Top 10 Stories Of 2020: Jushin Thunder Liger Retires

Throughout December, Neal Wagner will count down the top 10 stories of 2020 as voted on by The Wrestling Estate staff. Here is No. 10: the retirement of Jushin Thunder Liger.

In professional wrestling, the style referred to as junior heavyweight, cruiserweight or light heavyweight was taken mainstream by one man: Jushin Thunder Liger.

Debuting in 1984 under his real name of Keiichi Yamada, he would become one of the most talked about Japanese wrestlers of all time. Even American fans who didn’t know anything about Japanese wrestling knew of Jushin Thunder Liger. After more than 35 years, his trailblazing career came to an end at the dawn of 2020.

New Japan Pro Wrestling held a special press conference shortly after Wrestle Kingdom 13 in 2019 to announce Liger’s retirement tour, which would wrap up at Wrestle Kingdom 14 in January 2020. He hoped to tour multiple promotions around the world to get in front of as many fans as possible. He also revealed that he was retiring largely due to seeing how things had changed over the years and wanting to get out before it was too late. His goal was to wrestle all the new stars on the way out.

Liger worked for over 20 different promotions during the retirement tour, including Ring of Honor, Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), Zero 1, Wrestle 1, Michinoku Pro Wrestling, Revolution Pro Wrestling and DEFY Wrestling. His full-time promotion was New Japan where he spent most of the year building his feud with “The King” Minoru Suzuki, culminating at October’s King of Pro Wrestling event. The build up would see the return of one of Liger’s most famous alter-egos, Kishin Liger, who would spray a mysterious black mist into Suzuki’s face and attempt to take a spike to Minoru’s head. Suzuki would win the emotional match but ended the feud by bowing down to a fallen Liger.

Throughout the tour, he teamed with Hiroshi Hase and Keiji Muto (real-life name of The Great Muta) to defeat Manabu Nakanishi (who would retire in February 2020 after seeing Liger retire), Osamu Nishimura and Yuji Nagata in his final Wrestle 1 match. For Michinoku Pro, he would team with his old rival The Great Sasuke and go to a 20-minute time limit draw against Dick Togo and Jinsei Shinzaki. During the 7 Year Anniversary show for Revolution Pro Wrestling, he teamed with Michael Oku to defeat Chris Brookes and Hikuleo. For ROH, he would go to Madison Square Garden for the G1 SuperCard show in April and would participate in the pre-show Honor Rumble Battle Royal as a surprise entrant. There was a great moment in the match when he would be face to face with The Great Muta.

As for Wrestle Kingdom 14, New Japan officials would let Liger pick his matches for the two-night extravaganza. For Night 1, he chose to go with history, bringing back some of his older storylines together for one big 8-man tag team match. Liger would be on the losing end of the match teaming with Tatsumi Fujinami, The Great Sasuke and Tiger Mask (managed by El Samurai) against Naoki Sano, Shinjiro Otani, Tatsuhito Takaiwa and Ryusuke Taguchi (managed by Kuniaki Kobayashi).

For Night 2, Liger would look towards the future. He requested a tag team match with Sano against Ryu Lee (former Dragon Lee) and the newly crowned IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion Hiromu Takahashi (who won the belt on Night 1 on Will Ospreay). Liger would take the pin from Hiromu, losing his final match. However, Liger walked out of the Tokyo Dome to a standing ovation from the 35,000 fans in attendance as his final send off. He can still be seen on broadcasts today during commentary still wearing his famous mask.

The career and legacy of Jushin Thunder Liger is a long and storied one. His accomplishments will likely never be matched. Many past, present and surely future stars have/will thank Liger for his inspiration and in some cases mentorship through their careers. Fans around the world will miss that famous music as he walked to the ring and the amazing moments that he provided. He was good about reinventing himself if it meant staying in the spotlight. He was one of the greatest of all time and remains a glaring omission on many fans’ Mount Rushmores.