Eastern Lariat #316: Wrestle Kingdom 20 Review

VOTE ON THE 2025 EASTERN LARIAT AWARDS HERE

The beginning of the new year is the endpoint of a career at the same time. It's not the endpoint of a regular career, but the endpoint of Hiroshi Tanahashi's career that shaped Japanese pro wrestling over the past 26 years and helped change the balance of power in the business. So it's no exaggeration to say that fans witnessed the closing of the book of one of the most important careers not just in New Japan Pro Wrestling, but in modern professional wrestling as a whole. Besides the Tanahashi festivities and his tremendous final match against longtime rival Kazuchika Okada, STRIGGA & Dylan review the full card, talk about what worked, what didn’t, and how New Japan presented its biggest show of the year. Above all though, the Eastern Lariat reflects on Tanahashi’s legacy as the Ace, what his farewell meant in the context of the event, and where NJPW goes from here without the man who carried the company on his back and broke his own body doing so.

Also Eastern Lariat is on Spotify
Listen to the Eastern Lariat on Apple/iTunes
Listen to the Eastern Lariat on the Libsyn Feed

Check out our Patreon for literally thousands of hours of wrestling content & coverage while supporting us, plus get the scoops, updates and audio about ALL KINDS of puroresu past and present.

Follow us on Twitter/X and let us know what you think about everything going on in the world of Japanese Pro Wrestling!

Eastern Lariat on Twitter/X
STRIGGA on Twitter/X
Dylan on Twitter/X

Follow us on BlueSky!

Eastern Lariat on BlueSky
STRIGGA on BlueSky
Dylan on BlueSky

Follow Eastern Lariat on Instagram