10 Things You Didn’t Know About Jushin ‘Thunder’ Liger

8. Opened The Very First January Tokyo Dome Special

Great Sasuke Jushin Liger Botch
NJPW

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.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.