A Phoenix from the Ashes: Tetsuya Naito and the IWGP Intercontinental Championship

This is a story about one of the greatest feuds and rivalries in wrestling, the story of the relationship between a man and one who hurt him so deeply he carried the grudge like a live coal for years until he could achieve his bitter vengeance. It’s the tale of a relationship full of abuse and degradation, leading to utter annihilation. It’s a story of hatred and revenge. Strange as this may sound, it may also be about rebirth, and even love.

It’s the story of the agonizing bond between Tetsuya Naito and the Intercontinental championship belt.

The story begins in 2013, when Tetsuya Naito—then a blandly excellent good-guy high flier—wins the G1 Climax and gains the right to challenge Kazuchika Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, the highest title in New Japan Pro Wrestling, in the main event at Wrestle Kingdom. Lower on the card, two legends–Shinsuke Nakamura and Hiroshi Tanahashi–are billed to battle over the Intercontinental title, but the main event is reserved for these two young rising stars. It should have been a watershed moment, a passing of the torch to the next generation.

But Tetsuya Naito drops the torch.

Pushed too far, too fast, Naito brashly declares himself the new top star of New Japan, apparently trying to supplant his mentor Tanahashi, and the Japanese audience responds by turning viciously on him, greeting him with brutal choruses of boos everywhere he shows his supposedly-likable babyface. Naito crumbles, unable to maintain his composure in the face of this disaster. Promos at the time show him desperately struggling as the crowds jeer him, simply unable to project confidence or, well, tranquility. Watch him as Okada turns away; he’s literally choking.

You’ve probably experienced stress nightmares: those awful, pointless dreams where you struggle, over and over, to complete some mundane task which is suddenly, inexplicably impossible. I’ve heard more than one wrestler mention that their stress nightmares take the form of frantically trying to lace their boots. These months of Tetsuya Naito’s life must feel like an unending stress nightmare: the laces and the eyelets simply will not match up, no matter how hard he tries; he can hear his entrance music playing, and he isn’t ready, he isn’t ready; he can hear the crowd’s anticipation giving way to dissatisfaction and no matter how many times he unlaces and tries again, nothing will come together right and he cannot wake up.

The main event of Wrestle Kingdom is in shambles; no one wants to see him wrestle. Desperate, NJPW’s top brass conduct a poll asking fans what they want as the main event, and as a result the Nakamura-Tanahashi match for the Intercontinental title is elevated to the top of the card. The Okada-Naito match is lackluster and perfunctory, the crowds continue to despise Naito, and eventually he flees in disgrace to Mexico.

Undo it all, rip it all out and start over from the beginning.

When he returns, it’s as the leader of Los Ingobernables de Japon, and as a totally remade self: cool, apathetic, and taking no shit from anyone. He gathers around him a cadre of oddballs and outsiders: King of Darkness Evil with his lavender hair and goth priest vibe; Bushi with his masks and painted lips and sass; Sanada, who grew up outside the NJPW system and saunters in like a prodigal delinquent. The crowds continue to hate him out of habit for a while, then slowly start to fall in love with him.

The Intercontinental championship, meanwhile, falls vacant when Shinsuke Nakamura, who held the title five times for a whopping total of 901 days, leaves for America. It falls into the hands of Kenny Omega, and then Michael Elgin.

And then Tetsuya Naito wins the championship that ousted him from the main event at Wrestle Kingdom and thwarted his destiny.

It’s an unforgettable moment: Naito picks up the Intercontinental championship. He looks down at the white-and-gold belt in his hands, laden with history and tradition; the title that was part of the destruction of his babyface persona. A small smile crosses his face.

And then he hurls the title into the air, lets it fall to the mat, and walks away from it in disdain, leaving it lying abandoned as he lifts his hands in triumph.

Naito holds the Intercontinental championship for 259 days, and across that time he actually physically destroys the title. He steps on it, he kicks it, he slams it up against things with wild contempt.

He treats it like dirt, as if it’s worthless. He tries to pay his restaurant bills with it, like it has no more value than the spare money in his wallet.

The white leather becomes scuffed and torn. The rivets on the plates pop. The plates themselves buckle and crack. Babyface wrestlers watch in horror as he desecrates the title that cost him so much, grinning all the while. A final revenge, a bitter catharsis. He gets to destroy it as it destroyed him.

Has there ever been a relationship in wrestling like the one between Naito and the IC championship? It’s not a title he held and cherished and lost; it’s not a title he yearned to win and failed. It’s empty of any meaning for him beyond being a pure symbol of his failure and his abandonment by the fans.

