The Ace of The Ark

Is Katsuhiko Nakajima the most underrated wrestler in the world?

If you’ve followed NOAH in any capacity this year, you probably know well of their attendance woes, the issues surrounding booking and the feeling that the promotion is stagnating. Like the inverse of AJPW, which has great buzz and popularity despite a thin roster, NOAH suffers from an inability to catch the zeitgeist, despite one of the best rosters in the world. The crown jewel in this roster (at least from an in-ring perspective) is Katsuhiko Nakajima.

Nakajima is likely best known to current fans as a result of his solid G1 26 tour. He had two excellent matches, with Yuji Nagata and Michael Elgin, amongst a series of solid performances opposite the likes of Tomoaki Honma and Kenny Omega, and ended the tour with a fantastic NOAH vs NJPW tag match. With this momentum, Nakajima was built up as the saviour of NOAH, dethroning Takashi Sugiura for the GHC Heavyweight Championship, before defending against Minoru Suzuki in a great, angle-ending bout, and tag partner Masa Kitamiya in a tremendous Christmas Eve main event.