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THIS THE FINAL INSTALLMENT (FOR NOW) OF THIS FOUR PART SERIES
Catch up the previous parts here…
Throughout this primer series, I have repeatedly made reference to a “new generation” of New Japan stars. I’ve listed them and tried to explain where they came from and why they are both a rarity and crucial to the promotion, but it really goes much deeper than that.
Any wrestling fan can understand that young talent is important. It’s also easy to fathom how growing your own stars is the superior way to build a brand; you get better talent loyalty, a journey that you own from beginning to end, an organic fan connection, and a deep history on which you can draw for feuds and engagement.
When it comes to Japanese wrestling, and specifically NJPW’s system, there are even more layers to consider. These aren’t just young wrestlers who showed up one day and worked their way up the card. For the NJPW neophyte, the journey from Young Lion to world champion is not one that is intuitively understood.
My goal in this instalment is to explain a bit more about the NJPW Dojo and its impact on wrestlers after they “graduate” that system, identify all the wrestlers that are part of this new generation, and tell you where I see each of them in the virtual pecking order.
What’s a Young Lion?
WWE has NXT and Evolve. AEW has Ring of Honor, at least unofficially. New Japan has a completely different system. Prospects enter one of the New Japan Dojos (Los Angeles, Tokyo, or New Zealand) to train under well-respected names.
Specifically in the Noge Dojo in Tokyo, this training is incredibly regimented and operates on a system of seniority. Students not only learn the basics of wrestling the NJPW style, but they also act as ring attendants, do the laundry, put up and take down the ring, cook meals for talent, carry bags for more established wrestlers, and sleep on mats in the dojo. It’s the sort of treatment that would never fly in the western world, but is considered part of Japanese culture. If you’ve ever watched a New Japan show and seen men in dark t-shirts ushering the wrestlers around ringside, or offering ice packs after a match, or getting randomly smacked about by heels… those are students from the dojo.
The in-ring training follows a very strict progression. Before a student gets anywhere near a ring, they need to learn some basic moves to the point they can perform them regularly without an issue. The current trainers are Yuji Nagata (a former world champion), Satoshi Kojima (also a former world champion), Hiro Saito, Tiger Mask, and Super Strong Machine (yes, that is a real wrestler’s name).
Hiroshi Tanahashi helps out when he can, but as the legitimate company president he is not involved as often as he used to be. Former MMA star Josh Barnett is a frequent guest trainer. Most of the company veterans, such as Ryusuke Taguchi and Hiroyoshi Tenzan, help out from time to time. It should be noted that we don’t actually know the full list of trainers or the regimen they follow, as New Japan holds those cards very close to their chest.
Trainees shave their heads upon acceptance into the dojo. Once the trainers are content that they can take bumps, perform a bodyslam, and run the ropes competently, they are allowed to have opening matches on NJPW shows. As with virtually everything else in this system though, there is more to it than just going out there and showing off.
First, the trainees (who are referred to as Young Lions once they are shown on air, a reference to the NJPW logo) are only allowed to wear plain black trunks. No color, no flourish, nothing. They all come to the ring to the NJPW “theme” and are expected to sprint down the entrance way, slide into the ring, and scream. This shows their energy, passion, and fitness.
Young Lions are only allowed to use moves that, in the sole opinion of their trainer, they have mastered. They will never beat an established wrestler, and only rarely does one Young Lion beat another one. Generally matches between Young Lions end in a ten-minute time-limit draw. They all use the Boston crab as a “finisher,” though it rarely will win a match. When they aren’t facing each other, they are most often used in multi-man tag matches as the person who will inevitably eat the pin.
These matches serve several purposes, some of which are less obvious than others. Aside from the clear benefit of introducing new faces to the fans and getting those new faces used to performing in front of a crowd, the matches are almost like progress tests. The Young Lions are expected to show resilience, “fighting spirit,” and courage. They don’t shy away from the experienced wrestlers, they will keep coming back for more in the same way a Sami Zayn or Darby Allin does. Their offense is often treated with disdain, but they are expected to keep trying until the match is over.
