Today's Wrestler of the Day is the hard-hitting, "Stone Pitbull" Tomohoro Ishii!
Like Hirooki Goto, I see Tomohoro Ishii as one of the best wrestlers to never hold the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. Ishii is also a guy that the late great Bruiser Brody would be very proud of, due to he notable brawling style. What baffled me about him at first was not necessary his skill set, but how he was being used in New Japan Pro Wrestling. He was an undercard guy at best, which caused him to gain a cult following of fans. The cult following resulted in his pushed, and as you can see in the picture above, it worked out really well. Ishii is now a four-time (and current) NEVER Openweight Champion, which was his first major title with the promotion. Thankfully enough, his status in NJPW continues to rise, and now he has two 5 Star Matches to his credit: one against Katsuyori Shibata (2013) and another underrated wrestler, Tomoaki Honma (2015).
Here's one of the 5 Star Matches I mentioned, where he faces off against Tomoaki Honma back on February 14th, 2015.
