NJPW's Hiroshi Tanahashi To Face AEW Champion In His Final US Match
2025 will see a number of companies bid farewell to wrestling legends. John Cena's retirement tour in WWE is already underway, Jeff Jarrett has signed his final deal as an in-ring talent with AEW, and in NJPW, company president Hiroshi Tanahashi is on his "final road," as he plans to hang up his boots for good at Wrestle Kingdom 20 on January 4, 2026.
On "The Ace"s final road, he will wrestle one more match in the United States on April 11 at NJPW's Windy City Riot event in Chicago, and his opponent for that show has been confirmed. After his NEVER Openweight Championship defense against KUSHIDA at NJPW's Battle in the Valley event on January 11, AEW star Konosuke Takeshita took to the microphone to issue a challenge to Tanahashi to be the NJPW President's final opponent on American soil. That has now been made official, as Tanahashi and Takeshita will go one-on-one at Windy City Riot.
OFFICIAL
April 11 @WintrustArena Chicago
Hiroshi Tanahashi's last US match
Final Road ~Kinship~@tanahashi1_100 vs @Takesoup https://t.co/Vp7yP09l9g#njpw #njriot pic.twitter.com/djiMKbvI3z
— NJPW Global (@njpwglobal) January 16, 2025
Takeshita already has a NEVER Openweight Championship match against Oleg Boltin at NJPW's The New Beginning in Osaka event on February 11, but regardless of whether he has both the NEVER Openweight and AEW International Championships by the time April 11 rolls around, his match with "The Ace" will be a non-title affair. While some fans might see this as a first time ever dream match, Tanahashi and Takeshita have crossed paths in singles action once before, that being at DDT's Ryogoku Peter Pan event in August 2014 when Takeshita was only two years into his wrestling career. Tanahashi picked up the win on that night, but "The Alpha" has come a long way in the past 11 years, and will be looking to put up more of a fight when they face off at Windy City Riot.