NJPW Super J-Cup profiles: Caristico, BUSHI

We’re taking a look at each competitor in this year’s Super J-Cup, hosted by NJPW and produced by Jushin “Thunder” Liger. The tournament takes place in Tacoma, WA on August 22 and San Fransisco and Long Beach, CA on August 24 and 25. The events will be available on njpwworld.com.

Caristico

Caristico would be a lock to win the Super J-Cup if it were taking place a decade earlier. He’s a top-tier flyer and can turn it on when he wants to, like in his match with Volador Jr. to top off NJPW and CMLL’s Fantastica Mania event this year in Tokyo. One would imagine here would be one of those places where Caristico delivers.

In the mid-2000s, Caristico, then called Mistico, was a serious main event draw in Mexico for CMLL before heading to WWE in early 2011, where he took on the Sin Cara gimmick. Despite WWE’s massive push behind him ahead of and after his debut, his run as Sin Cara didn’t pan out, in short. In his initial run, he was  suspended for violating WWE’s Wellness policy, then was riddled with injuries and a bad reputation among talent in the locker room.

After a stint with AAA under the name Myzteziz, Caristico found his way back to CMLL and used a combination of his previous two personas for his ring name. Though he’s not the draw he once was, a great run at this year’s J-Cup would be a way to regain some of that past momentum. In order to do that, though, he’ll first have to wrestle BUSHI on Night 1 in Tacoma.

BUSHI

Like his LIJ amigos Tetsuya Naito and Shingo Takagi, BUSHI too is an Animal Hamaguchi guy. All three were trained by Hamaguchi, though BUSHI’s career began a bit later than his aforementioned teammates, and with rival promotion All Japan Pro Wrestling, thus the link to other LIJ member, SANADA, whose trainer was Keiji Muto, the president of AJPW at the time.

He’s the kind of guy you use the word “stalwart” for, especially in the case of BUSHI and New Japan’s junior division over the past few years. He’s reliable to put together good-but-not-great matches and to eat pins when the booking master plan calls for it, but we have to face facts: It’s neither a burn nor a slight, but BUSHI’s primary function is to be the fifth guy in Los Ingobernables de Japon. While he’s picked up a handful of wins in prelim tag matches over this summer’s G1 Climax 29 tour, he hasn’t been given a very serious look since he and KUSHIDA traded the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title back and forth for a brief period in 2016.

How will BUSHI fare in the Super J-Cup this year? Is he there to make Caristico look good in Tacoma on Night 1 of the tournament, or will we see something special from the rarely-shirtless masked man?