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NJPW Ultimate Crush
Ultimate Crush was a major professional wrestling and mixed martial arts event promoted by New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). The event took place on May 2, 2003, at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan. The card contained a mixture of pro wrestling matches and mixed martial arts fights. The show was headlined by Yoshihiro Takayama defending the NWF Heavyweight Championship against Yuji Nagata, who also defended the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in a unification match. The show also featured participation from Pro Wrestling Noah, as Kenta Kobashi defended the GHC Heavyweight Championship against Masahiro Chono. The only other title match on the show featured Jushin Thunder Liger and Koji Kanemoto defending the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship against Heat and Tiger Mask IV. Ultimate Crush featured 6 professional wrestling matches and 5 mixed martial arts fights contested under Vale Tudo rules, with a total of 11 matches on the card. Production Background In April 2002, Yosh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Japan Pro-Wrestling
(NJPW) is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion based in Nakano, Tokyo. Founded on January 13, 1972, by Antonio Inoki, the promotion was sold to Yuke's, who later sold it to Bushiroad in 2012. TV Asahi and Amuse, Inc. own minority shares of the company. Naoki Sugabayashi has served as the promotion's Chairman since September 2013, while Takami Ohbari has served as the president of the promotion since October 2020. Owing to its TV program aired on TV Asahi, NJPW is the largest and longest-running professional wrestling promotion in Japan. It was affiliated with the National Wrestling Alliance at various points in its history. NJPW has had agreements with various MMA and professional wrestling promotions around the world, including WWE, World Championship Wrestling, American Wrestling Association, World Class Championship Wrestling, Impact Wrestling, WAR, Jersey All Pro Wrestling, UWFi, Ring of Honor, Pride Fighting Championships, and All Elite Wrestling. NJPW's bigge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship
The is a professional wrestling tag team championship owned by the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) promotion. "IWGP" is the acronym of NJPW's governing body, the . The title was introduced on August 8, 1998, at an NJPW live event. The IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship is one of two tag team titles contested for in NJPW; the IWGP Tag Team Championship is also sanctioned by NJPW. According to NJPW's official website, the Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship is listed as the "IWGP Jr. Tag Class", while the IWGP Tag Team Championship is considered the "IWGP Heavyweight Class". The title is contested for by junior heavyweight wrestlers; the weight-limit for the title is per partner. Being a professional wrestling championship, the title is won as a result of a predetermined outcome. History Title changes happen mostly at NJPW-promoted events. The Motor City Machine Guns ( Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin), a Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) tag team, defeated then-cham ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kazunari Murakami
(born November 29, 1973) is a Japanese professional wrestler and retired mixed martial artist currently working for Pro Wrestling Noah. Murakami is best known for his work in New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) during the late 1990s and early 2000s, where he primarily competed as a member of the villainous Makai Club stable. Aside from pro wrestling, Murakami was also part of the first fight in PRIDE history, defeating John Dixson by submission in 1997. After leaving NJPW in the fall of 2004, Murakami subsequently competed for Pro Wrestling ZERO1-MAX (ZERO1-MAX) and Big Mouth LOUD, of which he was a founding member. Murakami has also made sporadic appearances in Dramatic Dream Team (DDT), Pro Wrestling Noah (Noah) and Chō Sentō Puroresu FMW (FMW). Mixed martial arts career Trained in Judo and Sumo since high school, Kazunari became a member of the judo team in Takushoku University. He met Wajyutsu Keishukai founder Yoshinori Nishi, who convinced him to join his team, and Murakam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamon Honda
(born August 15, 1963) is a Japanese semi-retired professional wrestler and former Olympic amateur wrestler who is currently a freelancer. He most recently worked for Pro Wrestling Noah. He is a former tag team champion, winning the All Asia Tag Team Championship and GHC Tag Team Championship. Amateur wrestling career Tamon Honda began his amateur wrestling career in 1983, while attending Nihon University, competing in freestyle wrestling. 100 kg division In September 1983, Honda wrestled his first tournament, the World Championship, in Kyiv, U.S.S.R., where he placed in seventh. Two months later, he wrestled at the Asian Championship in Tehran, Iran, where he placed first, earning him a gold medal. In 1984, he wrestled at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California, where he placed fifth. In May 1985, he wrestled at the World Super Championship in Tokyo, where he placed third, earning him a bronze medal. In October 1986, he wrestled in the Asian Games in Seoul, South ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Akira Taue
is a Japanese retired professional wrestler. He is also a former All Japan Pro Wrestling Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion, a former GHC Heavyweight Champion and has had fourteen 5 Star Matches as awarded by the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Early life and sumo career On the 8th of May, 1961 Akira Taue was born the eldest son of a construction worker, in Saitama, Japan. As a teenager and young adult in Kagemori Junior High School, Taue was quite active in various sports such as shotput, baseball and judo. After graduating, Taue would work as a part time auto-mechanic, while attending the Saitama Prefectural Chichibu High School. There Taue was sent a recommendation for the high school's sumo club. He joined the club in his second year of high school, and he won the third place in the national sumo high school championship. Taue was then invited in the Oshiogawa stable, and made his professional sumo debut, in January 1980. For the first six years of Taue's sumo career he went ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mitsuharu Misawa
