The major news coming out of New Japan’s Power Struggle card from Osaka was the return of Hiromu Takahashi.
The 29-year old junior heavyweight star has not wrestled since suffering a broken neck in July 2018. During a match against Dragon Lee in San Francisco, Takahashi took a Phoenix Plex that was executed badly.
After Will Ospreay’s victory over BUSHI at Power Struggle, he asked who was left to challenge him for the IWGP junior heavyweight title after knocking off yet another challenge. The lights went out with a video revealing ‘Time Bomb’ graphics and a countdown from 1487 hours or 62 days, which is January 4th of next year. Then, the video started a 10-second countdown with Takahashi entering to a hero’s welcome in Osaka and challenging Ospreay to the Wrestle Kingdom match.
Earlier in the show, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kota Ibushi defeated Kazuchika Okada & Yoshi-Hashi with Tanahashi pinning Yoshi-Hashi after hitting the High Fly Flow. While celebrating in the ring, a video ran of a band emulating Tanahashi and being attacked by a mysterious figure that was revealed to be Chris Jericho. The AEW star challenged Tanahashi to a match on January 5th, which is the promotion’s second night at the Tokyo Dome.
An angle was shot back in June at Dominion where Tanahashi came to the rescue of Kazuchika Okada and fought off Jericho following Okada’s title defense against Jericho.
We will have a full review of Power Struggle later tonight with the Power Struggle POST Show on the POST Wrestling Café.
