The History of the J* Crown

[Guest Black Tiger]

People on this board have read my tape reviews and my top ten lists, but you have yet to see a history piece. I prefer history pieces to anything else. I used to write the ECW Rewind for the old ECWNews.com as well as the NWA column for KayfabeMemories.com. But enough about me.

 

The J* Crown was 8 Jr heavyweight titles from around the world unified and defended as one title. It wasn't around that long but it has it's special place in the history of Puroresu.

 

The J* Crown's origin was in 1996 at a New Japan show called "The Skydiving J" it only featured matches for different Jr. titles. Some of the better matches were Jyushin Lyger VS Dick Togo for the Brittish Jr title, Great Sasuke VS Black Tiger (EDDY) for the IWGP Jr. Title, and Masayoshi Motegi VS Shiryu (Kaz Hayashi) for the NWA Jr. Title. After the show Jyushin Lyger convinced all of the champions to put their titles up in a winner take all tourament.

 

The J* Crown tournament took place from August 2-5 of 1996. Instead of the traditional one night tournament each show by New Japan featured a couple matches in the tournament. The titles involved were the IWGP Jr. heavyweight title, the WAR international Jr. heavyweight title, the WWF Jr. heavyweight tilte, the NWA Jr. Heavyweight title, the NWA Welterweight Title, The UWA Jr. Heavyweight title, The Brittish Jr. heavyweight title, and the EMLL Jr. heavyweight title. The particitpants included The Great Sasuke, Ultimo Dragon, Jyushin Lyger, Shinjiro Ohtani, Negro Casas, Masayoshi Motegi, Gran Hamada, and El Samauri. The favorite to win the tournment Jyushin Lyger was eliminated in the first round, it was discovered that he had a brain tumor and he was told to take some time off. The best match of the card featured Ohtani VS Ultimo Dragon in the semi finals. The finals saw Great Sasuke defeat Ultimo Dragon to win all eight of the titles. Many people seemed to be surprised by Sasuke's victory at the time. Common sense says that New Japan hosted the tournament so the IWGP Jr. champ, Sasuke should go over.

 

Now that Sasuke was the champion he had a lot of challengers waiting to take the titles off of him. The Ultimo Dragon became the second J* Crown champion, shortly after winning the titles, Dragon upset Dean Malenko for the WCW Crusierweight title in December of 1996, Dragon was the first and probably only wrestler to hold 9 different Jr heavyweight titles.

 

1996 may have been the year for the Ultimo Dragon, but 1997 wasn't so kind. Jyushin Lyger won the J* Crown on 1/4/97 in the Tokyo Dome, then Dragon lost the WCW Crusierweight title back to Malenko in mid January at a WCW Clash of the Champions show. As the champion Lyger began to prove himself a worthy champion. He deffened against all comers. Lyger defeated such stars as Shinjiro Ohtani, El Samauri, Koji Kanemoto, and Great Sasuke. Early in the summer of 1997 Lyger was defeated by El Samauri but soon after Samauri was defeated for the WAR International Jr. title and the J* Crown was now only 7 titles. Shinjiro Ohtani defeated Samauri in August of 1997, the one year anniversary of the title.

 

The WWF began to see how much the fans loved Jr Heavyweight wrestling and he decided to revive the WWF light heavyweight division in late 1997. McMahon ordered Ohtani to vacate the WWF title. As the J* Crown began to shrink Ohtani did a mercy killing and vacted all the title exept the IWGP Jr. heavyweight title in October of 1997. The J* Crown was no more.

 

Although it was only around for 14 months the J* Crown was one of the best things to happen to Jr heavyweight wrestling. The highspots that were so great looking in 1988 were small potatos to 1997 fans. The J* Crown was a new idea that appealed to many fans. One ironic bit is that the five men who held the J* Crown were all participants in the tournament. The J* Crown may be gone, but it's not forgotten.

[Guest Mark4steamboat]

Thanks dude. Im getting my copy in the mail anyday now.