One of the most top wrestling titles in the world is the prestigious IWGP Heavyweight Championship, owned by New Japan Pro Wrestling. To date, it’s only had 72 title holders in its 33-year history, and only a handful of those champions have been wrestlers from outside of Japan, or gaijin.
But that’s not the only title in NJPW. There are a number of championships up for grabs, including the Intercontinental Championship, Heavyweight Tag Team Titles, several Junior Heavyweight belts, and the NEVER Openweight Title, among others. As a result, it’s possible to be a highly decorated champion in New Japan without ever capturing the IWGP Heavy weightbelt. So let’s take a look at those incredibly accomplished wrestlers.
10 Tanga Loa (9)
Some fans may remember Tanga Loa for his stint in WWE as Camacho, before which he had a single tag team run in the E’s developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling.
In 2016, he’d made his way to New Japan to team with his brother Tama Tonga in Bullet Club as Guerrillas of Destiny, continuing his focus on tag wrestling. So far, Tanga Loa has enjoyed six reigns with the IWGP Tag Team Championship as well as three with the NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Titles.
9 Rocky Romero (9)
A staple of NJPW’s junior heavyweight division since the mid-2000s, lately Rocky Romero tends to focus on managing Roppongi 3K and contributing color commentary as part of New Japan’s English language broadcasting team.
That said, The King of Sneaky Style is a nine-time champion in the company, capturing not only the Junior Heavyweight title but also has the distinction of having the most Junior Tag titles reigns at eight, alongside Davey Richards (as No Remorse Corps), Alex Koslov (as Forever Hooligans), and Trent Baretta (as Roppongi Vice).
8 Prince Devitt (9)
Along with Rocky Romero and some other guys on this list, Irish-born Prince Devitt is certainly in the conversation when it comes to the best Juniors in NJPW history. Besides his contribution to overall wrestling culture in founding the Bullet Club, Devitt is also a three-time Junior Heavyweight Champion.
Before the BC, Devitt was also a supremely accomplished champion in the Junior Heavyweight Tag division, capturing four titles alongside Ryusuke Taguchi as Apollo 55 as well as two with this next guy.
7 Minoru Tanaka (9)
Lauded as one of the most underrated junior heavyweights of all time, Minoru Tanaka isn’t simply Prince Devitt’s tag team partner before Taguchi.
Tanaka debuted for NJPW in 1999, sticking around for over a decade and winning four IWGP Junior Heavyweight Titles and five Junior Tag Titles with a variety of partners along with Devitt. Tanaka would leave NJPW in 2009, bouncing from All Japan to Wrestle-1 and finally Pro Wrestling NOAH.
6 Hirooki Goto (10)
By 2020, it feels like a supreme injustice that NJPW’s resident samurai dad Hirooki Goto hasn’t ever managed to capture the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in his 17-year career -- not even one of those zero-defense reigns like Jay White had.
That said, Goto has held nearly every other championship available to his weight class, including the NEVER Openweight Championship, where he gets to hit other boys as hard as possible.
5 Tama Tonga (10)
One of the co-founders of Bullet Club, Tama Tonga is the longest-tenured member of the group alongside Bad Luck Fale. All of his six IWGP Tag Team Championship reigns were alongside Guerillas of Destiny brother Tanga Loa.
Loa showed up in NJPW about a month after Tonga captured his first title, the NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag belts, which he held with Yujiro Takahashi and Bad Luck Fale. As a result, Tama Tonga has one more title than Tanga Loa.
4 Koji Kanemoto (10)
A technically minded junior heavyweight, Koji Kanemoto debuted in late 1990 and ended up becoming the third wrestler to use the Tiger Mask gimmick -- that is until Jushin Thunder Liger defeated him in a Mask vs. Mask match in 1994.
Before moving on to wrestle for nearly every Japanese wrestling company you could think of, Kanemoto ended up sticking with New Japan from 1990 all the way to 2012, during which time he held ten titles with the company, including a Junior Tag Team Title run with Liger.
3 The Young Bucks (11)
One of the hottest tag teams in the world going back to their time on the indie and international wrestling scenes, Nick and Matt Jackson, collectively known as The Young Bucks, are eleven-time champions in NJPW.
This includes not only seven Junior Tag belts, one Heavyweight Tag Team Title, and three NEVER Openweight Six-Man Xhampionships. The only thing surprising about The Young Bucks’ time in NJPW is that the number of tag team titles isn’t higher than it already is.
2 Ryusuke Taguchi (11)
Another staple of the Junior Heavyweight scene, Ryusuke Taguchi is the legendary 69th IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, as well as a three-time NEVER Six-Man champ and six-time time Junior Tag champ.
In recent years, Taguchi has settled into a role as a midcard veteran, amusing fans with oddball temporary gimmicks like Masked Horse or running a loosely affiliated stable, Taguchi Japan, like it was a rugby team -- all while hitting opponents in the face with his butt.
1 Jushin Thunder Liger (17)
One of the greatest and most influential Junior Heavyweights in pro wrestling history -- not just NJPW -- Jushin Thunder Liger retired in January of 2020, capping off a nearly 36-year career. As one of the few remaining active NJPW stars who debuted in the 1980s, Liger racked up a whopping 17 title reigns, blowing every other non-IWGP Heavyweight Champion out of the water.
This encompasses not only a whopping eleven runs with the Junior Heavyweight Belt -- including one reign with the eight-belt J-Crown -- but also six Junior Tag reigns, most notably with Tiger Mask IV.