Early in that first Intercontinental title reign, a new member is added to Los Ingobernables: a former Young Lion just back from excursion in Mexico, Hiromu Takahashi. Hiromu came to Naito’s attention when he was still a Young Lion and Naito was still the babyface Stardust Genius, when Naito watched him training in the dojo and realized… he was terrible. Just appallingly bad at the whole wrestling thing. But what he had, Naito saw, was charisma: the ability to win people’s hearts and capture attention. He was, in fact, a perfect reverse reflection of Tetsuya Naito, the bland technical wizard, at the time. So Naito took him under his wing and helped him master the physical aspects of the sport. Naito’s exile in Mexico overlaps with Hiromu’s time of excursion. They’re there together while Naito remakes himself, and although Naito goes back to Japan without him, when Hiromu returns, there’s no question that he’ll join Naito’s growing stable.

Hiromu throws off the whole vibe of LIJ as cool, nonchalant badasses. Oh, he’s cool. And he’s a badass. But he’s not nonchalant; he’s a passionate weirdo who falls in love with everything, from his rivals to his stuffed cat. He calls himself the Ticking Time Bomb, and he never seems to stop exploding with excitement, with joy, with passion.

A few months after joining LIJ, Hiromu wins the IWGP Junior Heavyweight championship, and kicks off a torrid love story. I mean a literal love story: Hiromu woos his beloved Belt-san with soft-focus photoshoots and bubble baths. He talks to it in backstage promos, explaining its feelings to reporters.

And all the while, Naito is carefully dismantling the Intercontinental title. Hiromu and Naito are a stark contrast to each other: two kinds of passion, two relationships with their titles. Total opposites.

Or maybe not. Because Hiromu, Belt Whisperer, can speak to Naito’s Intercontinental championship as well as his own. And his relationship with it isn’t adversarial: it’s rather sweet and affectionate. For example, as he and Naito do their entrance for a tag match, Naito holds up the title for Hiromu to listen to, and–whatever it says–Hiromu gives it a fond smile, patting it gently. He strides off, and Naito stares after him for a while before tossing the title away once more and heading to the ring.

During a backstage interview, Hiromu lugs in the Intercontinental title and drops it on the floor before delivering his post-match remarks, but as he turns to go he stops suddenly, as if he’s heard something. Getting on his knees, he bends his ear close to Naito’s filthy, battered title and listens intently, a small smile on his face.

“Uh-huh… I understand,” he says, then stands up and explains that the title has something to say and the camera should be on it. Stepping out of camera range, he voices the IC title as it explains that it wishes people wouldn’t say such mean things about Naito-san. “I’m very happy,” the IC title exclaims breathlessly in Hiromu’s borrowed voice. “I feel so good. Treat me more roughly. I love it. Do it to me harder.”

“See?” Hiromu says, stepping back in front of the camera and smiling beatifically. “It loves it!”

Naito keeps destroying the IC title until at last, Hiroshi Tanahashi–Naito’s former mentor and the man who took his place in the main event of Wrestle Kingdom years ago–can stand it no longer. He challenges Naito for the title, and although Naito fights him tooth and nail–because losing to his former mentor, especially, is unbearable–Tanahashi wrests the title away from its tormentor. According to NJPW lore, Tanahashi then rebuilds the title with his own two hands, restoring it to its former glory, and carries it proudly for 230 days, until Minoru Suzuki takes it from him in turn.

Tetsuya Naito has finally destroyed the IC title, and it’s as if he’s destroyed his past self and all the pain of that time.  Now he can move beyond it, renewed like a phoenix from his ashes, and transcend his past.

Or maybe not so much.  Because that damned title will not leave him alone.

In 2018, IC champion Suzuki’s faction becomes embroiled in a feud with Naito’s, and Suzuki seems to take special pleasure in tormenting Hiromu in their tag matches with agonizing submissions and extended beatdowns, until Naito is forced to confront him and protect his fledgling weirdo.

Suzuki is an absolute sadist and cares nothing for his own safety; when Naito tries to punish him physically in revenge Suzuki just laughs. The only way Naito can extract any vengeance on him is to hurt his pride and take away something that matters to him, and the only option is the Intercontinental title Suzuki holds.

So Naito finds himself, in 2018, reluctantly, grudgingly fighting once more for the title he personally annihilated.

When he finally beats Suzuki, after a grueling 30-minute bout, the referee brings the Intercontinental title over to him. Still on his knees, Naito doesn’t reach out to take it, so the referee drapes it over his shoulder.

