10 Best Wrestling Stable Wars

3. UWFi Vs. New Japan

Article lead image
NJPW

The wrestling world changed forever on April 29, 1996. That date may not sound familiar, but it was the night that Eric Bischoff attended New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Battle Formation event at the Tokyo Dome. There, he witnessed an angle featuring the UWFi battling NJPW.

While the UWFi was much smaller than New Japan, they still had respect of the fans and some great talent under contract. However, they had massive financial problems, so they proposed co-promoting shows with their much larger competitor to drum up business. What commenced was an incredibly successful angle that saw Tokyo Dome records being broken.

While New Japan won the vast majority of the matches, due to them having creative control on the outcome, the UWFi did get in their shots, most notably with Takada defeating Muto for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.

The hot rivalry delivered a series of sold out events at The Dome, with each drawing over 60,000 fans. It’s a good thing Bischoff was one of them, so he could ape the formula and bring that success stateside.

Advertisement
Contributor

As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at." Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week. Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com