SANADA’s Inferno: The Cold Skull in Hell

By: H.M. Ryan

In 1321, Italian poet Dante Alighieri published Inferno. In this narrative poem, Dante descends through the nine circles of Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. Each circle punishes a different kind of sin – Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery – with sinners trapped in symbolic tormets that reflect the lives they led. The deeper Dante goes, the colder and more brutal Hell becomes, until he reaches the frozen core where traitors are entombed in ice.

On November 3, 2005, 17-year-old high school wrestler Seiya Sanada failed a test, the result of which would end up following him for the rest of his life from that point on.

It wasn’t a school exam or a driving exam that Seiya Sanada failed, but an introductory test to earn a place in the dojo of New Japan Pro-Wrestling. NJPW itself was in the midst of tumult and transition. Its founder, Antonio Inoki, had left the company after his attempt to push Inokism, a philosophy of wrestling which infused shoot fighting and mixed martial arts, had failed to add the “realism” he sought to the sport. Prior to that, top stars fled the company in direct consequence of this Inokism. 

Many of the company’s top names were either injured, burned out, or looking elsewhere, and though Hiroshi Tanahashi and Shinsuke Nakamura were seen as future stars, neither had fully taken over, even after a Nakamura IWGP Heavyweight title win at the age of 23. Yuji Nagata and Manabu Nakanishi were mainstays but were not drawing in new fans. Even the shot in the arm of former WWE Champion Brock Lesnar debuting and winning the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in October of 2005 proved controversial in its brazen attempt to attract global – and notably, foreign – attention.

The New Japan Pro-Wrestling of 2005 was a hodge-podge of clashing styles and differing philosophies. Veterans stuck with the puroresu style they’d been operating under for their entire careers, while others attempted to continue the shoot-style influence of Inokism. The matches were of inconsistent quality, the fanbase shrunk, and domestic interest in NJPW was cratering. The company had no identity.

So, despite being only 17 years old, if there was a time to squeeze into a promotion like New Japan Pro-Wrestling, SANADA had few better opportunities than 2005.

But Seiya Sanada did not pass the test. He had stood at the gates of NJPW, but Charon would not let him cross, and he found himself in Limbo before his career had even begun.

Luckily for Seiya Sanada, he found his Virgil. Or rather, his Virgil found him: Keiji Muto.

Keiji Muto, a wrestling god in the form of a 6’2” man from Fujiyoshida, embodied the twin traditions of technique vs. spectacle, tradition vs. innovation, and man vs. myth, perhaps more than any man in the history of professional wrestling. Performing at different times under his real name as well as The Great Muta, he had become a symbol of what was possible for Japanese stars in global wrestling folklore and was a gatekeeper and measuring stick for wrestlers in his country. Having won every important title in Japan throughout his career, Muto’s earlier athletic and flowing ring style had evolved into a hybrid technician-brawler style to accommodate his aging body.

By 2005, Muto was still one of the most powerful and visible figures in Japanese professional wrestling. He had become the president and top star of All Japan Pro Wrestling after he departed from NJPW, having joined AJPW in 2002. When Seiya Sanada arrived at the newly formed Mutohjuku, he found a Keiji Muto arguably at the top of his powers, if not as a wrestler then as a promoter and teacher. Seiya Sanada was taken in by Mutohjuku, out of the cold and fully into the fire of professional wrestling.

On March 13, 2007, Seiya Sanada – 6 feet tall and 194 lbs – debuted in a tag team match, partnering with Ryuji Hijikata against Katsuhiko Nakajima and T28 – whom he’d one day team up with again as the rechristened Bushi. By May, newly dubbed “Youth Hurricane” Seiya Sanada had already won his first honors, winning the Samurai! TV Cup Triple Arrow Tournament, a six-man tag competition, alongside Kensuke Sasaki and Katsuhiko Nakajima.

