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The G.O.A.T. 100 #67 | Tetsuya Naito
Welcome to the G.O.A.T. 100 where we will count down with PWM wrestling historian Peter Edge the 100 greatest wrestlers of all time, based on many different stats and criteria. A new wrestler will be added on Mondays and Thursdays every week. Here is a link to an introduction essay with Peter explaining his GOAT100 concept. At the bottom of the article you can find the GOAT 100 Portal with links to all profiles so far published, as well as a visual key... Enjoy learning more about the history of our great hobby!
It's July 25th, 2025. I'm in a nightclub in Wolverhampton. A lot of people are with me in The Hangar. A lot of them have Mercedes Moné shirts. Quite a few have Los Inogernobles shirts on, but when it was time for Tetsuya Naito to come out, everyone went nuts for the multi time IWGP Champ. We all knew we were getting Naito T-shirts. Never has a wrestler been so unashamed in not getting out of second gear and never have wrestling fans – even in an era where work rate holds so much – been so ok with that.
The match on the middle of the card for Revolution Pro Wrestling’s Summer Sizzler show is less than 10 minutes, Naito only took two bumps – with his tag team partner BUSHI (also in a T-shirt) doing all the work – and even the tranquilo spot was just an encore in the litany of greatest hits that Naito was serving up… and it was just ok, because everyone who has seen Tetsuya Naito knows that he has earned the opportunity to be in this position in his life.
Initially trained by Animal Hamaguchi, Naito joined the New Japan dojo five years later, and would have his debut six months after that.
2007 saw Tetsuya in the field for the Best of the Super Juniors with a 2-4 record coming out of the block stage, but with wins over El Samurai and (more importantly) over Gedo – who had just started his time as the booker of NJPW. The following year, Naito was put into a tag team with Yujiro Takahashi called No Limit who would win the Junior Heavyweight Tag belts off The Motor City Machine Guns, before losing them back to them at Wrestle Kingdom III.
Earlier in 2008, both partners were put in the tournament to crown a new IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion after Watoru Inoue went up to the Heavyweight division (yet didn’t drop the belt? – was MVP advising him or something?) and the pair were put against each other in the first round, with Yujiro going over. While not official confirmation of any sort of power rankings, the fact that Yujiro was booked to win – and it wasn’t even foreshadowing any story between the two – in the short-term told you that Takahashi was seen as No.1 of No Limit.
The pair went to North America for a development tour or an “excursion” to use the puroreso term. In Mexico, they worked in CMLL as rudos doing the “anti-Mexican” schtick that is common in Lucha, mainly feuding with Black Warrior – which saw the rudos shave the hair of Warrior after a lucha apuesta match (in one of the minority of times when the bad guys have taken the prize in a lucha libre bet match.) No Limit would finally get their comeuppance at the end of their time in Mexico by losing their hair in a match against El Texano Jr. and El Terrible.
Naito enjoyed his time in CMLL so much that he would return regularly for stints there in between NJPW tours – including one memorable period that would lead to a total reinvention of Naito. But the other promotion that Naito and Takahashi would spend time in while on their travels didn't go on to hold such fond memories…
How did you think a stint from two Japanese wrestlers in a promotion booked by Vince Russo was going to go? The person who famously ranted in an interview with Ben Miller (not the Ben Miller who is best mate of the Pointless presenter, but the WON contributor who Dave Meltzer once called: “his friend – but a man who is always wrong”) in the final days of his time as WWF’s main head writer, that as an American he didn't want to watch “the Japanese or Mexican” wrestle… All of this an answer to a question from Ben about the difference in presentation between Giant Baba’s AJPW and the Attitude Era that was still ongoing.
What Naito learned about in the TNA leg of his excursion was what a chaotic wrestling promotion looked like, and how wrestlers can keep their spots despite their relevance waning – something Naito saw first hand when he and Yurijo lost to Kevin Nash in a handicap match in their final contest in the Impact Zone.
Back in Japan – in time for Wrestle Kingdom IV at the Dome, Naito and Takahashi won the IWGP Tag belts, beating champs Team 3D as well as Giant Bernand & Karl Anderson in a triple threat match. (Yes, TAFKA The Dudleyz didn’t take the pinfall in that one.) The four month reign led into a match where they dropped the belts to Yuji Nagata and Watoru Inoue in a three way that (again) included the Bad Intentions Bernand & Anderson team – a match that led to the pair joining the Chaos faction. Naito’s time in the Nakamura led-group lasted 13 months and ended before Kazuchika Okada could enter the fold, Yujiro Takahashi would turn on his No Limit partner and Chaos chose Yujiro over Tetsuya in one of the worst-ever sports personnel decisions – up there with Minnesota letting go Sam Darnold so they could make JJ McCarthy their QB starter.
