First off, I would encourage all to follow Puroresu Spirit on twitter (@PuroresuSpirit) as well as on the Puroresu Spirit FB Page where you can see Volumes 1-7 before it hits the site. Also to note if you have any comments or thoughts on Marufuji, my other articles, or just want to talk about good wrestling, Say hello to me on Twitter! (@DylanZeroPS)
Now with plugs out of the way, time for a look at probably the most opposite wrestler possible from my first series (Yuki Ishikawa, who I highly recommend going back and looking at if you haven’t) as we now have a week’s worth of the extremely influential but sometimes controversial among fans Vice President of Pro Wrestling NOAH, Naomichi Marufuji! Now it’s well known that Marufuji is one of PS’ head honcho BushidoRX’s favorites, as well as as I stated last week, one half of my first ever Puroresu match I’ve ever seen. Now I think most people reading this know most of Marufuji’s story, so we’ll go through that for sure, but yeah. Long story short, his list of accomplishments reads like war and peace. Enjoy and thanks for reading.
We’ll start off with a much different Marufuji than most know of, and that’s his time as a young boy in early NOAH and before that All Japan, perhaps best known as part of a semi-famous funny Kawada/Misawa video in which he got beat up a lot as an unnamed extra at this point. In AJPW he did a lot of typical Young Boy stuff and then lost a lot. But by the time the NOAH split happened, he was already impressing with his creativity and unique offense. This match takes place before his true breakthrough and isn’t even in NOAH or All Japan, but IWA! That’s a mind trip. But here he and his longtime partner KENTA show off the start of their soon to be legendary team, and while Great Takeru & Kuuga aren’t well known and considering it’s IWA I expected some bad stuff, but they actually were pretty good! Were formidable Jrs. opponents. Plus be honest how awesome is it to see baby Marufuji lay the foundations for his current run, just without some of his trademark creativity yet. (Also take note of KENTA’s Kobashi tribute attire, haha) All-in-all, a nifty match with a surprisingly hot finish for two outsiders who were both still green and had yet to mean much. Though I suspect we may see Marufuji’s team have better at some point…
We saw young man Marufuji team with fellow young man KENTA showing off his growing stylings, athleticism, and charisma that made him popular. We now take a look at a match truly just about a year later, and it’s a rare one so certainly enjoy it. At this point the GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title was a short 6 months old, being won by Yoshinobu Kanemaru in a match vs. Juventud Guerrera in June. And passed on to Marufuji’s opponent for this match, Tatsuhito Takaiwa in October. Marufuji is still young but is already quite a bit more advanced, having had a very special breakout match in Zero1 this year that really put him on the map. The match itself is also interesting in that this is Marufuji using his speed against Takaiwa’s power in possibly one of the more advanced and esoteric iterations of this style of matchup. It’s a very strong performance by both men, desperate to keep a bit of spotlight in a hot company, with Marufuji really standing out here and definitely showed there was no need to worry about the Junior division with it being led by the 21 year old Marufuji. Sweet match with a super awesome start!
With Marufuji winning his first career title in NOAH with the GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title. Since then he became one of the top standouts of the division which stood out at the time due to NOAH’s main competition, NJPW severely downplaying their Jr. Division st the time with Shinjiro Otani moving up to Heavyweight and one of their top young stars in Minoru Tanaka adopting the ill-fated HEAT gimmick. But as I was saying NOAH was a burgeoning company for their Juniors by 2003, and they also were in the phase of one of my favorite feuds in wrestling, the NJPW/NOAH interpromotional angle! And boy oh boy were the crowds alive whenever wrestlers from either company would wrestle in the other’s promotion. Some of the best stuff around in terms of true heat from the crowd. As it stood Marufuji and his buddy KENTA had become the first ever GHC Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions against the invading Jushin Liger & Takehiro Murahama in an incredible tournament final and to this day hold the record for most days held with the titles at 690 days, quite the reign. Today’s match is the buildup to their big titles win, a really cool 6 man where MaruKEN or KENTAFuji if you prefer teamed up with another talented native junior in Kotaro Suzuki to take on Liger & Murahama along with Ricky Marvin. The crowd knew these guys were stars and it already seemed destined for the title final to occur between these two teams. This is also Ricky Marvin’s first NOAH match and if you would, take note of Liger’s incredible mixed reaction. Marufuji again shines here as the clear “ace” of the team and truly seeming like he’s got huge potential already. (It also helps that he’s also the only member of his team not to look like a complete Loser which helps) Try to find the tag finals if you can but still watch this too because it’s a big match all things considered in its own right.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x62mn4_kenta-marufuji-kotaro-vs-jushin-lig_sport
In every wrestlers’ career, especially when you make it to a big company, winning the world title of a major promotion is almost universally considered the biggest moment you can have in the ring. We’ve seen a lot of great moments in Marufuji’s career thus far and now here is his. However just to give a bit of background to just how big this was at the time just in terms of a surprise. Marufuji wasn’t even originally supposed to be in this match. The planned title match for this show was Jun Akiyama defending against Kenta Kobashi in a huge next chapter of their legendary rivalry. However tragically Kobashi was diagnosed with Cancer before this and Marufuji was inserted in his place, seemingly to give Akiyama an underdog opponent for him to get by until they can come up with a main event, as Akiyama had never been pinned by the NOAH Juniors.
