New Japan Pro Wrestling: The Strongest Style of Them All, Part V

Yuji Nagata was the best choice as IWGP Champion. Too bad nobody noticed after 2003. Image Credit: New Japan Pro Wrestling

Hi all. So, this is Part V. Doing these is a labour of love, however, it’s very, very time-consuming. And I know that you guys can only sit down and read so many novels, I’m not Bill Simmons after all.

So here’s the deal: I’m gonna format this differently, bullet point this bad boy, and break down the last 7 years of New Japan, to present-day, and we’ll finish this in back-to-back parts (today and tomorrow), starting with part V, and the Mega Powers Exploding.

Alright, so it’s 2002. Yuji Nagata, coming off two MOTYC’s in 2001 with Keiji Mutoh (his win over Mutoh in the 2001 G1 Finals – sorry to spoil your article JLB, now you have to do Part 9 of The Montreal Screwjob exposé – and my 2001 MOTY, the Mutoh & Hase vs. Nagata & Akiyama Tokyo Dome match on 10/8/01), wins the IWGP Title from he who shall not be named.

When you think about it, and I must’ve only thought aboot this because I’m Canadian, Yuji Nagata’s 2002-03 reign mirrored Bret Hart’s WWF Title reigns in 2002-2005.

 Hart: Savage was broadcasting, Flair didn’t mesh and left the company a few months into Hart’s first reign, and Hennig wasn’t used as a main eventer.

Versus

 Nagata: Mutoh and Hashimoto were gone, Chono was sliding downhill, Sasaki had his legs cut out from under him the year before.

Both company’s booking styles changing dramatically during both mens’ title reigns, and the overall business went massively downhill over the course of several years because of it (there were no more cartoon steroidists in the F, and shoot-style hybrids who didn’t draw were running rampant in NJ). At the same time, Hart was easily the best worker in the WWF, and Nagata was easily the best worker in New Japan. During both periods, it could be argued that both were the best wrestlers in the entire world.

Nagata’s year-long reign as IWGP Champion earned him the nickname Mr. IWGP. It’s too bad that Inoki and the bookers of NJ throughout the decade didn’t take that into account when they had him go almost four years between his first and second title reign.

And so, the unraveling of New Japan begins.

I took a look at almost every major card that New Japan held from 2002-2007, to see if the slope that I thought would be apparent was. And yeah, it was. Here are the bullet points, or the bullets in New Japan’s body of work, if you will.

G1 Climax Tournament

• The 2002 G1 had IWGP Champion Nagata, the 2001 winner, finishing 4th in his division with two wins and a tie, and getting the same amount of points as frigging Kenzo Suzuki, and 1 more point than he who shall not be named..
• He was again used in the 2003 G1, again tied for least pts in his division (and overall). I know the G1 needs jobbers, but it makes more business sense to not use guys who drive crowds away from venues.
• 2005 G1: Togi Makabe, an up-and-coming heavyweight who had some excellent tag bouts as a Jr., was shut out, 0 points. Making him look worse than Yasuda? Not exactly the best way to develop a guy.
• NJ did the same thing to Naofumi “Kid” Yamamoto in 2006, who despite the SO (shutout) put in a great showing in the G1, especially having a great match with *gasp* Yuji Nagata. So if he was so good, why does that name not sound familiar?

Because he doesn’t go by it anymore. You can still see him wrestle every Tuesday nights though, or Friday nights if you’re Canadian. He actually just had an ECW World Title shot last week, and while he lost to Christian, Yoshi Tatsu once again put in a great showing in defeat.

Budokan Hall

• The only Budokan Hall show in 2002 featured a female 8-man that didn’t exactly have the top Joshi girls in it, and a Bas Rutten match third from the top. I have a ton of man-love for Bas Rutten and all, but this was after his days as a draw in Japan, as proven by the barely half-full Budokan
• NJ’s Budokan show in 2003 had 500 less people in attendance than in 2002, to see shooter and noted pothead Enson Inoue take the “MMA stylist” spot. Quite honestly, there are so many weird facets to the booking of this show that I could do an entire article about it alone.

Sumo Hall

(Note: Some of the Sumo Hall show discussion will overlap with the G1, because that’s where the G1’s main stage is held. I’ll be focusing more on the numbers here than I was with the G1 talk.)

