7 of the best NJPW feuds in recent memory

Professional wrestling fans know that NJPW has been the standard of excellence in the sport over the past decade. Here are seven of the promotion’s best rivalries in recent history.

Ask any professional wrestling fan who enjoys watching more than one promotion, and they’ll tell you that two things set NJPW apart from many of the others. Firstly, the presentation. It is more hard-hitting and sports-like than the other mainstream promotions. And secondly, the storytelling. With top-class performers like Kazuchika Okada and Hiroshi Tanahashi, NJPW knows how to toy with your emotions in ways you didn’t even think were possible.

It’s no surprise, then, that Tanahashi and Okada find themselves listed multiple times on this admittedly personally biased list of seven of the best rivalries in the promotion’s recent history.

Why do I cage this list with the phrase “recent memory”? Well, I only got into NJPW within the last decade and don’t have the same frame of reference for matches and rivalries before my time. So in an effort to write what I know, I’ve restricted this list to feuds I’ve seen.

As for the number “seven”, it’s a lucky number, so why not? It’s more than the standard “five” but less than the often-overwhelming 10.