WWE's roster has become the most talented in wrestling history over the past few years. That is partially due to a large influx of wrestlers coming from the indies and a handful from Japan. The big names are certainly known, including Shinsuke Nakamura and AJ Styles, who both held the IWGP Heavyweight Title in NJPW.
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However, there are a lot of stars on WWE's roster who you might not know had some tremendous matches while working for NJPW. Some happened long ago, while others are hidden gems. Either way, these are some WWE stars who put on a great match, at least once, while with NJPW.
10 Matt Bloom
You know him by plenty of names in WWE. Prince Albert, A-Train, and Tensai are among them. Now, he's just known as Matt Bloom, the head trainer at WWE's incredible Performance Center.
Before his return to WWE as Tensai, he had a run with NJPW as Giant Bernard. While there, he and Karl Anderson formed a successful team known as Bad Intentions. At New Japan Soul in 2011, Bernard earned a shot at Hiroshi Tanahashi and the IWGP Heavyweight Title, which one might argue turned out to be the best match of his career.
9 Adam Cole
Adam Cole's run in Ring of Honor is what made him a hot commodity. He held their World Title a record three times. Meanwhile, his short stint with NJPW isn't often talked about. It makes sense since he didn't have a huge impact there.
Most of his singles matches with the company were solid but unspectacular. However, he did have a few really good tag bouts. His best came at Destruction in Kobe 2016, where he teamed with the Young Bucks to take on the trio of David Finlay, Ricochet, and Satoshi Kojima for the vacant NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Team Titles.
8 Gran Metalik
Considering Gran Metalik is part of a tag team that hasn't done a whole lot in WWE, most fans wouldn't expect to see him on this list. Metalik did show his skills when making the finals of the Cruiserweight Classic in 2016.
In NJPW, he was known as Mascara Dorada. He competed in the Best of the Super Juniors tournament during his tenure there. His biggest moment came when he challenged Kenny Omega for the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title at Invasion Attack 2015. It's worth a look to see how good Metalik can be.
7 Andrade
When Andrade, Austin Theory, and Angel Garza all posed with their fists together shortly after WrestleMania 36, some folks said they were copying Los Ingobernables de Japon. The reality is that Andrade was doing it first. In fact, he's the guy who recruited LIJ leader Tetsuya Naito to the group back in 2015.
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At the time, Andrade competed under a mask and went by the name La Sombra. He made sporadic appearances for NJPW and captured the IWGP Intercontinental Title at one point. He traded it with Shinsuke Nakamura in some entertaining outings.
6 Ricochet
An argument could be made that Ricochet has the best match on this entire list. He also had one of the most prominent careers in NJPW of anyone included. Still, some of his work there gets overlooked.
He had a bunch of strong matches with the company but the one that might stand out most saw him take on Hiromu Takahashi at Wrestling Toyonokuni in 2017. These are two of the fastest wrestlers in the world and they showcased it in this breathtaking encounter.
5 The Viking Raiders
If there's one thing that Japanese audiences seem to love, it's monster gaijins. For those unaware, gaijins are foreign wrestlers who aren't originally from Japan. The crowd appreciates them, which is why gravitated towards the likes of Vader and Stan Hansen in the past.
The Viking Raiders (then War Machine) filled that need in the tag division. The fans ate up their high impact offense. At Sakura Genesis 2017, the future Raiders won the IWGP Tag Team Titles from the legendary duo of Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima. It was a hard-hitting hoss fight.
4 Shelton Benjamin
During the 2000s, many pegged Shelton Benjamin as a future World Champion. That never panned out and he was let go from WWE in 2010. By 2011, he started appearing in NJPW and competed in their prestigious G1 Climax.
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Benjamin had quite a few good matches in the tournament's history and even started the 2104 iteration 4-0. However, his fifth match came against Katsuyori Shibata. The stiff striker ended Benjamin's winning streak in a pretty fantastic 10 minute battle.
3 Roderick Strong
Everyone knows that Roderick Strong has had a tremendous career. He was a huge part of the indies from around 2004 until 2016. During that time, he won major titles in Ring of Honor and faced some future top stars.
ROH had a working agreement with NJPW, leading to the Honor Rising event in 2016. The main event saw Strong defend his ROH Television Championship against Tomohiro Ishii. It was an incredible battle that saw Ishii pull off the upset the take the title.
2 Karl Anderson
Karl Anderson is usually accompanied with the Bullet Club but as just a founding member. Fans recall him being by the side of leaders like Finn Balor and AJ Styles. Before the Bullet Club, though, Anderson was breaking out as a singles star.
He became only the second gaijin (there have now been four) to make the finals of the G1 Climax in 2012. That was great on its own but he also secured an IWGP Heavyweight Title shot against Hiroshi Tanahashi at The New Beginning in 2013. It was the best match of his career.
1 Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly
They can be goofy as members of The Undisputed Era but everyone knows how special Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly are as a duo in the ring. The tandem competed in NJPW as part of the working agreement with ROH.
They dominated at times there, capturing the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Titles on a few occasions. Then going by reDRagon, they won those titles in a classic at Power Struggle 2014 against The Time Splitters of Alex Shelley and KUSHIDA.
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