I want to get into NJPW what are some tips and explainations for beginners?

11 comments

1. Hi!! My english is very bad so I will not be able to explain it to you but njpw is not like wrestling in the usa. The shows are about 3 hours without any commercials break so Just 3 hours of pure wrestling. They have 2 categories : Juniors and heavyweight. They dont have regular weekly like dynamite or raw. Every wrestler is in a faction : Hontai,Chaos, Bullet Club, LIJ, United Empire, TMDK or Just 5 guys. You can subscribe to njpwworld, it’s not expensive. And they have english commentary

2. Don’t listen to anyone who tell you otherwise.

   >!Yano Toru is the true ace!<

3. NJPW functions a little differently than western wrestling promotions. Rather than an ongoing weekly show that runs throughout the year, the NJPW schedule is divided up into multiple different tours through the nation with more sporadic schedules for their shows.

   On top of that, there are two different types of tours. First, there tours that are building to a PPV level event much like the way wrestling works in the US. On those shows you’ll see tag matches and minor singles matches that are building feuds for the main show at the end of the tour. The second type is tours that are build around a tournament that has matches taking place on every show. The G1 Climax would be the most famous of these, as well as the currently ongoing Super Jr Tag League. These tours will end with a show being main evented by the finals of the tourney, sometimes with one or two other title matches thrown on for good measure.

   The other thing you should probably know is that you should make sure to watch the “backstage comments” after every show, which are uploaded as a separate video to NJPWWorld. They’re backstage promos that most every wrestler gives after their match on any given show, and they’re how NJPW do 90% of their promos given that they do much less in-ring than western promotions. If you skip those you’ll be skipping a good amount of the stories. They’re subtitled so you won’t need to worry about not understanding anyone.

   For the non-tournament tours, you’ll find that a lot of the match cards are pretty similar, so you don’t really have to watch all of them in full. I’d recommend just watching 2 or 3 of the Road To shows for each tour, as well as the backstage comments for them, and then you can just kinda follow what happens on the rest of them by skimming the shows or reading the results on the website until the PPV.

   If you’ve got any other questions, feel free to ask 🙂

4. Everyone is in a faction.

   – TMDK: punk rock band

   – War Dogs: violent bullies

   – LIJ: cool outcasts that stick together

   – United Empire: international family where a chad, 3 twinks and 3 manly men are homies

   – Strong Style: a dojo basically

   – House of Torture: goth assholes

   – GOD: Tongans and their goofy Canadian raver friend

   – CHAOS: where everyone who isn’t in any of the above groups ends up in

5. The factions and constant tag matches can be jarring at first. You’ll soon catch on to who the “pin-eaters” are for each faction. The main purpose is to keep everyone on the tour involved and lighten the workload until their match they are set up for.

   Young Lions are a fun aspect of NJPW that I enjoy talking about. New Japan has their own dojos in Japan, Australia, and Los Angeles. The students are trained and tightened up on the most basic and important aspects of wrestling. When they debut on TV, you’ll notice they come out with the bare minimum of gear and move-set: black trunks, black boots, no knee pads, and shaved head. They will spend a good chunk of time eating pins, wrestling each other to time limit draws, and putting people in boston crabs.

   Once the school thinks they are ready, they will get released into the wrestling wilderness to enhance their characters and craft. The excursion can take a couple years before returning to NJPW as a fleshed out wrestler complete with a unique persona, nickname(NJPW loves nicknames), move set, colorful hairstyle, flashy gear, and maybe even a cool coat. These debuts are exciting since NJPW is always investing into their future stars, and its fun to see the boys all grown up

6. You root for the guys in the image you posted and boo everybody else

7. Start with a subscription to NJPWworld.com.

8. Is this the same Sanata that was in TNA like a decade ago on excursion? They had a guy amend Seiya Sanada iirc and I thought he was pretty good in the limited work they let him do. But then I see this guy on forbidden door and he looks nothing like I remembered.

9. Those five guys in the picture? They’re called Just Five Guys. That’s all you need to get going.

10. don’t let smarks overwhelm you with japanese wrestling concepts too much. gradually raise your curiosity and do self-research

    a lot of non-japanese, japanese wrestling fans have this habit of using the culture as a weapon to overly flex their “knowledge” to signify superiority

11. Anything with Ospreay and Omega i know people say Okada but he is really overrated only the last 5 minutes of his matches are good.