Japanese pro wrestlers (and the myriad of other wrestlers influenced by them) have always seemed to place a particular emphasis on strikes compared to their Western counterparts. The oft-repeated idea that “a clothesline is a finisher in Japan” holds a kernel of truth: hitting your opponent very hard with a limb, if well executed, can become an iconic finisher in Japanese wrestling. In my last article about Shinya Hashimoto, I adopted a somewhat antagonistic position towards the veneration of AJPW’s Four Pillars. However, I believe that when it comes to my topic today, it is worth praising them. The three most famous of the Pillars stand out for their respective mastery of particular strikes. Kobashi’s chops and lariats, Misawa’s elbows and Kawada’s kicks could form their basic offence, but also turn the tide or even finish a match when they were thrown at a climactic moment. But it was Jumbo Tsuruta, the ace that preceded the Pillars, who used my favourite type of strike as his signature: the knee.
Jumbo’s knee became iconic, but it is far from the be-all, end-all of knee strikes in the way that Misawa’s elbows or Kobashi’s chops would become for their types of strikes. After Jumbo’s retirement, as MMA’s growth and wrestling’s globalisation exerted an increasing influence on Japanese wrestlers, many wrestlers showcased knee strikes that went beyond the Jumbo/Harley Race-esque high knee. In this article I will attempt to detail some of Japanese pro wrestling’s prolific users of the knee, what distinguishes them, and what their particular variations on the knee say about their in-ring personalities. For some, developing a famous knee technique was integral to their careers; I have looked to expand on how and why.
I have written glowingly before about Yoshiaki Fujiwara (and I will inevitably do so again), particularly how he perfectly inhabits his character in the ring; all the details of his movements, facial expressions and everything in between fit together seamlessly. Fujiwara’s signature strike was his theatrical headbutt, where he would rear back and lift a leg before lunging forwards (often accompanied by camera flashes at the moment of impact). In his more serious shoot-style matches, he’d use a sudden, leaning headbutt to reflect the more realistic setting. His headbutts felt like an extension of his personality, and I think the same quality is apparent in the iconic strikes of other Japanese pro wrestlers. Kobashi’s chops encapsulated his macho, “stand and bang” spirit, and his lariat gave him the puncher’s chance necessary for him to play the underdog. Meanwhile, Kawada’s teasing toe kicks to an opponent’s face displayed his vicious streak. In the same way, I think the best knee strikes can tell the viewer a lot about the wrestler’s personality, and in the spirit of zealously over-analysing things, I will do my best to glean those details from the knee attacks I discuss below.
(Note: due to my terrible inability to edit myself, I have split the article into two parts. In this first part, I focus more on innovators of famous knee techniques, and the roles they played in their careers.)
Shinsuke Nakamura
In any study of the knee in pro wrestling, it would be a cardinal sin not to begin with Shinsuke Nakamura. It would be hard to begrudge anybody claiming that Nakamura made knees his own in the same way as Kobashi defined chops or Misawa defined elbows. After all, Nakamura does not simply use one knee strike or one variation, although of course his Boma Ye / Kinshasa knee is his most famous and significant. Instead, he bases the majority of his entire offence around his knees; it is a holistic approach to using knee strikes, similarly to how Low Ki uses kicks or even how Ricochet uses flips. Where somebody like Hiroshi Tanahashi would base the match around working a leg, Nakamura centres his matches around hitting knee strikes — they are the body of his match, in a way that differs from the other wrestlers we will profile below.
As with almost everything about modern Nakamura, it is important to remember that it wasn’t always so; much like his career-changing emergence of a personality, his use of knees was also a conscious reinvention from his former, rather dry shooter persona he had shown in the early 2000s. The new offence and the charisma developed alongside one another around the turn of the decade, until they eventually became the fascinating and hugely popular personality that Nakamura shows to this day in WWE. I think many fans of Japanese wrestling can share the experience of stumbling on the fully formed modern Nakamura and being mesmerised; the unique charisma and demeanour, the electric movements, and then his angular and stylish offence all stemming from his knee strikes.
In that vein, it is perhaps not correct to say that Nakamura defined knee strikes, but more that knee strikes defined Nakamura; they were a fundamental and irreducible part of his transformation. If he had that same offence without his charisma, he would be reduced to a boring specialist, but he would likewise be ruined if he had the charisma but then used body slams and a figure 4 leg lock. That sense of Nakamura’s personality and wrestling technique being so well rounded only adds to the surprise of seeing him in his early years, shaggy-haired and meek by comparison.
