On top of all the amazing live content on NJPW World, there are thousands of hours of classic historical matches. Every week, we take you through the World archives to relive some of the best moments in New Japan’s past.
May 4, 2018: The ‘Reign’maker Triumphs
Kazuchika Okada is enjoying quite a streak of success in Dontaku. At 2019’s event, he defeated SANADA for the first defence of his fifth IWGP Heavyweight Championship reign. In 2018, he recorded his landmark 12th and final defence of his fourth reign.
Okada had already beaten the record set by Shinya Hashimoto for most days as champion, and the most combined days as champion; an extremely rare feat indeed for a man barely in his thirties. Okada was reasonably casual about his historic run, and stated he had little awareness or interest in defeating past records, only in living in the present.
Tanahashi meanwhile was threatened at a present that threatened to pass him by. Between 2011 and 2012, he had set the record for IWGP Heavyweight Championship defences at 11, a run that Okada ended in February 2012. For the Ace, stopping Okada from beating his record, and returning to the fore as IWGP Champion was of vital importance. New Beginning had seen Tanahashi fall to Minoru Suzuki, costing him the Intercontinental Championship and leaving him with a crippling knee injury. Tanahashi fought tooth and nail against his old rival, but ultimately the Rainmaker extended his reign.
May 5, 2000: The Queen, the Warrior and the Demon
Few in wrestling would embody the term ‘power couple’ like Kensuke Sasaki and Akira Hokuto at the dawn of the new millennium. At the top of their respective fields, Sasaki would rule over NJPW as IWGP Heavyweight Champion while Hokuto was dominant over the All Japan Women’s promotion, both using the terrifying Northern Lights Bomb en route to major victories.
Sasaki had started the year as IWGP Heavyweight Champion with a major win over rival Genichiro Tenryu. He maintained his dominance through the early part of the year, but when it came to the month of May, needed an added edge. The Great Muta had already declared his intention to head to America in the spring of 2000, and made an impactful statement at the expense of Masahiro Chono a month earlier, getting himself disqualified in a singles match in the Tokyo Dome. Now he sought to take the IWGP Heavyweight Championship away with him, after lulling Sasaki into a false sense of security by feigning a leg injury going into the match.
May 8 1974: Inoki at the Top of the World
The first of these was the World League. In an era where most matches were contested between Japanese wrestlers and foreigners, this was a rare opportunity for the top Japanese stars to face off against one another. They proved superior for the most part on home soil against foreign opponents, with Antonio Inoki and Seiji Sakaguchi proving to be the best. Yet one non-Japanese joined them at the top, the brutal brawler that was Karl Krupp. By fair means and foul, Krupp had managed to amass the same number of points in the league as Inoki and Sakaguchi. In today’s G1 that would mean the winner of the tournament would be the one with the better head to head record of the three, but this was not the case in 1974.
Rather, the idea was for all three to enter into a playoff, each wrestling the other two with the best record determining the winner. Krupp had managed to gain wins over Sakaguchi and Inoki, which meant he could choose which of his opponents to wrestle first. Krupp elected to take on Sakaguchi.
Krupp would end up getting himself disqualified against Sakaguchi, putting himself on the back foot when it came to the playoff. When Sakaguchi took on Inoki then, he and partner the Invader would assault Inoki and Sakaguchi in order to render their match void, and more importantly eliminate Sakaguchi from the running. That led to Inoki and Krupp becoming the de-facto league final, and Inoki turning pride of country and company into all out rage.
May 9 1980: Dragon Fever Runs Wild
As we get ready for the 26th running of the Best of the Super Juniors tournament, it’s important to remember just how influential Tatsumi Fujinami was on junior heavyweight wrestling. Laying the groundwork for Tiger Mask to explode onto the scene in the early 1980s, Fujinami blazed a trail through the 1970s, with a dynamic wrestling style and distinct look that made ‘Dragon Fever’ run wild for fans in Japan. Fujinami would seize the WWF’s Junior Heavyweight Championship in New York, and defended it across two reigns for a combined 1375 days against diverse opponents.
One of those opponents was Chavo Guerrero. Long before younger brother Eddie Guerrero took on the famous Black Tiger mask, Chavo would challenge Fujinami in between successful tours in the western NWA territories. This was a thrilling display far ahead of its time nearly four decades ago.
May 10 1979: A Global Challenge
Antonio Inoki was the very definition of a fighting champion in the 1970s. The NJPW founder would burn the acndle at both ends, representing NJPW not just as NWF World Champion, but also as World Martial Arts Champion. His eagerness to prove that professional wrestling was the strongest martial art saw him take on all comers, from the legendary Muhammad Ali to kung fu master Mike ‘Left Hook’ Dayton.
In battling a variety of martial artists whose mastery was not in the pro wrestling realm, Inoki was laying the groundwork for the modern mixed martial arts scene. Yet he was also proudly representing NJPW as a pro wrestler. This led him to battle Jack Brisco for the first time in a singles match in a NJPW ring.
One week earlier Brisco had teamed with Stan Hansen to defeat Inoki and partner Seiji Sakaguchi two falls to one. That upset would doubly motivate Brisco for this mat clinic.
