NJPW's Wrestle Kingdom 19 event is in the books, and there is a lot to unpack from the annual extravaganza. However, there are less than 24 hours until fans pile themselves back into the Tokyo Dome for Wrestle Dynasty on January 5, where NJPW's President Hiroshi Tanahashi will wrestle a last minute match against an AEW star he knows very well.
Tanahashi defeated EVIL in a Lumberjack Deathmatch, but after the match, the House of Torture wanted to gain a measure of revenge on "The Ace" for making them look foolish on NJPW's biggest stage. That was until a hooded figure ran them off, with that figure turning out to Katsuyori Shibata. He took to the microphone to ask Tanahashi if wasn't tired, would he like to have a match at Wrestle Dynasty, to which Tanahashi emphatically accepted given that he will be retiring at next year's WrestleKingdom.
Shibata and Tanahashi have a long history together, as they broke into NJPW at the same time in 1999 after living together in the New Japan Dojo. The company pitted the two of them against each other as young lions, and had such high hopes for them that they were dubbed "The Three Musketeers" alongside current WWE star Shinsuke Nakamura. A rift would eventually form between the trio, as Tanahashi and Nakamura stayed loyal to NJPW when the company when into its 2000s dark period, while Shibata opted to leave the promotion and become a freelancer. "The Wrestler" would return to NJPW in 2012, and would cross paths with Tanahashi on a number of occasions, with the most recent singles bout between the two coming in the 2015 G1 Climax, where Tanahashi beat Shibata on his way to winning it all.