Like many young wrestlers, Sanada still found himself in an expected Limbo, even if it was markedly different from the one in which he had found himself post-NJPW introductory test. After his team tournament victory, Sanada wrestled in opening and undercard matches. He entered the Champion Carnival – an annual AJPW tournament – in 2009 but finished with no points. Tag team alliances with Manabu Soya – a journeyman powerhouse and tag specialist – and Osamu Nishimura – a precise, purposeful grappler – floundered, with one tournament ending for Sanada and Nishimura because Sanada was too ill with the flu to wrestle.

The 2010 Champion Carnival saw the same result for Sanada: zero points. The following year, however, saw him battle through the likes of Jun Akiyama and Minoru Suzuki to reach the final of the 2011 AJPW Champion Carnival, where the 23-year-old Sanada fell to the 42-year-old Yuji Nagata, by then a full veteran and gatekeeper of his generation. Sanada built on this near-tournament win by challenging the AJPW ace Suwama and Satoshi Kojima to matches, respectively, falling short in both. 2012 saw teaming up with American wrestler Joe Doering result in a World Tag Team Championship victory, but the reign lasted less than one month, and lackluster progress signaled to AJPW that Sanada needed an excursion. He was sent to Moncton, Canada, to train under former wrestler and promoter Emile Duprée.

Sanada’s inability to find solid footing continued when, while on excursion, he resigned from All Japan Pro Wrestling as part of a movement caused by the appointment of the highly controversial Nobuo Shiraishi. Sanada soon made his way to Mexico to further sharpen his skills before appearing at Keiji Muto’s brand new promotion, Wrestle-1. For the next few years, Sanada found himself bouncing around promotions worldwide, from Wrestle-1 to a year-long stint in US-based TNA to various independent promotions like Chikara and Global Force Wrestling. He even took part in a William Regal-led tryout for WWE in Japan.

By this point, Sanada had tools: he had a look, he had athleticism, and he was bursting with potential. But he had no identity. In TNA, he had even debuted the ring name “The Great Sanada” as “inspired” by his mentor, Keiji Muto, and his Great Muta persona.

Even his 2016 debut in New Japan Pro-Wrestling – the gates of which had been firmly closed to him for over a decade – had Sanada in familiar territory: in orbit surrounding a star.

The star in this case was Tetsuya Naito.

Naito, too, had taken part in that 2005 NJPW tryout, but unlike Sanada, he had been accepted by the promotion. Though a star in New Japan by 2016, Naito had had his own trials and tribulations, having been wholly rejected by the Japanese audience as the “Stardust Genius” before establishing himself in Mexico with Los Ingobernables. He returned to Japan, establishing his own branch of the group: Los Ingobernables de Japón, or LIJ. An anti-hero in its purest form, the unbothered, baseball-cap wearing, visibly apathetic Naito was less a leader of LIJ and more a swim instructor, though the kind whose main teaching method was throwing his students into the deep end and watching them thrash around.

Despite beginning to feature regularly under Naito and LIJ in NJPW, SANADA – whose name was now stylized in all caps – still operated as a freelancer, but a May 3rd, 2016 loss to NJPW’s biggest star – Kazuchika Okada – gave SANADA arguably his first taste of big-match stardom, for which he’d Lust after for years.

SANADA’s time in LIJ saw many fans project their own desires onto him. For some fans, he was the silent assassin, and for others he was the cooler-than-most dark horse, and still for others, he was the very future of the company. To SANADA’s credit, he took part in big matches and performed well, but more often than not, he found himself in the whirlwind – as those people torn by desire stronger than their will in Inferno found themselves. SANADA was lifted by fan desire, but lacked the inner fire to steer it.

With Naito’s hands-off leadership, it may have been difficult to see the possibility of brotherhood in LIJ, but SANADA found a brother in EVIL. EVIL was the group’s silent menace and its physical anchor – the heavy hitter who did the dirty work without asking for the spotlight. Dressed in black, wielding a scythe, and bathed in purple light, EVIL was LIJ’s battering ram when Naito’s “tranquilo” nature was doing more harm than good, firmly grounding the group. EVIL didn’t seek to outshine his stablemates, letting their leader, their combustible junior heavyweight Hiromu Takahashi, and even SANADA himself shine while anchoring multi-man matches with his physicality.

