COSTUME RESEARCH: GUNSO

GUNSO, the leader of DOVE professional wrestling, has an overwhelming charisma and visual appeal that fascinates viewers regardless of gender. He immersed himself in music and pursued the methodology of the indies, which he has put into his costume, which he spoke about today.

HAIRSTYLE

Hair is dreadlocked. He says that he had to cut his long hair short when he broke his neck and after that he had red hair and bobs. He made it into dreads when it grew long again, and he wanted to make them look as natural as possible rather than just a copy of someone else's. He says that the downside is that if barbed wire gets caught in it, he can't take it out.

KNIVES

His two Shino are his trademark.

"It's a tool for winding wire. I started using them when I bought scissors to a Deathmatch Carnival, and Masashi Takeda bought in a scissors board. I thought, "I can't use this...". After I lost them at the venue I searched under the ring and found these. If you where to really hit someone with it, you would kill them, but when you pierce someone with it they don't know how to deal with it, so they have holes in their head".

SHIRT

The shirt is custom made and is based on commercially available work clothes. It is modelled after a design seen in 1970s punk made for him SEDITIONARIES (a company who fuse classic designs with modern rock). The design around the sleeve is of an evil dictator leading a group with the words "Necessary Evil" under it.

TATTOOS

GUNSO says he had his first tattoo at 29. One of his band members died in a traffic accident, and to commemorate it he had a close friend who was a tattoo artist make a picture of him so he wouldn't forget him. He has so many now that GUNSO says his arms look "biomechanical" with both arms looking like a "living creature" (note, he also said once that he can't go to public swimming pools with them). 

BOOTS

GUNSO folds the tops of his socks over the tops of his boots. Originally he wrestled in socks in the style of Dynamite Kid, but he found them slippery and difficult to use, so he started wearing boots with socks by Dr Martin. As for the boots themselves, he says they are the only part that signifies he is a pro-wrestler, but he wanted to make them look like work boots like the rest of his outfit.

The essence of indie wrestling is "Death match and hardcore" which are "dangerous work". GUNSO uses "Dickies" for his deathmatch matches as "if you use a normal costume in a deathmatch, you will have to remake it every time, so you need to use something that is hard to tear and hard to penetrate". He finds the American workwear brand to be an excellent concept based on workwear. It is durable, somewhat fire resistant, easy to move around in and can be washed many times. A friend had designed the lower part of the costume, and he had done the upper which he did on a cutting machine and using an iron press. Another tattoo he has, is designed to look like its biting the opponent and staring into the audience when he has them in a headlock.

(Translated from an article in "Weekly Pro" in May 2020)