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Thunder Liger (2018)

119 PTS.



For the first time in 17 years, NJPW’s annual Best of the Super Juniors tournament was without its pillar, its founder and its stabilizing force: Jushin Thunder Liger. The prior year, Liger had declared 2017’s Super Junior to be his final leaving a tremendous void in this year’s edition. While Liger may not have been missed in-ring with new talents from across the world filling the gap, it was a humbling changing of the guard for the seemingly ageless junior. 2018 was the first year that Liger truly seemed… old. The singles matches were few and far between, the title chances were minimal and for the first time in nearly two decades, Liger felt unimportant to NJPW. I want to add a caveat to that last point though as Liger has become one of NJPW’s premiere liaisons between Europe and North America. Liger finds himself on numerous North American Ring of Honor tours as well as tours of Europe with Revolution Pro Wrestling. While the 54-year-old feels unimportant in NJPW proper right now, he’s one of the most important international representatives for the company. No matter how old he gets, the second those first few bars of his famous “Ikari no Jyushin” theme song hit the crowd loses their mind. Seeing Liger live is an event, a hallmark moment, something you will always remember even if the in-ring is nowhere near what it was 20 years old.

Liger is still capable of busting out a great performance from time-to-time and his lone important run in 2018 came later in the year as he and longtime partner Tiger Mask worked towards an IWGP Junior Tag Team Championship match against the Suzuki-gun team of Yoshinobu Kanemaru and El Desperado. The old man duo was clearly inspired by their mini-run with a handful of great performances during NJPW’s Destruction tour as they built towards their title match at King of Pro-Wrestling. The match itself didn’t deliver on the hype of the build but, hey, what can you do. We got to see Liger sink his teeth into SOMETHING this year and that’s cause for celebration. Liger will continue to work overseas tours for the company but is becoming increasingly irrelevant in NJPW’s domestic big picture. He’ll be a staple with the company until he hangs up the boots but 2018 was the most unimportant year for Liger since he debuted in 1984.