• Of the non-Tokyo Dome-sized facilities, Sumo Hall has always been New Japan’s home base. In 2002, they ran on back-to-back nights during the G1, having the semi-final matches the first night, and the finals the second. They drew a No Vacancy house the first night, and either a full sellout, or a bare miss of a sellout on the second night. This can probably be chalked up to the fact that the 2002 G1 was Chono making a huge run and living up to his “Mr. August”/”Mr. G1” monikers.
• To show you how far and how fast NJ fell, their Sumo Hall show just 6 months later, their first big post-Tokyo Dome show, drew just over a three-quarter house for a lot of shoot-style guys, Perry Saturn, and some weird-looking gimmick crap–not what the home base is used to, so they stayed away accordingly.
• The 2003 G1 Climax ran Sumo Hall three nights in a row, and drew approx. 32,800 for the three nights, which can be attributed to the stature of the tournament itself and New Japan not having gone completely down the drain yet, though Jun Akiyama made a hell of a run that year representing NOAH. Akiyama making it to the finals of the G1, which surely didn’t hurt.
• They drew a Super No Vacancy for the Feburary, 2004 Sumo Hall show, though the IWGP Title was vacant and they were doing the semi-finals and finals matches that night, and legendary wrestler Gen’ichiro Tenryu was prominently involved.
• The next card in 2004 was when all hell broke loose in New Japan. They drew 10,000 to see Bob Sapp lay waste to Kensuke Sasaki and win the IWGP Title, in one of the biggest atrocities in New Japan history. Having killed their home base for the moment, they only drew 9000 in August during the G1. Yes, Bob Sapp, the at-the-time massive superstar in Japan, killed NJ’s drawing power to the point where even the G1 couldn’t overcome it.
• Their October 2004 show drew 11,000, a near-sellout, but listen to the names on it: Mutoh (in his first Sumo Hall appearance since leaving NJ in 2002, which would drawn by itself), Ultimo Dragon, Minoru Suzuki, and Tenryu. That’s an all-star cast right there, and they more than overcame the presence of Don Frye (remember that convo in Part IV?) and Kaz Fujita, who got absolutely caved in by Sasaki. Sasaki winning the IWGP Title here at least partially made up for him not winning it in the Dome in 2001, though really, it was too little, too late – for both New Japan, and their relationship with Sasaki.
• After only drawing 11,000 and being unable to sell out Sumo Hall for the first-ever IWGP-Triple Crown unification bout in February, 2005 – between the members of the former draws TenKoji no less – NJ drew a pathetic 6,700 for their March show that saw Satoshi Kojima go to a 60 minute draw with Shinsuke Nakamura (a match that I dread watching for the Best of 2005 voting on DVDVR).

Chono winning the NWA World Heavyweight Title in 1992. In 2005, he still had enough magic left to take the G1 Climax Tournament. Image Credit: World Wrestling Entertainment

• They drew a paltry 8,000 for the first of two back-to-back G1 shows in 2005, but claimed 11,500 (there are some comps in this number) for the finals, which again was all about Mr. G1, Masahiro Chono. Nostalgia sells short-term, but it also doesn’t create a money stream in the long-run. This is what NJ was forced to do by years of shoddy booking.
• 2006 was a weird year at Sumo Hall. Remember, it holds 11,500 people for a New Japan show. So when they started the year by drawing 4,500 in March, and 4,000 for the first G1 show in August, the buzzards were definitely circling New Japan at this point, let there be no doubt. And considering the fact that most shows have comps (free tickets) given out, how much of the 4,000 and 4,500 were even paid?
• There was talk that New Japan was done, as there was a ton of debt accumulated by this point, and regardless of Yuke’s presence at this point, if they couldn’t draw at home, where would they draw? And why would Yuke’s keep flushing money down the toilet?
• The second G1 show at Sumo Hall in 2006 that again saw the now money-draining TenKoji battle in the finals of the G1 drew a brutal 6,500. Only two months later though, Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Tenzan for the IWGP Title drew 10,000, and NJ’s shoving of Tanahashi down the fans’ throats was finally starting to pay off – literally. Though a solid case could also be made for “Please, we just want someone other than Tenzan to hold ‘our’ title,” and Tanahashi, though a main eventer for awhile, was still fresh in that sense.
• In 2007, NJ drew over 11,000 on two occasions, and over 7000 on two others – very hit-or-miss. But at least the misses were almost double the previous year’s brutal showings. Best of all, the two shows that drew well showed that New Japan could still pull it off at home if they were willing to book a quality product.