Naito would be booked to go to the finals of the 2011 G1 but came up short against his former leader Shinsuke Nakamura. A win over IWGP Champ Hiroshi Tanahashi in the round-robin stage of the tournament got him a shot at the World title, but again Naito came up short.
In what was becoming a theme with Naito, he lost to Keiji Mutoh visiting from All Japan at Wrestle Kingdom V and then lost another title opportunity to the new champ Okada, who was the new apple in the eye of Gedo – in kayfabe, but probably also in real life. While Kazuchika got the push of pushes, Naito was behind him in the pecking order. He was still in top feuds like one with Tanahashi in the spring months of 2012 and in the G1 – he was in contention for a second consecutive block win, beating Okada during the group stage but being overtook by the Rainmaker to the final thanks to a Naito loss to Hirooki Goto in the final gameday of the block stage.
But as the G1 was developing, Naito suffered a legit knee injury and working on it just made it worse to the point that he had to take knee surgery – with former No Limit teammate Takahashi being the guy to “take out Naito” in storyline. Eight months later, Naito was back and got his revenge on Yujiro at Dominion. But then he promised to win the Openweight Title from Masato Tanaka. The next month, in that title contest – Naito didn’t keep that promise. Are you starting to see a theme here?
The 2013 G1 saw Naito on a 5-4 record win a 6-man tie at the top to win Block B with the worst winning percentage (of anyone in the 8-11 man Blocks) in G1 history. But as an underdog against Hiroshi Tanahashi, Naito finally won the big one and took home the G1 title. Naito then vanquished a past loss on his record by beating Masato for his Openweight belt. But then … something happened…
During the build to Okada vs Naito for the IWGP Heavyweight title – what was supposed to be the main event of Wrestle Kingdom VI – Naito would come out to confront Okada during Power Struggle in Osaka show and as a reaction would get silence… literal silence with only an occasional glaring boo to intermittently cut the quiet. The reaction is so glaring in its lack of volume that NJPW put out a poll for which title match – Naito/Okada for the World title or Tanahashi/Nakamura for the Intercontinental – should main event the Dome. The IC Title would win 66% to 33%.
Why did the rejection of Naito happen? Let’s start with the man who co-main evented WK VI. Naito was seen by those in creative circles as a future ace, someone in the mould of the current ace, Hiroshi Tanahashi. Naito’s Stardust Genius nickname was similar to Tana’s early career “One in a Century” and with moves also in common the comparisons between Naito and Tanahashi were easy to make, and yet… As Naito was ascending post-comeback, Tana vs Okada had already become the main story in wrestling. Naito is a second wheel now.
Naito would lose his championship match against Okada in the semi-main event – the last time a IWGP Heavyweight Title match didn’t main-event the 4.1 Dome show for over a decade – and in ring he looked lost (in the kayfabe sense) with a G1 defence in 2014 that saw him go under .500 and reactions from the crowd were now negative. The odd boos breaking the silence were now getting grander and Naito was reacting to them. Naito would then team with La Sombra, a CMLL roster member who was a heel in Mexico as a member of group called Los Ingobernables at World Tag League at the end of 2014, finishing on a 4-3 record tied with five other teams.
Apparently women really like taking selfies with this Sombra fella. (For anybody confused, Sombra is the original name of Andrade.)
A loss to AJ Styles at the next Wrestle Kingdom now made Naito 0-4 in singles matches on Jan 4th in the Dome. Naito meandered through the first half of 2015 until competing at the second Global Wars collab between NJPW and ROH, where he beat Jay Lethal … but as the rest of the New Japan roster went home, Naito didn’t get on the plane. Instead, he hopped on a flight straight to Mexico City.
Naito spent a month in CMLL teaming with his penpals from Ingobernables and upon his return to Japan, he pledged his continued allegiance to Ingobernables, displaying an attitude that he cared more about the Ingobernables cap than anything else going on in the world.
His carefree attitude carried on through to the 2015 G1 where he took his time walking down the aisle before every match. He would take his time getting his entrance gear off. He’s very tranquilo (the Ingobernables catchphrase meaning “chill”) … until he faces Hiroshi Tanahashi. Then he becomes a ball of fury in his offence and debuts the Destino finishing move in his definitive win over Tana. But despite Naito's desire to be booed by those who “turned their back against him”, pockets of fans started wearing Ingobernables merch.
