Booked primarily by
Nobuhiko Takada and
Yuji Shimada, the promotion's basic premise pits the
babyface, or good guy, Hustle faction whose goal is to “defend the industry”, against Generalissimo Takada's
heel, or bad guy, Monster Faction, whose mission is to destroy the sport. Unlike the traditional
puroresu, the company emphasizes
melodrama and
caricatures over realism and athleticism. The group once maintained a close affiliation with
mixed martial arts promoters
PRIDE Fighting Championships when both were owned by
Dream Stage Entertainment, or DSE. Fans in the U.S. considered HUSTLE to be an answer to Takada's original wrestling style, the serious
shoot style, having lost its popularity in Japan as a result of the
UWFi vs.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling feud and the rise of
Pride and
K-1. On April 24, 2007, Hustle's ownership group (made up of former DSE employees) became "Hustle Entertainment" and former Kami no Puroresu editor Noboru Yamaguchi (who was part of the original Hustle
brain trust) became
President of the new
organization. The group is still running their business at the old Dream Stage Entertainment offices, which became the PRIDE Worldwide Holding offices. Earlier in 2007, Hustle ran a storyline where General Takada bought out Hustle for 1 billion Monster dollars and that everyone within the Hustle army became part of the Takada Monster Army. Some
wrestlers received new
gimmicks, like
Naoya Ogawa turning into "Celeb" Ogawa, where he acted like a celebrity. The storyline was in response to DSE's bleak future due to financial troubles caused by yakuza scandals; DSE would eventually close doors after
Pride Fighting Championships was officially bought out by Zuffa (the organization that owned
UFC at the time). In July 2009, the leader of the Monster Army, Generalissimo Takada was "killed" when a new enemy by the name of "King RIKI" (played by actor/singer
Riki Takeuchi) showed up at the "HUSTLE AID 2009" event and repelled one of Takada's lasers, sending it back towards him and wounding him. The following show the Monster Army was disbanded, as the direction of the company started to change. In August 2009, President Noburo Yamaguchi stated that Hustle would be entering a new era. Straying away from the over the top storylines & gimmick-oriented "Fighting Opera" style that made them popular, to a more traditional wrestling "Professional Fighting" style. Hustle president Nobuo Yamaguchi announced on October 28 that the promotion was folding. He made the announcement that they were out of money, and could no longer pay the staff and the wrestlers. He said that the scheduled 10/29 show at Korakuen Hall was canceled, as are all the rest of the shows on the schedule. Since Nobuhiko Takada left the promotion as the top heel, interest had gone way down. Many of the shows were before small crowds, and most of those crowds were papered. While nobody would say so publicly, they were behind on paying a lot of the wrestlers, and the demise of the promotion has been expected for the last couple of months. Yamaguchi said his goal was to eventually bring the promotion back. Wataru Sakata still runs Hustle shows under the banner "HUSTLE Man's World", with wrestler @UEXIL as the main eventer; however, they're only run sporadically and at the small venue Shin-Kiba FIRST Ring (approx. 250 capacity), without television exposure and attendance figures not posted. In the beginning of 2010 some of Hustle's biggest names announced that they would be forming a new promotion,
Smash, intended to replace the dead promotion. Smash held its first show on March 26, 2010. After a six-month hiatus, Hustle held two shows on April 30 and May 30, 2010. After another four-month break, the promotion held two more shows in October. In 2011, the
Bleacher Report ranked Hustle No.13 on its list of the 25 worst professional wrestling promotions in history. ==Final roster==