NEVER was a series of events held by New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) between August 2010 and November 2012. On July 12, 2010, NJPW officially announced the NEVER project, which was to highlight younger up-and-coming talent and outside wrestlers not signed to the promotion.[1][2] It was explained that the name of the project was an acronym of the terms "New Blood", "Evolution", "Valiantly", "Eternal" and "Radical".[1] For the events, NJPW recruited several freelancers as well as wrestlers signed to promotions such as DDT Pro-Wrestling and Kaientai Dojo. Some outsiders who became NEVER regulars included Daisuke Sasaki, Kaji Tomato, Madoka, Ryuichi Sekine and Shinobu. KUSHIDA, who entered NEVER as a representative of the SMASH promotion in February 2011, signed a NJPW contract the following month and returned to the project the following September, now representing NJPW.[3] Three NJPW trainees; Hiromu Takahashi, Sho Tanaka and Yohei Komatsu, made their professional wrestling debuts at NEVER events. Takahashi, who debuted at NEVER.1, was the only wrestler who wrestled on all thirteen NEVER events.
On October 5, 2012, NJPW announced that NEVER was going to get its own championship, the NEVER Openweight Championship.[2][4][5] The title was originally scheduled to be defended exclusively at NEVER events, but this plan was quickly changed and since its foundation, the title has been defended on the undercards of NJPW events.[4][6] NJPW has not held a single NEVER event since the tournament, which crowned the first NEVER Openweight Champion on November 19, 2012.[7] A second NEVER title, the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship, was announced on December 21, 2015, with the first champions crowned on January 4, 2016.[8]
On July 18, 2015, NJPW announced "Lion's Gate", a project with a theme similar to NEVER,[9] which held its first show on February 25, 2016.[10] On October 13, 2020, NJPW announced the return of the NEVER events, with two events being held on October 16 and 23, 2020 in the United States for NJPW's American sub-brand New Japan Pro-Wrestling of America (NJoA), as part of the NJPW Strong weekly show.[11]
Date: April 7, 2011 Venue: Shin-Kiba 1st Ring - Tokyo, Japan Attendance: 250 (Day 1) Date: April 8, 2011 Venue: Shin-Kiba 1st Ring - Tokyo, Japan Attendance: 300 (Day 2)
