TRENTON, NJ — The Trenton Transit Center isn’t pretty, it doesn’t stand out, and it doesn’t win any architectural awards, but when you come to see Tomohiro Ishii wrestle in the Garden State’s capital, it all works out. Even though he is past his prime at age 50, Ishii alone is worth the train journey. Short, wide, and hairless, New Japan Pro Wrestling’s signature midcard tough guy is my favorite fighter in the squared circle. Nicknamed “The Stone Pitbull,” he looks as lithe as a He-Man action figure, his movements are as smooth as a Nintendo 64-era entrance animation, and he walks to the ring with a sauntering gait. Even in his prime, Ishii was too small (5’7″) to actually be considered the best fighter, but what he lacked in main event wins he made up for with attitude. And that night Ishii held a special and sentimental place for me. It was one of the last working links to his company’s glorious and fading past.
I like Ishii because his matches are formulaic. The word is almost always used critically, but not here. He devoted himself so tirelessly to his formula, night after night, year after year, that it acquired a kind of authenticity long ago. In the world of NJPW, attacking Ishii is like fighting a brick wall. He stood tall in the aftermath of the powerful blow. He gets up right away from a suplex and delivers one of his own. If you back him into a corner, he’ll growl in your face and launch a barrage of chops and forearms. Just like watching Tom Hanks or Harrison Ford, if you watch it multiple times, the actor and the character come together.
On this night, Ishii wrestled Boltin Oleg, a 33-year-old Kazakh powerhouse who entered professional wrestling relatively late after a successful run as a legal amateur. Boltin is probably not the future of this company. But he’s interesting in many ways because he’s not a particularly polished employee. He has a great physique and great strength, and can transform into a formidable opponent in the hands of an experienced opponent.
Just a few minutes into the game I was already grinning from ear to ear. Because Ishii told me exactly what I wanted. After handing over most of the initial attack to Voltin, he suddenly turned to stone. He escaped a piledriver and then snatched Boltin’s forearm without flinching. Standing up straight with both feet planted firmly on the mat, he took another pointless strike to the jaw, another that had just walked over, and could have looked down at the driver inching into the crosswalk, looking at his enemy like a pedestrian. Ishii absorbed one more and then blasted Boltin to the canvas with a haymaker of his own. Ishii roars in victory, stumbles slightly to sell the delayed damage from the exchange, and gathers for his next move with the crowd chanting his name.
New Japan Pro Wrestling hopes to have the same recovery efforts as Ishii. Ten years ago, when the streaming boom made it easy to watch NJPW matches from anywhere in the world, the company became the gold standard. It was a major alternative for fans turned off by WWE’s lazy hockey product. But after launching All Elite Wrestling as a New Japan-inspired American competitor, and with the company significantly weakened by a hangover from the pandemic and the aging of its top stars, it’s been a year that honestly feels a little desperate. Hiroshi Tanahashi, the longtime face of NJPW, has retired. Former Olympic gold medalist Aaron Wolf, whom I likened to a quarterback drafted first overall in hopes of turning around a franchise, was unceremoniously benched just a month after making his debut. And both major American corporations continue to lure New Japan’s talent with better offers, making their efforts to rebuild feel like draining water from a leaky ship.
The shortcomings were palpable in a show titled ‘The Trenton Show’. new beginning usa. (new beginning (is not a reference to a new era, but rather a long-running brand name for an early-of-the-year show.) What made the card interesting was not that it included a group of NJPW’s top-level wrestlers, but that NJPW brought only half of the talent, and AEW (with which it had an official partnership) brought the other half. Ten years ago, having the company’s top champion wrestle his first-ever singles match on the East Coast was a huge deal for hardcore, but not Yota Tsuji. united nationsAlthough popular, he felt underwhelmed in his match against American Andrade El Idolo. In another universe, Konosuke Takeshita would be a top star in NJPW and say, “Oh my god, I necessary For Americans, “Go see the guy,” but the man who will probably have the best match in the world in 2026 will be a Japanese wrestler who primarily works for AEW in the United States.
Here are some questions you might have: Why was this in Trenton? It’s definitely worth wondering about, and my guess is that the place is quite cheap for its location.almost There are a ton of people living in the northeast corridor. Even though it may not be very convenient for many people. It’s certainly a far cry from when New Japan sold out Madison Square Garden. wrestlemania weekend in 2019, but what’s even more surprising is that they couldn’t even accommodate them in a minor league hockey stadium. Cure Arena’s illuminated exterior billboard warned drivers to stay away from the area to avoid traffic delays due to next week’s Journey concert, but the number of unsold seats tonight meant the show had a greater impact on the overall goings-on in Trenton on Friday night. Thinking about the company’s recent talent exodus, I wondered if NJPW was inspired by the city’s iconic “Trenton Makes, The World Takes” sign on the Delaware Bridge.
I point this out because the situation feels dire in many ways. But my only thought on the peaceful train ride back to New York was, ‘Not enough people showed up for the Japanese wrestling show in New Jersey tonight.’ Thank you to the 2,500 or so people (nerds and bros, goth couples and just plain old parents) who decided to buy tickets. I appreciated the talent as I had never seen it live before. Shuri, the unwavering kick queen; Tsuji, who desperately wants to be able to run this company and was so kind to the crowd after winning (in English) on the mic; The tag team features the Knockout Brothers as champions, a quirky combination that serves as an unexpected bright spot in a company that usually puts all its effort into promoting singles matches.
The coming together of these performers was a night of very powerful pro wrestling that would have captured the hearts of Americans not so long ago. We’re a lot more into that now, but even as the zeitgeist moves away from NJPW and, by extension, Japanese wrestling as a whole, there’s still a lot of good that’s worth holding on to.
In professional wrestling, when you deliver a backhand chop to your opponent’s chest, you’re actually touching their flesh, and it’s up to them to suck it up. Performance can make pain seem worse than it is, but you can’t fake it. heroin It echoes throughout the stadium. Because of the noise and the realism it represents, the hard chop is one of the most direct ways to excite a crowd, and I think no one understands that better than Ishii.
About halfway through Ishii-Boltin, the two wrestlers locked heads and engaged in a chop battle. Boltin goes first, sending a wincing Ishii into the ropes and then going back and forth. Boltin shouted loudly every time they exchanged words, but Ishii remained quiet and focused. The pair continued to trade blows at an increasingly faster rate, although the crowd gave the obligatory “Oh!” for each hit. chop. chop. chop. chop. People cheered the effort, and the wrestlers continued to beat each other up. chop. chop. chop. chop. I was getting angrier and angrier, and the exchanges were starting to get ridiculously long. chop. chop. chop. chop. They kept making it like that. heroinAnd the fans gave a standing ovation. This was not high-flying acrobatics or technically impressive mat grappling. It was visceral, audiovisual storytelling broken down to its simplest components. chop. chop. chop. chop. Finally, Ishii stumbled, uttered a few unanswered words and fell to his knees as the crowd chanted “Oh my god!” Going back to the video later, I counted 77 chops in this sequence. Don’t try it with a friend, just know how hard a wrestler will go to entertain a stranger.
Of course, strength does not guarantee survival. After 14 minutes of intense choreography, Ishii went to lift Boltin, but was unable to get Boltin upright. When he rushed again, Boltin grabbed the old man, lifted him high above his head with both hands, put him in the hands of the fireman, and then dropped him on the canvas, where he lay flat, motionless. Boltin, not yet finished, gave him another slam. Boltin attempted a cover and the referee counted three with no response from the pinned wrestler. Ishii lost the match despite his persistent efforts.
