New Japan Makes, The World Takes

TRENTON, N.J. — The Trenton Transit Center isn't pretty, or even notable, and it won't win any architectural awards, but it gets the job done if you're coming down to see Tomohiro Ishii wrestling in the Garden State's capital. Ishii alone is worth any length of train journey, even if he's definitively past his prime at 50 years old. Short, wide, and hairless, New Japan Pro Wrestling's signature mid-card tough guy is my all-time favorite in the squared circle. Nicknamed "The Stone Pitbull," he walks to the ring with a lumbering gait, looking about as flexible as a He-Man action figure, his movement as smooth as a Nintendo 64-era entrance animation. Even at his peak, Ishii was too small (5-foot-7) to ever really be considered for a run as a top guy, but what he lacked in main-event wins he made up for in attitude. And on this night Ishii held a special, sentimental status for me: one of the last working links to his company's illustrious, vanishing past.

I love Ishii because his matches are formulaic. That word is almost always used as a criticism, but not here. He is so unrelentingly committed to his personal formula, night after night, year after year, that it long ago achieved a kind of authenticity. In the world of NJPW, striking Ishii is like fighting a brick wall. He stands tall in the aftermath of powerful blows. He gets right up from suplexes to deliver one of his own. If you back him into a corner, he'll growl in your face before delivering an onslaught of chops and forearms. Like watching Tom Hanks or Harrison Ford, you see it enough times, and the actor and the character blend together.

On this night Ishii wrestled Boltin Oleg, a 33-year-old strongman from Kazakhstan who came to pro wrestling relatively late after a successful run as a legit amateur. Boltin's probably not the future of this company, but he's interesting in large part because he isn't an especially polished worker. He's got a great body and a lot of raw strength, and in the hands of an experienced opponent, he can be molded into a compelling foe.