New Japan's 1st PPV a blast
Choshu comes out of retirement, defeats Onita
By JOHN F. MOLINARO -- SLAM! Wrestling
New Japan booker Riki Choshu came out of retirement to beat F.M.W. founder Atsushi Onita in the main event of New Japan Pro Wrestling's first ever
pay-per-view event today in Yokohama, Japan.
The main event, a barbed wire exploding death match, saw Choshu dominate from the opening bell as he threw Onita into the exploding barb wire
several times. Choshu secured Onita in the scorpion death lock as the referee called for the bell at 7:46 after determining the Onita could not
continue.
Onita was immediately rushed to a nearby hospital at the conclusion of the show.
This was the first time Choshu has wrestled since retiring at New Japan's annual New Year's Tokyo Dome spectacular on January 4, 1998.
In other matches from the pay-per-view, former WCW star Yuji Nagata teamed with current I.W.G.P. Heavyweight champion to defeat Manabu
Nakanishi (former WCW star Kurosawa) and Yutaka Yoshie; Takashi Iizuka defeated Shinjiro Ohtani via sleeper hold submission; Shiro Koshinaka
pinned Koji Kanmoto; Junji Hirata defeated Kenzo Suzuki; Minoru Tanaka defeated Akira Nogami and Shin'ya Makabe defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi.
The event, New Japan's first foray into pay-per-view, drew a reported sellout of 18, 000 fans to the Yokohama Arena. It was the first New Japan
event broadcast by the SkyPerfec digital satellite broadcasting system.
No word has been released when the next pay-per-view event will be held.
-- With files from Zach Arnold,
Wrestling Observer
