NWO Twenty Years Later: Where Are They Now?

A certifiable legend of the Japanese puroresu scene, Masahiro Chono emerged through the New Japan Pro Wrestling dojo alongside The Great Muta and Shinya Hashimoto, the promotion's fabled 'Three Musketeers'.

Chono played the hero for the Tokyo-based organisation for the early half of his career, but by the mid-'90s an attitude shift was taking place in the wrestling world, and the perennial babyface needed to follow suit to keep up.

Founding the nefarious Team Wolf group, NJPW had a basis with which to transplant WCW's hot nWo angle when the two companys began co-operating. To sell the angle, several of the sister-stable's Far East counterparts migrated to the American iteration; Chono was particularly notable for beating Chris Jericho at January 1997's Souled Out par-per-view.

Chono had another chance to make an impact on WCW - quite literally - when he went toe-to-toe with the promotion's hottest new star, Goldberg. Working the match legitimately to put one over rookie Goldberg, Chono dislocated his own shoulder thanks to his stiff ring work.

Whilst leading Japan's nWo, Chono and stablemate Muta enjoyed a profitable side-venture for NJPW, selling approximately 400,000 of the branded black and white t-shirts. In 2014, almost two decades since the group ceased to exist, Chono again began hawking the merch, feeling the optimum time had elapsed to tap in to the ever lucrative nostalgia market.

Chono debuted in 1984, but he is yet to hang up his wrestling boots for good. After taking a two year hiatus in 2014 (presumably to shift his excess stock of nWo gear), Chono announced in May of this year that he is set to return to the ring. He'll be 53 later this year.