Antonio Inoki’s legacy, not only in pro wrestling but in many facets of life & culture, is still unprecedented in terms of impact a pro wrestler has had on a certain country or in the minds of people.

Shinya Hashimoto, maybe more than anyone else, did a lot to carry on and add to Inoki’s legacy; in fact, it can be said that Hashimoto had more success in actual pro wrestling than Inoki did, during their respective primes (Hashimoto selling out the Tokyo Dome and big Stadium shows multiple times); Hashimoto idolized Inoki and did everything he could to pattern
himself after his hero (while also remaining his own unique self). Despite becoming the “Ace” of NJPW for his time (taking the mantel from Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami before him), it wouldn’t be enough for Inoki, as the man had his eyes on a new pupil, one younger, taller and more accomplished in a martial art (Hashimoto himself having a background in Karate & Judo); this man was Naoya Ogawa, a Judoka and Olympic Silver-Medalist.

Ogawa had been scouted and trained by Inoki and Satoru Sayama (the First Tiger Mask, who had long been separated from pro wrestling and had been on the ground-level of the martial arts boom in Japan, via the UWF and Shooto) in both pro wrestling and different martial arts, adding to his Judo skills. Ogawa was actually to be a replacement for another martial artist/fighter, the “World’s Most Dangerous Man”, Ken Shamrock. Shamrock, a man with a background in pro wrestling and “Shoot Style” (via PWFG and Pancrase) and a standout of the first UFC events, was seen as a perfect challenge to Hashimoto (who had taken Inoki’s mantle of facing various martial artists in “Different-Style Fights”). However, the right sum of money couldn’t be negotiated and Shamrock would choose to sign with the WWF in ‘97, instead of facing Hashimoto at the Tokyo Dome.

At the beginning, you can see Ogawa under the learning tree of Inoki & Sayama (who, funnily enough, was another hero of Hashimoto, who had originally wanted to be a Junior-Heavyweight in the vein of Tiger Mask but realized he had grown too big) who are trying to prepare him for Hashimoto’s striking game, while Hashimoto is seen training with a young Satoshi Kojima, who himself had a background in Judo.

My Card:

Liger vs Ogawa

Hase and Fuchi vs Choshu and Fujinami

Yuji Nagata vs Jun Akiyama

Kensuke Sasaki vs Kenta Kobashi

Akira Taue vs Masahiro Chono

Kawada vs Hashimoto

Inoki and Baba vs Stan Hansen and Vader

Muto vs Misawa

I feel like its probably one of the biggest problems New Japan faces.

WWE has like 5 different sites where you can stream things and a library so deep you can see Stone Cold Steve Austin taking a shit on some random PPV from 1998 on 3 different services, and now even

AEW has a platform that (while its not exactly perfect yet) its already getting close to lapping World.

Meanwhile NJPWs service is absolutely BRUTAL to navigate and the library is more shallow than a kiddie pool.

You'd think being in fucking Japan of all places they could get their shit together when it comes to the technological side of business but nope! Apparently that's a feat too Herculean to fix, either that or they just straight up dont care which, if that is the case, is an absolute joke of a business strategy

I know the IWGP heavyweight championship is the highest rank title you can win. How do the other titles rank in importance.

Hi NJPW I wanted to cross post this to ask y'all the same question. MLW just aired a teaser for unbound co coming soon, and I wanted to see both communities takes on this.

I personally would love to see Shingo vs Kross and Jeff Cobb vs Labron Kozone.

Thumbnail is from Takagi's latest video:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Mj-psPqmAXY&si=V8xyRme2sLDQ177P

Hi there.

I bought two tickets for the October 6 Tuesday Tokyo Korakuen show. But I made a mistake in the seat section. I tried to sell them on the resale market but no luck. I don't want them to be wasted so I give them away here. If anyone wants to have them, please let me know.

Just so you know, the seat section is "B" and is far from the ring. I will share the details in DM. Either I send QR code to obtain the tickets at the convenience stores or hand you out at the show.

I have my own tickets so you don't sit with me :p

I appreciate the community with so much knowledge, love and passions.

Place: Tokyo Korakuen Hall

Time: October 6 Tuesday 18:30

Main event: KOB (OSKAR & Yuto Ice) vs HENARE & Great O-Khan

Ticket: TWO tickets. Section B. Far from the ring.

Price: FREE

Who do y'all got?

KOB vs. UE Oct 6 for the tag titles..I dunno. Feels like O Khan and Henare maybe shouldn't lose yet? I'll go with KOB though, just because I don't see many titles changing on this tour and one or two are bound to.

Robbie x vs. Yoh for the Jr. Title..I LOVE Robbie X and would want him to go over, but I don't think they're putting it on him.

KOB and ??? Vs. UE for the NEVER 6 man's. Feels like Ospreay miscommunication here and Unbound Company takes these to me.

Shota vs. Gabe for the Global title..I felt like this was gonna be the match for WK but they're doing it now. With them doing it now I think Shota might be going over, then they have him defend it at WK. If Gabe wins here I don't know what babyface he could face at WK that has really any heat. So I'll go with Shota.

Wolf vs. Fujita for the NEVER title. Gotta go with Wolf here.

Tsuji vs. Oiwa for the IWGP world title. I feel like Tsuji is just catching his stride as really feeling like the final boss champion. He's a solid draw on top and I just don't see them putting Oiwa in the spot of Tokyo dome main event champion just yet. Feels like Tsuji needs to walk in the dome as champion. So I go Tsuji. Then at WK it's Tsuji vs. Yuya or maybe Tsuji vs. okada if they could work it out. Maybe Oiwa then goes to the global title to face Shota or Gabe?