Wrestling against fellow students, be it their contemporaries or those ahead of them in their training, builds a history of rivalries that often comes into play later on. And once their match is done, the Young Lions go backstage to shower and change before coming out again to work as ring attendants.
The other dojos are nowhere near as rigorous or regimented in their training. Members of the L.A. Dojo, for example, often wrestle in more colorful outfits and develop characters. They don’t tend to go on excursion, either. On occasion there have been “student exchanges” between the dojos, which is how we got Clark Connors in Japan (as an example). The L.A. Dojo is led by Fred Rosser (known as Darren Young in WWE), Tom Lawlor (the former MMA star), Kushida, Shane Haste (of TMDK), and The DKC. Rocky Romero is also involved as an executive of NJPW America and the liaison with NJPW proper (and AEW, for that matter). The New Zealand Dojo is operated by Bad Luck Fale and, while it has produced two notable Young Lions (Oskar Leube and Yuto Nakashima, who should be back from excursion very soon), there has been some controversy around their trainers and methods.
Wrestlers who come to NJPW following established careers elsewhere are not usually required to go through the dojo system. Some, such as Juice Robinson (who wrestled in WWE as C.J. Parker and is now in AEW) and Gabe Kidd, choose to do so anyway.
What happens after the training is complete?
There is no set duration for a Young Lion to train. As they progress and master more basic moves, they are allowed to perform them in their matches. They may start getting near falls against established talent. They start to develop a following. It’s at this point that the Young Lion traditionally goes to another promotion, and usually another country, to continue their learning from a different perspective. This is known as going “on excursion” and serves as their de facto final exam, like a field placement of sorts.
Promotions in Europe and Mexico have been the most common destinations, although recently a few Young Lions have spent their excursion in the U.S. One went to Pro Wrestling Noah, and a couple just stayed in New Japan and suddenly started wearing colored outfits. It should be noted that those last two options are still very much an exception. When the wrestler returns from excursion, they will come back complete with a full character and presentation. They do retain their “match history,” but may well change their name or adopt a stylized version of it.
There have been some notable excursions that you might not even know that you knew about. Kazuchika Okada infamously spent time in TNA on excursion where he was Samoa Joe’s sidekick for two months. For reference, less than six weeks later he was back in New Japan and beating Hiroshi Tanahashi for the IWGP Championship. Jushin Thunder Liger and Yuji Nagata were part of WCW in the ’90s, though Liger was a little further ahead of the curve than most who go on excursion.
What these learning trips have in common is the stark realization that the Young Lions have thrust upon them: It’s not enough to just do moves; you need character, presence, mic skills (though to a lesser degree in New Japan), a story, and a motivation to succeed. The Young Lion system builds a solid and versatile foundation, and it is down to the wrestlers to develop on top of that.
On their return, these no-longer-Young Lions will usually show the influence of their foreign “finishing school” in their ring style. Okada has the flamboyance and camera awareness that you learn from a North American TV product. Tetsuya Naito has long shown a strong Lucha Libre influence.
Their characters tend to start out fairly generic, refining themselves organically over time and based on crowd reactions. However it plays out, returns are treated as a fairly big deal and are met with big reactions from live crowds.
Usually there will be two or three people ready to come back from excursion in any given year, and they are spread out somewhat to add more impact to each one. Sometimes a few people from one group will stand out, and they tend to remain tied together throughout their runs in the company: Hirooki Goto and Hiroshi Tanahashi, Masahiro Chono and Keiji Mutoh, and Shinsuke Nakamura and Katsuyori Shibata, to name a few.
The recent crop, who coincidentally all came back or “graduated” around the time of the ascension of a new emperor (and therefore the start of a new era in the country), comprises arguably seven people with extremely bright futures.
ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW…
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Who makes up this vaunted class?
The question is open to debate, but most will agree that initially the hype was centered around “The Reiwa Three Musketeers” of Shota Umino, Yota Tsuji, and Ren Narita.
“Reiwa” is the name of the new era in Japan, and the “Three Musketeers” sobriquet has been used a few times in New Japan history to talk about groups of stars with something of a common history.
