American Wrestlers living in Japan.

[Ted Sheckler]

I remember about 7 or 8 years ago you had tons of American wrestlers packing their lives up and moving to Japan to live in the country and work for both major and minor promotions. NJPW of course had their share of guys as did AJPW, NOAH and even smaller promotions like BJW had Americans living there 10-11 months of the year. Some notables are guys like Craig Classic, Giant Bernard, Masada, Rene Dupree etc etc

It now seems this has pretty much stopped for everyone outside NJPW. I can't think of many gaijin talent in general that don't get flown in for events. Surely it's a lot more financially viable for these companies to have these guys living in an apartment rather than flying them in for a tour every other month.

Anyway, I thought I'd ask the question, which American wrestlers who work in Japan are actually living in the country?

[chrom]

Kenny Omega lives in the Katsushika ward of Tokyo

[魔界5号]

James Raideen, Quiet Storm and David Finlay all at least have homes in Japan.

[Deleted]

Dec 18, 2016 18:21:27 GMT -5 Ted Sheckler said:

It now seems this has pretty much stopped for everyone outside NJPW. I can't think of many gaijin talent in general that don't get flown in for events. Surely it's a lot more financially viable for these companies to have these guys living in an apartment rather than flying them in for a tour every other month.

It would be but good luck attracting top talent, especially those with families, if moving to Japan would be a requirement for the job. The quickest way to generally tell how well a promotion is doing financially is to look at how many foreigners they can afford to bring in.


To answer your question, I'm pretty sure Akebono lives there.

[________ has left the building]

Bufa, formerly of the East Coast tag team A.M.I.L., lives in Japan and wrestles for Zero-1. There are a number of foreigners who work for the smaller puro companies who actually live in Japan which helps them secure bookings.

[eDemento2099]

I wondered why Masada came back to the States rather than continuing to live in Japan, where he no doubt earned a lot more money. Maybe he left because the cost of living is so much higher in Japan, especially for all the food that an athletic guy needs to eat to rebuild muscles broken down from working out.