Gabe Kidd is a champion again!
At Dominion, Kidd and Yota Tsuji finally settled on who was the better man following their double knockout earlier this year. Immediately after Kidd won the IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship, Kidd called out the one and only Hiroshi Tanahashi.
There is actually an emotional story attached to this as Tanahashi has been a mentor to Kidd ever since his Young Lion days. During an interview with NJPW’s website, Kidd citing Tanahashi being there during one of the lowest points of his life.
"He knows what I've been through. I was Facetiming him from a psychiatric hospital. I would Facetime with him, and he gave me an hour of his time every day when he knew I was going crazy. So there is a deeper relationship there. We've had our differences, enough that back in April I said I was going to stab him, but in that moment in the Tokyo Dome, he understood who was going to carry this company forward. He understood what the moment meant to me, and he knows what the company means to him. He dedicated his life to this place, too. So it was a realization, and an overwhelmingly emotional one. I'm not one to cry on camera, but I know what emotion he was feeling, and Tokon, fighting spirit, it's built on that emotion. He saw that his company is about to be on the up and I'm sure there was some pride in there as well"
With Tanahashi currently in the midst of his retirement tour, Kidd demanded that “The Ace” be apart of his legacy and Tanhashi agreed. This is actually a match based on respect, even though Kidd and Tanahashi are on the opposite sides of the spectrum.
These two will face one another on July 4th. This will be Gabe Kidd’s first title defense. Hiroshi Tanahashi has been on a roll since losing a singles bout to Zack Sabre Jr. back in May. He’s fresh off a huge win over Yuya Uemura at Dominion; however, when it comes to title matches Tanahashi is 0 - 2.
He lost his first Openweight Six-Man Tag Team title defense back in January. And he failed to beat Hirooki Goto for the IWGP World Heavyweight title at the company’s 53rd Anniversary show. Maybe the third time will be the charm for the New Japan veteran. At the moment, that’s the only match confirmed for the July 4th show.