Naohiro Hoshikawa

[8.0] "Many folks say this was an original junior heavyweight before it was cool. His rivalry on the upstarting Naomichi Marufuji & young heel master Yoshinobu Kanemaru creates strength in the ranks for testing them. The Meteor Leader with the most gallant jaw line for someone who never were 200lbs in his active career can look completely uncharacteristic to the amazing moves that he performed. Comet kick and roundhouse kicks are kinda his trademark. And when he hits heavyweight power moves, the energy in that ring is very prominent. Unfortunate that the business can be terribly cruel either behind the scenes or in the ring, head trauma got to him. Very similar to Shibata on how he almost retired. His final pro wrestling battle was in ZERO1 for the WORLD-1 & NWA/UPW/ZERO1 title against a very tough junior heavyweight in historic knowledge of a man known as Super Dragon Tatsuhito Takaiwa. Naohiro had recovered much faster by retiring and still plays as a ZERO1 mentor today."

[8.0] "Meteor Leader is a very sad case in Japanese wrestling history, as his tradegy is the thing he's mostly remembered for. Yet Hoshikawa is one of those wrestlers, who I can watch every day of the week, just finding some random matches of them and having great time watching Naohiro kicking the living thing out of people. His wrestling style is one of the stiffest I've ever seen, Hoshikawa was gifted. His rivalry against Marufuji is classic of junior wrestling of their time, but I have to say that perhaps Naohiro really showed best of his abilities in matches with Minoru Tanaka. Hoshikawa's late work as Shoki Kitamura's mentor sure payed off, as young Meteor Leader is getting better with time and gives ZERO1 much delivered recognition. Naohiro Hoshikawa is a wrestler whose work should be remembered."

[7.0] "Hoshikawa was a promising junior heavyweight technician who was just entering his prime before his career came to an abrupt end. It's nothing short of a miracle that he survived such a harrowing ordeal and wasn't another casualty of in-ring head injuries."

[7.0] "I feel really sad for the guy because he was supposed to be a leading force for the future of Jr heavyweight work, and while he had a issue of going crazy with spots a lot, you could tell he really was starting to get a grove in his last few years of working. Sadly Hoshikawa is less known for his legitimate talent and more-so for being a early fatality of the overindulgence of head-trauma in Japanese wrestling that continues to plague many a worker who fails to heed the lessons that were supposed to be learned from man like him. Go watch this guy's retirement match in 2013 if you think Shibata-style headbutts are cool: that's the end-game for many who don't take accountability for that, it's a sad sight from a talent who never should've had that problem in the first place. Check out his series with Wilkins during the very start of his career and then his ZERO-ONE and indies, he's a treat in nearly everything I've seen him in. Shame that's not the thing people best know him as though."

[7.0] "1 of the best and most reliable juniors on the Japanese indies at a time when it was overfilled with talent. Sadly never saw his full potential before his career ended but his work in Michipro and ZERO1 holds up today."