was a Japanese amateur and professional wrestler and promoter. He is primarily known for his time in All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), and also for forming the Pro Wrestling Noah promotion in 2000. In the early 1990s, Misawa gained fame alongside Toshiaki Kawada, Kenta Kobashi, and Akira Taue, who came to be nicknamed AJPW's " Four Pillars of Heaven", and whose matches developed the '' ōdō'' (, "King's Road") style of puroresu and received significant critical acclaim. Despite never working in the United States during the 1990s, Misawa had significant stylistic influence upon American independent wrestling, through the popularity of his work among tape-traders in the country. Misawa is regarded by some as the greatest professional wrestler of all time. However, the physical demands and consequences of the style in which he worked and the circumstances of his death have made his legacy, or at least that of ''ōdō'', somewhat problematic. Debuting in 1981, Misawa became the seco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tsuyoshi Kosaka
is a retired Japanese mixed martial artist, submission grappler and professional wrestler who competed in the Heavyweight division. A professional MMA competitor from 1994 till 2022, he has competed for the UFC, PRIDE Fighting Championships, RIZIN, RINGS, Pancrase, and DEEP. Kosaka is the former King of Pancrase Super Heavyweight Champion. Kosaka is considered to be one of the early pioneers of mixed martial arts and was one of the top ranked Japanese fighters for several years. Known for his grappling skills, Kosaka is trained in judo, catch wrestling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. His "TK guard" position, a precursor to modern butterfly guard, is famous for its efficiency; former UFC champions Frank Shamrock and Maurice Smith have both credited him with having vastly improved their grappling from that particular position. Background Training in judo since highschool, Kosaka competed extensively during his stay at the Senshu University, where he befriended future world judo cha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wrestling World 2003
Wrestling World 2003 was a professional wrestling event held by New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). The event took place on January 4 in the Tokyo Dome. Wrestling World 2003 was the twelfth January 4 Tokyo Dome Show promoted by NJPW. The show drew 30,000 spectators. The show featured the semi-finals and the finals of the "Young Generation Cup", an NJPW tournament for relative newcomers who have yet to establish themselves as top level wrestlers, which saw Ryushi Yanagisawa defeat Yutaka Yoshie to win the cup. The show featured a total of eleven matches, including a match for the vacant NWF Heavyweight Championship that Yoshihiro Takayama won by defeating Tsuyoshi Kosaka in the finals of a four-man tournament. The main event was a successful defense of the IWGP Heavyweight Championship as champion Yuji Nagata defeated Josh Barnett. Production Background The January 4 Tokyo Dome Show is NJPW's biggest annual event and has been called "the largest professional wrestling show in the world ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonio Inoki
Muhammad Hussain Inoki (born ; February 20, 1943 – October 1, 2022) was a Japanese professional wrestler, martial artist, politician, and promoter of professional wrestling and mixed martial arts. He was best known by the ring name , a homage to fellow professional wrestler Antonino Rocca. Inoki was a twelve-time professional wrestling world champion, notably being the first IWGP Heavyweight Champion and the first Asian WWF Heavyweight Champion – a reign not officially recognized by WWE. Inoki began his professional wrestling career in the 1960s for the Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance (JWA) under the tutelage of Rikidōzan. Inoki quickly became one of the most popular stars in the history of Japanese professional wrestling. He parlayed his wrestling career into becoming one of Japan's most recognizable athletes, a reputation bolstered by his 1976 fight against world champion boxer Muhammad Ali – a fight that served as a predecessor to modern day mixed martial arts. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pride Fighting Championship
PRIDE Fighting Championships (Pride or Pride FC, founded as KRS-Pride) was a Japanese mixed martial arts promotion company. Its inaugural event was held at the Tokyo Dome on October 11, 1997. Pride held more than sixty mixed martial arts events, broadcast to about 40 countries worldwide.What is Pride? , Official Pride site. Last retrieved December 5, 2006 PRIDE was owned by the (DSE). For the ten years of its existence, PRIDE was one of the most popular MMA organizations in the world. Pride broadcast its event ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nippon Budokan
The , often shortened to simply Budokan, is an indoor arena located in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It was originally built for the inaugural Olympic judo competition in the 1964 Summer Olympics. While its primary purpose is to host martial arts contests, the arena has gained additional fame as one of the world's most outstanding musical performance venues. The Budokan was a popular venue for Japanese professional wrestling for a time, and it has hosted numerous other sporting events such as the 1967 Women's Volleyball World Championship. Most recently, the arena hosted the Olympic debut of karate (; ; Okinawan language, Okinawan pronunciation: ) is a martial arts, martial art developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom. It developed from the Okinawan martial arts, indigenous Ryukyuan martial arts (called , "hand"; ''tii'' in Okinawan) under the ... in the 2020 Summer Olympics, as well as the judo competition at both the 2020 Summer Olympics and the 2020 Summer Paralympics. A number of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tadao Yasuda
is a Japanese retired sumo wrestler (''rikishi''), professional wrestler and mixed martial artist. He competed in sumo from 1979 to 1992 under the ''shikona'' of Takanofuji Tadao, achieving the rank of ''komusubi'', and afterwards turned to professional wrestling, in which he competed from 1994 to 2011, most notably in New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), where he was a one-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion. He was also fought in mixed martial arts from 2001 to 2003, holding a notable win over Jérôme Le Banner. Sumo career He made his professional sumo debut in March 1979 at the age of 15, after leaving junior high school. He was recruited by Kokonoe stable. In 1980 he adopted the ''shikona'' of Fujinomori, before switching to Takanofuji in 1984. He first reached ''sekitori'' status in March 1985 upon promotion to the second highest ''jūryō'' division, but could manage only 4 wins against 11 losses and was demoted back to the unsalaried ''makushita'' division. After winning promoti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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