“Right. I couldn’t believe it. I took the tryout in November of my third year at university, so I had to wait over a year,” current one-half of the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship team Golden Ace (w/Kota Ibusi) and former 8x IWGP Heavyweight Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi told the New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) website during the Ace’s High interview series.
Tanahashi was instructed to graduate from college before joining the NJPW Noge Dojo and beginning his wrestling career. He would late come to understand that staying in school was the correct choice.
Yeah. I mean, he was probably thinking that I might not cut it and drop out while I was training, or I might get hurt and that would be that. Staying in school was absolutely the right thing from the standpoint of having something to fall back on, but right in that moment, it was the worst thing you could have told me!
“Like, if I had a gap between first and third period, I would go to the gym. I practiced with the amateur wrestling team twice a week, and if I had time, I’d ride my bike to the Ristumei High School wrestling dojo and work with them. That was Manabu Nakanishi’s High School, you know,” Tanahashi detailed how he stayed in shape during the period before he began training at the NJPW Noge Dojo.
“Right. It was me, Seiji Sakaguchi and Kenzo [Suzuki] in the TV Asahi cafeteria. Sakaguchi at 196cm, Suzuki at 192, it made me think ‘woah, what have I got myself into, here?’” Tanahashi remembered from meeting his future tag team partner Kenzo Suzuki for the first time.
He would then later detail his memories of moving into the NJPW Noge Dojo, “Oh, yeah! The other wrestlers were on the road then, but Nijima, who’s a trainer now, was in the Dojo. Then the next day, everybody came back so I had to greet them all as they came in.”
Tanahashi would then spend time explaining why senpai don’t remember Dojo trainees’ names during the beginning stages of their time at the dojo.
Well, some of them responded with a ‘good luck!’ and some didn’t. Truth is, most of the senpai wouldn’t use your name, or even remember your name when you first started. Actually, I’m the same way now. There’s a reason for it; you just don’t know who might drop out before they even debut. When people feel ‘ah this one will stick around’, that’s when they remember your name.
“He was my senpai, so obviously he was a hard taskmaster when we were training, but he was nice to everybody afterward. He’d try and put everyone at ease, include them in the conversation,” Tanahashi would say about his senpai former two-time NEVER Openweight Champion, former two-time IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Champion, and former IWGP Heavyweight Champion Togi Makabe.
The 11th Ace’s High entry would end with Tanahashi explaining how he would use Kenzo Suzuki being yelled at as an opportunity to rest during grueling training sessions.
