| Founded | February 2, 2010 |
|---|---|
| Defunct | March 14, 2012 |
| Style | Puroresu Strong style |
| Founder(s) | Yoshihiro Tajiri |
| Owner(s) | Quantum Jump Japan Co. Ltd. |
Smash was a Japanese puroresu and combat sports promotion, founded in December 2009 following the folding of Hustle. In the fall of 2009 Hustle ran into financial problems that led to several show cancellations. After a planned restructuring and restarting of the promotion failed, a number of officials and wrestlers decided to start a new project. Smash held its first show on March 26, 2010.
Smash promoted three divisions: professional wrestling, mixed martial arts and kickboxing. The professional wrestling branch is led by Yoshihiro Tajiri, while Akira Shoji is responsible for the MMA branch. Yuji Shimada leads the overall supervision of the whole project. Since 2010 Smash has had an active exchange of wrestlers with the Finnish Fight Club Finland promotion.
In April 2011, it was announced that Deep and the MMA division of Smash had formed an amateur promotion named the Japan MMA League (JML). [1]
On February 10, 2012, Smash announced that the promotion would be folding after its March 14 event, following a disagreement between Tajiri and financial backer (Quantum Jump Japan CEO) Masakazu Sakai. [2] [3] On April 5, 2012, Tajiri announced the follow-up promotion to Smash, Wrestling New Classic, which would hold its first event on April 26. [4] [5] On June 1, 2012, Sakai and his Smash backers bought Pancrase, officially incorporating Smash's MMA division into the promotion and re-affirming the partnership with Deep in JML. [6] [7] [8]
Smash Seikigun
Fight Club Finland
| Triple Tails.SUnaffiliated
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| Championship | Final Champion(s) | Date won | Previous Champion(s) |
| Smash Championship | Dave Finlay | November 24, 2011 | StarBuck |
| Smash Diva Championship | Syuri | February 19, 2012 | Kana |
Yoshihiro Tajiri is a Japanese professional wrestler and promoter primarily known under the ring name Tajiri, he has also competed under his real name as well as under the names Aquarius and Kikkoman and briefly worked as the masked character Tigre Blanco.
Pancrase is a Japanese mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in Tokyo. It was founded in 1993 by professional wrestlers Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki.
Akira Nogami is a Japanese professional wrestler and actor, currently working as Akira. He has also worked as a trainer.
Michael Majalahti is a Canadian-Finnish professional wrestler, singer and artist, better known by the stage name "The Canadian Rebel" StarBuck. His active bands include Stoner Kings, Angel of Sodom and Crossfyre. Majalahti also worked for six years between 2009 – 2015 as a play-by-play commentator for the Finnish broadcasts of WWE programming on Eurosport.
Hajime Ohara is a Japanese professional wrestler. Ohara worked for Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) in Mexico for several years as part of his training, mixing the lucha libre style of Mexico with the Japanese Puroresu style of wrestling. In Japan, Ohara is best known for his work in the Hustle, Smash and Wrestling New Classic (WNC) promotions. He is signed to Pro Wrestling Noah, where he is a one time GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion and a six-time GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion.
Masayuki Kono is a Japanese professional wrestler and former mixed martial artist. He is currently working as a freelancer. He is best known for his time in Wrestle-1, where he is a former two-time Wrestle-1 Champion.
Makoto is a Japanese professional wrestler. Trained by Emi Sakura, Makoto made her debut for her Ice Ribbon promotion in July 2006. During the next five years, Makoto went on to win Ice Ribbon's top title, the ICE×60 Championship, once and the International Ribbon Tag Team Championship twice, before transferring over to the Smash promotion in August 2011. She remained with Smash until March 2012, when the promotion folded. The following month, Makoto was announced as part of the roster of the new Wrestling New Classic (WNC) promotion. In March 2013, Makoto became the second WNC Women's Champion. In January 2014, Makoto made Reina Joshi Puroresu her second home promotion in addition to WNC. Reina became her primary home promotion after WNC shut down in June 2014. She is a former one-time Reina World Women's Champion and a two-time Reina World Tag Team Champion. She is also known for working at Seadlinnng where she and Asuka are the current title holders of Beyond The Sea Tag Team Championship. She is also known for being a group in Seadlinnng called “Las Fresa De Ego Istas.”
Syuri Kondo, better known simply as Syuri, is a Japanese professional wrestler, shoot boxer, kickboxer and mixed martial artist. She is currently signed to World Wonder Ring Stardom, where she is the leader of God's Eye.
Ray was a Hong Kong professional wrestler. After being trained by Emi Sakura, Ray made her professional wrestling debut in September 2003 and would for the next several years wrestle under different masks, before she began working for Smash in March 2010, unmasked under the ring name Lin Byron. She remained with Smash until the promotion folded in March 2012, after which she transferred over to its successor, Wrestling New Classic (WNC), which lasted until June 2014. In April 2013, Byron became the third WNC Women's Champion. She revived the Ray character in January 2011, initially signing with Ice Ribbon, before becoming a freelancer in May 2012. Afterwards, she mainly worked for the Reina Joshi Puroresu promotion, while also promoting her own independent events and traveling to the United States to work for Shimmer Women Athletes. During her career, Ray held the CMLL-Reina International Junior, International Ribbon Tag Team and WNC Women's Championships, among other titles. After being diagnosed with a brain tumor in December 2015, she died in August 2018.