With that said, I just want to say that this was a fantastic year up to this point and beyond for Marufuji. 2006 he had so many great matches and was built up very well, in fact in my opinion was the most outstanding wrestler in the world in that year, believe me I wish I could go over all his great stuff but sadly weeks are not 20 days long. But as far as this particular match one thing stands out, and that is the finishing stretch. The last 20 seconds in my opinion are among the more memorable and well done I can remember in any match and the actual win itself gets an amazing reaction. Really recommend this match even into the post match as the crowd explodes and chants his name. Akiyama’s look of confusion and “You got me you crafty SOB.” was awesome and my favorite part of all is right after they cut to Marufuji and he’s smiling the most genuine smile you can imagine. Even today this holds up as truly a great moment at the time in his career and for the company. And the match is very good too, with ’06 Marufuji and any era Akiyama it was destined to be. What a great day.
As we go on, after winning the World Title, becoming the first man in NOAH to win all 5 title belts, just over a month later went on to defend the title successfully in a critically acclaimed match vs. his tag team partner KENTA, winning the best bout award from respected Japanese newspaper Tokyo Sports in 2006.
Unfortunately as with most careers it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for Marufuji as in hindsight most would agree his title reign didn’t turn out as great as it could have been, as it ended shortly after in December and he spent much of 2007, primarily in tag teams, but not without merit however, winning the GHC Tag Titles with Takashi Sugiura. Also even getting the chance to compete in the USA on Ring of Honor’s first PPV in a singles match.
After they lost the titles, Marufuji then got to make a fun move, returning to his original company, AJPW for the first time since the split, gaining yet another title in the form of All Japan’s World Jr. Heavyweight Title in September 2008. Shortly after that his old buddy KENTA took home NOAH’s GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title, setting the stage almost 2 years to the date of their legendary World Title Match for something that people were very intrigued by in addition to the obvious historical context, but at the time since both men were fresh off of title wins and nobody knew who was gonna win. With 2 titles on the line they went out there and worked their hardest to top themselves with the friends and rivals delivering their longest and most hard fought fight to date. Sit back and enjoy this, the GHC vs. AJPW Jr. Heavyweight Title match from October 25th, 2008.
From that point on we see that Marufuji had a solid reign, again winning the Tokyo Sports best bout award for his next defense against Shuji Kondo. But for the majority of 2009 had an extremely quiet year. Seemingly forshadowing some injury issues that would haunt him going forward.
But that would all change by the end of the year, as he was invited back to the latest installment of the legendary Super J Cup, defending his crown after winning the Cup in it’s 2004 edition. He had a strong showing in the NJPW-based tournament, defeating Jushin Liger in the 1st Round, Osaka Pro stalwart Tiger’s Mask, and Ryusuke Taguchi in solid matches and setting himself up for a potential win yet again. But standing in his way for the final? Prince Devitt. Who had gotten through an even more random group of Jr. Heavyweights in Atsushi Aoki, Danshoku Dino, and YAMATO. I know many Puroresu Spirit readers are likely fans of NJPW, and a fair amount are of WWE as well, and likely know a lot of the Irishman. So please enjoy this match with the future Finn Balor vs Naomichi Marufuji to determine the 2009 Super J Cup winner.
At this point as we reach our final installment Marufuji really has done it all, having won every title in his home promotion (including the oft-forgotten openweight hardcore championship!), then winning singles titles in both All Japan as well as New Japan, on top of THAT the winner of two Super J Cups, mega-fan or major critic you have to recognize his storied career and importance to Pro Wrestling NOAH. Picking up where we left off from the Super J Cup win, at this point Marufuji tried his hand at a new position after the unfortunate death of NOAH president Mitsuharu Misawa, as he was appointed Vice-President of the company and has held on to that position ever since. Unfortunately in addition to new found responsibilities he also unfortunately had to deal with another obstacle since then…injuries. From 2009-2013 Marufuji suffered multiple injuries all over his body that significantly slowed the man once known as one of the premier high flyers down to a much more based and cerebral wrestler, helping stay true to his “Pro Wrestling Genius” and “Master of Offense” monikers. Again he always kept busy though sometimes fighting through said injuries, having tag title reigns in both the Jr. And Heavyweight ranks respectively with his faction, BRAVE, as well as a run in the 2012 G1 Climax for NJPW.
The final match in this series for NOAH’s top dog comes from last year, as since he returned in 2013 had a bit of a resurgence, and stepped up to the plate for the company as it was dealing with it’s first “invader” World Champion in Yuji Nagata who had held the title for 6 months at the time. Feeling it was time to take a shot at the World Title one more time, at what also happened to be one of their more successful shows in the last few years, take a look at a match I’m sure most are familiar with, but here is Marufuji going for the GHC Heavyweight Title vs. Yuji Nagata from July 5th, 2014.
Final Thoughts:
Marufuji was one of the best in Japan in his prime and I suspect I’m hardly the first who first saw Japanese wrestling through one of his matches. Even now after struggles in and out of the ring, to this day has shown to have great work ethic regardless of circumstances around him. He’s shown to be an innovator in his prime as well though these days I feel he gets a bit unfairly pigeonholed. As someone who has seen a lot of Marufuji, particularly over the last two years, his moveset is extremely streamlined and really based around hitting people hard over the flash of his younger days. He’s honestly a much different wrestler than back then, for better or worse. Regardless, I’m unsure of what the future holds for NOAH’s Ace. With threats of shutting the company down due to the Suzuki-gun invasion things are a bit up in the air but no matter what, nobody can deny the impact former high school basketball star has had on Puroresu in Japan as both Junior and Heavy, Tag and Singles, Marufuji has made his mark.
Puroresu Spirit 
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