Tetsuya Naito

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[GOTNW]

I loved NO LIMIT, and junior tag wrestling is hardly my favourite thing. I think he was really good as a heavyweight before the injury. It slowed him down and despite occasionally putting on really good stuff it took him a while to really find himself. His new character is amazing and probably salvaged his career. Not a contender for me this time around but a guy I quite like.

[InYourCase]

My thoughts echo GOTNW exactly.

[Microstatistics]

Naito is comfortably the best of the modern NJPW crew for me. Most relative number of great matches, super charismatic, can effortlessly play heel or face, great offense, good selling etc.

[Boss Rock]

2016-onwards Naito has consistently one of the best in the world. His 2018-2019 had a few rocky outings due to suffering from double-vision, but he would still pull out some pretty high-caliber matches when called upon it. His 2020 was mostly disappointing due to being stuck with EVIL for most of the year, but he had a largely great G1 to make up for it and of course the MOTYC with Okada. I've enjoyed a few of his Stardust Genius matches pre-2015 but need to do a deeper dive on that period. That will probably determine if he's a top 50 candidate or "just" a lock somewhere on the ballot.

[El-P]

16/17 Naito was some of the best pro-wrestling I've seen. I need to see what came before.

[strobogo]

I would compare the pre-post LIJ Naito to pre-post CMLL run for Nakamura, but not quite as extreme. Pre LIJ Naito probably had a better resume of more exciting matches than pre coke Nak, but he was a similar quite dry good wrestler guy but with more focus on speedy spots/flying stuff as opposed to old strong style stuff.

 

If you're really into 2015-2016 Naito, idk what to suggest for his prior stuff as that was the biggest year of change in his style and then he slowly blended his old style with the new style as he got more popular with audiences again.

[Boss Rock]

The 42nd Anniversary Show match against Okada is probably my pick for best pre-LIJ Naito, at least based on what I've seen. A really good babyface performance. 

[Makai Club #1]

13 minutes ago, Boss Rock said:

The 42nd Anniversary Show match against Okada is probably my pick for best pre-LIJ Naito, at least based on what I've seen. A really good babyface performance. 

He had an excellent match at i 2011 G1 Finals with Nakamura. I'd put it just below the Okada match for best pre-LIJ Naito match. 

[Quentin]

The AJ Styles match from G1 2014 is also a top 3 match from AJ’s New Japan run for me 

[NintendoLogic]

The Naito/Tanahashi vs. Okada/Nakamura tag right before WK8 is really good as well. Nailing Okada with a missile dropkick during the Rainmaker pose is probably the coolest thing Naito did pre-LIJ.

[Boss Rock]

I actually watched that one just a few weeks ago and yeah, that's a really good Naito performance.

[The Prophet]

He's pretty good to great for more than a handful of years, and for 2-3 years was easily one of the best in the world and arguably the most over wrestler in NJPW. Great IC champion. Had pretty strong feuds with some of the top guys of the last decade. Has shown a wide range of roles he can play well in the last few G1 Climax tournaments. The Double champion runs last year weren't good but I blame that on circumstances related to COVID than him failing as the top guy. I'll need to check out more of his tag work from NO LIMIT but what I have seen I've enjoyed a lot. 

[Tetsujin]

The following is what I wrote about Naito as a top 10/ contender on the GWE Project forum. He's one of my favourite wrestlers ever.

We all know his peak stuff (16-17) is absolutely incredible, as he was easily one of the best un the world and producing some of the best wrestling matches of the 10s, some of them arguably among the greatest ever (the Tanahashi 2017 trilogy, the first Omega match). In that period, and still today, he's one of the most consistent guys in current New Japan, having a lot of 'from very good to great' matches against very different opponents and kind of matches: vs Shingo, vs Taichi, vs Moxley, vs Ishii, vs White, vs Ibushi, more against Omega, vs Shibata, vs Styles, vs Jericho, the infamous WK 12 main event, vs Juice... As you can see, not all of those are top tier workers and, even though Naito always had his classic spots in mind everytime, he managed to insert them without feeling it unnatural despite how the match was going to be.

 

But I gotta say, a peak from 2016 to 2017 is a two-year peak only, and there are a lot of workers with a larger and more diverse peak. I'm not saying Naito is on their league, at least not from a "peak" perspective. Some other things I love about him is how he always projects his persona, in a way that everything he does, it feels like the correct thing El Ingobernable Tetsuya Naito would do. He might be in that "larger than life" character tier with guys like Hokuto, Funk or Hansen, because of his fantastic character work and amazing charisma.

 

And, I gotta, say, is pre-Ingobernable stuff is pretty great top, clearly underrated. In the first half of the 10s you have great and even amazing stuff with Ishii, Tanahashi, peak Okada, YUJIRO TAKAHASHI, the WK 9 Styles match... His character was kinda dull back then, but he was already at a high level of work, both on a regular basis and in top tier matches, but obviously he needed that Ingobernable transformation to became the best version of himself.

 

Throughout his whole career, Naito became also one of my favourite offensive wrestlers on the modern era, not because he's stiff (he's not), or because he's spotty (he is sometimes), but because he uses every part of his offensive game with a purpose. He doesn't spam things, he always do the right stuff when it has sense for him to do it. For example, his beautiful flying forearm smash or his spinebuster are great counters to his rival's momentum. He have great neck-based offense, setting up his bigger moves. The Destino literally was born as the perfect counter for the Rainmaker. I appreciate a lot stuff like that.

 

I think a case can be made about Naito being one of the best workers of the 10s, and to me it's early to consider him a top 100 ever contender, but his career looks great from today's perspective and I think he could be at the bottom of my GWE list in 2026 or 2036. We'll see. But I'm curious about what do you guys think.