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Favourite Japanese Wrestlers

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Favourite Japanese Wrestlers

Postby Hanley! » Jun 27, '17, 3:16 pm

With the G1 tournament coming up, I'm much more interested in New Japan than any American wrestling right now. There seem to be a few others here who have been watching some NJPW lately also, and there are a few Japanese wrestlers who have had success in the WWE and the United States in general over the last few years. So I'm curious who people would consider their favourite Japanese wrestlers at the moment.

My list below is just focusing on people who are wrestling currently, but if someone wants to give an all-time list they can go ahead. I'm sure @VaderBomb could probably go on for days.

My list at the moment would probably look like this:

1) Kazuchika Okada
2) Tetsuya Naito
3) Asuka
4) Kota Ibushi
5) Hiroshi Tanahashi

Okada is enjoying one of the better world title runs in recent memory at the moment. Maybe one of the better world title runs in wrestling history in general. Omega gets more of the credit for the Okada/Omega matches in this part of the world, but I'd consider Okada even better. And he's been having killer matches with everyone else over the last year too.

Naito is probably the best dickhead heel in wrestling at the moment. I love watching his stuff, and I'm backing him to win the G1 this year. He had one of my favourite matches of the last few years with Omega at last year's G1, and I could see the two of them possibly facing off again in the finals this year.

Asuka is the best champion in WWE by a country mile. She's badass, carries herself like a star and is great in the ring. I hope she holds the NXT women's title for another year. There's nobody ready to take it off her who would be anything but a disappointment in comparison.

Ibushi is just a fantastic cruiserweight wrestler, and absolutely killed it during the cruiserweight classic last year. His matches against Cedric Alexander, Brian Kendrick and particularly TJ Perkins were some of the standouts of the tournament. Looking forward to seeing him mixing it up in the G1.

A little part of me wanted to add Nakamura in the last slot on my list because I know how good he can be, but he hasn't been that good since joining WWE. He seems like less of a star with every passing day. So far the company hasn't been a good fit for him. Tanahashi has had more eventful years in New Japan, but he's always a strong performer and has had a couple of great matches against Naito in recent months.
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Re: Favourite Japanese Wrestlers

Postby VaderBomb » Jun 28, '17, 10:29 am

This would be my top 30 in order, 1 being the best. All of these guys are in my top 100 of all time list. If I wasn't trying to pack for vacation, I would have written a little write up of each person. A few are of Korean descent but they wrestled almost exclusively in Japan, so I included them. If they weren't known as gaijins (foreigners) in Japan then it's close enough for me to make the list.

Naito is certainly climbing higher and is probably my favorite current Japanese wrestler in NJPW. I expect him to crack the top 20 sometime soon. Aja Kong and Manami Toyota are the two women on the list and I consider them to be the two greatest female wrestlers of all time.

30. Hiroshi Tanahashi
29. Kazuchika Okada
28. Tetsuya Naito
27. Kota Ibushi
26. Aja Kong
25. Shinya Hashimoto
24. "The Dragon" Tatsumi Fujinami
23. Nobuhiko Takada
22. Yuji Nagata
21. Masahiro Chono
20. Naomichi Marufuji
19. Shinsuke Nakamura
18. KENTA (Hideo Itami)
17. Jushin Thunder Liger
16. Último Dragón
15. Minoru Suzuki
14. Masanobu Fuchi
13. Rikidōzan
12. Akira Maeda
11. Manami Toyota
10. Satoru Sayama (Tiger Mask I)
9. Jun Akiyama
8. Antonio Inoki
7. Genichiro Tenryu
6. Riki Choshu
5. Kenta Kobashi
4. Toshiaki Kawada
3. Keiji Mutoh (The Great Muta)
2. Jumbo Tsuruta
1. Mitsuharu MIsawa
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Re: Favourite Japanese Wrestlers

Postby Circled Square » Jun 28, '17, 6:03 pm

how the fuck do you even watch Japanese wrestling lmao
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Re: Favourite Japanese Wrestlers

Postby VaderBomb » Jun 30, '17, 1:32 pm

Circled Square wrote:how the fuck do you even watch Japanese wrestling lmao


That is not a list.
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Re: Favourite Japanese Wrestlers

Postby KaiserGlider » Jun 30, '17, 3:21 pm

1.) Shinsuke Nakamura
2.) Hideo Itami
3.) Funaki, Smackdown #1 announcer
4.) Kenzo Suzuki
5.) Jimmy Wang Yang
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Re: Favourite Japanese Wrestlers

Postby Hanley! » Jun 30, '17, 6:44 pm

I used to haaaate Kenzo Suzuki. I thought he was the most boring guy on the roster at the time, bar none. I wonder if I'd dislike him as much if I went back and watched now.

Itami is decent, but based on his WWE work I really don't see why people made him out to be one of the best wrestlers in the world. He's nowhere near that level as far as I'm concerned. Admittedly I haven't seen too much of his stuff prior to his joining WWE: what I have seen was a level above his WWE work but still well below a lot of the other guys working in Japan at the moment.

Part of that might be that I'm not all that into wrestlers who use stiff strikes and almost nothing else. I don't like Kushida's matches in NJPW as much as everyone else for much the same reason.
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Re: Favourite Japanese Wrestlers

Postby Str8Shooter » Jun 30, '17, 10:45 pm

Funny Steve, KENTA was the dude that introduced me to Japanese wrestling. Probably 09-ish I want to say, actually might have been before that. I somehow heard about this guy and found some of his matches on youtube, and his matches with Naomichi Marafuji and Kotaro Suzuki in NOAH I found interesting and drawing me in to another style of wrestling I was unfamiliar with. I sought out a bunch of his stuff after that, and that led me to the other NOAH guys like Misawa and Kobashi and co. Then from there it led me to New Japan stuff and their wrestlers.

I got into Dragon Gate around this time too. Their famous 6 man tag in ROH I somehow saw online and it blew my mind. I couldn't believe the moves they were doing and the speed at which they did them. I searched Dragon Gate stuff online through various sources over the years and still follow them to this day. Sometimes I lapse with watching stuff though for 6 months at a time but try and catch up.
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Re: Favourite Japanese Wrestlers

Postby xgamr » Jul 01, '17, 4:30 am

Tanahashi
Naito
Hiromu Takahashi
Goto

a few others too
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Re: Favourite Japanese Wrestlers

Postby The Legend » Jul 01, '17, 8:49 am

The fact no one mentioned Tajiri is disappointing.
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Re: Favourite Japanese Wrestlers

Postby Str8Shooter » Jul 01, '17, 1:39 pm

The Legend wrote:The fact no one mentioned Tajiri is disappointing.


I loved Tajiri, one could argue he had the best WWE run of any Japanese wrestler they brought in. At least up until Nakamura or Asuka now. He was never a big star, but a solid mid carder who was given stuff to do.
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Re: Favourite Japanese Wrestlers

Postby Daz » Jul 02, '17, 12:17 am

Circled Square wrote:how the fuck do you even watch Japanese wrestling lmao


https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... nQ0aUhWODg
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Re: Favourite Japanese Wrestlers

Postby prophet » Jul 02, '17, 7:43 am

Naito is the man. /end

Big E Langston also.
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