SANADA and EVIL formed a successful and well-balanced tag team, becoming a top-tier duo quickly. They faced off against Guerillas of Destiny, Killer Elite Squad, and Hirooki Goto & Tomohiro Ishii in hard-hitting tag team matches as well as numerous multi-man matches, and would win the 2017 World Tag League as well as the IWGP Tag Team Championships twice. Stylistically, SANADA was the finesse – bringing the moonsaults, the bridging submissions, the sleek technical flourishes – while EVIL was the force, bringing the lariats and the blunt power. They represented the sword and the shield of Los Ingobernables de Japón. Neither were much for talking, but they established a connection all their own, a bond within the bonds of LIJ forged through combat and maintained by their own senses of understanding.

But EVIL ultimately betrayed tranquility. Following his win of the 2020 New Japan Cup, EVIL betrayed Naito, abandoning the brotherhood of LIJ for the illusion of control under the hated, mostly-gaijin Bullet Club, establishing his own branch of the unit called House of Torture. What’s worse for LIJ is that EVIL appeared to prove his decision was the correct one, quickly winning the IWGP Double Championship (the Heavyweight + Intercontinental titles). The unspoken, quiet bond between the Cold Skull and The King of Darkness was severed, and SANADA’s reward for this betrayal was watching his former partner achieve the success he himself craved. Like his fellow LIJ members, SANADA didn’t speak openly about his pain, but his expression changed. The Cold Skull became colder.

The summer of 2020 saw the now-solo SANADA reach the finals of the famed G1 Climax, a tournament known for sending wrestlers directly to the top of the card, at least for the next half-year. Losing to Kota Ibushi in the longest G1 Climax final match in the competition’s history, SANADA once again tasted the singles success he so craved. But even victory over his former partner EVIL at Wrestle Kingdom 15 was then immediately soured by an IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental Championship match loss against the reigning Ibushi and a quarterfinal loss to Will Ospreay in the 2021 New Japan Cup. Once again winning the IWGP Tag Team Championship – this time with group leader Tetsuya Naito – SANADA was now in dangerous territory: was he simply a solid, reliable tag team specialist, capable of taking top stars to their limits in singles matches but never overcoming them?

2022 provided a spark to SANADA’s singles aspirations with a February victory over the Ace of the Universe, Hiroshi Tanahashi, for the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship. He was finally – just him and he alone – a champion, now holding a belt previously held by contemporaries like Kenny Omega, Jay White, and Cody. Not even 50 days later, however, he was forced to relinquish the title and pull out of that year’s New Japan Cup due to a fractured orbital bone, and Ospreay beat SANADA upon his return to keep the title away from him. A semi-final loss to the young and still-green Ren Narita then halted his attempt to become the inaugural NJPW World Television Champion.

One step forward, two steps back, and Limbo once more.

2023 began with a few walks down memory lane for SANADA. He participated in a six-man tag team match at Wrestle Kingdom 17, teaming with LIJ stablemates Naito and Bushi against Hiroshi Tanahashi, the up-and-coming Shota Umino, and SANADA’s former teacher Keiji Muto. Participating in the legendary Muto’s NJPW retirement match for many would be the honor of a lifetime, and perhaps it was for SANADA deep down. For the objective viewer and the fervent SANADA fan both, however, it felt like the kind of stasis that was becoming all too familiar. Then, the night after, SANADA lost a match to his former tag team partner Manabu Soya. The spectres of former teachers and partners alike threatened to once again pin down SANADA and prevent him from rising.

But perhaps this trip to his past alongside figures from his present was the spark of something great for SANADA in 2023. March saw him enter the New Japan Cup and defeat Taichi in the first round followed by Kenta in the second. The quarterfinals with Tetsuya Naito – his leader – beckoned in a matchup that, using history as a basis, screamed “classic SANADA loss.”

