{"id":144171,"date":"2025-10-16T09:08:32","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T13:08:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=144171"},"modified":"2025-10-16T09:08:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T13:08:32","slug":"njpw-star-kushida-set-for-philippine-debut-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/10\/16\/njpw-star-kushida-set-for-philippine-debut-match\/","title":{"rendered":"NJPW Star KUSHIDA Set for Philippine Debut Match"},"content":{"rendered":"

NJPW\u2019s own \u201cTime Splitter\u201d KUSHIDA is adding the Philippines to the long list of countries he has wrestled in next month. He will compete in the country for the first time for Filipino Pro-Wrestling (FPW) on November 9.<\/span><\/p>\n

The six-time IWGP Jr. Heavyweight champion will be in a tag team bout, teaming up with \u201cThe Maestro\u201d Cali Nueva against The YOLO Twins.<\/span><\/p>\n

While it is his first time in the Philippines, he has wrestled in other countries in East Asia, namely China and Taiwan. He was part of the recently concluded NJPW Historic X-over in Guangzhou, China, held last October 5 in a singles match against Zack Sabre Jr.<\/span><\/p>\n

KUSHIDA has had a decorated 19-year career performing all over the world. Aside from being a multi-time Jr. Heavyweight champion, he\u2019s also held the Jr. Tag belts four times as part of the Time Splitters with Alex Shelley and, more recently, with Kevin Knight as the Intergalactic Jet Setters.<\/span><\/p>\n

He also held the Ring of Honor Television Championship in 2017, racking up five defenses. He was also a former WWE NXT Cruiserweight champion, holding the title for 161 days in 2021.<\/span><\/p>\n

NJPW\u2019s Presence in the Philippines<\/b><\/h2>\n

Before the announcement of KUSHIDA debuting in the country, there were already others who had made the trip and wrestled in front of the Filipino fans.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year, the former Jeff Cobb came back to the Philippines and wrestled for FPW as well. He won the FPW Championship by defeating the longest reigning champion, Mike Madrigal. He brought the title to Japan, which was seen in multiple NJPW shows, including Wrestle Kingdom 19, just this January.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prior to that, he made his Philippine debut back in 2019 for the now-defunct Philippine Wrestling Revolution (PWR).<\/span><\/p>\n

Former IWGP World Heavyweight champion Zack Sabre Jr. and reigning two-time NJPW World TV champion El Phantasmo have also performed for the Filipino fans. ZSJ has wrestled there twice, both for shows organized by Dexcon, a pro-wrestling event organizer that is a collaborator of the two other promotions in the country: Puso Wrestling and World Underground Wrestling – Philippines (WUW).<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A
Photo Credit: NJPW<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NJPW also held a show in the countryside way back in 1984. The card included legends such as NJPW founder Antonio Inoki, Hall of Famers Tatsumi Fujinami and Keiji Muto, and Shinya Hashimoto.<\/span><\/p>\n

More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/strong><\/p>\n

Header photo \u2013 NJPW \u2013 Stay tuned to the\u00a0\u00a0Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a> for more on KUSHIDA, Filipino Pro-Wrestling, and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can rewatch all NJPW events and plenty more tremendous wrestling content from New Japan Pro-Wrestling on NJPWWorld.com<\/a>, The King of Sports Streaming.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NJPW\u2019s own \u201cTime Splitter\u201d KUSHIDA is adding the Philippines to the long list of countries he has wrestled in next month. He will compete in the country for the first time for Filipino Pro-Wrestling (FPW) on November 9. The six-time IWGP Jr. Heavyweight champion will be in a tag team bout, teaming up with \u201cThe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5576,"featured_media":144173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14,2192],"tags":[9560,190],"class_list":["post-144171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-njpw","category-wrestling","tag-filipino-pro-wrestling","tag-kushida"],"modified_by":"Michael Joseph Sugue, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5576"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144171"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144175,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144171\/revisions\/144175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}