What If Tetsuya Naito Doesn’t Get Hurt In 2012?

[Quentin Moody]

As the hours pass before what should be the crowning moment of the molten hot Tetsuya Naito, I️ was relieving some of his matches from the Stardust Genius era and some thoughts came to mind.

Now we all know how badly the 2013 G1 through WK8 run went for him, but it’s easy to forget that Naito was a pretty damn hot commodity before that in 2012. Go back and listen to the crowd reactions from that time, he clearly had something already brewing.

A lot of people thought he was dead in the water by 2015 but he brought the Los Ingobernables gimmick back with him from Mexico and we all know the rest of the story.

The question is, how different is the NJPW landscape if Tetsuya Naito doesn’t hurt his knee in 2012, have to face that failure of his push in 2013/2014 and doesn’t have to find another way to become the star the company wanted him to be?

[rollup]

While the Stardust Genius was a good and natural babyface gimmick , i felt at the time it will always be overshadowed as long as Tanahashi was around. If he was not injured, i believe he won had won the IWGP title earlier , but would not reach the heights this current LIJ gimmick brings.

[Angry216]

The NEVER title would certainly be different. At least, the first few years. The title was created for him to win it(he was the only wrestler present during the press conference.) Other than that, who knows, but I like to think eventually the NEVER title would become what it is today.

[BoxingRobes]

Everything that has happened to Naito has been for the best. He is a bigger star now then he would have been under his previous gimmick.