It’s time for yet another look back through NJPW history! A particularly important date sees a significant debut for a famous wrestler in NJPW and NJPW in two famous buildings, plus there’s much more besides to uncover!
April 18, 1985: New Japan in a New Venue
We start our look back this week with a trip to 1985, and a trip to Ryogoku Sumo Hall.
Ryogoku has become a big event home for NJPW over the last 35 plus years, with several G1 Climax finals, 2019’s Best of the Super Juniors finals, and many more big events in spring and autumn. NJPW used to make Kuramae Sumo Hall its Tokyo big match home, but when that venue was replaced by new facilities in Ryogoku for sumo, pro wrestling followed suit.
The first event in the historic venue was headlined by a dream match between Antonio Inoki and Bruiser Brody, but that wasn’t the only big match in store. Fans were also eager to see the finals of the first ever Young Lion Cup on the card, with young prospects Shunji Kosugi and Keiichi Yamada making the finals of a tournament studded with future stars. Masakatsu Funaki, Shinya Hashimoto, Masahiro Chono, Keiji Muto, Naoki Sano, Tatsutoshi Goto and Hirokazu Hata had all joined Kosugi and Yamada in a one month, nine man league that showed just how phenomenal the young stars of NJPW were at the time.
The ensuing final had many fans interest captured, and that interest even extended to the wrestlers themselves; so much so that Tatsumi Fujinami stepped up and volunteered to officiate this final contest.
April 21, 1983: A Dynamite Rivalry
Tiger Mask was a cultural phenomenon. Originally a manga that was converted to a 1969 anime, and remade in the 1970s, it was a unique thrill to see the animated hero come to real life in the ring in 1981. More thrilling still was that Tiger Mask was every bit the superhuman hero in ring that he was in the comic book pages. The innovative style Tiger Mask presented earned him legions of young fans that were rapt at his battles through 1981 and 1982 against a parade of different enemies, many coming from Mexican rings, as lucha libre’s finest sought to test their mettle against Tiger Mask’s hybrid Japanese and lucha style.
Yet his biggest rivalry was against a Briton, the young, innovative Dynamite Kid. It was against Dynamite that Tiger Mask would make his debut in April 1981, and their spectacular rivalry would build and build over the coming two years; it would be this bout, on April 21 1983 that would be the culmination of their rivalry over the vacated NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship.
Tiger Mask was forced to vacate the title earlier in the month, after a devastating attack from Dynamite in Korakuen Hall led to a Tombstone Piledriver onto concrete and fears over the status of Tiger’s neck. As it happened however, the masked man was still able to compete at the tour closing event in Kuramae, and did so with renewed venom toward his arch rival.
All the stops would be pulled out by both men; Dynamite yanking at the mask of his opponent, while Tiger took to the air. It wasn’t long before a line was crossed, as a dive from the apron put both he and Dynamite over the ringside barriers at a time when NJPW rules took this as grounds for disqualification.
Neither man accepted a double DQ however, nor would Tiger accept a DQ victory after Dynamite choked him in the ropes. The match breaking down, Dynamite would attack referee Kotetsu Yamamoto and even threaten all around with a smashed glass bottle, before an exchange of Tombstones on the floor led to the bout finally being thrown out.
April 22, 2019: Liger and Suzuki explode!
As we will see at the end of this week’s article, Jyushin Thunder Liger was celebrating his 30th anniversary in April 2019, but raining on his parade was one Minoru Suzuki. Suzuki hadn’t forgotten that 17 years before, Liger had stepped up to be the King’s final MMA opponent, but when Suzuki submitted his mask foe in short order, Liger would ask for one more chance.
After Liger announced his intention to retire in march, Suzuki reacted with indignant rage, insisting the legend was retiring with unfinished business left behind. Minoru Suzuki was hell bent on fighting Liger, and he would start campaigning for that bout with brutal attacks in Nagoya at the weekend, and here in a tag match at Korakuen Hall.
April 23, 2003: Nagata revs up to V10
In the mdist of much change in NJPW in 2002 and 2003, Yuji Ngata was a constant. Fighting with pride for the cerulean blue, Nagata would take on all comers as IWGP Heavyweight Champion. From 60 minute draws with Manabu Nakanishi and Masahiro Chono, to victories over established pro-wrestlers like Kensuke Sasaki and fighters like Bas Rutten and Josh Barnnett, Nagata was the perfect ambassador for NJPW against tough competition.
He did have unfinished business with Tadao Yasuda however. Yasuda wasn’t too removed from Nagata in terms of experience- Yasuda had debuted in early 1994 to Nagata’s late 1992 debut- but both had different backgrounds, with Nagata bring a collegiate amateur, while Yasuda had transitioned from sumo to pro-wrestling. Yasuda would also challenge the mixed martial arts arena with some success, before winning the vacant IWGP heavyweight Championship on February 16 2002.
That night, Yasuda and Nagata met in the finals of a tournament to occupy the vacant crown, but one month later, Nagata scored a win back, taking the championship he would hold for the coming year. With the two tied 1-1, it only made sense that when Nagata withstood the 60 minute challenge of Nakanishi in March, Yasuda should be the man to try and stop Nagata from beating Shinya Hashimoto’s record of nine defences.
What was rather more contentious was Yasuda’s entourage, with Kazunari Murakami and the rest of the Makai Club at ringside. meanwhile, Yoshihiro Takayama would handle announcing duties, and made it clear from the outset that he would take on the winner.
April 24, 1989: Liger born from the Big Egg
While we know him today with the middle name Thunder, the bodysuited individual making his entrance on April 24 1989 was simply Jyushin Liger. It was the TV anime of the same name that inspired Liger’s unique appearance; while the likes of Tiger Mask had made a hugely successful transition from the animated and illustrated to the combative, Liger’s animated exploits were very different in tone to the pro-wrestling oriented Tiger. How a real life animated hero would fare in the ring was the source of much conjecture, but Liger would surpass even the wildest of expectations.
The scene for his debut was Battle Satellite in the Tokyo Dome, the very first time the ‘Big Egg’ had hosted a professional wrestling event. Liger’s opponent was someone the aforementioned Tiger Mask had much experience with: Kuniaki Kobayashi. When Kobayashi returned from Mexican excursion in 1982, he had done so with a new mission in mind; to expose the man behind the original Tiger Mask as the ‘tiger hunter’. A similar desire to take the hood of Jyushin Liger burned inside Kobayashi, and he had the chance to do it before the masked man’s career even got underway.
