So it's around 4 hours after the main event of Wrestle Kingdom as I'm beginning to write this, Hiroshi Tanahashi has retired and it truly feels like the end of an era. It's weird to think about it really, for myself and many others, professional wrestling has not existed without the ace, there hasn't been a world where Hiroshi Tanahashi is not actively competing as New Japan's Ace. To me personally, Tana's connection to New Japan is second only to Inoki, when I think of New Japan, Hiroshi Tanahashi is who I think of and whilst he will still be there as President, he isn't there as a wrestler. As soon as Tanahashi announced his retirement tour speculation began on who his final opponent would be and really there were only ever three names ever discussed: Katsuyori Shibata, Shinsuke Nakamura and the man who indeed turned out to be Tanahashi's final dance partner, Kazuchika Okada. All three made sense, had perfect reason to be so, in the case of...
"God's In His Heaven, All Is Right With The World." As well all know, Katsuyori Shibata almost dies in the aftermath of this match, this was his personal heaven. It's a match that has been talked about a lot recently, largely due to Joseph Montecillo reviewing this as a commission and seeing him write and talk about it made me want to rewatch it for the year, initially I didn't plan to write about it, but there's so much that this match makes me feel that I just had to. Firstly, even just the presentation of this match makes it feel like the biggest thing in the universe. Ryogoku Sumo Hall is absolutely electric for everything, Masahiro Chono makes a rare commentary appearance for this and everyone in the arena is fully behind Shibata for this, even with Okada being made to feel like the most important being in the world at this point, Shibata is the one in the hearts of the people. I mentioned Joseph's review earlier and he makes a point to the shot of ...