This week, the news that the world has been waiting for finally arrived. For the first time in 110 days, New Japan Pro- Wrestling will be back on Monday June 15, with Together Project Special, live on NJPW World. As exciting as it is to have new NJPW to watch, this weekend is now an ideal time to dip back into the archives and see what matches from the past there are to give us context for this monumental return.
June 6, 2001: Blue Justice
In 2001, the Nippon Budokan played host to an event known as Super Force Group. As the name might suggest, it was an event centered on pitched battles of promotions and philosophies. A series of NJPW versus AJPW matches took place on the undercard, highlighted by Satoshi Kojima battling Toshiaki Kawada. In the main event, a different kind of clash, with two very different styles: Yuji Nagata challenging IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuyuki Fujita.
Nagata had beaten close friend and contemporary Manabu Nakanishi in April to earn his first IWGP Heavyweight Championship opportunity. His rise to the main event was embraced by NJPW loyalist fans who had followed his decade long career, while his champion opponent had somewhat more mixed reactions.
Fujita entered the NJPW Dojo in 1996, but pro wrestling wasn’t his sole focus. Participating in RINGS and PRIDE, Fujita had a burgeoning MMA career, with wins over Hans Nijman and Mark Kerr. Fujita would be a favourite of Antonio Inoki, who saw him as a promising competitor in both sports.
Fujita would defeat Scott Norton for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, but his kickboxing style was not what many purists saw as true to NJPW legacy and tradition. It meant for a passionate crowd that were eager to see Nagata claim IWGP gold.
June 8 1979: The First of the Super Juniors
While Tatsumi Fujinami had a long and storied career as a heavyweight wrestler, it was a junior heavyweight that he first shot to prominence and popularity. Winning the WWF Junior Heavyweight Championship in Madison Square Garden in 1978 (a match, in fact, where the Dragon Suplex was invented), Fujinami took the title home and defended it against all comers, to rabid audiences.
Canek was possibly his toughest challenge yet. The Mexican favourite could lay claim to being, along with Mil Mascaras, one of only two Mexican men to pin Lou Thesz, and his win saw him shoot to the position of Ace in his home UWA promotion. Earlier in the year, Canek had wrestled Antonio Inoki himself in Mexico, and here in Japan was granted an exhibition with the junior heavyweight champ in Osaka.
The five minute exhibition match went by too fast; so fast that fans demanded more, and were given more immediately after. Fujinami and Canek would wrestle another 20 before a double count out; Fujinami would demand that they meet once more in Tokyo, this time with the WWF Junior Heavyweight title on the line.
That brought us to June 7 and Kuramae. Even before the match, others were lining up to try and face Fujinami later on; Ashura Hara was a guest from rival promotion IWE and showed up to shake the champion’s hand and put himself in Fujinami’s headspace. For now though, he had bigger fish to fry.
June 9 2019: ‘My pro-wrestling’
Immediately before Ryu Lee was set to defend the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship against Will Ospreay in Osaka Jo Hall at Dominion 2019, a familiar and very welcome theme played. The opening strains of Katsuyori Shibata’s music had the fans come to their feet, and his appearance led to loud cheers. It was a pleasant surprise from the LA Dojo leader, but quite why he was coming out was a mystery; perhaps he was there to support Lee, who has always been very public about his esteem for The Wrestler? A murmuring descended on the crowd as Shibata extended his hand and pointed to the entrance.
Then, a phenomenal sight. KENTA was back in a Japanese wrestling organization for the first time in five years, and pledging to wrestle in NJPW consistently for the first time in his career. KENTA and Shibata had begun their friendship in 2006, a friendship that led to Shibata wrestling in KENTA’s home promotion of NOAH and the two teaming together. Now, it appeared as if Shibata was returning a favour and in the process giving KENTA the platform he had wished for, to ‘show the world my pro-wrestling’. Quite what that entailed? We began to find out during the G1 Climax, but it wasn’t until tournament’s end that we got the full story…
June 11, 2017: Osaka Broadway
Kazuchika Okada has to be one of the front runners when it comes to the New Japan Cup getting underway June 16 on NJPW World. He would be looking to make the final, and then if successful, the Dominion main event inside Osaka Jo Hall next month, a venue that he has a complicated relationship with. In 2019 a successful title defence against Chris Jericho at Dominion was followed by a brutal attack from the Painmaker. This continued a three year rough patch for Okada when it comes to Osaka Jo Hall; in 2018 he would lose the IWGP Heavyweight Championship he had held for nearly two years straight, and in 2017, even though he left with the title, he wasn’t a winner, and nor did he feel like one.
Kenny Omega had already taken Okada to the limit once in 2017; their Wrestle Kingdom encounter saw the Rainmaker emerge on top, but only after a 43 minute war that was the longest Tokyo Dome main event to date. Omega wanted one more shot at toppling the champion, and this time, both would push the boundaries of human endurance.
The result was a 60 minute time limit draw; the first in an IWGP title match for over a decade. This despite a furious pace that belied the match time. By the end of the bout both were so exhausted that when Okada did have his challenger primed for a Rainmaker, Omega’s legs gave out, and he crumpled to the floor in a moment of luck that resulted in the match going the distance. While Omega didn’t win the bout, he came out of Osaka Jo Hall knowing he had the measure of the champion, and in the main event a year later, he was able to prove that point.
June 12 1986: Osaka KO Hall
We close this week’s look through history with a match that started with a handshake, but carried a lot of ill will; ill will that saw both men carried out by match’s end.
Tatsumi Fujinami and Akira Maeda were facing off in the annual IWGP Championship Series, the precursor to the modern G1 that saw the IWGP Heavyweight Championship make its (then, before being regularly defended in 1987) annual appearance. This year’s tournament was notable for a new format that modern fans will be very familiar with; rather than a single league block, or an elimination format, this year saw two blocks of seven wrestlers compete with top points scorers facing off in the final.
Fujinami and Maeda were the overwhelming favourites to take B Block. One or the other was sure to make the final, where, form would suggest, the always dominant Antonio Inoki would be waiting as long as Inoki could get past the likes of Andre the Giant and Yoshiaki Fujiwara. Yes, the only way, fans thought, Fujinami or Maeda wouldn’t make the final would be in the case of mutually assured destruction, which was just what happened.
Akira Maeda had a bright future indeed in NJPW before electing to flee the next to be a part of the upstart UWF promotion in 1984. When Maeda and the UWF contingent came back, the NJPW loyalists weren’t willing to welcome them with open arms. Fujinami certainly represented the NJPW loyalists, and would war with the UWF crew through the early part of 1986, including a memorable and blood soaked elimination contest one month prior that did little to provide the closure all sides wanted.
As much as five points for a pinfall was at stake here, so to was a philosophy toward professional wrestling and a deep seated personal pride. After hands were shaken, it was only a matter of time before things got ugly, and a feverish Osaka Jo Hall crowd could anticipate just as much.
Indeed, the violence happened in spectacular form, when a particularly vicious heel from Maeda busted Fujinami wide open. The Dragon, only angered, threw all he had at Maeda, until a double KO was the end result.
