asian baddie in his tag-team specialty. He claimed numerous titles, for what they were worth, but it was his stage presence that made him an instantly recognizable star figure.
“Back in the ’60s, he could walk into the fanciest restaurant in San Francisco and get seated right away,” said his son, Robert Shibuya. “It was like he was Sinatra.”
That golden era long gone, Shibuya, a resident of Hayward since 1967, died quietly at age 88 on May 3, initially with very little fanfare. Fortunately, in the time since his death, there has been a tidal wave of fond recollections and tributes on several Internet wrestling sites, attesting to his importance as a wrestling pioneer.
Moreover, fans and friends have been resuscitating the scope of Shibuya’s large legacy at a grass roots level, revealing the real Kinji — a quiet, thoughtful family man who in his later years raised champion koi carp and strolled his Hayward neighborhood with a pair of garden shears, trimming people’s shrubs just so he could spark a friendly conversation.
“People out of the blue have been contacting me and my brother on our Facebook pages, giving their warm recollections and memories of our father,” said Michele Shibuya, Kinji’s daughter. “He had one of the richest lives anybody could ever want. Externally, he portrayed himself as this very mean, tough guy. But internally, he was a very kind, gentle spirit with a great sense of humor. He could engage people in a way that was nonthreatening and loving, too.”
That was in direct contrast to the personality who engaged and enraged audiences through his ring menace. Shibuya claimed to be from Japan even though he was born in Utah. He was a football star at the University of Hawaii and played against the likes of Jackie Robinson and Kyle Rote, and according to his family, the Washington Redskins were interested in signing him but backed off because of his Japanese heritage.
He turned to pro wrestling in 1951, and discovered he could use those biases to craft his ring persona. He started out as a good guy, but one night at a show when an old woman stabbed him in the side with a hatpin all the while screaming insults, he realized he could get more mileage (and money) out of being a dangerous heel.
So it was told, through his alleged study of ancient Oriental martial arts, he could supposedly paralyze an opponent’s nervous system in 27 different ways. He also reputedly possessed a lethal karate chop with which he once killed a man in the ring, which was all conjured fluff for the act. He could talk the talk, too, particularly in blustery interviews with the legendary announcer Walt Harris on the old black-and-white KTVU broadcasts.
“Wrestling and roller derby actually helped put KTVU on the map,” said longtime Channel 2 sports anchor Mark Ibanez. “And Kinji was as big a part of that as anyone.”
Shibuya’s wife of 59 years, Janet, as well as his children, accepted such wrestling antics as just part of his regular job. He was a normal, loving dad at home, but they nonetheless experienced plenty themselves tagging along with their famous father.
“Can you imagine being a kid, sitting in the family car driving across the Bay Bridge or San Mateo Bridge, and having people in other cars to left and right looking over and imitating his moves or the karate chop?” said Robert. “People from all walks of life, too — a guy in a Cadillac one minute and a guy in a pickup truck the next.”
Michele recalled going to some of the arena shows in which she and her brother would have to wait until the house lights went down so they wouldn’t be recognized as Kinji’s children. Before the show was over, they would run outside, get in their pajamas and into a running car with their mother. As soon as dad exited the ring, he would jump in and the family sped away.
“I always used to joke with my mom that she was driving the getaway car,” Robert said.
Happily, in the wake of his passing, many people are remembering Shibuya and won’t let his legacy get away. It’s a just epitaph for a man who entertained so many.
A public memorial service will be held for Mr. Shibuya on Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Southern Alameda County Buddhist Church in Union City. Contact Carl Steward at csteward@bayareanewsgroup.com.
