10 Moments That Caused Huge Rifts Between Wrestlers
3. Katsuyori Shibata Leaves NJPW, Leaves Hiroshi Tanahashi To Save It
Katsuyori Shibata left the ailing, in-flux New Japan Pro Wrestling league he was entrusted to rebuild in the image of himself and his fellow New Three Musketeers, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Shinsuke Nakamura.
To understand how badly Tanahashi took this, one must first understand the value placed on loyalty in Japanese culture, even in an industry built on a lie, and then understand that Shibata left behind almost assured success in a company with a punishing dojo system designed to extract every expectation of it.
Shibata's departure exacerbated the burden on Tanahashi's back, and when he and Nakamura transformed the company, the resentment transformed into a fury when Shibata returned, in 2012, under none of the immense pressure to restore NJPW to glory.
Shibata did so with a particularly gruesome - yet utterly exhilarating - interpretation of the Strong Style Tanahashi, as a storytelling purist, despised. This intensified the acrimony.
The worked shoot is almost invariably a diminished return. Almost; Tanahashi and Shibata's adaptation was glorious. At Destruction in Kobe 2014, Tanahashi and Shibata, in a phenomenal war of style, philosophy and hatred, violently smeared their hearts all over the canvas.
Rarely had it evolved to warrant its artistic connotation so profoundly.