2001 Puroresu Awards

[Hisaharu Tanabe]

2001 Puroresu Award winners were announced on 2001/12/17. Every year, Puroresu Award is sanctioned by Tokyo Sports Newspaper, and the winners are selected by 22 judges from pro-wrestling magazines and newspapers.

Wrestler of the Year - Keiji Mutoh (New Japan/BATT)
Unified Triple Crown Heavyweight, World Tag Team, IWGP Tag Team champion

Match of the Year -
IWGP Heavyweight Title Match: Kazuyuki Fujita (Inoki International) vs. Yuuji Nagata (New Japan) [2001/06/06 Nippon Budokan]
* Honorable mention -
Triple Crown Heavyweight Title Match: Gen'ichiro Tenryu (All Japan/WAR) vs. Keiji Mutoh (New Japan/BATT) [2001/06/08 Nippon Budokan]

Tag Team of the Year - Team 2000: Jado & Gedo
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team champions
* Honorable mention - BATT: Keiji Mutoh (New Japan) & Taiyo Kea (All Japan)

Performance Award - Jun Akiyama (NOAH), GHC Heavyweight champion

Fighting Spirit Award - Yuuji Nagata (New Japan)
* Honorable mention - Shin'ya Hashimoto (ZERO-ONE)

Techinique Award - Sanae Kikuta (Pancrase)
* Honorable mention - Masamichi Marufuji (NOAH)

Rookie of the Year - Takehiro Murahama (Osaka)
* Honorable mention - Hiroshi Tanahashi (New Japan0

Achievement Award - Osamu Kido (New Japan, retired), late Yoshihiro Momota (NOAH)

Special Award - Yoshihiro Tajiri (WWF)
WCW/WWF World Cruiserweight champion

Women's Award - Kaoru Itoh (All Japan Women's)
WWWA World champion

Amateur Wrestling Special Award (for winning world championship) -
Hitomi Sakamoto (51kg, Chukyo Women's Univ.), Seiko Yamamoto (56kg, Nippon Univ.)

[El Gran Kurtisimo]

I think its fantastic that the Japanese media has recognized Tajiri's accomplishments over here in the states. Hey, maybe the WWF tour in Japan won't go over so poorly after all.

[Hisaharu Tanabe]

Wrestler of the Year: 1974 - 2001

[lCS 39]

Originally posted by Hisaharu Tanabe
Techinique Award - Sanae Kikuta (Pancrase)

Kikuta is awesome! i'm really looking forward to him fighting in PRIDE!

[DangerousBD]

What exactly does the "Fighting Spirit Award" entail?

oh, and p.s. Kaoru Itoh really had a standout year, congrats to for her award! (who knew when I was watching Dreamslam '93 that she'd come this far?)

[Hisaharu Tanabe]

Showing courage and/or efforts to fight.

...or something like that.

[Hisaharu Tanabe]

Puroresu Awards 1974 - present