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There’s an old saying about wrestling that goes something like this: In Japan, it’s a sport; in Mexico, it’s religion; In Canada, it’s tradition; and in America, it’s a joke (and on YouTube, it’s Botchamania). Japanese wrestling – known as puroresu – is almost a complete opposite to its American counterpart. It’s treated like a legitimate sport, with very few gimmicks and wacky theatrics, and the wrestlers in a match will often do much less pre-planning than what’s seen in, say, WWE.
Yet despite that marked difference, many Japanese wrestlers have embarked on ‘foreign excursions’ to other parts of the world in order to add new elements to their repertoires and become more dynamic performers.
Because of that enormous difference in styles and presentation, few Japanese wrestlers have actually become truly popular in the United States. Among this elite few are Jushin ‘Thunder’ Liger, The Great Muta, and to a lesser extent, Shinsuke Nakamura. For these wrestlers, the booking had to be perfect for them to survive in the United States, with its image-centric focus and emphasis on stories over actual wrestling.
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Then there are those that failed. These ten wrestlers came to the U.S. with hopes that they’d improve as performers. What ended up was the complete opposite, and their respective tenures in the United States were all wastes of time.
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#10 Kenzo Suzuki
Kenzo Suzuki was the perfect example of why Japanese wrestlers avoided WWE for so many years. As soon as he arrived, he was given several options for gimmicks, with one of the top proposals being a character named ‘Hirohito’ with strong anti-American views (because WWE clearly forgot about the consequences of Pearl Harbor and World War II).
Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and Suzuki was presented in a better light on WWE programming.
Sort of.
Introduced alongside his real-life wife (who was dressed in a traditional geisha outfit), Suzuki was pushed as a sort of foreign monster of the old days, and the commentators tried to get him over as a legitimate threat. Except there was one problem: Suzuki was a subpar worker at best, and didn’t have the best matches. Not even putting him with heat magnet René Duprée could help him get over.
Ironically, when WWE chose Suzuki as their Japanese signee, they picked him over another young wrestler that was slowly working his way up the ranks at the time. That other wrestler’s name? Hiroshi Tanahashi (yes, that Tanahashi).
#9 Hiroshi Hase
Hiroshi Hase was a mainstay of NJPW for many years and is known today for being one of the most unselfish workers in that company’s history. But he did work for a handful of North American promotions during the 1980s, including Stampede Wrestling, the home of the Hart wrestling family.
However, Hase wasn’t used that much in that promotion beyond a single tag team run as part of the Viet Cong Express. This was a major misuse of Hase’s skills and abilities. Hase is an excellent technical wrestler and also a fantastic storyteller inside the ring. Aside from all his work in NJPW, he’s also famous for being responsible for creating the Muta Scale, the unofficial measurement of bloodiness in wrestling matches.
#8 Koji Kanemoto
Koji Kanemoto was a longtime member of NJPW’s junior heavyweight division back when that division was experiencing its first major golden age. Kanemoto was a technical wizard that had memorable matches against such legends as Jushin ‘Thunder’ Liger, El Samurai, and TAKA Michinoku.
Kanemoto was one of many NJPW stars to wrestle in the United States and was also the first to defend the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship on American soil. Alas, WCW didn’t use Kanemoto properly, and he became an afterthought in a match against Alex Wright in 1995. This was a criminal misuse of one of the finest technical wrestlers of the 1990s.
#7 Yuji Nagata
Yuji Nagata is the NJPW equivalent of Bret Hart: a technical master that carried an entire promotion on his back during said company’s darkest days. Nagata is a former world champion and one of the most versatile wrestlers on the planet, capable of adapting to any style and match stipulation with ease. Yet he was completely mishandled in WCW.
Nagata’s time in WCW lasted about a year and a half, during which he wrestled almost exclusively in preliminary matches and low-card feuds. His best feud was with Ultimo Dragon, but not even that could help him get over with the WCW audience.
After returning to Japan, Nagata would later make a name for himself as the man that carried NJPW on his shoulders throughout the early 2000s, and being one of the most useful and reliable wrestlers in Japan. It’s a shame that neither WCW nor even WWE made any use of him; he could’ve been a reliable hand to work with new wrestlers in need of someone with extensive grappling experience to help them grow as performers.
#6 Chigusa Nagayo
Chigusa Nagayo is one half of the most popular women’s tag team of all time, The Crush Gals. Throughout the 1980s, Nagayo and her partner Lioness Asuka were pop culture icons and brought in ratings over 12.0 on a regular basis in their native Japan.
Nagayo wrestled for AJW (All Japan Women’s Pro-Wresting) until she reached their mandatory retirement age of 26. After that, she wrestled all over the world, including in the United States in WCW.
