Sunday, January 3, 2016

New Japan Pro Wrestling: The 2015 Awakening of a Sleeping Giant


There's been an awakening. There had been whispers of a great foreign federation from the far east for a quarter of a century.  For 15 years the WWE has stood atop of the big league mountain in the world of sports entertainment. TNA was a contender for a few years, but fell into the same trap of being WWE lite, like WCW a decade before. There have been no major alternative since then.  But now a foreign giant has been aroused.


I became vaguely familiar with New Japan Pro Wrestling when the Great Muta, an uber talented japanese wrestler, invaded the National Wrestling Alliance and World Championship Wrestling in 1989.  His unique and innovative style of work was nothing like I had ever seen in an American wrestling ring. WCW took us deeper down the rabbit hole 2 years later presenting an annual Tokyo dome show on pay per view, from what I mistakenly thought was a wrestling organization called IWGP, the International Wrestling Grand Prix.  It was a peak through the looking glass at the world that spawned Muta.  It was incredible action, amazing acrobatics and hard hitting style.  The SuperShows looked bigger than any Wrestlemania.  The Tokyo Dome show sported a heavy metal style stage, lighting rigs and pyrotechnic half a decade before WWE ever attempted an elaborate entrance.  It was a true spectacle.

WCW stopped producing the PPV after 1993.  American wrestling fans were treated to some talent exchanges by WCW, WWF and ECW from time-to-time. But quietly I had forgotten about japanese wrestling and history became legend, legend became myth. Every once and awhile, I would hear names mentioned, stories of legendary matches and of a familiar giant show.

In May of 2013, the New York Times introduced me to wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer, another mythical figure, who's name I had always seen attached to some of the most legendary stories in wrestling. I subscribed to his newsletter and website and began to hear more and more about that eastern superpower. He would talk about the legends and masters of All Japan and New Japan Pro Wrestling and the tales of 5 star matches never witnessed in the west.  He'd tell us about the renaissance of the mat blowing up in the land of the rising sun. It seemed so far, it seemed so unattainable.  Here in the United States, wrestling had become very stale. It's had a few flashes of greatness with the rise and fall of CM Punk and Daniel Bryan. But the lack of competition has kept WWE in neutral for a very long time.  Wouldn't it be great if another big league promotion could penetrate the west and usher in another golden age of professional wrestling?

Soon there were rumblings of iPPVs, internet pay per views, for some of NJPW's major shows, including Wrestle Kingdom, their traditional January 4th Tokyo Dome show. They were shady live streams of the Japanese broadcasts. I really wanted to get into the product, but the language barrier and lack of accessibility were still big issues for me. But then, out of nowhere, from a very odd source, it was announced that the 2015 Wrestle Kingdom supercard would be broadcast live on traditional pay per view with English commentary by world famous wrestling broadcaster Jim Ross.  Jeff Jarrett, a Tennessee wrestling legend and former owner of Impact Wrestling, was starting up his new Global Force Wrestling promotion and had entered into a working agreement with NJPW, which included an English PPV broadcast of their biggest show of the year.

New Japan Pro Wrestling, the second biggest wrestling promotion in the world was invading the United States! It's Wrestle Kingdom 9 on January 4, 2015.  I was already sold.  I took the day off of work to stay up and watch the show live, over night, considering the 14 hour time difference between the U.S. Eastern Time Zone and Tokyo.  But I wasn't familiar with any of the performers, any of the matches, the rivalries or storylines.  Enter in Matt Striker.  Striker was tasked to be Jim Ross' color commentator during the show.  Global Force Wrestling and Matt Striker produced a number of preview specials introducing western audiences to the superstars, or Aces of Puroresu (Japanese Pro Wrestling).   Between Striker and Meltzer's Wrestling Observer website, I started to become familiar with names like Tanahashi, Okada, Nakamura and the dishonorable, villainous gaijin Bullet Club.  One familiar face that remained from the past was Jushin Thunder Liger, who took part in the opening New Japan Rumble contest. Gone were the stars from the days when the Great Muta, Masahiro Chono, Antonio Inoki and Tatsumi Fujinami would make special appearances in WCW.

