New Japan Pro-Wrestling
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50 free New Japan Pro-Wrestling trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling has been Japan's biggest wrestling company for more than half a century. Founded in 1972 by a wrestler who became a national celebrity, it built its name on hard-hitting matches and has drawn some of the largest crowds the sport has ever seen. This quiz covers the whole story: the founder and his strangest adventures, the champions who carried the company, the masked junior heavyweights, the big annual tournaments and the title belts. Stables get plenty of attention too, from the villainous foreign gangs to the home-grown factions that have traded members and betrayals for decades. It is written for fans who follow NJPW every week and for newer viewers who found it through stars now working in America. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which boxing legend did NJPW founder Antonio Inoki fight to a 15-round draw in Tokyo in June 1976?
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali took 107 kicks to the legs because Inoki spent most of the bout on his back, a tactic the hastily agreed rules allowed.
Q 02In which country did NJPW and WCW stage a two-night 1995 show that drew wrestling's largest ever crowds?
North Korea
North Korea filled Pyongyang's May Day Stadium with claimed crowds of 165,000 and 190,000, who watched Antonio Inoki face Ric Flair in the finale.
Q 03Which American star beat Antonio Inoki in the 1983 final of NJPW's first IWGP tournament?
Hulk Hogan
Hulk Hogan won by knockout, but that version of the title was later abandoned, so NJPW's official lineage begins in 1987 with Inoki as its first champion.
Q 04In which country did NJPW founder Antonio Inoki stage a 1990 wrestling show to help free Japanese hostages?
Iraq
Iraq freed 36 of its 41 Japanese captives after Inoki, then a member of Japan's upper house, went to negotiate with Saddam Hussein before the Gulf War.
Q 05Which venue has hosted NJPW's biggest show of the year every January 4 since 1992?
Tokyo Dome
The Tokyo Dome tradition began in 1992 with a joint card with America's WCW, and the show has been branded Wrestle Kingdom since 2007.
Q 06Which former WWE and future UFC champion won the IWGP Heavyweight title in his first NJPW match in 2005?
Brock Lesnar
Brock Lesnar never lost the title in the ring: NJPW stripped him in 2006 when he refused to defend it, and he kept the physical belt.
Q 07Which NJPW stable of foreign villains did Irish wrestler Prince Devitt found in May 2013?
Bullet Club
Bullet Club outlasted its founder, who left NJPW in April 2014 and resurfaced in WWE as Finn Bálor.
Q 08Which NJPW star, nicknamed the Rainmaker, held the IWGP Heavyweight Championship for a record 720 days?
Kazuchika Okada
Kazuchika Okada defended the title twelve times in that reign, which ended in a 65-minute two-out-of-three-falls match in June 2018.
Q 09Which Canadian NJPW star named his One-Winged Angel finisher after Final Fantasy VII's villain Sephiroth?
Kenny Omega
Kenny Omega also took his V-Trigger knee strike from Street Fighter V, and in 2017 he became the first IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion.
Q 10Which masked NJPW junior heavyweight of the early 1980s was licensed from the hero of a 1968 manga?
Tiger Mask
Tiger Mask was first played by Satoru Sayama, who walked out of NJPW in 1983 because he hated wrestling's backstage politics.
Q 11Which eight-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion became NJPW's president in December 2023 while still wrestling?
Hiroshi Tanahashi
Hiroshi Tanahashi ran the company and kept wrestling for two more years before retiring in the ring on January 4, 2026.
Q 12Which WWE veteran became the first to hold both the WWE and NJPW Intercontinental titles in June 2018?
Chris Jericho
Chris Jericho's NJPW comeback at Wrestle Kingdom 12 earlier that year was the first match of his career to earn five stars from the Wrestling Observer.
Q 13Which former TNA star joined NJPW in April 2014 and won the IWGP Heavyweight title a month later?
AJ Styles
Q 21Which NJPW stable formed in 2009 when most of Great Bash Heel turned on their leader Togi Makabe?
Chaos
Chaos began when Toru Yano cost his own leader a match in April 2009, and the group lasted until it disbanded in March 2025.
Q 22Which NJPW stable invaded Pro Wrestling Noah in 2015 and won all four of its titles within two months?