Unfortunately, WCW didn’t know how to use a wrestler of her calibre, and thus only limited her to a handful of matches against the likes of Akira Hokuto and Madusa. Because of this lack of faith in her, American audiences didn’t get the chance to see one of the greatest women’s wrestlers of all time perform in front of them. Had WCW given her more chances, it’s likely that WCW could’ve actually developed their own women’s division properly.
#5 Hirooki Goto
Hirooki Goto was one of many wrestlers that came to TNA for brief appearances over the years. Although he was – and still is – a solid draw in Japan, he hasn’t been used very well in the United States.
Most of Goto’s matches in TNA were in tag matches, and when he wasn’t in tag matches, he was simply accompanying other Japanese wrestlers to ringside. Simply put, the spotlight was never on Goto himself, which is a disservice to his abilities as a wrestler.
If you’ve ever watched Goto wrestle, you’d know that he has great moves and looks like a real threat. He has a wide array of devastating moves in his arsenal (including both the Ushigoroshi and a modified Olympic Slam, among others), and looks spectacular in the ring.
If any American promotion were in need of a guy to act as a credible and menacing foreign threat, Goto would be perfect for that role.
#4 Little Dragon/Dragon Kid
The man now known as Dragon Kid only ever appeared once on North American wrestling television. In that match, he – under the name ‘Little Dragon’ – wrestled Eddie Guerrero and won via roll-up following shenanigans (or what we know today as an everyday occurrence in WWE).
This was a complete waste, as ‘Little Dragon’ would end up becoming Dragon Kid, the Japanese version of Rey Mysterio back when Rey was in his prime. Dragon Kid dazzled audiences all throughout Japan with his incredible athleticism and high-flying acrobatics. In fact, there were moments when he moved so quickly that you’d be forgiven for thinking you were watching a wrestling show on fast forward.
Had he been signed for under a long-term deal by either promotion you can be sure that he would’ve brought either of them tons of money, as he would’ve entertained fans of all ages with his mesmerizing cruiserweight abilities.
#3 Tetsuya Naito
Long before Naito went all ‘tranquilo’ and became the leader of Loss Ignobernables de Japon, he was another rookie sent abroad to hone his skills. During his brief, two-month tenure with TNA, all he did was wrestle in a few tag team matches with Yujiro Takahashi, without really being involved in any major storylines or even any big matches.
While it’s true that this sojourn was more of a learning opportunity than a major push, at least TNA could’ve done something with Naito and Takahashi, which is what the bookers in CMLL did when the Japanese duo went to Mexico.
It was there that Naito was allowed to work real and important storylines, instead of just being another background wrestler like he was in TNA. Furthermore, Naito’s current character was developed during his time in Mexico, which likely stems from him actually learning things there and being booked properly, which is more than what can be said of TNA.
#2 Toshiaki Kawada
Toshiaki Kawada is known by many wrestling fans as one of the most dangerous strikers in wrestling history. His kicks, in particular, were notoriously stiff, which helped him develop an aura of danger and drama. Through all of this, Kawada became one of the best wrestlers ever, with an extensive catalogue of outstanding matches (including the first-ever 6-star match).
Sadly, all of these great things about Kawada and his matches relate to his time in Japan, and not in the United States. That’s because Kawada had several negative experiences while wrestling in both Canada and the U.S.
He wasn’t booked very well in the few promotions that actually did use him, he wasn’t paid very well, and from the accounts of the wrestlers that did know him, he was having a hard time accepting that he didn’t have the best look and that was working against him, no matter what he did.
As a result, Kawada hasn’t spoken very highly of his time abroad and was more than happy to return to Japan after his learning excursion ended. This is disappointing, given that Kawada would go on to become one of the famed Four Pillars of Heaven only a few short years after this excursion ended.
#1 Kazuchika Okada
Okada, like many other NJPW stars before him, left his homeland to hone his craft and to improve upon the fundamentals he already had. Though he was a decent-enough wrestler at the time, he lacked screen presence, and had very little, if anything, that helped him stand out. Thus, NJPW’s bookers thought it would be a good idea for him to spend some time in TNA, with whom they had a working relationship at the time.
Oh, how TNA messed up.
Instead of actually using Okada in a constructive way, he was shoehorned into playing something of a comic relief character (and was renamed ‘Okato’ at one point, in homage to the film ‘the Green Hornet’, which had the comedy sidekick with a similar name) working with Samoa Joe. The entire excursion lasted over a year, and Okada left TNA without having accomplished anything whatsoever.
NJPW were so upset over Okada’s handling that they severed their working relationship with TNA permanently, further cementing the gravity of their mistakes. Ironically, after Okada returned to NJPW, he transformed into the Rainmaker we all know and love today, and has already cemented himself as one of the greatest wrestlers in Japanese history.
The fact that TNA reps actually went to Okada to apologize to him recently over how he was mistreated further underscores how badly Japanese wrestlers tend to be treated in North America, even today.
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