Tokyo Dome

1/4/95. 1/4/97. 10/9/00. 1/4/01. And on and on it goes. The Tokyo Dome was where New Japan held its biggest shows of the year. In their peak, Shin Nihon ran the Tokyo Dome three times a year – January 4, May, and October. The January show is considered to this day to be the “WrestleMania of Japan.” This means that every year, on top of New Japan’s biggest angles playing out, they will bring in outsiders in an attempt to help fill the Dome.

• Following the same trend as Sumo Hall, the announced attendance figures for NJ’s multi-annual Tokyo Dome shows dropped tremendously in 2004. They dropped 18,000 people from the January show to the May show, which of course had Bob Sapp in the main event. (Okay this is how it works: people will buy hot dogs that he shills because he’s American and charismatic, but they don’t want to see his un-athletic ass wrestle in a sport that Japanese fans look at as real.)
• After drawing an announced figure of 43,000 for their January 4, 2006 card, New Japan didn’t see the 40,000 mark for two years. Cards that used to draw 50,000 in their sleep, and over 60,000 when Shin’ya Hashimoto was the IWGP Champion and The Great Muta was going crazy, were now drawing in the 30,000’s on average, and dropping into the 20,000’s, no matter who was on the card.
• Beginning in 2006, new owners (Yuke’s) made the decision to stop running the Dome multiple times a year as it simply wasn’t part of a structurally-sound business model anymore.
• This year, it took the presence of both Mitsuharu Misawa in the semi-main, and Keiji Mutoh defending the IWGP Title vs. Tanahashi in the main event to draw 40,000 to the Dome for the first time in years. By the way, if you haven’t seen that show, go out of your way to. Nagata vs. Tanaka was a great 11 minute bout. Mutoh vs. Tanahashi was a great just over 30 minute title match that is in my Top-20 MOTY (if you’re a fan of either or both, like I am of Mutoh, you’ll know the style and you’ll love.. If not, you may not like it). And in Mitsuharu Misawa’s final match in the Tokyo Dome, he absolutely tore the roof off the place. The Misawa/Sugiura vs. Nakamura/Goto tag match will probably win the MOTY award from both Tokyo Sports, and DVDVR (I have it T-2, though the top few will be reviewed again of course), and Misawa’s entrance will give you chills.

The (new) Three Musketeers

• In fairness to New Japan, not every mistake was obvious and avoidable. During the time of their fall from glory, New Japan was developing what they hoped and felt would be this generation’s new Three Musketeers: pretty boy Hiroshi Tanahashi, who happened to be tough as nails (as surviving an ex-girlfriend stabbing him proved); Shinsuke Nakamura, who has a 3-1, 1 NC MMA record (losing only to Daniel Gracie, who having also, and somewhat ironically, defeated the aforementioned Takashi Sugiura – ironic because of both wrestlers’ in-ring abilities now – should be referred to as “The Wrestler Stopper”), and was Antonio Inoki’s poster boy for the hybrid MMA/Pro Wrestler concept; and, well, Katsuyori Shibata.

Now for the purpose of full disclosure, I was, and to this day, am a Shibata fan. He was like the Heavyweight version of KENTA, minus the springboards. He had all the kicks, all the intensity, all the hate, and all the fighting spirit that makes one a major star in Japan. The problem was he knew he was good. And not in a Tanahashi “Flip my pretty hair at the crowd because I will nail every girl in Sumo Hall tonight” kind of way, but a “I’m legit, I’m not laying down” kinda way.

No pro wrestler should ever bow at the alter of themselves.

Not a lot to tell here really. Shibata’s attitude didn’t fly, and in 2005 he left New Japan to become a freelancer. He worked in NOAH some, but only got booked because real-life friend KENTA went to bat for him (hence their tag team on occasion). That didn’t last too long though, as NOAH tired of his attitude, even though his style meshed well with NOAH’s, and he was some much-needed fresh blood for the company.

