Hustle

Acronym	Hustle
Founded	2004
Defunct	October 10, 2009
Style	"Fighting Opera"
Founder	Nobuhiko Takada
Owner	Hustle Entertainment
Successor	Smash

Hustle (ハッスル,Hassuru) was a Japaneseprofessional wrestling promotion managed byNobuhiko Takada. Hustle can be described as anindustryexperiment to market thesports entertainment style of professional wrestling in Japan.

Booked primarily byNobuhiko Takada andYuji Shimada, the promotion's basic premise pits thebabyface, or good guy, Hustle faction whose goal is to “defend the industry”, against Generalissimo Takada'sheel, or bad guy, Monster Faction, whose mission is to destroy the sport. Unlike the traditionalpuroresu, the company emphasizesmelodrama andcaricatures over realism and athleticism. The group once maintained a close affiliation withmixed martial arts promotersPRIDE Fighting Championships when both were owned byDream Stage Entertainment, or DSE.

Fans in the U.S. considered HUSTLE to be an answer to Takada's original wrestling style, the seriousshoot style, having lost its popularity in Japan as a result of theUWFi vs.New Japan Pro-Wrestling feud and the rise ofPride andK-1.

On April 24, 2007, Hustle's ownership group (made up of former DSE employees) became "Hustle Entertainment" and former Kami no Puroresu editor Noboru Yamaguchi (who was part of the original Hustlebrain trust) becamePresident of the neworganization. The group is still running their business at the old Dream Stage Entertainment offices, which became the PRIDE Worldwide Holding offices.

Earlier in 2007, Hustle ran a storyline where General Takada bought out Hustle for 1 billion Monster dollars and that everyone within the Hustle army became part of the Takada Monster Army. Somewrestlers received newgimmicks, likeNaoya Ogawa turning into "Celeb" Ogawa, where he acted like a celebrity. The storyline was in response to DSE's bleak future due to financial troubles caused by yakuza scandals; DSE would eventually close doors afterPride Fighting Championships was officially bought out by Zuffa (the organization that ownedUFC at the time).

In July 2009, the leader of the Monster Army, Generalissimo Takada was "killed" when a new enemy by the name of "King RIKI" (played by actor/singerRiki Takeuchi) showed up at the "HUSTLE AID 2009" event and repelled one of Takada's lasers, sending it back towards him and wounding him. The following show the Monster Army was disbanded, as the direction of the company started to change.

In August 2009, President Noburo Yamaguchi stated that Hustle would be entering a new era. Straying away from the over the top storylines & gimmick-oriented "Fighting Opera" style that made them popular, to a more traditional wrestling "Professional Fighting" style.

Hustle president Nobuo Yamaguchi announced on October 28 that the promotion was folding. He made the announcement that they were out of money, and could no longer pay the staff and the wrestlers. He said that the scheduled 10/29 show at Korakuen Hall was canceled, as are all the rest of the shows on the schedule. Since Nobuhiko Takada left the promotion as the top heel, interest had gone way down. Many of the shows were before small crowds, and most of those crowds were papered.^{[citation needed]} While nobody would say so publicly, they were behind on paying a lot of the wrestlers, and the demise of the promotion has been expected for the last couple of months.^{[citation needed]} Yamaguchi said his goal was to eventually bring the promotion back. Wataru Sakata still runs Hustle shows under the banner "HUSTLE Man's World", with wrestler @UEXIL as the main eventer; however, they're only run sporadically and at the small venue Shin-Kiba FIRST Ring (approx. 250 capacity), without television exposure and attendance figures not posted.

In the beginning of 2010 some of Hustle's biggest names announced that they would be forming a new promotion,Smash, intended to replace the dead promotion. Smash held its first show on March 26, 2010.^[1] After a six-month hiatus, Hustle held two shows on April 30 and May 30, 2010. After another four-month break, the promotion held two more shows in October.^[2] In 2011, theBleacher Report ranked Hustle No.13 on its list of the 25 worst professional wrestling promotions in history.^[3]

• Magnum Tokyo (formerly "Detective" Alan Kuroki) - went into inactivity
• Toshiaki Kawada - freelancer, inactive since 2010
• "Karate Girl" KG -
• \(^o^)/ Chie (pronounced "Banzai Chie") - retired
• Punch the C - freelancer
• Akira Shoji (formerly Private Shoji) - jumped to Smash, returned to MMA in 2011

• King Riki - inactive
• Wataru Sakata - returned toPro Wrestling Zero1
• Genichiro Tenryu - formedTenryu Project, retired in 2015
• Yoji Anjo - inactive; retired in 2015 in a six-man match
• Riki Choshu - inactive, retired in 2019
• Yoshihiro Takayama - freelancer

Deceased individuals are indicated with a dagger (†).