Like many of the anti-establishment heels before him, Naito would get sympathy from those that were stepped on in life, who felt ignored by their superiors. Like how Steve Austin actually tapped into the American subconscious in 1996-1997, Tetsuya Naito was speaking for the silent percentage who felt unloved by society in Japan.
Beating Hirooki Goto in the final of the New Japan Cup, Naito would get a shot at Okada’s IWGP Title. Okada is now the leader of Chaos after Nakamura’s exit to WWE. Every betrayal of Naito is in that ring. The group he was kicked out of, the man who in storyline dared NJPW to put the Wrestle Kingdom 2014 main event to a vote. But this time, things are different. The fans are behind Naito and with the help of Sanada (the fourth man to join the Japanese branch of Ingobernables after EVIL and Bushi) Naito won the title off Okada.
That reign didn’t last long. A couple months later at Dominion, Okada won the title back to start his legendary reign with the IWGP belt. Naito would win the IC Title off Michael Elgin and would go on to treat the physical belt with contempt, throwing it in the air, kicking it down the aisle, drawing the anger of Tanahashi.
The match being set for Wrestle Kingdom 11, Tanahashi publicly talks about the possibility of another poll to decide the main event of that show – considering the uncertainty (at the time) of Kenny Omega as a draw even with his Bullet Club leadership. Despite the likelihood of Naito vs Tanahashi winning that vote, New Japan had trust in Omega as a viable challenger and rejected the chance of a vote. This meant that Tanahashi’s run of main events on 1.4 would stop at six years, making the IC Title match more personal.
The match itself is a classic (on a card that is seen as one of the greatest in wrestling history) and Naito wins, finally breaking his long streak of losses in singles matches at the Dome, going up to 1-5.
Naito’s big win was by design. The win on the fourth day of 2017 was the launchpad for what was to come in the month of August. Naito would drop the IC belt at Dominion at the hands of Tanahashi making their record 1-1 for 2017. A decider would be set for the final matchday of Block A of the G1 in August.
The tournament would kick off with Naito and Kota Ibushi main-eventing the first night and the pair would have a match that in many years would've been a cinch to be a Top Ten placing in a MOTY list – but 2017 was 2017.
Naito won that match and would go through the block, heading into the final match day on 6-2 with Tanahashi on the same record with the match between the pair as a de facto semi-final.
This match is in my Top 10 MOTY list for 2017, as is their Dominion contest before. In a year where New Japan had nine of the Top 10 in my list that year, Naito was a key part of the story of the company in that year but not in the same way that Okada, Omega and Tanahashi were.
Naito’s story was one of trying to overachieve compared to his peers in NJPW. The above weren’t rejected by the fans like Naito was, the above were not dealing with injuries like Naito did and while the above had the portfolio of great matches, Naito was lagging behind others in NJPW’s Five Star era. But Tetsuya had one thing, his new connection with the audience, gained in his time as a heel and an ungovernable.
Naito would beat Tanahashi to win Block A – winning the 2017 trilogy 2-1. Next up was Kenny Omega, the man that Naito lost to in the final match day of the block stage in the G1 Climax the year before. That match in 2016 is seen as one of the greatest matches ever with a 9.70 on Cagematch that puts it in the Top 10 on the site’s all-time list. But the sequel in 2017 is even better. Cagematch raters agree with me with the 2017 G1 final edging out their prior match-up with a 9.74. Dave Meltzer gave it *****¾. The only reason it didn’t win MOTY in all the noted year-end MOTY polls is because Omega vs Okada happened. Naito’s win over Omega would be the moment where Naito had finally fully conquered the G1 and was now on the march to climb his Everest by winning the IWGP at the Tokyo Dome.
Thousands of people in LIJ gear came to the 2018 Tokyo Dome show expecting to see Tetsuya Naito win the IWGP Heavyweight Title. But he didn’t. Okada left the Dome with the belt. Gedo’s plan was different from what many expected or wanted.
With everything that would happen in the next year, it made sense. Omega’s crowning moment at Dominion is one of the great moments in wrestling history – even if New Japan didn’t foresee All Elite Wrestling happening and Omega becoming a founding father of the company. And even after NJPW lost Omega, giving Naito an Everest still to climb would keep fans interested in the future.
While Tanahashi’s path to G1 glory and the dethroning of Omega for the title made up the main story of New Japan in 2018, Naito would be busy feuding with Chris Jericho after Jericho attacked Naito at New Year's Dash the night after he lost to Okada. Their match at Dominion in Osaka would see Naito being booed as now it was “tradition” for the crowd from Japan’s third biggest city to boo Naito – because banter.
Jericho would take the Intercontinental Title off Naito on this night after Naito had won it off Minoru Suzuki a few weeks before with the sights set on Naito getting his win and the belt back at Wrestle Kingdom 13.
