NJPW: 5 Standout Performances From New Japan Cup 2019

#3: Colt Cabana

There is no shortage of wrestlers who have broken ground in different ways on the internet. Wrestlers who have found a way to connect with fans in new and different ways or who have been brave, or brazen, enough to think outside of the box to bring existing fans something new and to attract new fans.

At the forefront of many of these initiatives has been Colt Cabana. Launching in 2010, Cabana’s Art Of Wrestling podcast was one of the first and most accessible wrestling podcasts available. Cabana found new ways to mix comedy and wrestling alongside Marty DeRosa with series like Creative Has Nothing For You and Five Dollar Wrestling.

Inside of the ring, Cabana’s comedic style was (and still is) something that can attract fans from all walks of life. Sitting down to watch a Cabana match isn’t usually going to be the same type of commitment as watching an Omega/Okada 60+ minute classic. Instead, you can sit down and watch basically any Cabana match, learn the story, and appreciate the action without needing a ton of additional information.

Comedy in wrestling has always been a way of reaching across the aisle, as it were, to more casual fans or those people in your life who don’t think they like wrestling until they see something that tickles their funny bone and allows them to see that pro-wrestling isn’t always the hyper-serious beefcake parade of the 1980s.

In American indie wrestling, Cabana has been a fixture and a solid hand that could be relied upon to put on entertaining matches. As a former NWA World Heavyweight Champion, Cabana has proved that he’s not just a comedy guy and can mix technical wrestling into his matches as well as he can mix comedy wrestling.

When you’ve had as storied a career as Cabana has had in and out of the ring, it’s easy to coast on that success and just do the bare minimum to get by. It doesn’t seem as though doing the bare minimum is a thought that has ever crossed Colt Cabana’s mind. Always looking for new ways to present himself and to grow, he took another step forward – this time to compete for NJPW for the first time ever.

For his first tour with New Japan, Cabana had to bring every last bit of his experience to the table. In the first round, he met Togi Makabe who threatened to snuff out the flame of Cabana’s initial run. To the surprise of the crowd, Makabe, and Cabana himself, Boom Boom came away with the victory and moved onto the second round.

In a bit of a dream match (though it has happened before), Cabana met NJPW’s resident prankster Toru Yano. Yano never runs out of tricks in situations like these, whether we’re talking about taping his opponents to the guard rails, confusing the referee, or relying on his old standby of removing the turnbuckle pads to use the exposed buckles to his advantage.

Unfortunately for Yano, Cabana was ready for all of this. Not only did he unearth rolls of tape from Yano’s gear, but he later used that tape to secure the turnbuckles sending Yano into a fit of confusion as he struggled to untie the protective pad. To Cabana’s surprise once again, he would come out on top against Yano and walk into the quarterfinals.

While he held his own against eventual finalist SANADA, Cabana came up short against Cold Skull. There was a fair bit of comedy in the match, but Cabana also proved that he has what it takes to hang in a more serious affair with someone like SANADA who isn’t known for goofing around the ring as much.

With three big singles matches, Cabana earned the love of a New Japan crowd who may have not known him on day one. My fingers are crossed that he also earned the love of the New Japan office and will be back on the cerulean blue mat as soon as the G1 Climax this summer.