Nakamura’s dedication and subsequent reliance on using knee techniques led to him developing variations that could be used in any situation in or around the wrestling ring. He has knees in the clinch, in the corner, on the ground. He could drop a knee from the apron, or run alongside it and throw one to any opponent unfortunate enough to have his head at that level. He could hit variations of his Boma Ye knee from straight on, behind or the top rope. Indeed, the variations in this particular technique reflect Nakamura’s adroit sense for structuring and escalating a match; the different Boma Ye types build towards the most “pure” variation which usually ends the contest.
The Boma Ye is understandably Nakamura’s signature knee strike, and maybe the most famous knee in Japanese pro wrestling (certainly nowadays, although the Shining Wizard may own that distinction historically). After all, he uses it to finish the majority of his matches, and it looks fantastic. It is always a culmination of both Nakamura’s knee strikes and his electric persona; Nakamura’s corner pose, yell and contorted face (with mouthguard always crucially present), followed by a gloriously full-on collision with his knee dramatically extended.
What is perhaps less appreciated is the practised and precise technique behind the Boma Ye knee strike, analysed here by esteemed MMA writer Jack Slack. Slack makes it clear that the balance of safety and visual impact must have taken many hours of practice and fine-tuning to perfect. That speaks to Nakamura’s commitment in developing his unique knee-based style, in much the same way as his reported time spent studying the movements of Michael Jackson and Freddie Mercury informed his persona. The two dovetail beautifully to form a wrestler who is utterly inimitable, and they never feel like a conscious affectation despite their careful development; Nakamura’s knees and demeanour feel as if they were always there waiting to blossom.
I thought it important to begin with Nakamura, not simply because he is the elephant in the room when it comes to knee strikes in pro wrestling, but because his usage of them is so comprehensive and so inseparable from his in-ring persona. Much like Kobashi with his lariats and chops, it is impossible to imagine him without them. He is the ideal starting point to see how other wrestlers differ in their own, more specialised uses of knee strikes, but his own dedication to making his name synonymous with knee strikes in pro wrestling cannot be understated.
Keiji Mutoh
After discussing Shinsuke Nakamura, it is apropos to move on to another wrestler whose knee strikes were fundamental in his own reinvention. Keiji Mutoh was already a wrestler familiar with transformation; his Great Muta alter ego became iconic in and outside of Japan, influencing many wrestlers to create their own. The Muta character was a remarkable demonstration of Mutoh’s ability to play two distinct characters inside the wrestling ring; his body language, wrestling style and personality all changed when he inhabited his alter ego. As the Muta persona became more popular, the Muta/Mutoh characters bled into one another and only added to Mutoh’s legend. However, his most significant transformation of all came in 2001, and with it came the Shining Wizard.
Wrestlers had changed their looks and gimmicks before, but very few totally revamped themselves in the way Mutoh did at the start of 2001. Gone were the balding pate and rough beard, replaced with a skinhead and neat goatee. With those visual changes came an altogether different style of wrestling, eschewing Mutoh’s fading athleticism for a focused offence that targeted his opponent’s legs. To cap it all off, Mutoh debuted his new finisher, the Shining Wizard, an innovative and opportunistic technique that used the opponent’s knee for leverage to deliver a knee strike to the head.
The Shining Wizard itself is fairly simple; it’s a convincing, versatile finisher that Mutoh could execute on just about anyone. A hallmark of Mutoh’s style was his movement, which was often poised and measured before sudden bursts of action. The Shining Wizard fit that pacing well, as it required no contrived set-up and could arrive suddenly within the flow of a match. It could come out of the blue in the centre of the ring, in the corner or even using a foreign object as a launching pad (I have included GIFs to illustrate this).
Jack Slack also wrote about Mutoh’s knee techniques in the Nakamura article mentioned above, noting the two main variations of a straight strike and a swinging “haymaker” type which Mutoh would throw more weight behind. In this sense, the Shining Wizard was somewhat of a precursor to Nakamura’s Boma Ye, as Mutoh developed his own worked knee strike (albeit not on the level of Nakamura’s polish and technique).
The new move, alongside the other changes in Mutoh’s appearance and style, helped to revitalise Mutoh’s career — as well as the fortunes of AJPW — and ensure another decade (and more) of popularity. What I find more interesting than the actual changes, however, are the reasons for them.