Naito would move to feud with Kota Ibushi next and while that feud will be covered more in depth later in the GOAT 100 in the Kota Ibushi profile (give it a couple of weeks) the cliff notes of the trilogy of matches is the following:
People known for doing really stupid spots that land badly do what we expected them to do. In the 2019 trilogy of matches the pair had (New Japan Cup, G1 Supercard at MSG, Dominion) both landed enough times on their head that someone who cared for them really should've sat them down and go “stop it”.
With NJPW being the hottest it had been since the days of Hashimoto’s heyday, New Japan’s owners made the call to go for two nights on the weekend of Jan 4th for Wrestle Kingdom 14. The plot was simple from Gedo – crown a dual champion holding both the two main singles titles in the company. After Naito lost the IC Title to Jay White, who had also beaten him in the de facto semi-final at the end of the block stage to qualify for the G1 final in 2019, he expressed a wish to face White at WK 14 but also expressed a wish to be the first dual champ. Something that Kota Ibushi, who then joined the conversation, also wanted to happen.
A four-man tournament was set up with the aim to crown a dual champion. Naito vs White and Ibushi Vs IWGP Champion Kazuchika Okada. Naito and White won their matches and brought their title to the next night and a title vs. title match to main event Wrestle Kingdom 14 Night Two.
In a great match that ranked in many MOTY Top Tens for reasons that will become clearer in a few paragraphs, which saw the only great “got back into the ring before a count out” moment in wrestling history, Naito would take the victory to finally win the big one at the Dome.
Gedo being Gedo and his insisting on torturing Naito saw Naito then interrupted by KENTA before he could do the roll-call that he would use to sign off every speech after every main-event victory. Naito might have climbed his Everest, but he had yet to plant his flag at the summit.
The resulting Naito title defence against KENTA saw 11,411 attend Osaka-jo Hall for New Beginning in Osaka, more than double the previous year’s show that had Tanahashi defend his IWGP Title against Jay White (5,570). Naito as IWGP champion as a fully-fledged babyface would have done great business – but then COVID happened.
With the Pandemic Era seeing New Japan work shows firstly in empty buildings and then under restrictions not just in the numbers of fans in the building but also in the noise made – with fans only allowed to clap to express their emotions at the action going on. This was something that would continue until the end of 2022.
Naito would be the second-most impacted by the restrictions of the main guys in NJPW (in the ring at least) – at first. Yes, matches against Tanahashi and Zack Sabre Jr. were notebook as well as the matches against Ibushi for the IWGP Heavyweight Title that Naito defended at Wrestle Kingdom 15, (after exchanging title wins with EVIL – Gedo also made bad decisions in this time – which Naito lost in the Dome and then Ibushi retained the belt at New Beginning.) But those matches were disappointing in my opinion.
The Naito/SANADA vs Sabre Jr./Taichi matches over the IWGP Tag Titles in the summer of ‘21… well, I think might still be going. But singles matches with Zack saw a great chemistry, with the same being said for matches he had with Will Ospreay in 2022. A trilogy between Naito and Okada, the other guy who struggled to adapt to the Pandemic Era, would also be of a very high standard once Okada – albeit with a bad back – had figured out how to deal with the circumstances that COVID had brought.
In 2023, the fans were finally allowed to make noise again and entertainment buildings were allowed to attempt to sell out, and Naito was now in a position to be pushed as the most popular man in New Japan. He would be the opponent for Keiji Muto, in his final match which drew 30,000 at the Tokyo Dome. A run to the semi-finals in the New Japan Cup would end at the hands of Sanada (switching allegiances from LIJ to Just 5 Guys) who went on to win the NJ Cup and win the IWGP Title.
The scene was set for Naito to feature heavily at the G1 and in the 2023 edition with 4 groups of 8 and a knockout tournament afterwards – it saw Naito go 5-2 to finish top of Block D with losses to Jeff Cobb and Shane Haste, and after a victory over Hikuleo who qualified out of Block A ahead of the newly established Reiwa Musketeers (Gedo really made some bad decisions post-pandemic) in the Elite Eight, Naito would face Ospreay in the semis in a match that has a lot of love from fans. The problem is Naito probably doesn’t remember the final moments of this match. He would get a concussion and it really looked like he couldn’t remember where he was with Ospreay leading Naito by the hand in the final moments of that match.
Because New Japan’s attitude to clearing wrestlers with concussion is similar to the Miami Dolphin’s attitude to clearing Tua Tagovailoa before that TNF game against Buffalo, Naito wrestled the next night against Kazuchika Okada in the final in a match that he would win to claim G1 no.3.