Wrestling New Classic (WNC) (レスリング・ニュー・クラシック, Resuringu Nyū Kurashikku) was a Japanese puroresu or professional wrestling promotion, founded in April 2012 by Yoshihiro Tajiri. WNC was the follow-up promotion to Smash, which folded in March 2012.
Hiroaki Sato is a Japanese professional wrestler and mixed martial artist, better known by the ring name Hikaru Sato. Sato started his MMA career in February 2000, fighting for Pancrase Hybrid Wrestling. During the next eight years, Sato fought, on average, five times a year, compiling a record of 18 wins, 19 losses and four draws, which included fights against the likes of Keiichiro Yamamiya, Nathan Marquardt, Ryo Chonan and Yushin Okami. In May 2008, Sato transitioned into the world of professional wrestling, when he was signed by the Dramatic Dream Team (DDT) promotion. He has since had ten MMA fights. In November 2010, Sato first became a triple crown trios champion with Michael Nakazawa and Tomomitsu Matsunaga and then also won DDT's top singles title, the KO-D Openweight Championship. Sato remained affiliated with DDT until January 2014. He is currently working for the All Japan Pro Wrestling promotion, where he is a former two-time World Junior Heavyweight Champion and four-time All Asia Tag Team Champion, while also being a five-time winner of the Jr. Tag Battle of Glory tournament.
Ryo Kawamura is a Japanese mixed martial artist, professional wrestler, and the former executive president of Pancrase Inc. A professional MMA competitor from 2005 until 2014, Kawamura most notably competed for Pancrase, where he is the former King of Pancrase Middleweight Champion and Light Heavyweight Champion. In MMA, also competed for World Victory Road and ONE FC.
Nagisa Nozaki is a Japanese professional wrestler. She started her career in the NEO Japan Ladies Pro-Wrestling promotion in November 2006. After the promotion folded in December 2010, she worked for independent promotions such as Pro Wrestling Wave and World Woman Pro-Wrestling Diana. Throughout her career, Nozaki has suffered several injuries, which eventually led to her taking a thirteen-month break from professional wrestling to undergo a shoulder surgery. She finally returned in August 2012, working for Wrestling New Classic (WNC). After another injury, Nozaki went inactive in January 2013, eventually returning with Pro Wrestling Wave in 2017.
Atsushi Sakai is a Japanese professional wrestler better known under the ring name Kai. Best known for his work in the All Japan Pro Wrestling promotion, Kai is an accomplished junior heavyweight wrestler, having won the World Junior Heavyweight Championship twice and the Junior League also twice, while he and Kaz Hayashi also won the 2011 Junior Tag League. In August 2012, Kai announced that he was ending his junior heavyweight days and becoming a heavyweight wrestler. After taking a seven-month break from in-ring action, Kai returned to All Japan in March 2013, now working as a heavyweight wrestler. However, the following July, Kai quit All Japan following a change in the promotion's management and joined the new Wrestle-1 promotion. In March 2015, Kai won the promotion's top title, the Wrestle-1 Championship. He went on to win the title two more times, before quitting Wrestle-1 in December 2016 to become a freelancer.
Wrestle-1 was a Japanese puroresu or professional wrestling promotion, founded in July 2013 by Keiji Mutoh following his resignation from All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW). The core of the promotion's roster was formed by wrestlers loyal to Mutoh, who left AJPW in a mass exodus during June 2013. Mutoh served as the promotion's first president and the head of its parent company, kabushiki gaisha named GEN Sports Entertainment. In March 2017, Kaz Hayashi took over as the new president of Wrestle-1. The promotion held its first event on September 8, 2013, at Tokyo Dome City Hall.
The Wrestle-1 Championship was the top professional wrestling title owned by the Wrestle-1 (W-1) promotion. In Japanese the title's name includes the katakana term for "championship", Chanpionshippu (チャンピオンシップ), derived from the English language instead of the more common kanji term Ōza (王座). The title also does not feature the word "Heavyweight" or any other weight class, indicating an open-weight status de facto.
NEVER was a series of professional wrestling events held by New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) between August 2010 and November 2012. On July 12, 2010, NJPW officially announced the NEVER project, which was to highlight younger up-and-coming talent and outside wrestlers not signed to the promotion. It was explained that the name of the project was an acronym of the terms "New Blood", "Evolution", "Valiantly", "Eternal" and "Radical". For the events, NJPW recruited several freelancers as well as wrestlers signed to promotions such as DDT Pro-Wrestling and Kaientai Dojo. Some outsiders who became NEVER regulars included Daisuke Sasaki, Kaji Tomato, Madoka, Ryuichi Sekine and Shinobu. Kushida, who entered NEVER as a representative of the Smash promotion in February 2011, signed a NJPW contract the following month and returned to the project the following September, now representing NJPW. Three NJPW trainees; Hiromu Takahashi, Sho Tanaka and Yohei Komatsu, made their professional wrestling debuts at NEVER events. Takahashi, who debuted at NEVER.1, was the only wrestler who wrestled on all thirteen NEVER events.
Sōjirō Higuchi is a Japanese professional wrestler, better known by the ring name Jiro "Ikemen" Kuroshio. He is best known for his work in the Wrestle-1 promotion, where he was a former two-time UWA World Trios Championship holder before leaving the promotion in January 2019. He is currently signed to WWE, performing for the NXT brand under the ring name Ikemen Jiro.
Rin Nakai is a Japanese professional female mixed martial artist. Starting her MMA career in 2006, she has participated in the organizations Pancrase, Smackgirl, Valkyrie and the UFC.
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