So much of pro wrestling is based on repetition and recognition; they are the building blocks of a relationship between wrestlers and the fans. Wrestlers spend their whole careers building up a mutual understanding with the fans through repetition. They establish their identities through a look, a theme song, and then when they wrestle, a base of signature moves. Over time, the fans recognise these, and they pay to see the wrestler perform his or her routine, to “go through exactly the motions which are expected” (as if Barthes on wrestling had not been quoted enough). With that in mind, it is unsurprising that so many wrestlers choose to stick to their routine as they grow older, for better or worse.
There is an undeniable, reassuring charm in Yuji Nagata trusting in his well-worn submissions and suplexes, the tools that got the job done for him so many times before. Certain wrestlers work styles that are minimally affected by age — Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Masanobu Fuchi spent their long careers wrestling like old men, and are still going strong at age 68 and 64 respectively. But for many wrestlers, the ravages of time are painful and undeniable; even the vaunted Four Pillars of AJPW (and later NOAH) saw their wrestling skills and health eroded by time. The American independent scene is littered with former stars trying, often sadly, to retread their old routines for a nostalgic audience. Mutoh saw his contemporaries and rivals, such as Masahiro Chono, worn down by age and injuries. Most every wrestler must grapple with Father Time, and Mutoh’s course of action remains perhaps the most fascinating.
Mutoh’s radical changes were an admission of age and all that comes with it for a pro wrestler: the fading athleticism, the wear and tear, even the hair turning grey and receding. His transformation was bold, of course, but humble at the same time — it was Mutoh recognising his own mutability (forgive me, for I could not resist that pun.) It was a fascinating contradiction: Mutoh recognising his age, but also a bid to renew himself, to extend his career and his time in the spotlight.
The Shining Wizard epitomises that transformation. Years of delivering his signature moonsault had done irreparable damage to Mutoh’s knees, forcing him into long layoffs and diminishing the explosive athleticism that had been his calling card. With his body exhausted and his grasp on stardom waning, Mutoh was backed into a corner. But necessity is the mother of all invention, and borne out of that crisis came the new Mutoh, with the Shining Wizard his most significant creation. The irony — that Mutoh’s own damaged knees forced him into creating a famous knee technique — was the icing on the cake.
The influence of the Shining Wizard is borne out in the myriad of wrestlers who have copied or used the move as a template for their own attacks. It is rare that Chono, AJ Lee and Hurricane Helms have a move in common, but they all took inspiration from the Shining Wizard. The knee stands as a tribute to Mutoh’s influence, but much more than that, it encapsulates the creativity and willingness to reinvent himself that made Mutoh a legend.
KENTA
The story of KENTA’s knee techniques is also one of invention and influence, but it ends on a strangely melancholic note. KENTA innovated and popularised two knee attacks, both of which he used to great effect as he cut a path through the junior division of Pro Wrestling NOAH and eventually forced his way into the ranks of its heavyweight champions. The Busaiku Knee and especially the Go 2 Sleep were the perfect finishers for KENTA, whose spiky and violent style helped shape junior (and heavyweight) wrestling and put kickpads on a thousand wannabes around the world. However, in the later stages of his career, KENTA and his two iconic knee attacks became victims of their own success.
The Busaiku Knee was KENTA’s first proper finisher, and although it may not have been as memorable as the G2S, it served an important purpose in expressing his character in the ring (as all moves should). It was exciting to watch KENTA bounce off the ropes, picking up speed before flying through the air to ram his knee into his opponent’s face. More than that, however, KENTA could execute it against anybody (similarly to the versatility of the Shining Wizard). KENTA built much of his persona as a fearless junior with a chip on his shoulder against the heavyweight greats of NOAH. This was shown most notably in matches against his mentor Kenta Kobashi, but whenever KENTA was matched against a heavyweight great in a tag match — Misawa, Tenryu, Minoru Suzuki — he would pick a fight with them. It was a thrilling persona, the chippy punk who would disrespect any legend and get in their face, and the Busaiku Knee, a quite literally “in your face” technique, served to emphasise this.
The Go 2 Sleep might not be a realistic move, but the way it creates its violent impact is pleasingly rooted in the principles of actual striking. A strike is always more powerful against an opponent moving towards it rather than standing still — it’s simple physics, and the basis of counter striking in all combat sports. Conor McGregor made his ludicrously successful career out of coaxing opponents to come forwards and run onto his counter left hand. Actual knee knockouts in MMA are often the result of a fighter enthusiastically diving at their opponent’s hips in search of a takedown, only to have their momentum halted by a well-timed knee to the face.
