For the final time in his career, Hiroshi Tanahashi walked down the ramp of the Tokyo Dome to face one of his greatest rivals, Kazuchika Okada, at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 20. After more than 30 minutes of action that saw "The Ace"roll back the years and have nearly 50,000 people cheering him on, it was "The Rainmaker" who emerged victorious from the main event.
The story of the match was very simple. Okada knew that he was in better shape and had more endurance and stamina than his opponent, meaning he could be methodical and pick his spots more carefully. Tanahashi also knew this, but he needed to wait for Okada to make mistakes and take his chances with perfect accuracy. "The Ace" would repeatedly work over Okada's leg with Dragon Screws and the Texas Clover Leaf, but Okada was too much for Tanahashi to take, with "The Ace" almost losing the match via countout after taking a Tombstone Piledriver on the ramp.
Okada toyed with Tanahashi, picking his shoulders off the mat just so he could inflict more punishment. However, this meant that Tanahashi had to dig deep into his bag of tricks in order to stay alive, delivering Twist and Shouts, a High Fly Flow to the outside, and a couple of Slingblades to get some near falls. When that didn't work, he channelled the other two members of the New Three Musketeers of NJPW, Katsuyori Shibata and Shinsuke Nakamura, to hit a PK and a Bomaye for another near fall. A Dragon Suplex couldn't put Okada away, and neither could hitting The Rainmaker on "The Rainmaker" himself.
As time passed, Okada's demeanor changed as he walked into the match as the brash, AEW version of himself, but the more Tanahashi stayed in the fight, and the more Rainmaker's Tanahashi kept kicking out of, the more he had to revert back to the man who took the IWGP Heavyweight Championship from "The Ace" in the Tokyo Dome exactly a decade ago. This meant hitting "The Rainmaker Pose" for the first time in nearly two years, before hitting one more Rainmaker Lariat to finally put Tanahashi down for the three count and the hard-fought victory.
Once the dust had settled, Okada grabbed the microphone and said to Tanahashi that he knew he was tired, but while he had the chance, he just wanted to say two words to him: thank you. Okada exited the ring as Tanahashi's retirement ceremony was about to begin, which included the likes of Tetsuya Naito and AEW's Will Ospreay.
