Hiroshi Tanahashi

Hiroshi Tanahashi (棚橋弘至) is a Japanese professional wrestler and sports executive.

He is signed to New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), where he serves as the president and representative director of the promotion.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, his accolades in NJPW include a record setting eight reigns as IWGP Heavyweight Champion, a record three reigns as IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion, two reigns as IWGP Intercontinental Champion, one reign as NJPW World Television Champion, three reigns as IWGP Tag Team Champion, one reign as NEVER Openweight Champion and four reigns as NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Champion.

All totaled, Tanahashi has won 24 championships in NJPW.

His February 1998 tryout was successful and he was accepted as a trainee.

He enrolled in the NJPW dojo after graduating from Ritsumeikan University the following year.

Tanahashi has cited Shawn Michaels as his favorite wrestler.

He also admired Tatsumi Fujinami, and considered using the ring name "Dragon Hiroshi" in honor of him.

After graduating from the NJPW Dojo, Tanahashi made his debut in October 1999, in a match against Shinya Makabe.

Alongside fellow rookies Katsuyori Shibata and Shinsuke Nakamura, Tanahashi became known as one of the "new Three Musketeers".

He became viewed as a big prospect and was given big wins over lucha libre legend Negro Casas in July 2000 and American Scott Hall in September 2001.

His star continued to rise and in the 2002 G1 Climax (one of NJPW's most important annual tournaments) Tanahashi pinned Kensuke Sasaki in under two minutes.

After this, Tanahashi was paired with Kenzo Suzuki in a tag team named the Kings of the Hills.

This pairing was popular, but came to an end after a real life incident in November 2002 in which Tanahashi was stabbed in the back by Hitomi Hara, a TV Asahi news reporter.

Tanahashi and Hara had dated one another, but in a meeting at her Tokyo apartment he tried to break off the relationship as he had started dating another woman, which led to Hara stabbing him twice.

Hara later confessed she tried to kill Tanahashi and planned to commit suicide afterwards.

Hara was charged with attempted murder and sentenced to four years on probation.

On February 16, 2003, Tanahashi returned as a singles wrestler to a sold-out crowd in Tokyo in a match against Manabu Nakanishi.

His career began to rapidly climb from this point.

In the later half of 2003 Tanahashi captured the IWGP U-30 Openweight Championship and the IWGP Tag Team Championship, the latter on two separate occasions.

In August 2004 he made it to the finals of the G1 Climax and on January 4, 2005, he headlined the Toukon Festival: Wrestling World 2005 show in Tokyo Dome in a match, where he dropped the U-30 Openweight Championship to Shinsuke Nakamura.

In 2005, Tanahashi also made an appearance in the 15th Sasuke competition on July 20.

He was eliminated in the first round.

On June 18, Tanahashi defeated Toru Yano in a tournament final to regain the U-30 Openweight Championship.

He would go on to defeat Masahiro Chono by Sling Blade in the first round of the New Japan Cup (determining a No. 1 contender against IWGP Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar) on April 16, 2006, in Korakuen Hall and Hiroyoshi Tenzan by Dragon suplex hold in the second round on April 25 in Omuta Citizen Gymnasium before falling to Yuji Nagata's wrist-clutch Exploder in the semifinal on April 29 in the Tottori Industrial Gymnasium.

He also defeated Tiger Mask on May 13 in the first ever main event of the new Wrestle Land brand (a promotional experiment by New Japan with "sports entertainment"), debuting a modified side buster finish.

On June 7, Tanahashi vacated the U-30 Openweight Championship in order to fully focus on his upcoming match against Brock Lesnar for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.

When Lesnar failed to show up for the match, he was stripped of the title and Tanahashi was placed in a tournament for the vacant title.

On July 17, Tanahashi won his first IWGP Heavyweight Championship when he defeated Giant Bernard in the finals of the tournament for the vacant title.

He has also won NJPW's premier tournament, the G1 Climax, on three occasions (2007, 2015 and 2018) and won the New Japan Cup twice, in 2005 and 2008, and is recognised as the fourth wrestler to accomplish NJPW's Triple Crown and the second to accomplish its Grand Slam, making him one of the most decorated wrestlers in NJPW.

Through NJPW's working agreements with Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), Pro Wrestling NOAH, Ring of Honor (ROH), All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and Revolution Pro Wrestling, Tanahashi has also held the CMLL World Tag Team Championship, the CMLL World Trios Championship, the CMLL Universal Championship, GHC Tag Team Championship, and the RevPro British Heavyweight Championship.

Between NJPW, CMLL, Noah, ROH, AEW and RevPro, he has 27 championship reigns.

After holding the title belt for almost 9 months (270 days) and defending the title against the likes of Taiyō Kea, Shinsuke Nakamura and others, Tanahashi lost the title to Yuji Nagata, who had won the 2007 New Japan Cup to become the No. 1 contender.

Tanahashi managed to come back from this by winning the 2007 G1 Climax, where he defeated Nagata in the finals and successfully challenged his rival to a rematch on October 8, 2007, where he pinned Nagata to regain the title.

Readers of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter named Tanahashi as the best wrestler of the 2010s in March 2020.

Before entering professional wrestling, Tanahashi was a baseball player in high school.

He studied law at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, where he began practicing freestyle wrestling.

During this time, he was noticed by New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) talent scouts and was invited to try out for the NJPW Dojo.

When Tanahashi was inducted into the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame in 2013, Dave Meltzer stated that "you could make a strong case for him as the best in-ring performer in the business today", adding that he was "the leading star in New Japan Pro-Wrestling's comeback from being in terrible shape a few years back to being the No. 2 pro wrestling company in the world".

He showed the title belt on his second appearance on Sasuke during the 17th competition, where he was again eliminated in the first round.