Wrestling International New Generations | |
Acronym: | W*ING |
Established: | December 1, 1991 |
Folded: | March 21, 1994 |
Location: | Japan |
Founder: | Kazuyoshi Osako Mickey Ibaragi |
Style: | Hardcore wrestling |
Successor: | IWA Japan World W*ING Spirit |
Wrestling International New Generations (W*ING) was a Japanese professional wrestling promotion specialized in deathmatches.
After leaving Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling in the summer of 1991, Kazuyoshi Osako and Kiyoshi "Mickey" Ibaragi founded Wrestling International New Generations (W*ING), with Osako as President and Ibaragi as Vice President. They would also lure away Mr. Pogo and Víctor Quiñones from FMW, taking away their number one heel and booker/talent exchanger.
Their first show took place on August 7, 1991, at the Korakuen Hall in Tokyo. W*ING would also have a talent exchange relationship with Puerto Rico-based World Wrestling Council, as well as sharing WWC's Caribbean Heavyweight and World Junior Heavyweight Championships between the two promotions. On March 21, 1994, W*ING closed due to the massive loss of money. Quinones would later form International Wrestling Association of Japan later that year.
In 1994, former W*ING wrestlers Mr. Pogo, Mitsuhiro Matsunaga, Hideki Hosaka and Yukihiro Kanemura joined FMW and formed a W*ING Alliance, which had the motive of ending FMW as they held Atsushi Onita and his FMW responsible for ending W*ING. The W*ING storyline carried on for three years before the stable was forced to disband on September 28, 1997.
Since 1995, Ibaragi has held several one-off W*ING reunion shows until 2010.
Mr. Pogo formed an offshoot promotion in 2001 called World W*ING Spirit (WWS), which would last until his death on June 23, 2017.