NJPW Releases Part One Of “California Dreaming” Documentary

New Japan Pro Wrestling has posted a new video to their YouTube channel.

Documenting “The Wrestler” Katsuyori Shibata’s journey segueing into his new role as NJPW LA Dojo’s head coach, it is the first of a two part series and features English subtitles, running for just over 21 minutes.

NJPW visited the LA Dojo in July to cover the wrestling camps taking place during that time. They state that “the footage reveals the inner workings of their Dojo system.”

Shibata has been away from in-ring action since his brutal match up against “The Rainmaker” Kazuchika Okada at Sakura Genesis 2017. The men would wrestle for an astounding 38 minutes before Okada finally defeated Shibata.

The aftermath of the match, however, left a lot of people concerned over Shibata’s well being. During the match itself, Shibata delivered a headbutt to Okada that split him open. Shibata subsequently collapsed backstage and was rushed to a hospital, where it was discovered that he had a subdural hematoma and required emergency surgery.

On April 13th, Dave Meltzer reported that Shibata would probably never be cleared to wrestle again.

Come August 13th, at the 2017 G1 Climax Finals, Shibata made a surprise appearance, simply expressing, “I am alive. That is all.”

NJPW note that the second part of this documentary will be aired soon, so be sure to catch up on Part 1 before it does!