Without further ado, we’d like to introduce our newest member of the プ#1 Team, Valentin Humez himself! Here with a relatively fresh appreciation for all things current Japanese Wrestling, Valentin looks give you a peak of what you can expect with his contributions moving forward!
Well, well, well. Hello, ladies and gentlemen! As you can see by the title of this article, my name is Valentin and I am new to the Japanese Puroresu Ichiban team! I am a 22 years old Frenchman who has been following wrestling (mainly THAT ONE promotion in Stamford) for pretty much slightly more than a decade. I started my Puroresu experience slightly more than two years ago, making me a fairly new fan. Before telling you everything about my short, but intense, journey as a Puro enthusiast, let me tell you what you may expect coming from me as a writer.
The main promotion I follow is NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING, so expect a majority of my articles to talk about this promotion. I also follow PRO WRESTLING NOAH, so expect some articles covering them as well. I also watch ALL JAPAN PRO WRESTLING, but writing about that promotion may come with time. Any writer would rather start writing on a promotion they know quite well, which isn’t my case with AJPW yet!
With that short introduction being done, let’s get into my own journey as a fan of Japanese Wrestling!
The first thing you need to know, and I kind of teased it in the first lines of this article, but I am a fan who was solely watching what Vince McMahon calls Sports Entertainment before. I was apart of the “WWE Universe”. The last few years of me watching this type of product were really hard, since it wasn’t something I really enjoyed. However, at the time you could also see me getting into, sometimes heated, debates about WWE on social media, as my global understanding of what I watched was growing. Fast-forward to August of 2016, and big news dropped at the time : Kenny Omega was the first non-Japanese wrestler to win the G1 Climax, NJPW’s biggest tournament. I hadn’t heard once of New Japan before, but this announcement got me interested in that man and what he would be doing.
Therefore, I started keeping my eye on this New Wrestling from Japan, as I started gathering a bit of information here and there as the months went on. A few months indeed passed and here we are, the first NJPW event I ever watched, Wrestle Kingdom 11. My real introduction to Puroresu, to NJPW, and its wonders I had yet to discover. Now, while I know MANY fans have been attracted to NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING and most importantly, kept watching because of Kenny and his match with Okada on that night, it wasn’t my case. It was another NJPW wrestler who captured my attention.
I had no knowledge of the rivalry between Tetsuya Naito and Hiroshi Tanahashi before watching the VTR shown right before the match took place. This was my first of a few virtual slaps in the face coming from this match, as this video package alone sold me on the importance of the match… And I knew like five words of Japanese thanks to previous years of watching Anime, so ultimately, the VTR did its job pretty well!
The second thing, and this goes to me just coming off years of watching Sports Entertainment, watching Naito coming down the Tokyo Dome in his suit, wearing his mask… It really was a unique experience apart of an even bigger one. As for the match itself, which was the last and biggest slap I took on that day, remains my favourite match ever, from my personal favourite rivalry in wrestling history. It made me fall in love with Japanese Wrestling and by looking at the thumbnail, you guessed it, it made me a fan of Tetsuya Naito. Also, by extension his faction, Los Ingobernables de Japon as I got to discover them.
As time went by, my appreciation of NJPW only kept growing, as I discovered many more great wrestlers outside of Naito and Tanahashi. I was discovering a new wrestling world which I thought was insanely better than anything I had known before… And I was only touching the surface, which to be honest, I probably still do today. Two years later, I have now been going further than just NJPW, with NOAH and AJPW now joining it as my favourite promotions.I fully threw myself in the field as a writer covering Puroresu.
Let’s now talk favourites a little bit more. Everyone has at least one favourite wrestler, right ? Personally, I have a few. As you probably guessed, Tetsuya Naito is one of them, if not THE one, at least in NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING alongside his L.I.J stablemate Hiromu Takahashi. Two great wrestlers, oozing charisma. Just great characters with great ability. There are lots of wrestlers I like of course, such as SANADA, Jay White, or Minoru Suzuki to only name a few; but in NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING, I wouldn’t say anyone comes close to Naito and Takahashi.
However, I do watch also NOAH stemming back to the beginning of this year, and there is one wrestler who instantly rose as another favourite of mine: Katsuhiko Nakajima. While I was already appreciating the ‘stiff’ side of Puro, the striking exchanges, the nasty kicks, chops, and forearms, he (and Naomichi Marufuji) got me into this style of wrestling even more. Also, Nakajima’s more sinister look and attitude only make for a better experience watching him wrestle. There are many good reasons to watch NOAH currently, and Nakajima is definitely one of them.
What else could I possibly add ? Oh, I know! Never have I appreciated more of the basics of pro wrestling than since witnessing the Japanese perspective of this sport / art for myself.
I think this will be how I put an end to this introduction piece, as hopefully you will look forward to what I will write on JPI in the future ! Whether it is here, on my personal blog or wherever I write, I hope that you all will feel my love of Puroresu through my words, as I appreciate the art that is Pro Wrestling even more than ever thanks to it.
Puroresu Ichiban 