10 Things You Didn’t Know About Jushin ‘Thunder’ Liger
8. Opened The Very First January Tokyo Dome Special
This month's Wrestle Kingdom 14 saw Jushin 'Thunder' Liger finally call time on his long and illustrious career. And a Wrestle Kingdom send-off was certainly fitting for the legendary performer, for he has major ties to New Japan Pro Wrestling's annual January extravaganza.
While January 4th is now synonymous with Wrestle Kingdom, NJPW has been delivering a January 4th Tokyo Dome special as far back as 1992. As it happens, Jushin Liger was involved in the first match of the very first January 4th special.
That 1992 event was a joint production of New Japan and WCW, and the PPV was opened by Liger, Masashi Aoyagi and Akira Nogami defeating Hiro Saito, Super Strong Machine and Norio Honaga.
Some at the time labelled the event as Starrcade, others labelled it as Super Warriors. Either way, the original January 4th Tokyo Dome show will forever be known in the history books as being opened in an explosive fashion by Jushin 'Thunder' Liger.
Liger would go on to appear at a further 25 times at the January show, including classics against the likes of Ultimo Dragon, Tiger Mask III, and Keiji Mutoh.