Trivia / Shinya Hashimoto

• Hostility on the Set
  • With Riki Choshu. On one hand, Hashimoto and many other wrestlers disliked Choshu for his infamous Ishin Gundan revolution, in which he and his stable abandoned NJPW only to return when their venture failed. On the other hand, Choshu himself disliked Hashimoto because he saw him as lazy and unorthodox (Choshu famously hates shoot-stylists and martial arts-themed wrestlers). Thus, after Choshu and his crew came back to NJPW, a great tension arose between the native talents and the returned wrestlers, and it ultimately burst out with Hashimoto brutally attacking Hiro Saito during a tour, which ended with Masa Saito and Choshu himself coming to his aid and beating down Shinya. Their relationship never improved after that.
  • His own mentor Antonio Inoki became Hashimoto's Arch-Enemy after their relationship went awry, apparently due to disagreements over Hashimoto's bookings and performance. Hashimoto got eventually tired of Inoki trying to replace him with Naoya Ogawa and left NJPW to escape his influence, while Inoki initially tried to make the reaction seem an one-sided affair for a time before he also turned against Hashimoto in the press. Their enmity from that point was so known that when Hashimoto died, Inoki caused controversy by homaging Hashimoto, as people believed he was being subtlely sarcastic.
• Promoted Fanboy: During his chilhood, he idolized not only Antonio Inoki, but also Satoru Sayama. In fact, his original desire was to be a junior heavyweight, but he grew too big and instead had to model himself as an Lightning Bruiser.
• Reality Subtext: His claim to be ready to leave NJPW if he lost against Ogawa in their final match was apparently a way to force the bookers to grant him at least another win to save face. It's not known, however, whether Hashimoto really intended to leave after the bookers forced him to lose anyway, because fan reaction seemed to be enough to quell the flames. Ironically, Hashimoto would leave for real shortly after due to creative differences.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Hashimoto was often suspended in his foreign stay in Calgary for injuring other wrestlers with his stiff wrestling style. Rumoredly, his entire tenure there was cut short when he did an obscene drawing for a young female fan during an autograph signing, which scandalized her parents and led the management to kick him out to save face.
• Real Song Theme Tune: Moving Pictures' "Never".
• What Could Have Been:
  • Hashimoto was invited by Union of Wrestling Forces International to compete in their world tournament in February 1994, but he refused, noting angrily that they should have contacted him through New Japan Pro-Wrestling first as he was under an exclusive contract with them.
  • After making sure the Ogawa booking debacle had ended, Hashimoto planned to rebuild his career in New Japan by creating a sub-promotion named NJPW ZERO in order to co-promote a "war" against Pro Wrestling NOAH, an idea suggested and backed by executive Tatsumi Fujinami. However, Hashimoto's enemy Riki Choshu and the upper management shot down the idea, as they wanted to co-promote instead with All Japan Pro Wrestling, which was NOAH's direct enemy. Seeing the door closed, Hashimoto left NJPW and established ZERO on his own, now under the name of ZERO-ONE.
  • Hashimoto had been interested in doing Mixed Martial Arts for a long, long time, and tried to hold a fight against Rickson Gracie in two different ocassions, first after his victory over Nobuhiko Takada and later after beating Masakatsu Funaki. Even although Gracie refused, Shinya was still in contact with PRIDE management, often showing at their events and providing opinions, and they put a lot of effort into getting him in a fight on their cards. Sadly, he never could fulfill his desire to compete in MMA due to schedule conflicts with his wrestling career and his late death.
  • MMA wasn't the only combat sport he could have diped on. Aside from PRIDE, Kickboxing company K-1 wanted Hashimoto and his partner Naoya Ogawa to fight for them, and boxing star Yosuke Nishijima had launched a challenge to a match with him in New Japan as soon as 1997.
  • Rumoredly, after he left ZERO-ONE in 2004 and started a long rehabilitation to heal several injuries, Hashimoto was planning to return to New Japan Pro Wrestling to reform the Three Musketers with Keiji Mutoh and Masahiro Chono, as Antonio Inoki (the main man Hashimoto had a beef with in NJPW other than Choshu) was about to get ousted from the company. Ogawa also implied that Hashimoto would have still made appearances for HUSTLE after he returned to the rings. However, Shinya died in midst of his hiatus and all of this went All for Nothing.