New Japan Pro Wrestling

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New Japan Pro-Wrestling Co., Ltd.
Shin Nihon Puroresu Kabushiki-kaisha
新日本プロレス株式会社
Private
Industry Professional wrestling
Puroresu
Founded January 1972
Founder Antonio Inoki
Headquarters Nakano, Tokyo, Japan[1]
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
 Naoki Sugabayashi
(Chairman)[1]
Kaname Tezuka
(President)[2]
Parent Bushiroad
Website www.njpw.co.jp

New Japan Pro-Wrestling Co., Ltd. (新日本プロレス株式会社 Shin Nihon Puroresu Kabushiki-kaisha?), operating as New Japan Pro-Wrestling (新日本プロレス Shin Nihon Puroresu?) and sometimes referred to as NJPW or simply New Japan, is a major Japanese professional wrestling promotion founded in January 1972 by Antonio Inoki. In 2005, Inoki sold the promotion to Yuke's, who sold it to Bushiroad in 2012. Kaname Tezuka is the current President of the promotion and has held that position since September 2013, when the previous President, Naoki Sugabayashi, was promoted to Chairman.[2]

Owing to its TV program aired on TV Asahi, NJPW is the largest wrestling promotion in Japan and the second largest in the world in terms of attendance and revenue (behind WWE). From its creation in 1972 until 1986, it was a member of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). NJPW is known for openly engaging in working agreements with various MMA and professional wrestling promotions around the world, including WWE, World Championship Wrestling (WCW), Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), WAR, Ring of Honor (ROH), Pride Fighting Championships, and Jersey All Pro Wrestling (JAPW).[3] NJPW's biggest event is the January 4th at the Tokyo Dome, held each year since 1992 and currently promoted under the Wrestle Kingdom banner.

History

The promotion was originally founded by Antonio Inoki in 1972, after he left the old Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance. The first card took place on March 6, 1972, in Tokyo. Inoki was president of the promotion until 1989, when he stepped down to pursue a political career as a member of the Japanese House of Councillors.

New Japan Pro Wrestling, also known as "Shin Nihon Puroresu", is considered the top promotion in Japan and is comparable to WWE in the United States in terms of popularity in the country. They promote events throughout Japan with their biggest event being their annual blowout show held every year on January 4 at the Tokyo Dome, currently billed as Wrestle Kingdom, which is Japan's version of WWE's annual WrestleMania event.

In the past they have worked with WWE, World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) among others and currently have a working agreement with Mexican Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) promotion, American National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) governing body, American Ring of Honor (ROH) promotion, American Global Force Wrestling (GFW) governing body, and occasionally do cross-promotion matches with other Japanese promotions, such as All Japan Pro Wrestling and Pro Wrestling Noah.

The promotion is currently owned by Japanese card game company Bushiroad, who parlayed their entry to the world of professional wrestling into a best-selling trading card game, King of Pro Wrestling, and appearances from NJPW stars in their various franchises.

The promotion also has its own governing body, the International Wrestling Grand Prix (IWGP). Thus all the promotion's titles are referred to as IWGP Championships. They currently have six titles: Heavyweight, Junior Heavyweight, Tag Team, Junior Heavyweight Tag Team, Intercontinental and the NEVER Openweight Championship. They also hold several tournaments each year, including G1 Climax, World Tag League, New Japan Cup and Best of the Super Juniors.

The promotion debuted a new series called NEVER in August 2010, designed to be a series of events spotlighting younger up-and-coming talent and feature more outsider participation in the promotion.

On January 4, 2011, New Japan Pro Wrestling officially announced the NJPW Invasion Tour 2011: Attack on East Coast, the promotion's first tour of the United States in May 2011, when they held shows in Rahway, New Jersey on May 13, New York City on May 14 and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 15. As part of the tour, NJPW introduced a new title, the IWGP Intercontinental Championship.[4] On January 31, 2012, Yuke's announced that it had sold all shares of New Japan Pro Wrestling to card game company Bushiroad for ¥500 million ($6.5 million).[5]

New Japan aired its first internet pay-per-view, the fourth day of the 2012 G1 Climax, on August 5, 2012.[6] The October 8, 2012, King of Pro-Wrestling pay-per-view marked the first time viewers outside of Japan were able to order a pay-per-view by the promotion through Ustream.[7][8] On October 5, 2012, New Japan announced the creation of the NEVER Openweight Championship, which would be contested for on the NEVER series. A two-day tournament to determine the inaugural champion was held between November 15 and 19, 2012.[9]