Being a New Japan guy in the early 2000’s with a legit background in both amateur wrestling and traditional martial arts guaranteed that Shibata would fight in MMA. He surprisingly only had one fight while with New Japan, defeating Webster Dauphiney on a card in Brazil via los Triangle.

For anyone who cares, after some bouncing around in 2006, Shibata left wrestling to become a full-time MMA fighter. He’s not very good though, and currently has a record of 4-6-1. He’s lost to such notables as legendary Japanese MMA stylist Kazushi Sakuraba, Bully Beatdown host and star Jason “Mayhem” Miller, Ralek Gracie, former Olympic Judo Silver Medalist Yoshihiro Akiyama, and Hayato “Mach” Sakurai. The only notable MMA’ist he has beaten is Ikuhiso “Punk” Minowa, who sometimes tends to not take MMA as seriously as he should. In his last fight, he defeated fellow former New Japan wrestler and “I’m not doing the job” guy Tokimitzu Ishizawa, who you may recognize better as Kendo KaShin.

So while some of us wish Shibata would give up the never-going-to-happen dream of being a top MMA fighter and come back to wrestling a humbled, mature man, Shibata fights. Somebody should tell him Inoki isn’t in power anymore.

Yoshihiro Takayama

 This one never gets talked about, but there’s no way you can truly talk about New Japan going so far down without talking about the rise and fall of Yoshihiro Takayama.

While NOAH’s legend Kenta Kobashi was still capable of having amazing matches at times, and had great matches against virtually everyone in his sleep, his style was as much based on charisma and timing as anything else. The true workrate heavyweights in 2002 were Nagata, and Takayama.

Now Takayama, while a former All Japan guy who left and went to NOAH during the exodus, became a freelancer in 2002 and fought for both NOAH and New Japan. He briefly won NOAH’s GHC Heavyweight Title in 2002, and also lost in the G1 Finals to Chono. He also fought Chono in New Japan’s first-ever steel cage match, and had a 60 minute draw with Chono as well.

In 2003, it was Takayama, at the Tokyo Dome in May, who dethroned Yuji Nagata. He represented everything that Inoki wanted in a pro wrestler, and he was arguably the best pro wrestler in the world at the time…in the world.

I think 99 percent of those reading this article know about the Don Frye fight, even if they don’t know it was Takayama playing the part of the human punching bag. I’m not getting into it, but if you haven’t see it or like to see the way a guy can die in a fight, here you go. For the record, Takayama took the fight on short notice, only adding to the legacy of the fight and Takayama’s legendary toughness.

Between that fight, his MMA career in general, years of head-shots, the devoutly physical style that he employed as a pro, and his inability to allow himself to take time off due to concussions, Takayama became a walking time bomb…and all bombs go off eventually.

In August of 2004, Takayama was working for both NOAH and New Japan (in the G1, no less). Takayama had a decidedly physical bout with NOAH’s (Naoki) Takuna Sano, who happened to be a trained fighter, himself a legit badass. I’ve seen the match. Sano recklessly drops Takayama on his neck twice on side suplexes. But Takayama took bumps like this all the time – many top Japanese stars do. The difference between all of them and Takayama though, is that they aren’t professional MMA fighters who had Don Frye lambaste their head with his fists for 11 or so minutes.

The cumulative effect of it all was that shortly after the Sano match, Takayama missed a New Japan booking because he suffered a stroke.

Arguably the best wrestler in the world, who wrestled the style that Antonio Inoki was championing as the evolution of Puroresu, was finished. Sure he came back in 2006, but other than a match vs. Suwama a couple months ago and some moments in tag matches, “Arguably the best wrestler in the world” has been replaced by a physical replication, a shell who happens to look almost the same.

No one talks about it, but with the prototype down, New Japan had nowhere to turn, so they turned to Tenzan.

Hiroyoshi Tenzan

 A far bigger problem was New Japan trying to force Hiroyoshi Tenzan down the fans’ throats for years, instead of Nagata, who was far more shoot-stylish to begin with – which was the style NJ was pushing – and who was the vastly superior wrestler (hell, check out where he lands on the TWD 50, some things never change).