I felt uninvested when the show started that Saturday night, early Sunday morning, but no angles were necessary for this event. The matches in themselves and the familiar voice of Good ol' JR were enough to have me invested.  It was a great show.  A hybrid of many different wrestling styles, all in one night.  There was a fast pace, high spotfest; four-way tag team match for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship. Later followed by a sudo-shoot wrestling match between Minoru Suzuki and the Gracie killer Kazushi Sakuraba. A stiff Togi Makabe and Tomohiro Ishii left me sore after that fight. The Shinsuke Nakamura's semi-main and main event between Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kazuchika Okada were wrestling clinics.  What an amazing night.. and this wasn't the end.

Right before Wrestle Kingdom, it was announced that AXStv, formerly HDnet, was going to start airing NJPW with English commentary.  Mauro Ranallo, the man who calls Floyd Mayweather's fights and Josh Barnett, a UFC World Champion, would be dubbing commentary over some of the best matches and events from 2013, 2014 and bring us up to date by the end of 2015.  Now I could watch Puroresu every Friday night.  Mauro and Josh's pure sport, hold-by-hold style was the perfect soundtrack to the amazing action AXStv was bringing us every week, in contrast to what sports entertainment commentary had become.  Their knowledge of the product educated me on the intricacies of strong style, the history of puroresu, the young boys, japanese dojos, the arch of the Bullet Club's invasion, the split and betrayal of the new Toukon Sanjushi, the Three Musketeers and the larger than life rivalry between Tanahashi and Okada.

NJPW in an attempt to compete worldwide with the WWE Network, launched NJPW World, an online streaming service.  Even though the commentary would be in Japanese, I took advantage to subscribe in time to watch the last 3 nights of the G1 Climax, their highly rated round-robin tournament to decide who would headline the next year's Wrestle Kingdom show and challenge for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.  I discovered Eonizzle, a fan lead streaming channel that broadcast English audio commentary to sync with NJPW World.  Now I was set.  Tanahashi defeated AJ Styles and delivered a ****¾ match on night 17, Nakamura beating Kazuchika Okada followed them up on night 18 with a ****½ match and concluded with a Tanahashi, Nakamura 5-star classic.

NJPW had made inroads with Global Force Wrestling's partnership and the AXStv show.  But now they were going it at their own.  NJPW announced that their next major show, King of Pro Wrestling, was going to be broadcast in English on NJPW World.  This time lead at the helm by WWE veteran and current Ring of Honor broadcaster, Kevin Kelly, sidekicked by the returning former WWE commentator and current Lucha Underground analyst Matt Striker. Tanahashi defended his Tokyo Dome IWGP Championship challenge-right-certificate against Tetsuya Naito and Okada defend his IWGP Championship against  A.J. Styles.

The main event was set for tonight's 2016 Wrestle Kingdom Tokyo Dome show.  The Rainmaker Kazuchika Okada would have one last opportunity to defeat the One-in-a-100-Year Talent, Hiroshi Tanahashi.  This rematch might conclude the long rivalry between the two top Aces of NJPW who were featured on that first episode of World Pro-Wrestling on AXStv and main evented last year's Wrestle Kingdom.

I'm now reading the book; Lion's Pride: The Turbulent History of New Japan Pro Wrestling. I hope in this coming year I could watch the big shows that do not have English Commentary, now that I'm familiar with the wrestlers and their storys.

I'm hoping 2016 will be the year NJPW grows into the number two promotion in the United States, as they are in the world. I think they have failed to use the AXStv show as an avenue to promote NJPW World and their big shows.  They should consider running some ads during Monday Night RAW, Lucha Underground, Impact Wrestling and Ring of Honor.  But it's never too late.  While some long time Jananese fans might think that the NJPW product is becoming repetitive and stale, New Japan Pro Wrestling is a breath of fresh air to American fans like me who are tired of the uninspired U.S. wrestling scene.

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