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Yuji Nagata (2018)

131 PTS.




Yuji Nagata has never meant less or more to NJPW. Okay, that’s weird phrasing but let me work you through it. For the first time since 1999, Yuji Nagata was absent from the annual G1 Climax tournament. That’s 19 straight years with Nagata as a fixture of the tournament. 11 of the last 13 New Japan Cups featured Yuji Nagata, with two being won by the leader of the Blue Justice Army (2007 & 2011). In 2018, he wasn’t apart of the tournament. His first absence since 2014. Nagata didn’t compete for or win a single championship in NJPW. Not a one. His lone championship accomplishment came during a five-month title reign in AJPW that saw Nagata team with Jun Akiyama to win the All-Asia Tag Team Titles. When Nagata dropped the titles to Nyoya Nomura & Yuma Aoyagi in July, he returned to NJPW and his mundane existence.

Nagata did participate in the World Tag League but only amassed six points total with partner and fellow NJPW dad Manabu Nakanishi.

Nagata has never meant less.

But he’s also never meant more. Nagata is one of the leaders of the NJPW dojo, arguably the best talent factory in pro wrestling today. Look at the Wrestle Kingdom 13 card and see the amount of home-grown or re-developed talent that has come through the dojo in the last handful of years. It’s startling. No other pro wrestling school in the world can boast anything remotely close. Nagata singles matches are few and far between these days but when he does wrestle one on one, it’s almost always against a young lion. Nagata’s only singles matches this year were against Katsuya Kitamura during Kitamura’s Seven Match Trial Series, Chase Owens and Jack Bonza during NJPW’s Australia tour, Shota Umino at Raod to Sakura Genesis and Road to Wrestling Dontaku, Ayato Yoshida at NJPW Lion’s Gate Project12 and Tomoyuki Oka at Lion’s Gate Project13. That’s it.

We don’t know the full extent of Nagata’s work in the dojo but he’s been arguably the public face of NJPW training in the last handful of years. As he becomes less and less involved with the day-to-day of main roster NJPW, you can only imagine his time and effort being put further into NJPW’s dojo.

Nagata is one of my favorite wrestlers ever so while it’s disheartening to see him mean so little right now, I take (as should you) solace knowing that he’s using his skills to get the next generation ready. And judging by the numerous success stories, the Jay Whites, the SHOs, the YOHs, the Hiromu Takahashis, the EVILs and many more — it’s working.