As the tremendous archives at NJPW World continue to expand at a remarkable rate, we have five more matches from this week in history to check out:
March 28 2004: Future Ace in a Cage
March 28 2004 saw NJPW in Ry0goku Sumo Hall for the King of Sports event, but one of its highlighted matches did not take place in the famous arena. In fact, it didn’t take place in front of people at all, but rather a separate venue that housed a large, imposing and extremely rarely seen in NJPW steel cage.
Inside it walked Kazunari Murakami and a young man who was on the way to future superstardom by the name of Hiroshi Tanahashi. Tanahashi proudly represented a new youth movement within New Japan, a position that was backed up by hardware around his waist. He was the IWGP U-30 Openweight Champion, a title open to all under the age of 30 to compete for, and which Tanahashi had held for close to a year as its inaugural champion after defeating the future Togi Makabe.
Yet standing in Tanahashi’s way in a bid to ‘attack for the next generation’ was Kazunari Murakami and the Makai Club faction. Murakami was a young martial artist who had gained victories in early PRIDE events before transitioning into professional wrestling in the year 2000. A skilled fighter with an arrogant demeanour, he angered both professional wrestlers and MMA fighters alike.
In early 2004 in fact, he drew the ire of both Hiroshi Tanahashi, representing NJPW and Enson Inoue and his Crazy Dogs fight team. A singles match between Tanahashi and Murakami in February in Aichi resulted in so much interference and such lack of control, that extreme measures were taken for the next month. No crowd, no referee, no pinfall, with then NJPW Dojo master Kotetsu Yamamoto deciding a victor by submission or knockout. An even ground in theory, but Tanahashi still had the deck stacked against him with the vicious Murakami, having dislocated his shoulder a mere two weeks before in tag action.
March 30 2008: Common Enemies
At the start of 2008, Hiroyoshi Tenzan couldn’t buy a friend. In October 2006, he had joined forces with Shiro Koshinaka and Togi Makabe to form a brutal, take no prisoners faction known as Great Bash Heel. As GBH grew stronger however, Tenzan would be sidelined by a neck injury in 2007. While Tenzan took the time away, he looked on as Togi Makabe, now coming into his violent own after a long period of self discovery in pro-wrestling, usurping the GBH founder, and crafting the group in his own image.
In his first match of 2008 in February, Tenzan would find himself on the losing end of an eight man tag, and immediately afterward was at the wrong end of a beating from his GBH teammates. Jado, Makabe and Tomohiro Ishii brutally expelled Tenzan from the group, but after years of wrestling as an antagonist in nWo Japan and Team 2000 even before GBH, few were eager to team up with the wild bull.
Then, at the start of the New Japan Cup, a saviour came in the form of Takashi Iizuka. Veteran combatant Iizuka had a finely honed sense of justice, and seemed to see someone in need of saving in Tenzan. On March 30, a chance came for the new team to earn an IWGP Tag Team Championship opportunity if they could beat the champions, Makabe and Toru Yano, in a non-title bout first.
April 1, 2018: Brutal British Battle
Death, taxes, Marty Scurll beats Will Ospreay. In an uncertain world it appeared as if these were three true constants. After all, Scurll had been undefeated against Ospreay since 2016, as the two feuded all around the world, including in NJPW. Ospreay was riding high as the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, having begun his second reign at Wrestle Kingdom 12. He had recorded one defence against another rival in KUSHIDA in February, and little more than a week earlier, emerged triumphant from an emotional singles match against Jyushin Thunder Liger, but the Villain still lurked.
Both key figures in a Brtitish pro-wrestling boom, Ospreay and Scurll’s Ryogoku bout saw years of personal pride and deep seated hatred come out in what was one of the most vicious and memorable matches of 2018.
April 2 2015: All Golden Star Tag
Days removed from his victory over Hirooki Goto sealing New Japan Cup glory, Kota Ibushi was bound for the Invasion Attack main event, and the IWGP Heavyweight Champion, AJ Styles. As time ticked down to that fateful Ryogoku showdown however, there were matches in Korakuen Hall to come, and a main event on April 2 in Korakuen. Ibushi would team with the man he defeated in the semi-final, Tetsuya Naito.
As Naito continued to flounder in the early part of the year, it had to be difficult for Naito to team up with Ibushi, much less opposite Styles, who had scored victory over him at Wrestle Kingdom 9 three months earlier. On the champion’s side was Yujiro Takahashi, another figure Naito had history with. Naito’s former partner had turned his back on him to expel him from CHAOS years prior, and had put him on the shelf with knee injury in 2012, an incident that arguably began the Stardust Genius’ downward slide.
In the midst of his second reign as WWF Junior Heavyweight Champion, Tatsumi Fujinami was the definition of a fighting champion at the dawn of the 1980s. Already in his tenth defense here in April after winning the title in October, Dragon Fever was a success in both the record books and the box offices in multiple countries; Fujinami had defended the title not just in Japan, but in Mexico and America already in this second reign.
A tough challenge came however in the form of Ashura Hara. An immensely popular representative of the International Wrestling Enterprise, Hara was a former rugby pro who had competed at a national level, something that showed with huge strength and crunching tackles. As IWE faced challenegd in the early 1980s, its wrerstlers were keen to show how effective they could be in other environments, leading Hara to step up against Fujinami.
Hara was an opponent with whom Fujinami was unfamiliar then, but adding another wrinkle was the lack of his favoured weapon. The Dragon Suplex had been barred for this match after Angel Blanco and Armando Guerrero had both been injured by the move. How would Fujinami react?
