5 Surprising Facts About Wrestle Kingdom

#4 TNA vs NJPW

Angle wrestled a handful of matches for NJPW

New Japan has had working relationships with almost every wrestling company: WWE (in the '80s), WCW, and recently, Ring of Honor. What less people know about is NJPW’s ties with Total Nonstop Action (TNA).

From the 2008 Wrestle Kingdom up until the 2011 edition, TNA wrestlers competed against New Japan stars on four consecutive events

The first co-promoted show featured a dream match between Kurt Angle and Yuji Nagata. On the undercard, AJ Styles – representing TNA, was in a six-man match against an NJPW team that featured a young Prince Devitt (Finn Balor).

The relationship between the two companies stretched beyond Wrestle Kingdom; TNA & NJPW often traded talent.

While NJPW treated TNA talent well, putting the IWGP Heavyweight and Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships on Team 3D and The Motor City Machines Guns respectively, TNA wasn’t so reciprocal.

NJPW sent over their top star Hiroshi Tanahashi, who was put in their X-Division. After a handful of matches, NJPW recalled him.

TNA’s treatment of a young Kazuchika Okada is well known. Okada’s appearances were limited to TNA’s secondary show, Xplosion, before Okada was given a new gimmick and name based on The Green Hornet TV show – ‘Okato’.

Okada returned to NJPW – not as ‘Okato’ but as ‘The Rainmaker’. He won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship a month later and became one of the biggest stars in wrestling.

NJPW’s current announcer Don Callis is the vice-president of Impact Wrestling (the company once known as TNA). It’s likely that Impact may want to re-establish a relationship, but New Japan will rightfully be wary.