Dynamite Kid, Kuniaki Kobayashi & Dos Caras vs. Tiger Mask, Mil Mascaras & Great Sasuke (10.10.1996)

That second time I went, they wanted me to wrestle in a six-man tag match - myself, Kobayashi and a Mexican wrestler, Dos Caras, against Sasuke, Sayama and Mil Mascaras. I wasn’t feeling too good on the flight over, and by the time I got to the building I knew I was very ill. I kept getting that familiar feeling of light-headedness and seeing spots in front of my eyes. I knew what was coming, just like I’d known on half a dozen previous occasions. I stood in the dressing room, trying to shake the feeling off, and saying to myself, “Tommy, just hang on lad. Get the match over and get your money.” You see, if anything had happened before the match, I knew I wouldn’t get paid. So I drank about a gallon of water and kept shaking my head, saying, “Don’t let it happen now. Please don’t let it happen now.”
All I wanted to do was to get the match over and go home. I made it to the ring, the arena was full, and I’ll be honest, the fans were cheering and clapping, like they were genuinely glad to see me, but I’m sure they must have been shocked at the way I looked. Thankfully, the other wrestlers did most of the work in that match, in fact they more or less kept to themselves in the ring. I never felt part of it, and to tell you he truth, it was just big relief when the bell rang and I could get back to the dressing room.
I was due to fly home the next day. I’d made it through the match, Sasuke had paid me, but that horrible feeling was still there in my head; something bad was definitely going to happen. I was feeling a bit down anyway, because I knew, for the first time in my life, I’d been booked for my name instead of my ability. The truth was, I didn’t have any ability at that moment. But it was still a terrible feeling. Hiroshi, the booking agent, picked me up from the hotel and we caught the train to Narita airport. I said to him, “I will check in, while you change my money from Yen to Sterling.” He disappeared. I put my case down, and that’s when it happened. I suddenly felt warm and light-headed and saw the stars in front of my eyes. I said, “Help,” but my voice sounded like it was coming from a long way away. The next thing I knew, I was in hospital, aching from head to foot. I missed three flights home because of that seizure, but I knew I’d been lucky that it hadn’t happened in the ring the night before.
I never heard from Sasuke again. Hiroshi rang a couple of times to tell me about another new promotion in Japan called Battlearts. He said, “If you bring some more wrestlers from Wigan, you could be their manager Tommy.” But for whatever reason, it never came to anything.