Hiroshi Tanahashi becomes the New IWGP Heavyweight champion

Hiroshi Tanahashi defeated Kenny Omega in the main event of Wrestle Kingdom 13 to become the new IWGP Heavyweight champion. The match lasted approximately 40 minutes and meant the start of the eighth reign of Hiroshi Tanahashi as champion, thus ending the 209 days of Kenny Omega’s dominance and a reign that had three defenses.

The combat had some interesting winks like the Styles Clash applied on Omega that almost provided the victory to Tanahashi, an attempt truncated by the mistake made in the later Frog Splash, which was neutralized by Omega with the knees. Precisely, Tanahashi went punishing one of Omega’s knees during much of the fight, especially at the time of executing the Dragon Screw. Tanahashi also missed at the time of applying a Frog Splash on Omega to the ringside on a table. That move was about to cause him to defeat by the count of 20, but Omega avoided it by raising his rival to the ring. Finishing, after applying the Slingblade, Tanahashi climbed to the third rope and applied the Frog Splash to take the victory by the count of three.

.@tanahashi1_100 ‘Dragon Screw’
Watch now▶︎https://t.co/6lmhSyJNoK#njpwworld #njwk13 #njpw pic.twitter.com/F68Wsof5wq

— njpwworld (@njpwworld) January 4, 2019

The match between Kenny Omega and Hiroshi Tanahashi became official when the Japanese fighter won the 2018 edition of the G1 Climax tournament. Tanahashi defeated Kota Ibushi in the final and got the pass for the title match at Wrestle Kingdom 13 against Kenny Omega.

It should be remembered that Kenny Omega has been the center of media attention in the last few hours due to an alleged offer he has received from WWE. Dave Meltzer indicated in the last program of Wrestling Observer Radio that WWE would have offered him a large number that would be around 3.5 million dollars per contract.