10 Times Wrestling Fans Booed The Good Guys
3. NJPW Fans Brush The Stardust Genius Under A Rug
When Tetsuya Naito blew the roof off the Tokyo Dome last year against Kazuchika Okada, it was the culmination of one of the greatest comeback stories in wrestling.
Back in August 2013, an ebullient Naito won NJPW's G1 Climax Tournament, granting him a shot at the biggest prize in the company at Wrestle Kingdom 8. Unfortunately, the four months between the G1 Climax tournament and Wrestle Kingdom saw Naito's stock fall considerably as the NJPW faithful turned their backs on the "Stardust Genius".
Naito's failure to connect with fans became painfully clear at the 2013 Power Struggle PPV. As outlined here, Naito's staredown with Okada was met with stony silence, with the crowd only coming alive to laugh at Tetsuya's suggestion that he was NJPW's shuyaku ('protagonist'). The audience clearly saw Naito in more of a supporting role, and cemented their viewpoint by ousting Naito and Okada from the main event in a hastily organized fan vote.
It would take Naito five more years to main event Wrestle Kingdom, and another two to actually win, but the electric crowd response when he finally beat Okada meant those seven years had not been wasted.