It would seem that four of the biggest names in New Japan Pro Wrestling (well, three of the biggest names plus Doc Gallows) are on their way to World Wrestling Entertainment. The excited aroused by the rumoured signings is without parallel in recent professional history, and with good reason. Simply put, New Japan Pro Wrestling has been at the top of the professional wrestling tree for a few years now. If you can deal with house shows being an endless stream of meaningless tag matches, their big shows have consistently delivered in the grandest of ways. With a roster loaded from top to bottom, championships that have meaning and a hard-hitting in-ring style, NJPW deserves its spot at the apex of professional wrestling. Will the WWE raid end with messrs. Styles, Nakamura, Anderson and Gallows? Maybe it will, but regardless WWE fans should not miss up this opportunity to get to know the world of New Japan a little better. The best way to truly enjoy any form of art is to expand your horizons as much as possible after all. For the curious, here are 10 New Japan wrestlers that you need to know and quick. For the sake of argument, I will only be listing Japanese performers in this list. There are a number of fantastic foreigners in the company (Kenny Omega, Young Bucks, Tama Tonga), don't get me wrong, I'll just focus on the Japanese here. Enjoy.
Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.
