Since its establishment professional wrestling in Japan has depended on foreigners, particularly North Americans, to get its own stars over.
Rikidōzan's JWA and its successor promotions All Japan Pro Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling were members of the American-based National Wrestling Alliance at various points, and used these connections to bring North American stars.
International Pro Wrestling was the first Japanese promotion to link in to European circuits. It was through IWE that Frenchman André the Giant got his international reputation for the first time.
Several popular North American professional wrestlers in recent years, such as :
- Sting,
- Hulk Hogan,
- Bret Hart,
- Dynamite Kid,
- Big Van Vader,
- Mick Foley,
- Eddie Guerrero,
- Chris Benoit,
- Chris Jericho,
- Kurt Angle,
- Rob Van Dam,
- Sabu,
- Mil Máscaras,
- El Canek,
- Dos Caras,
- El Solitario,
- Samoa Joe,
- AJ Styles,
- Bryan Danielson,
- CM Punk,
- Travis Tomko,
- Giant Bernard,
- Bill Goldberg,
- Chris Sabin,
- J.Moya,
- Low Ki,
- Brock Lesnar,
- Xavier Woods,
- Davey Richards,
- Chris Hero,
and others have wrestled in Japan, whereas others such as Stan Hansen spent much of their careers in Japan and thus are better known there than in their homeland. Even in joshi puroresu, a few notable foreigners have found success wrestling for joshi promotions, such as:
- Monster Ripper,
- Madusa,
- Reggie Bennett, and
- Amazing Kong.
The now defunct World Championship Wrestling had a strong talent exchange deal with New Japan Pro Wrestling, Ken Shamrock was among the first Americans to compete in shoot style competition in Japan, starting out in the UWF and later opened Pancrase with some other Japanese shootfighters.
As a result of the introduction of lucha libre into Japan, major Mexican stars also compete in Japan. The most popular Mexican wrestler to compete in Japan is Mil Máscaras, who is credited with introducing the high-flying moves of lucha libre to Japanese audiences, which then led to the style called lucha-resu.
Some foreign wrestlers have got huge successes bigger than Japanese top rosters in respective Japanese promotions they have wrestled in. Notably, the :
- American wrestler Stan Hansen,
- Indian wrestler Tiger Jeet Singh,
- Canadian wrestler Abdullah The Butcher,
- Mexican wrestler Mil Máscaras, and the
- British wrestler Dynamite Kid.
Puroresu stars in foreign companies
All Japan Pro Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling, as well as others, have also sent wrestlers to compete in the likes of the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Puerto Rico and so on. Usually, these talent exchanges are chances for puroresu stars to learn other styles to add to their own strengths.
Some of the more famous examples of these exchanges are Masahiro Chono, The Great Muta and Jushin Liger in WCW, as well as ECW which featured talent from Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling and Michinoku Pro Wrestling.
Noah wrestler Go Shiozaki with the WLW Heavyweight Champion belt
Some joshi stars from AJW had wrestled for the World Wrestling Federation in the 1980s and 1990s, with The Jumping Bomb Angels and Bull Nakano known for being particularly successful.
GAEA Japan once had a working agreement with World Championship Wrestling in the mid-1990s, when the latter brought in wrestlers from GAEA to bolster the ranks of their then-fledgling women's division, with Akira Hokuto becoming the first and only WCW Women's Champion, and a WCW Women's Cruiserweight Championship was even introduced and defended in GAEA shows.
Recent examples of Japanese wrestlers working in foreign promotions include :
- Satoshi Kojima in Major League Wrestling,
- Kenta Kobashi and Go Shiozaki in Ring of Honor, and
- Hirooki Goto,
- Masato Yoshino,
- Tiger Mask IV,
- Hiroshi Tanahashi and
- Ayako Hamada
in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, Manami Toyota in Chikara and Yoshi Tatsu in World Wrestling Entertainment