NJPW Jingu Climax

Meiji Jingu Stadium, the venue of the event

**Jingu Climax** was a major professional wrestling event produced by New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW). It took place on August 28, 1999, at the Meiji Jingu Stadium in Tokyo, Japan and was televised live on TV Asahi.

The main event was marketed as a "dream match", a No Rope Explosive Barbed Wire Barricade Explosive Land Mine Double Hell Deathmatch pitting Keiji Mutoh's alter ego The Great Muta against Atsushi Onita's alter ego The Great Nita. Muta won the match. Other major matches on the card featured Shinya Hashimoto versus Masahiro Chono, The Mad Dogs (Michiyoshi Ohara and Tatsutoshi Goto) defending the IWGP Tag Team Championship against Manabu Nakanishi and Yuji Nagata, Koji Kanemoto defending the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship against Kendo Kashin and Shinjiro Otani and Tatsuhito Takaiwa defending the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship against El Samurai and Jushin Liger.

## Production

### Storylines

The event was centered around a No Rope Explosive Barbed Wire Barricade Explosive Land Mine Double Hell Deathmatch between Keiji Mutoh's alter ego The Great Muta and Atsushi Onita's alter ego The Great Nita. Mutoh began using the Great Muta character in World Championship Wrestling in 1989 and incorporated the character into NJPW in 1990. With the growing popularity of the Great Muta in Japanese wrestling, several wrestlers began imitating it. Onita imitated the character in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling as the "Great Nita" in 1994. Years later, after Onita departed FMW in 1998, he began feuding with Muta under his Great Nita alter ego and claimed to be more sadistic than Muta, setting up a match between the Great Muta and the Great Nita under Onita's deathmatch speciality which he had popularized in his promotion FMW.

On June 8, Kendo Kashin defeated the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Koji Kanemoto in the tournament final to win the 1999 Best of the Super Juniors tournament, thus earning a future title shot against Kanemoto for the Junior Heavyweight Championship. This set up a title match between the two for the Junior Heavyweight Championship at Jingu Climax.

## Event

### Preliminary matches

The event kicked off with a singles match between Kazuyuki Fujita and Brian Johnston. Fujita won the match by making Johnston submit to the cross armbreaker.

Next, Shinjiro Otani and Tatsuhito Takaiwa defended the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship against El Samurai and Jushin Liger in the first championship match of the event. Otani nailed a *Spiral Bomb* to Liger to retain the titles.

Next, Koji Kanemoto defended the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship against Kendo Kashin. Kashin made Kanemoto submit to the cross armbreaker to win the Junior Heavyweight Championship.

Next, nWo Japan members Ten-Koji (Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima) took on the team of Shiro Koshinaka and Tatsumi Fujinami. Tenzan hit a kneeling kick to Koshinaka for the win.

The match was followed by the final championship match of the event in which The Mad Dogs (Michiyoshi Ohara and Tatsutoshi Goto) defended the IWGP Tag Team Championship against Manabu Nakanishi and Yuji Nagata. Nagata delivered a *Backdrop Hold* to Ohara to win the match and the Tag Team Championship.

Later, Don Frye took on Scott Norton. Frye made Norton submit to the rear naked choke for the win.

It was followed by the penultimate match of the event in which Shinya Hashimoto took on Masahiro Chono. Hashimoto passed out in Chono's STF submission hold, forcing the referee to stop the match and award the win to Chono.

### Main event match

The main event was a No Rope Explosive Barbed Wire Barricade Explosive Land Mine Double Hell Deathmatch between Keiji Mutoh's alter ego "The Great Muta" and Atsushi Onita's alter ego "The Great Nita". After a back and forth match, Muta knocked out Nita with a Kama and Nita was unable to answer the referee's ten count, which resulted in Muta getting the win.

## Aftermath

On July 26, 2020 NJPW announced that they would return to arena after 21 years for the first time in the promotion's history on August 29 being the promotion second outdoor event of the promotion at last of the 2020 Summer Struggle tour.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Battle of Last Summer . *Pro Wrestling History*. Retrieved on 2020-05-19.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `cagematch`
3. ↑ The Great Muta Page 2 . Retrieved on 2020-05-19.
4. ↑ FMW History . Retrieved on 2020-05-19.
5. ↑ The Great Muta's Profile . Online World of Wrestling. Retrieved on 2020-05-19.
6. ↑ Best of the Super Junior 1999 . Retrieved on 2020-05-19.
7. ↑ NJPW Results - June 8, 1999 . Retrieved on 2020-05-19.
8. ↑ NJPW Jingu Climax . Retrieved on 2020-05-19.
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 New Japan Pro-Wrestling Results: 1999 . Retrieved on 2020-05-19.