The first such trio was Keiji Mutoh (also known as The Great Muta), Shinya Hashimoto, and Masahiro Chono. All three of these bona fide legends were part of the 1984 intake class for New Japan. In the early-2000s, the term would be revived to refer to a new generation of stars: Hiroshi Tanahashi, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Katsuyori Shibata. Although all three are now in different places (with Nakamura in WWE and Tanahashi about to retire), their histories are intertwined in Japan.
Tanahashi and Nakamura both had multiple championship runs, and Shibata almost certainly would have followed suit had he not suffered a serious injury.
Over 20 years later, it was New Japan as a company who announced that Narita, Umino and Tsuji would be referred to as the Reiwa Three Musketeers. The proclamation was met with some skepticism online, with some considering it a heavy-handed way to create a new set of stars. All three debuted in 2017, and all three returned to NJPW within a year of each other. However, once we get beyond that, the debates begin.
The first to return from excursion was Umino in April 2022. He had been tied to Jon Moxley even before he went to the UK’s RevPro on excursion, and on return he continued to play up his role as Moxley’s pupil.
Narita followed later in the year, surprisingly making the finals of the tournament that crowned the first NJPW World TV Champion. He lost that final to Zack Sabre Jr, but impressed a lot of people on the way and soon found himself in a stable with Minoru Suzuki and El Desperado.
With those two, Narita was the first of the three to win gold when they won the Never Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Championship. It was Tsuji’s return in early 2023 that really turned heads though, as he was given multiple vignettes hyping him as a mystery wrestler. When he finally returned at Wrestling Dontaku 2023 he immediately attacked then-world champion Sanada.
Clearly this was someone that the NJPW brass was high on, and though he was not successful in challenging Sanada, he had established his high water mark. He joined Los Ingobernables de Japón and looked like he might challenge Naito for leadership of the stable. He settled for just challenging him for the world title, which again was unsuccessful.
It quickly became clear that Umino and Tsuji were the chosen ones. Narita turned on Umino, his tag team partner in World Tag League at the time, and joined the heel faction House of Torture.
In that faction, he has been largely downplayed, first as second fiddle to Evil and now possibly even third in the pecking order following Sanada’s defection to the group. Umino remained something of a lone wolf, somewhat affiliated with Hontai but mostly sticking to singles matches. He called himself “The New Ace” as a way to promote himself as a replacement for Hiroshi Tanahashi, and this turned portions of the fanbase against him.
Meanwhile, Tsuji was chugging along as part of LIJ, managing to avoid Narita’s fate of being lost in the shuffle of a faction but also not making himself undeniable as a major star. The choice to keep Umino out of a stable almost seemed deliberate, an attempt to de-emphasize the other two while letting him shine.
The fans were having none of it. Umino’s in-ring style was an amalgamation of Tanahashi, Moxley, and Kazuchika Okada. He had extremely long entrances that saw him come through the crowd, kissing babies, and handing out wristbands. It all felt very reminiscent of WWE’s attempts to push Roman Reigns on the fans as a clean-cut face.
Aside from Tsuji’s growing popularity, other members of the 2017 Young Lion class had returned and were now making their own cases to be given a ball to run with. Yuya Uemura, who debuted on the same day as Tsuji as a Young Lion, was amassing his own following as a white-meat babyface with a look and style that evoked Ricky Steamboat.
Gabe Kidd, who had been around since 2020 but had yet to find a home, joined David Finlay’s Bullet Club War Dogs and started turning some heads. He quickly gained a cult following due to his extremely physical style, expletive-laden matches, and constant reminders that he was a madman.
Kosei Fujita, a mere 21 years old at the time, declared himself to no longer be a Young Lion after joining TMDK. He had built a following almost as soon as he showed up, and as a rare junior heavyweight Young Lion he was able to show off and show out more often.
The final member of the group is Ryohei Oiwa, who many exclude as he didn’t come back to New Japan officially until 2024. However, he was in the dojo with Fujita and Kidd, and was part of the 2023 World Tag League as the partner of Pro Wrestling Noah’s Kaito Kiyomiya.