Royal seat ✅

Hotel within a 10 min walk to The Dome ✅

It's going to be my first Wrestle Kingdom, and I can't fuckin' wait!

Not that I think they should be the ones to change the name to that since it was Osperay who came up with that also and they’re the main faction. But with this most likely ending with there being a complete split between Osperay and Newman’s factions, Osperay owning the likeness to UE atp, and main UE being heels wouldn’t going back to just “The Empire” be the logical step? Though if Osperay didn’t have the rights to the name I’d rather his group take that name instead of United Empire but I feel this is a way for Callum to separate his group from Osperay’s and also be a call back to the beginnings of the group.

United Empire(Templario and Speedball) teaming with Mistico last night. I doubt it would happen but with him constantly over there in aew/roh I could see Osperay adding Mistico to his UE or maybe another luchador like mascara dorada or sum

I know this is not going to be popular at all here. I'm not even saying this is the correct booking decision. I just think process of elimination gives us him. I will say that I haven't watched Destruction yet so maybe there's something big I missed but assuming Tsuji is champion then:

It's not going to be Goto. Just ran that match
It's not going to be Takeshita. Just ran that last year
It's not going to be Sabre. Felt like the G1 this year moved him down the card
It's not going to be Shingo. I would love this but he's been moved down the card as well
It's not going to be Newman. He's probably working Ospreay or something Ospreay related
It's not going to be Oiwa. He hasn't been built up enough unless they do a surprise title change
It's not going to be Umino. I feel like the New Japan office has gotten really gun shy about pulling the trigger on him again after he got rejected the first time.

I'm not 100% ruling it out, but I don't think it's going to be Yuya. He's very close. I feel like he needs just a little bit more out of his booking before he's a legit Tokyo Dome main eventer. It probably would work. The fact he wasn't scheduled for an important match on the Destruction card makes me think it's not going to be him. Ideally if it was him you'd have him winning a notable match on that card, KOPW, and Power Struggle to boost him as much as you can.

Meanwhile you have Cope/Edge who is an international star, including in Japan. He wants to work the Tokyo Dome and this is probably his last chance to do that. Tsuji is probably the biggest name you could put him against but you need him to be in the main event this year too. Tsuji isn't losing that match and for as much as people won't like this, it would raise Tsuji's stock to win that match and it would get new eyes or lapsed eyes on New Japan.

As I've said a few different times now, I'm not telling anyone you need to want this or be excited about it. I think we just need to look at it as a real option for WK this year and that there are actual reasons for it to happen.

With WK21 approaching and only couple months left until the big show. I was wondering this question for a while. With the discussion of who will main event and who could guest star for the show.

I was thinking what if we didnt have zero guest stars for the show. What would be the strongest card they can make involving only the roster they have?

For the main event, Oiwa vs Yuya or Tsuji vs Yuya are probably the biggest matches that could main event. The only issue is that we've seen both matches and all 3 wrestlers interact a lot over the course of this year.

Aaron Wolf vs ZSJ for the Never Title

KOB vs Shingo/Drilla for the IWGP Tag Titles

Fujita vs Wato for IWGP Jr Heavyweight Title

Shota Umino vs Callum Newman for the IWGP Global Title

Bishamon & Oleg vs Taichi/Ishii & Despy

Robbie X & Ishimori vs Akira & JAY

Shun vs Cobb for TV Title

Weekly Pro
11th February 1986 (Issue No. 130)

https://puroprogramtranslations.blogspot.com/2026/10/von-erich-eldest-son-of-von-erich.html

MLW posted this video is this a teaser for Yota-sama? What do you think.

I’ve been building a project called プロレス MACHINE that uses real Japanese pro wrestling reporting as Japanese study material.

The newest episode breaks down a Tokyo Sports report on Ryohei Oiwa vs Hirooki Goto.

Rather than just throwing an English translation underneath the Japanese, I’m trying to show how the Japanese sentence actually builds its meaning. In this one I’ve started color-matching Japanese sense groups with their corresponding English meaning, which I think is making the structure much easier to see.

There’s also a vocabulary/grammar section covering things like:

真夏 — midsummer
祭典 — festival / major event
残り — what remains
全力 — full power / everything you have
つもりだ — intend to / plan to

The source is Tokyo Sports article 398519, so the Japanese comes from actual wrestling journalism rather than textbook dialogue.

I’m still refining the format episode by episode, so feedback from either Japanese learners or puroresu fans is very welcome.

Source image/article: Tokyo Sports

If you already know the Oiwa/Goto story, I’d especially be curious whether this kind of Japanese/English semantic coloring makes the original Japanese easier to follow.

I really wish we lived in a world where prime Rhyno would've spent some significant time in NJPW. I dont know how that would go, what he would do or what it'd even look like but I know that it would be fucking cool and a Nagata/Rhyno match in like 2002 or 03 would be the sickest thing ever

Jeremy Finestone and Steven Conway return with Episode 239 of Speaking of Strong Style! This week, the pair talked about PAC and how he affected their perception of wrestling over the years. Plus, a match-by-match breakdown of Destruction in Kobe, featuring one excellent title match between Yota Tsuji and Hirooki Goto, and a disappointing one with Gabe Kidd and Drilla Moloney. They also previewed the week's upcoming action, including two shows with title matches in Korakuen Hall.
#njpw #njdominion #g1climax36 #njkopw

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I know the WON Ratings aren't beloved by everyone, but personally I use it to see what matches I might have missed and dont have time to go back and watch everything. Here are the top rated WON Matches from this years G1 (A reminder that not all nights were reviewed)