Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Thank you very much for contributing to our June Membership Drive! If you didn't have a chance to donate, please do so at any time. We look forward to your support!

Kaiju Big Battel: Wrestling Meets Godzilla

A Kaiju monster scampers into the Danger Cage.
Xeni Jardin for NPR
A Kaiju monster scampers into the Danger Cage.
Evil plastic surgeon Dr. Cube enters the Kaiju Big Battel arena to the thunderous applause of his minions, all bent on world domination.
Xeni Jardin for NPR /
Evil plastic surgeon Dr. Cube enters the Kaiju Big Battel arena to the thunderous applause of his minions, all bent on world domination.

Old-time professional wrestling fans nostalgic for the days when camp was king and characters like Junkyard Dog and Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka ruled the squared circle have a whole new set of heroes to cheer for -- on the Kaiju Big Battel wrestling circuit.

Think of Kaiju Big Battel as the horrific spawn of Japanese monster movies and the WWF ("Kaiju" means "monster" in Japanese). It's a tongue-firmly-in-cheek contest of "athletes" wearing patently silly costumes, looking to give their opponent a solid (and likely pre-ordained) smackdown.

In the mythology of Kaiju, the matches are part of the balance of the universe, where earthly forces of good counter evil creatures invading our planet, bent on world domination. Or something like that...

Day to Day technology contributor Xeni Jardin recently infiltrated this underground wrestling circuit, filled with far-out science-fiction characters with names like Silver Potato, Gomi Man and Louden Noxious.

She was witness to the coming-out party of Kaiju's rising star: Dr. Cube, a "human-genius-turned-quasi-monster" who, with his evil army, continues his quest for world domination.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Xeni Jardin
Xeni Jardin can be heard on NPR’s Day to Day, offering technology insights for listeners nationwide. Jardin is also a contributing writer for Wired Magazine, as well as a tech culture journalist and co-editor of the collaborative weblog BoingBoing.net, the award-winning "Directory of Wonderful Things."