Some people consider some combination of Clark Connors, Boltin Oleg, Francisco Akira, and Master Wato as part of this new generation. Connors and Oleg are in their early 30s, and Master Wato returned from excursion in 2020 (having started as a Young Lion in 2016), making him the senior of everyone else. Akira is a more reasonable inclusion, but as he was trained in Italy, wrestled in All Japan Pro Wrestling, and never actually went through a dojo system I would tend to exclude him.
What makes the current generation so special?
It’s a confluence of factors, really. The most obvious one is that all of these talents “graduated” from the Young Lion system in a 12-month span. To have that many new wrestlers in a year would be noteworthy even if they weren’t all potential stars. Even with Narita’s disappearing act and Oiwa being almost a full year behind, it’s hard to say that any of the seven has proven to be below par.
Then there’s the fact that the top shelves of NJPW’s figurative cupboard are scarily bare. Jay White, Kazuchika Okada, and Will Ospreay all jumped ship to AEW. All three are former world champions. Tetsuya Naito declined a new contract (and was slowing down significantly due to multiple physical issues), and Hiroshi Tanahashi is about to retire. That sort of mass exodus would be hard for any promotion to overcome, but the issue was compounded by the fact that none of those names was used to elevate younger talent on their way out of the company.
This young group, without exaggeration, has to succeed. There seems to be a set plan for how they will progress. Each will challenge for major titles unsuccessfully so many times that people are about to write them off, and then they will win one. Tsuji, Kidd, Narita, Uemura, and Fujita have all held titles now. Oiwa is yet to do so, but has had fewer opportunities.
The surprise is Umino, who has found himself falling at the final or penultimate hurdle time after time. The booking around all of them has been characterized by a fast initial rise and then extremely slow progress from there. Not rushing a push is usually a wise decision, but the luxury of time is no longer something New Japan possesses.
Then there’s the shared history. We have mentioned before that Tsuji and Uemura have wrestled each other 50 times. Umino and Narita started as partners, then had a bitter rivalry, and then drifted apart. That rivalry could be picked up again at any time. Kidd and Tsuji have faced off more than 25 times, though only twice in singles action. Umino and Uemura have almost 30 matches between them. This can and will be mentioned multiple times as they progress through the ranks in New Japan. It lends a gravity to their feuds that doesn’t need to be manufactured; a natural rivalry amongst classmates.
For me, the most encouraging thing is the lack of duplication in the group. Umino started as the flamboyant and energetic perpetual face, but is now trying to convince us that he’s a cold-blooded ass-kicking machine. Tsuji has a billion-yen smile, is tall and rangy, and moves like a cruiserweight. Narita is a technical wizard.
Kidd is just a straight-ahead, punch-you-in-the-mouth violence machine. Uemura continues to be a modern-era Ricky Steamboat. Fujita remains the only junior heavyweight and has managed to meld some high-flying with the submission mastery of his mentor ZSJ. Oiwa is being portrayed as a powerhouse.
While they do all dip into each other’s strengths, they all present as very different aspects of the industry. This will help keep things fresh as they inevitably start to compete with each other for major titles, making sure we don’t end up with the John Cena-Edge or Kazuchika Okada-Tetsuya Naito repetitiveness that can wear on some people.
Where do they go from here?
Logically, the next step has to be to start pairing off these guys and giving them something meaningful to fight about. It’s already started, with Tsuji having beaten Uemura at Wrestling Dontaku to retain the Global Championship. His next challenger? Gabe Kidd. Umino has just lost to Shingo Takagi, which would seem to slide him down the card a little.
A feud with Uemura, which has not happened as a singles match since 2019, could be billed as a contest between young stars looking to get back on track as contenders. Fujita is about to take part in Best of the Super Juniors, and is considered one of the favorites. Francesco Akira is also on the list of favorites, by the way. Oiwa and Narita are left without an obvious path, but could easily end up in each other’s way.
It might feel excessively delayed to a lot of people, but the future of New Japan is undoubtedly bright. And as I said at the start of this series, it really is a great time to get in.
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