In February 2014, New Japan announced a partnership with ROH, which saw the promotion return to North America the following May to present two supershows; Global Wars in Toronto and War of the Worlds in New York City.[10][11] During the tour, New Japan wrestlers also took part in an event held by Canadian promotion Border City Wrestling (BCW).[12] A year later, NJPW and ROH announced another tour together to produce four more supershows; War of the Worlds '15 on May 12 and 13 in Philadelphia and Global Wars '15 on May 15 and 16 in Toronto.[13]

In June 2014, New Japan announced a partnership with the new American Global Force Wrestling (GFW) organization helmed by Jeff Jarrett.[14] In November 2014, GFW announced that it would be broadcasting NJPW's Wrestle Kingdom 9 in Tokyo Dome on pay-per-view in the United States as a four-hour event.[15] Also in November 2014, the American AXS TV network announced it had acquired rights to rebroadcast a series of thirteen episodes of NJPW matches from TV Asahi. The series premiered on January 16, 2015, airing weekly on Fridays.[16] Averaging 200,000 viewers per episode, the show was considered a success, leading to AXS TV and TV Asahi signing a multi-year deal to continue airing the show.[17] On December 1, NJPW and TV Asahi announced "New Japan Pro Wrestling World", a new worldwide streaming site for the promotion's events.[18]

On July 18, 2015, NJPW announced "New IWGP Conception", a global expansion strategy centered on their international partnerships with CMLL, GFW, NWA, ROH, Revolution Pro Wrestling (RPW) and Westside Xtreme Wrestling (wXw) as well as holding more shows in Thailand, Singapore, and Taiwan. Also announced was "Lionsgate Keikaku" ("Lionsgate Plan"), which would feature up-and-coming outsiders working trial matches in an effort to earn a spot in the promotion. Finally, it was announced that there were plans to take the company public with a listing on the stock market within three to five years.[19][20][21]

On December 21, 2015, NJPW announced the creation of its seventh active title and the first six-man tag team championship in the promotion's history, the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship.[22] On January 5, 2016, NJPW announced a partnership with the Amuse talent agency with the goal of making the promotion's wrestlers internationally recognized stars in the vein of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.[23]

Contracts

NJPW has a contract system, where wrestlers are signed to one-year deals that expire at the end of every January.[24] The contracts forbid negotiations with other promotions.[25]

Roster

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Main article: List of New Japan Pro Wrestling personnel

Current championships

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Main article: List of current champions in New Japan Pro Wrestling
Championship Current champion(s) Held since
IWGP Heavyweight Championship Kazuchika Okada July 5, 2015[26]
IWGP Tag Team Championship G.B.H.
(Togi Makabe and Tomoaki Honma)		 January 4, 2016[27]
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship Kushida January 4, 2016[28]
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship The Young Bucks
(Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson)		 January 4, 2016[29]
IWGP Intercontinental Championship Vacant January 12, 2016[30]
NEVER Openweight Championship Katsuyori Shibata January 4, 2016[31]
NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship Jay Briscoe, Mark Briscoe and Toru Yano January 4, 2016

Defunct championships

Championship Last champion(s) Date retired
IWGP U-30 Openweight Championship Hiroshi Tanahashi June 7, 2006

Tournaments

Tournament Last winner(s) Last held Type Created Notes
G1 Climax Hiroshi Tanahashi August 16, 2015 Open weight 1991 NJPW's biggest annual tournament, primarily for heavyweights but there is no official weight limit. Mostly in a round-robin format[Note 1]
World Tag League Great Bash Heel
(Togi Makabe and Tomoaki Honma)		 December 9, 2015 Tag team 1991 NJPW's annual tag team round-robin tournament.[Note 2]
New Japan Cup Kota Ibushi March 15, 2015 Open weight 2005 Single-elimination tournament
Best of the Super Juniors Kushida June 7, 2015 Junior Heavyweight 1988 Annual round-robin tournament featuring top junior heavyweights from all over the world.
Super J Cup Naomichi Marufuji December 23, 2009 Junior Heavyweight 1994 Sporadic single-elimination tournament featuring top junior heavyweights from all over the world. The tournament has been hosted by other promotions than NJPW as well.
Super Jr. Tag Tournament Matt Sydal and Ricochet November 7, 2015 Junior Heavyweight Tag Team 1994 Sporadic tournament featuring junior heavyweight tag teams from all over the world.[Note 3]
Young Lion Cup Hirooki Goto 2005 Rookies 1985 Tournament that is not held every year.[Note 4]
J Sports Crown Openweight 6 Man Tag Tournament Apollo 555
(Hirooki Goto, Prince Devitt and Ryusuke Taguchi)		 June 23, 2011 Six-man tag team 2010
G2 U-30 Climax Hiroshi Tanahashi April 23, 2003 U-30 Open weight 2003 Tournament that is not held every year.

