Katsuhiko Nakajima

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[InYourCase]

Baby Nakajima was the best. Him battling with Kobashi, Sasaki, & co. in NOAH was a ton of fun. He then had that super fun run in All Japan. He had a ridiculously great match with Shuji Kondo in 2007, I believe. Sadly, he hasn't done much since that series with KENTA in 2009. He shows flashes of greatness once in a blue moon. He would probably have a case for being the best wrestler under 21 ever, but his case runs cold after 2009. As of now, I wouldn't put him on my list.

[GOTNW]

There's a lot of under the radar Nakajima goodness. His 2013 feud with Yone was amazing but nobody other than me and five other people probably saw it. Lots of fun tags with Kensuke and he was putting on good showings as late as last year's Global League. I mean I understand why someone wouldn't like Nakajima but if you do the idea "his case runs cold" after 2009 is ridiculous, especially since some of his best stuff like the Kotaro Suzuki matches and the KENTA GHC Heavyweight match took place then.

[InYourCase]

There's a lot of under the radar Nakajima goodness. His 2013 feud with Yone was amazing but nobody other than me and five other people probably saw it. Lots of fun tags with Kensuke and he was putting on good showings as late as last year's Global League. I mean I understand why someone wouldn't like Nakajima but if you do the idea "his case runs cold" after 2009 is ridiculous, especially since some of his best stuff like the Kotaro Suzuki matches and the KENTA GHC Heavyweight match took place then.

I haven't seen the Yone stuff, I'll be sure to watch that. He was fine in Global League last year, but certainly not one of the best performers. Hero, Tanaka, Sugiura, Kojima, and Nagata were much better than him. Also wasn't a fan of his GHC match wtih KENTA. I was actually incredibly underwhelmed by it.

[dawho5]

Nakajima seemed like he was a fish out of water. He had a sense of how to build up to things and not just throw out a bunch of head drops to get big pops, but he wrestled in the wrong era to work like that. I think that if he had debuted 10 years earlier he would be in a top 100 conversation.

[Jetlag]

This dude is a dumb as fuck worker. I recall a long singles match against KENTA being a total abomination. Don't let the fancy kicks fool you.

[MJH]

See I actually liked one of the KENTA matches for the first 2/3rds. Full of mirroring spots, great crisp-as-anything action, etc... and then there was an apron bump. First thoughts: he's watched his Kobashi, the recipient is essentially done for from here-on-in but fights on valiantly making (at most) the odd hint of a comeback but the big bump was the deciding factor in the end. A simple structure for evenly matches guys + great action hit fantastically = a very strong match. Except... it's brushed off fairly quickly and they do a typical back-and-forth finish. Davey/KENTA did the same thing in ROH so maybe that was KENTA's idea but... no. He's a lesser (i.e. less notable output) KENTA: he has many very obvious strengths but in terms of putting them together whole and delivering the match there's no reason he couldn't? I haven't seen it.

[W2BTD]

The Nakajima/KENTA series circa 2009 (including the tags and the awesome one hour plus Burning vs Kensuke Office elimination match) is one of the best in ring feuds I've ever seen with some of the best match to match psychology you'll ever see.

 

I agree with InYourCase that Nakajima's high level output drops off the map in recent years. He went from "this guy has the potential to be a legitimate all time great" to being completely lost in the abyss of NOAH. I like almost every single Nakajima match I ever watch, but his upward trajectory just stops dead around 2010 or so.

[Parties]

There are about four hundred guys from the 2000s alone who I vote for before Nakajima. A complete snooze in NOAH. It's not worth going match-for-match to break down why he sucked (though I sure did so over the years on DVDVR's Purotopia circa 2006-2011), but he feels like a fabrication that people bought into due to his age making him seem a prodigy, and the Sasaki-Hokuto adoption protege story getting play. In comparison to his peers: roughly as good as Go Shiozaki, another guy who has no business in a top 100. Worse than KENTA. About the same as Ippei Ota. Taiji Ishimori became a much better worker than him once he went roided heel. Worse than rookie year Atsushi Aoki. A lot worse than Makoto Hashi and SUWA. Not as entertaining as Milano Collection AT or rookie year Genba Hirayanagi. Better than Marufuji, but so's everyone.

[kas]

Where do people stand on Nakajima nowadays? His heel turn in 2018 has done wonders for him.

[Mentcvlvs]

I'm going to be taking a real strong look at Nakajima for 2026. 

Not only do I think that his late 2020-2021 run greatly increased his standing, but this Miyahara feud and the AJPW run that he's in the middle of right now seems destined to the be the best run of his career. I think the match against Miyahara in July is the best match of both men's career. 

The recklessness of his in-ring style and his reported surliness behind the scenes have combined to give him the identity he's always lacked. He actually has an aura now, you could really feel it in the press conferences leading into the July match and his debut AJPW angle. 

Over the years I've always had to check my criticisms of him against his youth (he feels like he should be well into his 40s by now), but I think he's come a long way. Definite contender for my list in the future and he has an outside shot at being in the top half depending on how the next couple of years shake out. 

[Ma Stump Puller]

Idk, I do like his better (read: shorter) material but top 100? I don't even think he's ever been the best wrestler in any one company. A lot of his matches blend together because he's just not that varied of a performer to be going 30/40+ minutes with "big epic" timewasting pacing and typically turns to him repeating himself way too often in order to justify the at times ridiculous length. He just does not have the goods at present to be touching anything close to that list and "accidently KO'ing people occasionally" probably won't fix that all things considered unless his AJPW stint changes things up.

 

 

[Mentcvlvs]

Yeah, we're obviously very far apart in our appraisals of his work. I don't think he's nearly as one-dimensional as you do and I actually think he has a decent list of shorter sprints mixed in among his roster of Capital-E Epic main events (and I'm not as frustrated with the Japanese-style epic main event as I imagine a fair amount of the participants in this poll are or will be, North American epic main events are another story). His match with Yuma Aoyagi today, for just one example, was just over 20 minutes and I thought it moved really well from the start. 

I think he has a very solid portfolio of tag matches spread throughout his career. 

I think he's been the best worker in NOAH for two distinct stretches (2nd half 2016 and from August 2020 to Match 2022). If you want to count Kensuke Office/Diamond Ring as an actual promotion (I wouldn't blame you if you didn't), he was the best wrestler there for basically the whole time it existed. He had what I thought was the best G1 run from an outsider during the golden era of that tournament in 2016. 

He's 35 and I think he has a chance over the next two years to have a career-defining run. Whether he does or not will probably determine whether or not I have him placed highly, but I think he has a marginal case already.  
 

[Reel]

I'd say he has been easily the best guy in NOAH since the pandemic based on my watching and can't really think of anyone particularly close, although I've been watching less and less NOAH since 2019. 

He's one of the few guys around anymore that has any sense of hierarchy in his matches and that goes a long way for me. If he's wrestling Quiet Storm or whoever, he's just gonna beat the shit out of him or knock him out, he's not going to set out to have a good match, and that goes a very long way for me.