NJPW legend Hiroshi Tanahashi spoke about the company being purchased by Bushiroad in the latest edition of his Aces High interview series, which also sees Tanahashi discuss NJPW’s previous owner, Yuke’s, and how grateful he is to them for rescuing the promotion at that time. Highlights from the interview are below.
When he found out Bushiroad had bought NJPW:
“I found out about it at the same time as the rest of the boys actually. I think I would have said something at the announcement, being the champion, but I can’t quite remember. To be honest, like a lot of people in the company, I was worried about just what would happen to NJPW, but talking to Takaaki Kidani afterward I really understood that the guy was passionate about pro-wrestling and devoted to making this work. The things we’ve been able to do since, like wrapping the trains on the Yamanote Line with Tokyo Dome ads, it was the sort of stuff we hadn’t done before. I’d been steadily working away doing promotion, and he was taking everything to a whole new scale. I’m definitely grateful to him.”
How grateful he was to the previous owner, Yuke’s, for rescuing NJPW:
“I’m really grateful for Yuke’s as well. Back at this press conference [Bushiroad purchasing NJPW press conference] I remember saying to their Chairman, Taniguchi-san ‘Thank you for rescuing our company. I hope I can repay that debt someday’. I’m sad we haven’t been able to do that yet, but I hope that sometime we can have a full on collaboration again, like having the old Tokon Retsuden video games.”