But SANADA won. SANADA beat Naito. 

Then, SANADA embraced Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Taka Michinoku and Douki, and upgraded the group ‘Just 4 Guys’ into ‘Just 5 Guys’. His new groupmates and his now-former LIJ brothers both in the ring, SANADA took the microphone, his blonde-frosted shaggy hair glistening with the sweat of victory over his former leader: “If I stay in LIJ, nothing new will come of it. Therefore, as of today, I’m done with them.”

His recruitment by Taichi was no accident or coincidence. Taichi, too, had spent his career struggling to be seen in a serious, competitive light. As an underling of the faction Suzuki-gun, led by the viscerally and eternally terrifying Minoru Suzuki, Taichi would come out resembling wrestling’s answer to the Phantom of the Opera, wearing an ornate black robe and Carnevale mask, lip-syncing (poorly) his own theme music. But since the dissolution of Suzuki-gun, Taichi began to morph into a self-aware, sympathetic leader, one who understood his perception by the audience and nonetheless fought to find a path forward toward legitimacy.

In SANADA, Taichi saw a champion, even if he had yet to be crowned. And SANADA – after a few false prophets – had finally found his Virgil.

His subsequent semi-final appearance in the New Japan Cup saw a new, refreshed SANADA: cut and combed black hair and no beard, a metamorphosis was occurring in front of the audience’s eyes, and defeating Mark Davis seemed like a foregone conclusion. In the final match against David Finlay, in front of his hometown crowd, SANADA hit his new modified Deadfall DDT finisher and secured the win and the New Japan Cup before being embraced by his Just 5 Guys stablemates. SANADA’s reward – in addition to the massive Cup itself – was a date with a multiple-time champion he’d come close to but had never been able to defeat: the prince-that-was-promised, Kazuchika Okada. “I’ve been waiting for you,” Okada said to SANADA after the latter’s victory. “Why has it taken you so long?”

Sakura Genesis 2023 is when SANADA received the thumbs-up for which he’d been striving for years.

Debuting a new entrance, a new robe, and new trunks, SANADA had gathered the ingredients for a coronation. The question – as was so often the question with SANADA – was could he put these ingredients together and deliver the final product? Having previously wrestled nearly 40 minutes against each other in their last championship bout, Okada took SANADA to the very limits of what he had within himself. Following an attempted Destino – Naito’s signature move – and a successful Shining Wizard – Muto’s – SANADA secured the win with his own, new signature Deadfall DDT.

The top prize finally around his waist, SANADA was lifted onto the shoulders of his Just 5 Guys stablemates before he warmly embraced Taichi – the man who truly saw the potential in SANADA and selflessly helped him reach it. Taichi had become the man to finally lead the Cold Skull out of Hell entirely and into the sun.

SANADA’s first challenger as heavyweight champion was someone quite familiar to him: Hiromu Takahashi, his former LIJ stablemate and a man looking to be taken seriously in the heavyweight division in his own right. An explosive, colorful fireball of a junior heavyweight and the death-defying, rapidly-ticking heart of LIJ, Takahashi put his own IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship on the line against Just 5 Guys member Yoshinobu Kanemaru in order to challenge SANADA for his heavyweight title. A hard-fought match saw SANADA retain his heavyweight championship, put a brother-turned-opponent in the rearview mirror, and firmly entrench himself as the new flagbearer of the heavyweight division and thus, of New Japan Pro-Wrestling.

SANADA next faced a returning-from-excursion and the newest member of Los Ingobernables de Japón, Yota Tsuji, a young, broad man with a powerful style of combat and an unnerving, indefatigable grin. After attacking Just 5 Guys and SANADA after the champion’s victory over Takahashi, Tsuji’s return was compared by many – including many within NJPW itself – to the 2012 return of Kazuchika Okada from excursion to confront then-champion Hiroshi Tanahashi. Another interpretation: Tsuji’s instant impact for LIJ upon his arrival mirrored SANADA’s own debut for the group. 