NJPW Greatest Wrestlers

The NJPW Greatest Wrestlers is NJPW's hall of fame, established in 2007 to honor wrestlers who have wrestled for the promotion.[32]

Inductees
# Year Ring name
(Birth name)[Note 5]		 Notes[Note 6]
1 2007 Antonio Inoki
(Kanji Inoki)		 NJPW founder and first IWGP Heavyweight Champion. Also won many top titles, including the WWF World Heavyweight Championship, NWA United National Championship and NWF Heavyweight Championship.
2 2007 Seiji Sakaguchi Three-time NWA North American Tag Team Champion and one-time NWF North American Heavyweight and WWF North American Heavyweight Champion.
3 2007 Kantaro Hoshino
(Takeo Hoshino)		 One-time IWA World Tag Team Champion with Kotetsu Yamamoto as the Yamaha Brothers. Also known as a promoter and manager.
4 2007 Kotetsu Yamamoto
(Masaru Yamamoto)		 One-time IWA World Tag Team Champion with Kantaro Hoshino as the Yamaha Brothers.
5 2007 Shoji Kai
(Motoyuki Kitazawa)		 Winner of the 1976 Karl Gotch Cup. Famous as the debut opponent of many legends, including Masa Saito, Tatsumi Fujinami, Osamu Kido, Mitsuo Momota, Satoru Sayama (the original Tiger Mask) and Hiro Saito.
6 2009 Kuniaki Kobayashi One of NJPW's top junior heavyweights of the 1980s and of a few to win the junior heavyweight titles in both New Japan and All Japan Pro Wrestling.
7 2009 Akira Maeda Two-time IWGP Tag Team Champion. Founder of the Japanese UWF and Rings
8 2009 Black Cat
(Víctor Manuel Mar)		 One-time National Junior Heavyweight Champion and Naucalpan Tag Team Champion.
9 2010 Animal Hamaguchi
(Heigo Hamaguchi)		 Trainer and two-time All Asia Tag Team Champion. Also four-time IWA World Tag Team Champion.
10 2010 Shinya Hashimoto One of the Three Musketeers. Three-time IWGP Heavyweight and IWGP Tag Team Champion. Founder of Pro Wrestling Zero1.
11 2011 Don Arakawa
(Makoto Arakawa)		 One-time WWC Caribbean Tag Team Champion. Best known as an underdog and comedy wrestler.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Before the G1 Climax, NJPW had had an annual single tournament since 1974 under various names: the World League (1974-77), the Madison Square Garden (MSG) League (1978-82), the International Wrestling Grand Prix (IWGP) League (1983-88) and the World Cup Tournament (1989).
  2. ↑ Before the G1 Tag league, NJPW had had an annual Tag tournament since 1980 under various names: the Madison Square Garden (MSG) Tag League (1980-85) and the Japan Cup Tag League (1986-87).
  3. ↑ NJPW has previously held similar tournaments for junior heavyweight tag teams, the first being the Junior Heavyweight Super Grade Tag League in 1996, won by Eddie Guerrero as Black Tiger II and The Great Sasuke. They also held the G1 Junior Tag League in 2001: it was won by El Samurai and Jushin Thunder Liger. On May 8, 2010, NJPW also held a one night, single-elimination tournament, under the name Super J Tag Tournament 1st, which was won by El Samurai and Koji Kanemoto. On November 13, 2010, NJPW held the Super J Tag League, a round-robin tournament, which was won by Jado and Gedo.
  4. ↑ In 1974, 1975 and 1976 NJPW held the "Karl Gotch Cup" a similar style rookie wrestler tournament.
  5. ↑ Entries without a birth name indicates that the inductee did not perform under a ring name.
  6. ↑ This section mainly lists the major accomplishments of each inductee.

See also

References

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  32. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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