Professional wrestling in Japan
[3] It has also created a mass of other cultural icons in Japan including: Antonio Inoki, Giant Baba, Jyushin "Thunder" Liger, Tiger Mask, Keiji Mutoh/The Great Muta, Mitsuharu Misawa, and Kenta Kobashi among others.
In 2009, due to the bearish global economy, NTV cancelled all wrestling programming, including NOAH's Power Hour (lesser affiliates still air large cards), marking the end of a tradition going back to Rikidōzan.
[7] Since its establishment, professional wrestling in Japan heavily incorporated foreigners (called gaijin) particularly North Americans to help popularise native talent.
[citation needed] In recent years, many of North America's most popular wrestlers, such as Sting, Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart, Dynamite Kid, Big Van Vader, Mick Foley, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle, Rob Van Dam, Sabu, Mil Máscaras, El Canek, Dos Caras, El Solitario, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Bryan Danielson, CM Punk, Travis Tomko, Giant Bernard, Bill Goldberg, Chris Sabin, Low Ki, Brock Lesnar, Davey Richards, Chris Hero, and others have wrestled in Japan, whereas others such as Stan Hansen, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams and Kenny Omega spent much of their careers in Japan and thus are (or have been) better known there than in their homeland.
The most popular Mexican wrestler to compete in Japan is Mil Máscaras, who is credited with introducing the high-flying moves of lucha libre to Japanese audiences,[8] which then led to the style called lucha-resu, later embodied by Tiger Mask.
American Stan Hansen, Indian Tiger Jeet Singh, Canadian Abdullah the Butcher, and British wrestler Dynamite Kid were among those cited as top foreign grapplers in a poll of Japanese fans: All Japan Pro Wrestling and New Japan Pro-Wrestling, as well as others, have also sent wrestlers to compete in the likes of the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Puerto Rico and so on.
Before the advent of cable television some Japanese wrestlers in the U.S. adopted names that often were inconsistent and often portrayed by more than one Japanese wrestler, such as "Tokyo Joe" (Katsuji Adachi, Koji "Thunder" Sugiyama and Tetsunosuke Daigo), "Mr. Sato" (Akio Sato and Akihisa Mera) and "Great Togo" (Kazuo Okamura and Haruka Eigen).
Japanese wrestlers sent to Mexico, where the wrestling mask was the rule, adopted mask-based personae; examples were Osamu Matsuda becoming El Samurai, Yoshihiro Asai becoming Último Dragón, and Masanori Murakawa becoming Great Sasuke.
Recent examples of Japanese wrestlers working in foreign promotions include Satoshi Kojima in Major League Wrestling, Kenta Kobashi, Go Shiozaki, Takeshi Morishima, and Kenta in Ring of Honor, Hirooki Goto, Masato Yoshino, Tiger Mask IV, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada, Seiya Sanada, and Ayako Hamada[10] in TNA/Impact, Aja Kong, Dick Togo, Great Sasuke, Jinsei Shinzaki, Kaori Yoneyama, Manami Toyota and Mayumi Ozaki in Chikara, Hideo Itami, Yoshi Tatsu, Kenzo Suzuki, Taka Michinoku, Asuka, Shinsuke Nakamura and Kairi Sane in WWE, and Ayumi Kurihara, Hiroyo Matsumoto and Tomoka Nakagawa in Shimmer Women Athletes.