Their matchup at Dominion 2023 in Osaka placed the young man whom, if you asked him, would confidently tell you about his own destiny to reach the top of the industry against the man with all of the potential in the world who had had to fight demons – including his own – to reach that very top. 

With LIJ once again in the opposite corner, SANADA faced an onslaught of learned moves from Tsuji’s time spent on excursion in the UK and Mexico. Although at points Tsuji took the wheel, SANADA was able to avoid Tsuji’s devastating spear and hit the Deadfall DDT to pick up the win.

The G1 Climax 2023 beckoned, with SANADA entering as the defending IWGP Heavyweight Champion. Though he technically couldn’t lose the championship in the tournament, SANADA eyed the prestige of winning it as champion – a feat rarely achieved by even the greatest in NJPW’s history. Though he won each of his preliminary G1 Climax matches, a bout against the young gaijin Gabe Kidd saw the champion suffer a distal biceps tendon tear, which would require surgery to repair.

Undeterred and having slowly and finally built up the resilience and fortitude that had long escaped him, SANADA pressed on, refusing the surgery and entering the quarterfinal match with a heavily bandaged left arm. His opponent? EVIL. EVIL defeated SANADA and eliminated the champion from the tournament.

The real concern, however, was SANADA’s arm injury. Though he displayed dogged determination, the injured wing impacted SANADA’s in-ring capabilities, requiring him to adjust his style and match pacing. To make matters worse, EVIL – having just beaten SANADA in the G1 Climax – carried a false championship belt around Japan, having declared himself “the real champion.” A rematch against EVIL at Destruction in Ryōgoku on October 9th, 2023 – this time with the heavyweight title on the line and with his former mentor Keiji Muto at ringside – saw SANADA retain, though his arm was deteriorating rapidly.

SANADA entered Wrestle Kingdom season wounded but fighting. Now, perhaps more than ever, he embodied the fighting spirit that an IWGP Heavyweight Champion is and has always been expected to display. But what it was gaining him in admiration, it was costing him in health. And still, fighting through injury with a Wrestle Kingdom main event match against the G1 Climax winner – and SANADA’s former leader – Tetsuya Naito on the horizon, SANADA was still doubted as “The Guy” by many. At the very least, some argued, he was a placeholder until one of Naito or Okada returned to their rightful place at the very top of the card. In these eyes, SANADA was the definition of a “transitional champion.”

Here’s how announcer Chris Charlton described SANADA’s journey as he made his entrance as IWGP World Heavyweight Champion at Wrestle Kingdom 18 on January 4, 2024:

“It has been said so many times it’s almost cliche: ‘to be the man, you have to beat the man.’ But that isn’t the only thing you have to do…and even as the IWGP Heavyweight Champion, SANADA has been told ‘no.’ SANADA has been told, ‘sorry, brother.’ He’s labored under long shadows, labored under the longest. Two of them. Labored under massive egos. Two of them. One of them, his opponent here tonight. And through it all, he’s been selfless. He’s been selfless in putting his team before him. He’s been selfless in wanting this moment in victory…as a gift to be shared with the masses. If SANADA ends tonight with his hand raised, he will be ‘The Man.’ And he’ll be ‘The Man’ for Just 5 Guys, he’ll be ‘The Man’ for 30,000 and everybody at home. But perhaps, just for once, just for once, he will be ‘The Man’ for SANADA.”

With the crowd thoroughly behind the overwhelmingly-popular Tetsuya Naito, SANADA lost by pinfall after 25 minutes and 43 seconds. He had spent 271 days as IWGP Heavyweight Champion. After SANADA was led to the back, new champion Naito was attacked by EVIL; a portrait of his past burning in the ring, SANADA re-entered to fend off his former tag team partner and save his one-time leader.

