Tomoaki Honma has become a popular mainstay of the New Japan Pro Wrestling promotion, winning over fans with both his eccentric personality and the near-unmatched passion that he displays in the ring. Honma is the master of the Kokeshi, a battering ram headbutt that he can strike with from seemingly any angle at almost any time. While Honma certainly isn’t the first wrestler to employ the headbutt as part of his in-ring offense, he has adapted the move into a signature aspect of his wrestling technique while adding a level of uniqueness to the attack that blends perfectly with his oddball attitude. But before I take a deeper dive into the effectiveness and precision of the Kokeshi headbutt, I want to take amount to give you a bit of background information about Honma himself.
The 41-year old native of Hagashine, Yamagata, Japan began his wrestling career in the summer of 1997, debuting for Big Japan Pro Wrestling (BJW) after completing his training in the promotion’s dojo. He would leave BJW in 2000, after which he worked as a freelancer for several promotions throughout Japan including IWA Japan and Rainbow Pro. In 2001, he began working for All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) and signed a full-time contract with the promotion in March 2002. He would remain in AJPW until 2006 when he would depart the company to once again work a freelancer. During 2006 he would wrestle for promotions such as Pro Wrestling Zero1-Max and Kings Road. By 2007, Honma would find his way to New Japan Pro Wrestling and would work primarily for NJPW while also making sporadic appearances in Pro Wrestling NOAH. In 2013, after Honma made his return to NJPW to save fellow GBH stablemate Togi Makabe from an attack at the hands of Chaos, it was announced the master of the Kokeshi would be working full-time for NJPW as a freelancer. In March 2017 Honma suffered a frightening injury after taking a rope-hung DDT from Jado. The injury was believed to be so serious that the match was stopped and Honma was brought to the backstage area on a stretcher before being taken to the hospital. It was later announced that Honma had injured his cervical vertebrae and that injury caused him to temporarily lose motion in his arms and legs. After spending nearly four months in the hospital and undergoing surgery during that time, Honma was discharged from medical care. On June 23rd, 2018 - over one year later - Honma made his return to in-ring competition where he teamed with Taguchi Japan in a victory over Los Ingobernables de Japon.
Now that you know more about the man behind the move, it’s time to take a closer look at the devastating (albeit sometimes detrimental) Kokeshi headbutt! As part of my research, I went back and watched every match Honma participated in during 2016 (which was the last full year during which Honma had wrestled prior to his injury). While watching each match, I made note of the number of attempts at landing the Kokeshi headbutt Honma made while also transcribing the number of times that Honma was successful in striking his opponent with the Kokeshi. I counted an “attempt” as any time Honma actively made an effort to land a Kokeshi on his opponent. This included (but was not limited to) Kokeshi attempts on a standing opponent, seated opponent, or an opponent who is flat on the mat. I then segmented the data I had collected into quarters of the calendar year while also calculating the success for the move by quarter. In all, Honma wrestled 69 total matches from January through December 2016. I was able to forecast that, on average, Honma will miss his first two attempts at the Kokeshi headbutt during each of his matches. Despite that dubious stat, I learned that over the course of a match Honma will successfully strike his opponent with a Kokeshi headbutt 65.64% of the time. Furthermore, on average, Honma will attempt at minimum three Kokeshi heabutts over the course of a match that he is a participant in. Below is a breakdown of the metrics and data I was able to gather after spending approximately five days (no more than 4 hours a day) watching Honma’s matches from 2016.
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Written by Alex Marco