The G2S creates its awesome visual impact along the same lines, albeit with a safer result. A simple knee lift can look great, but the twist of the opponent being dropped onto the knee lift was damn near guaranteed to look like a killer move against anyone. The best sellers of the G2S — Katsuhiko Nakajima was a prime example — understood that the move was about the moment of impact, the sudden stop. Instead of forcing a back bump, KENTA’s knee would seem to freeze them in the pose of their collision, leaving them absolutely starched for a few beautifully violent moments. Then they would crumple to the ground, and anybody could tell you the match was over. It’s my favourite finishing move of all time, and it was gloriously suited to KENTA’s attitude and style.
Those two knee attacks were a crucial part of KENTA’s wrestling, which turned him into the coolest junior heavyweight in the world. Countless indie wrestlers aped his scowling demeanour and stiff kicking offence, and still do to this day. In Gabe Sapolsky’s mid-2000s ROH, perhaps the peak of indie wrestling, KENTA fit in perfectly and his battles with Low Ki and Bryan Danielson only increased his reputation among its audience of devoted hardcore fans. KENTA’s appeal eventually saw him move into NOAH’s heavyweight division; his wrestling and popularity easily superseded his smaller stature.
At the same time, Danielson and CM Punk, who had both made their names in ROH, were climbing the ranks in WWE thanks to their own talent and hard work. Both wrestlers were committed students of the game, diehard fans of wrestling from all over the world keen to incorporate their influences into their own styles. It made sense that they both took a page from KENTA’s book for their new finishers; Punk used the G2S throughout his entire WWE tenure, while Daniel Bryan first adopted the Busaiku Knee to famously defeat John Cena and win the WWE championship in 2013.
Punk and Bryan became the most popular wrestlers in modern WWE outside of Cena, and they had done so using KENTA’s finishing moves, a fitting tribute to one of the decade’s iconic wrestlers. KENTA reaped his own reward for his decorated career when WWE came calling in early 2014, offering a cushy contract and a chance for KENTA to truly show his skills to a global audience. And then, to quote Adam Curtis, something very strange happened.
KENTA debuted on NXT and found that suddenly, he wasn’t who he had been before. The aggressive hip-hop that had typified his entrance music was replaced with a 30-second loop of generic rock (with some vaguely “Japanese” instruments added in). The rough edges of his mean-mugging but indelibly cool personality had been smoothed over, turned into a generic babyface posing for the crowd’s cheers. And strangest of all, KENTA found himself unable to use the Busaiku Knee or the G2S — the two techniques he had created — because here, they were other people’s moves.
Such was the popularity of Punk and Bryan that the G2S and Busaiku Knee were inextricably linked with them in the minds of WWE fans, and perhaps more significantly, in the minds of WWE management. Just as KENTA had entered the company, Punk had made his acrimonious exit, and Bryan was in the midst of a murky injury situation that continues to this day. KENTA would have been seen as an imitator, not an originator, for using either finishing move; he had become a victim of his own success. Bereft of his own creations, he tried a few kicks instead, none of which truly caught on. Poor luck with injuries, and the instant success of other NXT signings like Finn Balor and Shinsuke Nakamura, only added to the sense that KENTA’s WWE tenure had been an unfortunate non-starter.
KENTA was eventually allowed to use the Go 2 Sleep, but it never delivered a true statement win or an NXT championship. His eventual move to the main roster’s cruiserweight division provided a moment that seemed to sum up his WWE career so far. KENTA delivered his G2S to Brian Kendrick, but broke his opponent’s nose by an unfortunate accident.
It was of course unintentional, but the scowling KENTA character of old would have shown no remorse — maybe even pride — about rearranging an opponent’s face. It was a chance for KENTA to recapture some of his dormant killer charisma. Instead, KENTA issued a meek apology the next week. It was a moment that epitomised WWE’s failure to grasp his appeal, as well as the way an iconic finisher had become a damp squib.
It is for those reasons that KENTA’s knee attacks — the Busaiku Knee but especially the G2S — sum up his career, both its highs and lows. They were integral parts of a wrestler who became a massive success and worldwide influence through his style and charisma, and when they were taken away by the WWE, he seemed to lose his identity too. KENTA’s WWE run has (so far) been a disappointing chapter in his career, but that is no reason to forget his past accomplishments. There is a reason a compilation of his G2S stresses “Kenta Style, the ORIGINAL”. In the minds of those who saw his prime, KENTA will never lose his prestige as the fearless punk who created one of the greatest finishing moves of all time.
Part 2, featuring Kenny Omega, Kazuyuki Fujita and Yoshihiro Takayama will be published shortly.
