Top 10 Wrestlers 2018: Hiroshi Tanahashi

Not long ago we entered the top five of the never ending list of the best wrestlers from the last twelve months. With Daniel Bryan ranking at number five now we shift gears to the company in New Japan and the former "Ace" of the company. Often times in the world of wrestling father time does catch up to everyone, but even at 42 years old it doesn't seem like age has caught up with Hiroshi Tanahashi. Even though Tanahashi did take off for a few months following losing his championship at The New Beginning in Sapporo. Especially later in wrestlers career it becomes more common for talent to take time off to heal from injuries and recover limiting the aging talent from suffering serious injuries. 

At this point Hiroshi is more then an established name giving New Japan a reliable talent to depend on if they need help establishing new talent for the future. The last couple of years Tanahashi has been in out of the main event leaving room for Kenny Omega, Cody Rhodes, and others to establish new faces on top of the card. In many ways its believable to think that New Japan rewarded Tanahashi with one more title reign for being such a reliable talent for so many years. I believe that very few talent have reached the status of legend in the modern era of wrestling, but Tanahashi is definitely not just a legend and has entered the status of "Icon." Even though his title reign was short it was well deserved and the match with Kenny was one of the best matches from this years edition of Wrestle Kingdom. At this point the list will continue to tick down until we hit the end and Hiroshi Tanahashi has landed at number four.