That G1 would end up as the peak G1 in average attendance in the four summer tournaments post-2021.
This led to a Wrestle Kingdom match against Sanada, who was still IWGP champion. Unfortunately it was the worst WK main event in my opinion since WK IV in 2010. But Naito finally got to plant his LIJ flag at the summit of Everest when he did the roll-call despite the best efforts of House of Torture.
It’s hard to imagine that just 15 months later, Tetsuya would no longer be an NJPW wrestler.
After losing and winning the IWGP Title in a series of matches against Jon Moxley which saw Naito take the belt off Jon Moxley – which in AEW canon set Moxley off to start the Death Riders and become a romantic terrorist towards Darby Allin and Will Ospreay. So we can blame/thank Tetsuya for us seeing Mox’s pursuit to have intimate relations with Darby.
His fifth reign with the IWGP Heavyweight Title, making Naito tied for fourth-most reigns in the history of the belt, would end at the hands of Zack Sabre Jr. While Zack would main event WK 19 against Shota Umino in a match a lot of people thought was the worst Wrestle Kingdom main event since Naito and Sanada, (I actually don’t hate ZSJ/Umino personally) Naito would end up facing Hiromu Takahashi in the semi-main – a chance for the pair to finally wrestle after their scheduled match at the Anniversary show in 2020 was cancelled because of COVID – in what was the most anticipated match of the event.
Unfortunately the match just didn’t work. Things just didn’t click and the whole thing was a big disappointment. The pair would be tag champions after they beat The Young Bucks for the IWGP Titles. But it was a match that went way shorter than planned as Naito’s body was breaking down badly.
Maybe that played into the “mutual” decision to not renew. But Naito would be critical of New Japan on the road out, asking aloud why he was one of a mass exodus of stars from NJPW from the 5 Star Era in the last 5 years.
Naito’s departure was the strangest of those big names leaving, though. Not just because Naito was the most unique of the stars of the era he was in, but because he didn't leave for pastures grander nor away from Japan.
I'm now living in Coventry and the HMV Empire venue is the “Live in…” home for the West Midlands in Rev Pro’s North of Watford expansion. It's been two months since Summer Sizzler. Because it's Rev Pro the doors open 10 minutes before the scheduled ring time and because it's Rev Pro, the Stay Calm and Tranquilo T-shirt I ordered for a ridiculously cheap price hasn't arrived in time for me to wear it (it would arrive via the post a week after the show) so when I go to the merch table, I see Tetsuya and BUSHI behind a table and there's no queue – to the point that there should have been a Wrestling Superstar Naito banner behind him. He actually looks relieved that someone (me) bought a Tranquilo de Japon baseball cap. His and BUSHI’s match against the team of Connor Mills and Jay Joshua is… ok. Naito and BUSHI are playing heel against a duo that have been pushed as heels for the last few months. Probably this is because Naito and BUSHI got hardly any pop whatsoever. I'm not joking, 60% of the audience at the Empire don't know who Tetsuya Naito is. This isn't the way Hall of Famers should go out and maybe Naito realized that the Naito and BUSHI World Tour needed to end.
Not long after, Naito would join Pro Wrestling NOAH (to be fair, a friend of mine who is a Naito mega-fan predicted NOAH as his destination) and within a year of joining he wins both the tag belts (with BUSHI) and the GHC World Title, getting his win back against Shane Haste. Naito is now a regular in the company. He'll still go on the tours and Road To… shows, because… why not? The chances he comes back to New Japan is substantial. He did for Hiroshi Tanahashi's final night as a pro wrestler.
Of course, because Tetsuya Naito is Tetsuya Naito, his entrance to the ring to honour Tana almost took as long as the matches he and Sanada had with Zack Sabre Jr and Taichi in the summer of ‘21 … but the moment was what Naito deserved after a low-key departure from the company just eight months before.
Tetsuya Naito in my opinion is the most likely of the big name departees that made New Japan and its streaming service the hottest ticket in town to retire in an NJPW ring and his retirement (out of those names, certainly of the Japanese natives) will be the most emotional.
The story of Tetsuya Naito does have its similarities to The Rock and John Cena but no other wrestler in Japan was rejected by the fans like Naito was. But Naito figured it out and turned rejection into triumph like no other in his peer group.
No other wrestler ever had the ground-level support like Naito. Fans converged to arenas and domes to see him in the main event. Man, I’d love to see what NJPW would've looked like today had COVID not hit Japan like an avalanche while Naito was The Man. But we’ll never know. What we do know is that Naito made New Japan better just by being ungovernable.
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