The Suzuki Incident

About

The Suzuki Incident refers to parodies of a tweet by an angered wrestling fan who was upset that wrestler Minoru Suzuki's full entrance music, including a part where the crowd usually chants the song's title "Kaze Ni Nare," didn't play during an episode of AEW Dynamite in September of 2021. After the poster referred to the perceived slight as the "Suzuki Incident," wrestling fans took to posting parodies of wrestlers commenting on the incident as though they were in a documentary about one of the most infamous, serious events in the history of professional wrestling.

Origin

On September 8th, 2021, professional wrestlers Minoru Suzuki and Jon Moxley faced off on an episode of AEW Dynamite. Though the match was highly anticipated, some fans felt let down by the match as it was shorter than expected and Suzuki was unable to do his full entrance.^[1] Suzuki's entrance song, "Kaze Ni Nare," is very popular among fans due to a section where the crowd shouts the title lyric (example compilation shown below), but that section did not happen on the show.

On September 9th, a teaser posted by the AEW Twitter account^[2] suggested that Suzuki would address the "preferential treatment" given to Moxley on the next episode of Dynamite (shown below, left). On September 11th, Twitter user @NJPWFanClubNA^[3] tweeted that they felt AEW was "working" the short match and intro music into the storyline, referring to Wednesday's disappointing match as "The Suzuki Incident" (shown below, right).

Spread

Most of the replies to @NJPWFanClubNA's tweet expressed the feeling that it was overdramatic for the perceived slight against Suzuki. Shortly after the tweet, parodies began appearing, taking the form of figures in a documentary, specifically Vice's Dark Side of the Ring, talking about "The Suzuki Incident" as if it were a very serious, infamous moment in wrestling history. The first was posted by @BotchGoblin,^[4] who tweeted an anonymous face saying, "When we saw the dissapointment wash over the crowd and the entire nation of Japan, I turned to the rest of the production team and said 'my god, what have we done? May the lord have mercy on our souls'" (shown below, left). After that post, users began writing quotes about "The Suzuki Incident" in character as professional wrestlers. For example, user @BroomMega^[5] posted a quote in character as Kenny Omega, gaining over 120 retweets and 840 likes (shown below, right). "The Suzuki Incident" trended on Twitter^[6] on September 13th, 2021.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References