With a career that spans 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s, few men demonstrated the longevity, influence or skill of Tatsumi Fujinami.
CageMatch has record of well over 3,500 matches which is certainly not even the entirety of his career.
He's wrestled with and against everyone from Antonio Inoki, Riki Choshu and Masahiro Chono to Fujiwara, Dick Murdoch, Bad News Allen, Gran Hamada and Andre the Giant. As you crunch his stats, an astounding range of names shows up - Barry Windham, Atlantis, Funaki, Harry Smith, Scott Norton, Vader, Hulk Hogan, Bill Eadie, Liger, Mistico, Sid Vicious, Nailz, Dynamite Kid, Tenzan, Tenyru, Ebessan and Iron Sheik. He's wrestled many people in the same family including the Guerreros (Chavo Sr, Mando, Hector, Eddy as Black Tiger), the Poffos (Randy, Lanny, Angelo) and the Smiths (Harry Smith, Davey Boy Smith).
He's a legend of New Japan Wrestling.
- Between 1972-75 he had at least 516 NJPW matches.
- Between 1978-94 he had at least 2,229 NJPW matches
- Between 1996-2002 ahe had at least 409 matches and he returned in 2005 for 26 more NJPW matches.
Since 2006, he's been especially active in Dradition Pro_Wrestling and Real Japan Pro Wrestling along with Legend the Pro-Wrestling as well as stints in Inoki Genome Federation, Dramatic Dream Team and the occasional appearance for New Japan, Dragon Japan, All Japan, Toryumon Mexico, Osaka Pro, ZERO1, KAGEKI, FREEDOMS, WRESTLE-1, SMASH, Michinoku Pro and more.
Fujinami Record against Opponents
He's also a prolific tag-team wrestler.
If you subscribe to NJ World, I recommend you check out some of the links to some of Fujinami's best matches from the 1980s courtesy of the DVDVR Best of the 1980s New Japan list.
Who do you think will do the induction?
I think it has to be a WWE Hall of Famer, like Ric Flair or a future HOF like Vader.
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