Once again Bison came out on top to win the trophy.
Overall, the tour was a great experience, and all the visiting wrestlers seemed to enjoy their time "down under". With the Japanese and Mexican wrestlers not due to fly out until Monday, we were able to spend all Sunday relaxing at the hot pools in Rotorua. Gong magazine did a two-page spread of that in their monthly "Ladies Gong" magazine, which had to have been great publicity for New Zealand tourism.
Dealing with the different languages was fun (in a good way) - none of the Japanese or Mexican women spoke English. Esther spoke Japanese, so that became the unofficial second language of the tour, with Esther then translating into Spanish for Blanca. But that was part of the experience, and with everyone working together, we had no real difficulties arising from that. In fact, I would list the different nationalities/backgrounds as one of the strengths of the touring party. On one of the nights we spent in Hamilton, Australia's Greg Smit (who had spent time in Japan at the Pancrasse dojo) and Bison put on a Japanese dojo-style meal for us, with food bought at the local New World. To see the way everyone in the touring party worked together to make the week an enjoyable one made life a lot easier for me.
I'm a big fan of the tournament concept that the major Japanese groups use on a regular basis. It guarantees different matchups in each town, and provides a hook for fans to follow the shows each night if they can. In Japan, the groups have fantastic media coverage to help them publicize each night's results, which other countries don't necessarily have. But in the internet age, this is certainly an area that social media can make a huge contribution. Web sites, blogs, Facebook, twitter etc. Build your foundation, and a proper strategy for keeping everything updated in a timely fashion, and if the local/national media come to the party, that's a bonus!
And if they don't you're not totally screwed.
Trying to manage shows in five towns, so far apart, was perhaps my biggest headache. Auckland and Wellington are 10 hours by car apart. But New Zealand's small and spread out population made sticking to a smaller area unrealistic. Whereas Tokyo and big American cities have millions of people in just the one city, New Zealand's total population of approx. 4 million is spread over the whole country. Five shows in just the Wellington area or lower North Island wouldn't have worked. Perhaps five shows could be done in the (far north) Auckland/Hamilton area, but that was the opposite end of the island to where I lived.
Plus, I was also trying to work in with the country's amateur clubs, which were just starting to try and build a women's program at the time. I was aiming for a tour that gave wrestling at all levels in New Zealand a boost.
By aiming for the bigger cities, I was also trying to aim for more media coverage, especially at national level. That didn't quite go as planned, but that's the nature of the beast. All you can ever do is give it your best shot!
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