The 7th Match: History of Pro-Wrestling for beginners. (NJPW Late80s to‘90s)
Buenas noches!
Hi, I’m Choro. (^^)!
I was too busy to update this blog… sorry (>_<)
I had been to Tokyo dome on both 1.4 and 1.5 and watched matches live.
Naito! Congratulations for your winning and thank you for giving us wonderful happiness!!
I am eagerly waiting for your chorus of “de Japon” as we couldn’t this time. But…Tranquilo, I wait you in no rush. (≧▽≦)
Today’s topic is about NJPW history of Late80s to ‘90s (we call this period early Heisei era)
People who recently have started to watch NJPW may have heard that commentators say, “Golden age” or “Old enthusiastic period”.
This early Heisei era is the time what they are talking about. (#^.^#)
What’s great are…
① Wrestlers at that time were “Amazing”
② Number of audience and their fever are overwhelmed.
About ①, followed by Inoki, Fujinami and Choshu I talked in the previous article, other 3 superstars came back to Japan from oversea expedition and one masked wrestler who later became a legend debuted.
Keiji Muto, Masahiro Chono and Shinya Hashimoto who we call them “The Three Musketeers” came back to Japan during 1989-1990. The masked wrestler is Jushin Thunder Liger who retired a few days ago.
Talented pro-wrester Keiji Muto were strong enough to be admired from Tanahashi, Naito and SANADA.
Talking about Cool, Chono Masahiro was there. His nickname was “Black Charisma”. He brought nWo, a pro-wrestling stable of WCW in America, into Japan and produced its extremely cool merchandising products. His ability was certified that he won G1 5times.
Shinya Hashimoto was a symbol of strength. He represented IWGP heavy weight and was famous for vertical drop DDT and great destructive power kick.
Jushin Thunder Liger proactively interacted with other promoters as a main junior heavy weight wrestler and produced junior heavy weight tournament.
There were other famous heavy wrestlers such as Hiroshi Hase, Kensuke Sasaki, Shiro Koshinaka and Junior heavy wrestlers, Koji Kanemoto and Shinjiro Otani. Tenzan, Nagata, Nakanishi and Kojima who are active wrestlers so-called 3rd generations were young lions at the time.
Regarding ②; there were 4 big matches in a year at Tokyo dome at the most and there were also matches at least once in Osaka, Fukuoka and Nagoya. Venues of all matches were full.
The most impressive match was the one held at Tokyo dome on Oct 9th,1995.
Almost of all pro-wrestling fans say this match was the most legendary match and number of audiences was over 67,000, even standing seat were full. ( *´艸｀) Rocky often says that he is proud of being in the Tokyo dome on the day. (^_-)-☆
In the 2 days Tokyo dome match on the other day, there were only 70,000 audiences in total. You know that how much people loved pro-wrestling at the time.
Now, A question came to mind.
Why hasn’t the prosperity gone on until now?
Next article will be about 2000s when pro-wrestling was in the doldrums and current NJPW. ( *´艸｀)
Let’s call it a day!
SEE YOU NEXT TIME!
