Tetsuya Naito is ready-made to take on the IWGP Intercontinental Championship. He had a disappointing (understatement) run in the main event a couple of years back, but his career was saved in 2015 by a heel turn that nobody saw coming. Naito went to Mexico and came back with the most lethargic of attitudes. I've never seen a man care so little about the world he is wrestling in, but with Naito it makes so much sense. He was a fiery babyface who was as good as anyone in the ring, yet the crowd turned on him. He gave everything to a world that rejected him, so why would he care? Along with his Los Ingobernables de Japon stablemates BUSHI and EVIL, Naito now brings an element of chaos (no pun) to the New Japan World. It might be an old booking staple, but putting a major title on a dastardly heel surrounded by goons works more often than not. Regardless of where New Japan decides to go, these are interesting times ahead for the company and the Intercontinental Championship.
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.
