Nov 2, 2026 · 2 hr 29 min · 17 segments
GO ACE! Kefin and Jo explore the life and career of Hiroshi Tanahashi, the air-guitar-playing, record-breaking hunk who helped save New Japan Pro Wrestling from its dark ages!
Kefin MahonHostJo GrahamHost
What it feels like with him, and it's very often the case when we look at wrestlers from Japan, I think of Kenny Omega, I think of Vader.
I think of Tenryu and Monami Toyota, even these episodes where it's almost like an accumulation of these kind of stories, these legends that all kind of, like if you're presented as a legend in Japan, it's not because someone is marketing and decided this guy's a legend.
That type of status, that type of notoriety, it's not something that can come flippantly.
You can't necessarily be anointed, because very often it seems to be the case in Japan, if you get anointed, that becomes part of the legend of how you were anointed and you didn't live up to the marker and the challenge and whatnot.
And I feel every time we do an episode about a wrestler from Japan... all the other pieces that we've learned along the way seem to kind of reinforce all these different elements.
Because I think anytime you look at a legend of New Japan in particular, you're not just looking at the story of the wrestler, you're finding out another part of the history of that promotion.
I enjoy being a wrestling fan, is because each piece of the puzzle you learn about suddenly makes another piece slot in much better.
Because I think it kind of, it makes it all kind of, as you said, slot in and make it more sense.
we hadn't done an episode on Tenryu, I don't think this episode would have made quite as much sense as it has done.
But, you know, as you point out, like, stuff that we're going to talk about here in terms of Iki's backstory and stuff that's happened to him and all that, I assume stuff like that is, like, common knowledge.
What it feels like with him, and it's very often the case when we look at wrestlers from Japan, I think of Kenny Omega, I think of Vader.
I think of Tenryu and Monami Toyota, even these episodes where it's almost like an accumulation of these kind of stories, these legends that all kind of, like if you're presented as a legend in Japan, it's not because someone is marketing and decided this guy's a legend.
That type of status, that type of notoriety, it's not something that can come flippantly.
You can't necessarily be anointed, because very often it seems to be the case in Japan, if you get anointed, that becomes part of the legend of how you were anointed and you didn't live up to the marker and the challenge and whatnot.
And I feel every time we do an episode about a wrestler from Japan... all the other pieces that we've learned along the way seem to kind of reinforce all these different elements.
Because I think anytime you look at a legend of New Japan in particular, you're not just looking at the story of the wrestler, you're finding out another part of the history of that promotion.
I enjoy being a wrestling fan, is because each piece of the puzzle you learn about suddenly makes another piece slot in much better.
Because I think it kind of, it makes it all kind of, as you said, slot in and make it more sense.
we hadn't done an episode on Tenryu, I don't think this episode would have made quite as much sense as it has done.
But, you know, as you point out, like, stuff that we're going to talk about here in terms of Iki's backstory and stuff that's happened to him and all that, I assume stuff like that is, like, common knowledge.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.