Naito refuses to acknowledge it, letting it slip from his shoulder as he stands, so the referee has to pick it up again. As his crew come to the ring to celebrate his win, as he addresses the crowd, he ignores it entirely. At the very end, as LIJ leaves the ring, he sits on the mat with his back to it, not looking at it, but you get the impression that he’s intensely aware of its presence, almost bemused by the fact that somehow this title that he’s hated so intensely has found its way back to him again.

Eventually, he gets up and leaves it there in the ring, covered with the streamers of his celebration. In the backstage promo after, he stares at it lying on the table as he explains that the title still means nothing at all to him, that he’s not sure what he’ll do with it this time. There doesn’t seem to be any hatred in his words, just disdain–and beneath that a sort of bewilderment and uncertainty. Why does he have this thing? He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t need it. Yet here it is again.

As it turns out, he does nothing at all with it. Chris Jericho attacks him a few days later, at Wrestling Dontaku, bloodying him and announcing he’s coming for the IC title. Despite this, Naito never once wears the title to the ring, even as he prepares to defend it. The only time he’s seen with the title during this 41-day run is when he enters to fight Jericho at Dominion: he carries it dangling from one hand, letting it drag on the ground as he goes, then letting it slip from his fingers halfway down the ramp, leaving it lying there forlorn.

The actual match is shockingly lackluster, as if Naito just can’t bring himself to care enough to truly fight for the title he loathes so much. It slips through his fingers, just as it did on the ramp during his entrance. He gets in some offense, but Jericho dominates the match and wrenches the title from him, carrying it away across the sea.

I’m pretty sure Naito thinks Good riddance as it goes.

But he still isn’t rid of the cursed thing. Naito’s oldest ally, Evil, ends up feuding with Jericho. Furious at Jericho’s bloody cruelty, Evil challenges him for the title, but falls short, submitting to the Lion Tamer. Jericho then refuses to release the submission hold after the bell rings, torturing him further.

Once again, as with Suzuki, Naito is forced to come out and protect one of his flock of misfit sheep. Once again–because Jericho is a part-timer, not around regularly to punish–Naito has to extract some revenge by going after his pride and thus his title. At the press conference to set up their match, Naito says that he still doesn’t care about the title, that it holds no particular appeal to him, but that he doesn’t really want Jericho to keep holding it, so he doesn’t have much choice but to try to take it away from him.

So at Wrestle Kingdom, once again, Naito finds himself about to fight for a prize he doesn’t want and doesn’t need, a title that symbolizes nothing to him but his greatest failure. But… you see what’s happening here, right? Little by little, that hated title is taking on new meaning. It’s becoming a symbol not of Naito’s greatest failure, but his greatest strength–the creation of Los Ingobernables de Japon, his love for the people in it, and their loyalty to him. Over and over, it’s the human ties he’s made that keep bringing the title back to his bewildered hands. It’s not the destiny he’s always talked about, but it seems to be a destiny that he can’t escape.

Those human ties have caused Tetsuya Naito pain this year. Because while he’ll have LIJ with him at Wrestle Kingdom, he won’t have Hiromu Takahashi, who suffered a neck injury back in June that nearly cost him his life and could still potentially cost him his career. Hiromu has been told that he can’t come back to wrestling until he’s at “1000%,” as the New Japan president explained to a saddened Belt-san after Hiromu was forced to vacate the championship and bereave his beloved title. In recent tweets, he’s claimed to be at 782% (precisely)–a heartening number, but probably not enough to be back as soon as his fans would like. Still, if he manages to show up for Wrestle Kingdom or for New Year Dash, be prepared for a pop the likes of which has rarely been witnessed.

Naito claimed he would win the G1 Climax in Hiromu’s name this year, inspired by Hiromu’s win in Best of the Super Juniors. But he fell short, just as he fell short in the main event of Wrestle Kingdom in 2018.  It’s as if there’s still something missing in his character, something he still needs to make himself complete. I have no special insight into New Japan’s storytelling, but my intuition says that Tetsuya Naito won’t be able to win the main event in the Tokyo Dome until he finally finds a way to make peace with the Intercontinental title and the ghosts of his past: his past self, his past failures, his past anguish and loss. The title has symbolized everything he hates about wrestling and about the fans. Everything he hates about himself. It’s a relic of pain that he can’t simply destroy. It keeps coming back, reborn and renewed, just as he did.

Someday, maybe, he will redefine the title as a symbol of something more: of his ability to rise up from annihilation and ruin into glory. Of his leadership and his loyalty. A symbol of the future, and not the past.