I can remember as I was getting more current with my puro in the mid-2000’s after watching every Muta match I could, and seeing that at that point, New Japan was all about Hiroyoshi Tenzan. Give the guy all the credit in the world, he busted his ass in the ring, he obviously tried to connect with the fans, and to some degree it worked. Tenzan’s Mongolian Chop always elicited crowd response, and was something that even Toshiaki Kawada was happy while still in his prime, and a few years before Tenzan was regularly in the main event.

Try as he did, Tenzan could not carry New Japan. Image Credit: New Japan Pro Wrestling

While Tenzan did have some of that “Charismatic Fighting Spirit” that I talk about that makes KENTA, Sugiura, Tanahashi, Nakajima, etc. so loved, the problem was that Tenzan just wasn’t that good. He never got over to the extent of the (original) Three Musketeers – not even remotely close – or even to the extent that Kensuke Sasaki, or Yuji Nagata got over. Why? Because in Japan, Puroresu is reported on in the same part of the paper as pro boxing and MMA. It’s treated by the media and by the fans as a legit sport, competition, even though people know the results are pre-determined.

In the past, fans used to live and die with Inoki and Fujinami; Tsuruta, Choshu, and Tenryu; Hashimoto, Mutoh, and Chono; and Misawa, Kawada, and Kobashi. In the 2000’s however, guys like Sasaki, who the crowd finally got behind after a dozen years of not caring, got de-pushed far too soon after reaching the top of the mountain. Guys like Nagata, who the crowds were willing to buy tickets to see, were so badly de-pushed that he has several un-notable years during his prime. And in their place were shoot fighters who the crowd didn’t care about, no matter how hard Kaz Fujita tried. Not to mention Tenzan, a traditional pro wrestler who wasn’t a main-event level talent, but was forced to try and be one.

There’s way more on Tenzan and 2005 New Japan, and thankfully for my elbow ligaments, I’ve already gone there recently.

Yuke’s And The Bailout

 Another huge issue was the financial situation in New Japan. It’s been covered elsewhere by people whom I highly respect and owe a lot of what I’m doing this very moment to, so I’m not going to glom off their work. I’ll give you the facts though.

Like the WWF in the early-to-mid 1990’s, as the booking style changed, New Japan lost money hand over fist. It got bad, really bad. By the mid-2000’s the talk had gone from All Japan closing to New Japan closing. NOAH was the top company in Japan, and everyone was waiting for New Japan, who as you’ve seen couldn’t even draw at “home” anymore, to fall apart and die.

Instead, as I’ve briefly touched on earlier in the article, Yuke’s, a rather large video game developer out of Osaka, Japan (who developed the WWE SmackDown and WWE SmackDown Vs RAW series, UFC 2009 Undisputed, WWE Day of Reckoning, etc.) purchased the controlling interest (51.5 percent) in New Japan from Antonio Inoki. For the record, Yuke’s currently owns 54 percent of NJPW.

Yuke’s then dumped tons of money into New Japan as a loan of sorts and expected to be paid back by the profits that would come with Yuke’s cutting costs (re-signing veteran wrestlers to pay-cut contracts, cutting wrestlers, running less expensive venues more often, etc.). By the time Brock Lesnar screwed New Japan over (for those who don’t know, Lesnar went over, immediately won the IWGP Title, and after a couple of defenses balked at New Japan’s request to drop it to Tanahashi at the 1/4/06 Tokyo Dome show, which had been New Japan’s plan from the start), the losses had run so deep that even the presence of Yuke’s couldn’t quell the fears of New Japan closing up shop

(Come to think of it, Kashin, Shibata, Lesnar…all “legit” fighters who – wait, Inoki hated jobbing too, and he was “legit.” I have no idea what I’m getting at.)

Eventually, as 2006 became 2007 and the Shin Nihon faithful finally started to accept Nakamura (who had come back from an excursion to Mexico bulked up) and slowly started to accept Tanahashi…and the booking got better…and Yuji Nagata won the IWGP Title and had a great 3-match series with Tanahashi that to be honest, made the guy…Yuke’s finally started making money, and New Japan overtook a stagnant, Kobashi-less NOAH as the top company in Japan once again.

Tomorrow: We end this learning sojourn with The Ultimate Challenge…and what present day New Japan looks like.