Suzuki-gun
Suzuki-gun started life as Kojima-gun, until its members turned on founder Satoshi Kojima in 2011 and made Minoru Suzuki their leader.
Q 23Which NJPW stable, formed in October 2020, has counted Great-O-Khan, Jeff Cobb and Aaron Henare as members?
United Empire
United Empire was first called simply The Empire, and Great-O-Khan took his ring name from Genghis Khan of the Mongol Empire.
AJ Styles won the belt at Wrestling Dontaku, held it twice, and signed with WWE in January 2016, debuting days later in the Royal Rumble.
Q 14Which masked NJPW junior heavyweight took his look in 1989 from an anime superhero created by Go Nagai?
Jushin Liger
Jushin Liger won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title a record 11 times and entered the WWE Hall of Fame in 2020, the year he retired.
Q 15Which NJPW heavyweight tournament, first held in August 1991, is usually fought as a summer round-robin?
G1 Climax
From 2012 the G1 Climax winner earned a contract for a world title shot at NJPW's biggest show, kept in a briefcase much like WWE's Money in the Bank.
Q 16Which wrestler founded NJPW's Los Ingobernables de Japón in 2015 after a tour with Mexico's CMLL?
Tetsuya Naito
Tetsuya Naito had once been so coldly received that a fan vote bumped his title match from the main event of NJPW's biggest show.
Q 17Which three-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion left NJPW in 2016 and became a two-time NXT Champion in WWE?
Shinsuke Nakamura
Shinsuke Nakamura, once nicknamed Super Rookie, first won the IWGP title in 2003 at the age of 23 years and 9 months.
Q 18Which WCW faction gained a Japanese branch in NJPW after Masahiro Chono joined it in late 1996?
New World Order
The New World Order's Japanese wing held the IWGP Heavyweight title three times, including a reign for American powerhouse Scott Norton.
Q 19Which former Los Angeles Rams lineman won the IWGP Heavyweight title three times as a masked NJPW monster?
Big Van Vader
Big Van Vader was drafted by the Rams in 1978 as a center and earned an NFC championship ring in his second season.
Q 20What name is given to the annual supershow NJPW has co-promoted with All Elite Wrestling since 2022?
Forbidden Door
Forbidden Door borrows a phrase AEW used for working with rival companies; the first show was held at Chicago's United Center in June 2022.
Q 24Which NJPW stable did Evil form in September 2021, recruiting Sho after he turned on tag partner Yoh?
House of Torture
House of Torture came together at the MetLife Dome on September 4, 2021, right after Sho beat Yoh there, with Dick Togo and Yujiro Takahashi completing the group.
Q 25Which NJPW tag team did brothers Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa, sons of WWF veteran Haku, form in 2016?
Guerrillas of Destiny
Guerrillas of Destiny won the IWGP Tag Team Championship seven times before the brothers left NJPW in 2024.
Q 26What name did one of NJPW's Three Musketeers use for a mist-spitting, face-painted alter ego that was a hit in WCW?
The Great Muta
The Great Muta was Keiji Muto, introduced to American fans as the son of the Great Kabuki, a villain his manager Gary Hart had handled years earlier.
Q 27Which trading card game company bought NJPW from Yuke's in January 2012 for 500 million yen?
Bushiroad
Bushiroad turned its wrestlers into a best-selling card game, King of Pro Wrestling, and owned NJPW until selling its shares in 2026.
Q 28What name is given to the combat-sport approach to wrestling that Antonio Inoki built NJPW around?
Strong style
Strong style was shaped by catch wrestlers such as Lou Thesz and Billy Robinson, and it treats a match as a real contest.
Q 29Which NJPW star popularised the Sasori-gatame, known in English as the Scorpion Deathlock or Sharpshooter?
Riki Choshu
Riki Choshu wrestled at the 1972 Olympics before turning professional, and he later ran NJPW's matches as its booker.
Q 30Which NJPW legend, nicknamed The Dragon, is credited with inventing the dragon sleeper and the dragon suplex?
Tatsumi Fujinami
Tatsumi Fujinami was named NJPW's president in 1999, only to be ousted in 2004, and he now sits in the WWE Hall of Fame.