Impact has long embraced the Forbidden Door concept with talent ranging from AEW’s Kenny Omega winning the Impact World Championship to Tony Khan commercials to NJPW’s Tomohiro Ishii challenging Josh Alexander in an epic war of attrition and so on. Naturally, that led to Impact holding special Multiverse shows featuring outside talent. Impact and NJPW created the Multiverse United brand, and the second edition arrives on August 20 in Philadelphia, PA. Impact revealed the news about the first NJPW superstar for that show.
Hiroshi Tanahashi will be wrestling at Multiverse United 2: For Whom the Bell Tolls.
BREAKING: The legendary @tanahashi1_100 will be at #MultiverseUnited2 on August 20 in the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, PA. Tickets go on-sale on Friday, June 16. @njpwglobal pic.twitter.com/xNupsFj2dy
— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) June 10, 2023
This won’t be Tanahashi’s first time in an Impact ring. The NJPW ace and his beautiful hair filled in for the injured Will Ospreay to wrestle “Speedball” Mike Bailey at Multiverse United: Only the STRONG Survive. Tanahashi prevailed in victory.
That brings into question who is next for Tanahashi. His bout with Bailey was a first-time matchup, so it makes sense to continue that trend. New Impact world champion Alex Shelley has danced with the legend before in tag team bouts but never in singles action. That would be an interesting challenge, however, Shelley might not even be the world champ by that time. He has a date with Nick Aldis to defend the belt in the main event of Slammiversary on July 15. Heck, lather me up to enjoy Tanahashi versus Aldis. If Impact goes in that direction, then we can’t lose either way no matter the result at Slammiversary.
Matching Tanahashi with the Impact world champ would likely mean a loss. If we’re thinking about opponents for Tanahashi to beat, I have two names in mind. Moose would be an intriguing stylistic matchup. There aren’t many wrestlers in the world like Moose. He competed against Tanahashi in a pair of tag bouts back in 2016. They were partners for one of those contests in an 8-man tag. There also aren’t many wrestlers in the world like PCO. If Tanahashi felt like walking into a monster movie, the French-Canadian Frankenstein would be a cool adversary.
Tickets for the show will be available for purchase starting on Friday, June 16.
Who would you like to see Hiroshi Tanahashi wrestle at Multiverse United 2: For Whom the Bell Tolls? Which other NJPW stars do you hope cross over for the show?
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