He was no longer champion, but SANADA was not yet back in the Inferno. Despite an unsuccessful challenge to regain the heavyweight title from Naito in February at The New Beginning in Sapporo, SANADA once again had the ingredients in place to regroup and try for another run at the top: he had loyal stablemates in Taichi and Just 5 Guys, and he had finally experienced singles success. But wrestling nonstop through injury caught up with SANADA, and he was pulled from touring duties in April 2024 due to health concerns.

SANADA’s post-championship 2024 could be described as a form of silent Wrath, returning to the icy persona he possessed during his LIJ days. He was hurt. He was bitter. And he was becoming increasingly jealous of Taichi – his guide, his Virgil in his story – climbing up the card.

At November 4, 2024’s event Power Struggle, Just 5 Guys – having lost Kanemaru to EVIL’s House of Torture but having gained the young Yuya Uemura – were represented by their leader, Taichi, to take on the IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion and Bullet Club/War Dogs leader David Finlay in the second-to-last match on the card. With SANADA at ringside, Taichi seemed primed to win the championship and thus secure the biggest achievement of his long career. With his hand coming down for the final pinfall, the referee was yanked out of the ring by the foot – by SANADA. SANADA subsequently unzipped his Just 5 Guys jacket to reveal a War Dogs t-shirt. Finlay picked up the win, and SANADA fully embraced his Heresy by hitting Taichi with the Deadfall DDT. Violence was the Bullet Club way, and bodies were the entry fee to become a War Dog. SANADA delivered by betraying the very people who brought him to his career’s greatest triumph.

The newest member of the War Dogs, SANADA teamed with the hotheaded, loud-mouthed, brash, and aggressive Gabe Kidd to enter the 2024 World Tag League, reaching the finals against Tetsuya Naito and Hiromu Takahashi, a match which SANADA and Kidd lost. Walking around as a shell of his former self and often examining his forever-injured left bicep for new damage, SANADA frequently ran interference so that his War Dog comrades could achieve victory. However, having already shown himself capable of vicious betrayal, his loyalty to the faction was questioned after a series of suspicious acts from the former world champion.

SANADA’s Fraud was fully revealed at Sakura Genesis in April 2025 when he betrayed the War Dogs by smashing a guitar over the head of Drilla Maloney during a NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship match against the House of Torture. Once again at the side of EVIL, SANADA’s transition to Treachery was now complete.

It’s now May 2025, over a month since SANADA joined House of Torture. The group’s May 3rd loss in a Dog Pound Match against the Bullet Club War Dogs has resulted in House of Torture being forced to leave Bullet Club. The group finds itself in Limbo. For SANADA, this is familiar territory: the anxious wastes of uncertainty. House of Torture’s leader – and SANADA’s once and future partner – EVIL has widely been known as The King of Darkness since his time in Los Ingobernables de Japón. But it’s SANADA who now finds himself crowned once more as The reigning and defending King of Limbo.

Is SANADA’s arm injured beyond repair? Is his confidence shattered? Is his mind gone? With his former leader Tetsuya Naito having recently departed the company, Hiroshi Tanahashi performing in his last handful of matches as an active competitor, and Kazuchika Okada having gone abroad to the United States, New Japan Pro-Wrestling finds itself in a state of Limbo as well – similar to 2005, when a young Seiya Sanada tried out for and was rejected by the company he would one day lead for 271 triumphant days.

But what can be done once can be done again. Uncertainty leads to opportunity, and the magic of professional wrestling is that one never knows what will happen next. SANADA could very well continue his downfall, a ghost in the halls of New Japan, a shadow of his former self. Or, SANADA can reject this role, and even his almost-role as the protagonist of New Japan Pro-Wrestling – its Dante.

Perhaps now is the time for SANADA to guide NJPW in his own way. To seek the redemption that many in the audience crave for him. To once again find that inner fortitude to capture the top prize in the sport.

Though he may never again reach Paradise himself, perhaps he can guide others to it. 

Perhaps now is the time for SANADA to become New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s Virgil.