In those early days, he served as opponent for debuting rookies, such as Mr. Pogo, Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Gran Hamada.

In the late 1970s, Fujinami was sent abroad, to Mexico's Universal Wrestling Association and to Jim Crockett Promotions in the U.S.

In April, he vacated the title to be determined in a tournament at New Japan's first Tokyo Dome show; he would lose to eventual winner Big Van Vader in the semi-finals.

He wouldn't wrestle at all until he returned in September 1990, changing his kanji from "辰巳" to "辰爾" (both are pronounced Tatsumi).

Flair retained his WCW Championship and regained Fujinami's NWA title by a school boy pin with a handful of tights.

In January 1997, he reunited with Kengo Kimura to win the IWGP Tag Team titles from Masahiro Chono and Hiroyoshi Tenzan.

His last title reign in NJPW was an IWGP Tag Team Championship with disciple Osamu Nishimura in October 2001, and his last title shot ever was a Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship bout against Keiji Mutoh in December of the same year (Mutoh had not affiliated himself exclusively with AJPW at the time).

In 2006, Fujinami and Nishimura began running their Muga promotion again, focusing on pure catch wrestling.

In a tag team dream match, Fujinami, along with his close friend Nishimura beat Mitsuharu Misawa and Go Shiozaki in the main event of the first "Muga World" show.

On August 18, 2012, Fujinami won his first title in eleven years, when he took part in Budokan Peter Pan, during which he and Mikami defeated Kudo and Makoto Oishi for the KO-D Tag Team Championship.

He teamed with Minoru Suzuki and Tiger Mask in a losing effort against Togi Makabe, Satoshi Kojima, and Yuji Nagata.

[11] Fujinami appears as a gang member in the 2017 video game Yakuza Kiwami 2, alongside Riki Choshu, Masahiro Chono, Keiji Mutoh, and Genichiro Tenryu.