• “Generalissimo” Takada (Nobuhiko Takada)
• The Esperanza (Occasional)
• "Hard Gay" HG
• "Real Gay" RG
• Bono-kun (Akebono) (formerly Monster Bono/Bono-Chan) †
• Monster C
• Nise HG (Fake HG) (Keizo Matsuda)
• Hiroshi Nagao (formerly "Giant Voba")- Retired in late 2008
• "Hustle Buzzsaw" Tajiri
• "Hustle Supernova"Kushida
• Rey Ohara
• Naoya Ogawa
• Shinya Hashimoto †
• "The Erotic Terrorist" Yinling
• Abdullah the Butcher (Occasional)
• Tiger Jeet Singh (Occasional)
• Bob Sapp
• Scott Norton
• Bill Goldberg (one time)
• Giant Silva
• Rene Bonaparte
• Tiger Jeet Singh Jr.
• The Great Muta
• Zeus (Osaka Pro)
• A-chan (Nobutaka Araya)
• Yoshie-chan (Yutaka Yoshie) †
• "Fire Monster" Shinjiro Otani
• "Super Cyborg" Ryouji Sai
• "Monster K'" Kohei Sato
• Yosei (Wataru Sakata's Wife)
• Keroro Gunsou
• Erica (Aja Kong)
• Dump Matsumoto
• Minoru Suzuki
• Warren Cromartie
• Randleman †
• Coleman
• Kurodaman
• Mitsuyaman (Mitsuya Nagai)
• Nosawa Rongai
• Mazada
• Masato Tanaka
• Sodom &Gomora
• Tadao Yasuda
• Team 3D (Brother Ray andBrother Devon)
• The Neo Devil Pierrots 1 & 2
• Flying Vampire 16 & 23 & 25 & 28
• Madama Devil (Devil Masami) (parody ofMadama Butterfly andDewi Sukarno)
• Kaz Hayashi
• Margaret (Amazing Kong)
• "Hustle I" Taichi Ishikari
• Hirotaka Yokoi
• Arisin Z (Ayako Hamada)
• Blanca X (Saki Maemura)
• Caiya
• Demon Spider
• Jaguar Y (Jaguar Yokota)
• Monster C (Steve Corino)
• Monster J (Sonjay Dutt)
• Seiichi Kusama
• Kei Sasahara
• Kyo Itako
• Kidata-Low
• Fujin & Raijin
• Count Poisonous Cobra
• Monster MAX (Maximum Capacity) †
• Super Virus

• Hustle Kamen Blue
• Hustle Kamen Green (Lil' Nate)
• Hustle Kamen Red
• Hustle Kamen Pink
• Hustle Kamen Yellow
• Hustle Kamen Orange
• Hustle Kamen Silver
• Hustle Kamen Gold

TheHustle Hardcore Hero Championship (also referred to as theHHH Championship) was the topchampionship in theJapaneseprofessional wrestlingpromotion Hustle. The title was more of a joke title since the Hustle promotion was never meant to be taken seriously. The title was represented by a giant gold and black spiked baseball bat.^[4][5]

TheHustle Super Tag Team Championship was thetag teamchampionship in theJapaneseprofessional wrestlingpromotion Hustle.

^[14]

• Professional wrestling in Japan

Wikimedia Commons has media related toHustle (professional wrestling).

• Hustle Home page (japanese)
• Hustle Entertainment news

• Japanese professional wrestling promotions
• 2004 establishments in Japan
• 2009 disestablishments in Japan
• Defunct professional wrestling promotions

• CS1 uses Japanese-language script (ja)
• CS1 Japanese-language sources (ja)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing Japanese-language text
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from July 2012
• Commons category link from Wikidata