New Japan Pro Wrestling Spotlight: Shinsuke Nakamura – The King of Strong Style

Eron Ramadanov is a huge fan of New Japan Pro Wrestling, which is why he’s showcasing the biggest and brightest stars of Japan’s gold standard of wrestling starting with the “King of Strong Style”, Shinsuke Nakamura.

Like most American wrestling fans, I had never heard of New Japan Pro Wrestling before Wrestle Kingdom 9. It’s not like I didn’t like it, but I had never been exposed to it. When I clicked on the “order” button for WK9, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I had heard things all week about how great this genre of wrestling is, so my expectations were high, but I was cautious about dedicating multiple hours to something that I wasn’t even sure I would like.

So, I sat and watch this event, and I was really enjoying it. The coolest thing about watching this show was that I didn’t really need to know the storylines behind each match, or where these wrestlers have been in the past because the wrestling spoke for itself and with Jim Ross and Matt Striker helping draw a better picture, I was hooked, almost instantly.

I was having so much fun watching this new type of wrestling, that I had never seen before. Leading into the final two matches, I thought I had seen a really really good match between two heavy hitters Tomohiro Ishii vs. Togi Makabe for the NEVER Openweight Championship. This match was absolute insanity. After this stiff match, I was perfectly content if the show had ended there. But I was sadly mistaken, as the semi-main event raised the bar to another level between Kota Ibushi challenging the IWGP Intercontinental Champion, Shinsuke Nakamura. This match to this day is one of my favorite matches of all time, and is definitely my pick for the 2015 Wrestling Match of the Year.

Everything about Nakamura screamed superstar, yet I had never seen this guy before. From his hypnotizing entrance, to his unorthodox mannerisms, I knew instantly that this man was what professional wrestling was all about. So, the idea behind this NJPW spotlight series is to familiarize you with some of the best talent in the world, and give you an alternative to WWE, Impact Wrestling, etc.

As you can see, Shinsuke Nakamura is going to be first up on my list for one simple reason: I believe he’s currently the best wrestler in the world… period. Obviously, the ones who are not familar with him will disagree, but the ones who are familiar with him like I’ve become, will at least agree with me on the fact that he’s one of the best in the world, no doubts about it. This isn’t going to be some long, drawn out article about his career, because reading about someone’s wrestling ability isn’t the way that information should be taken in; it should be watched. So, I’m going to provide you with must see matches of Nakamura that will surely hook you to his work and the work of New Japan Pro Wrestling.

Before I provide this list, here’s a quick list of accolades for the “King of Strong Style”:

• 3-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion
• 5-time (and current) IWGP Intercontinental Champion
• G1 Climax Tournament Winner (2011)
• New Japan Cup Winner (2014)
• Wrestling Observer’s “Wrestler of the Year” (2014)
• PWI ranked him #5 of the best 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2015

So, now that you know a little bit about Shinsuke Nakamura, here are some MUST-SEE matches of his: