Shuhei Taniguchi Announces Plans To Retire In January 2027
Shuhei Taniguchi has revealed the date of his last match.
During NOAH’s N-1 Victory final show on Sunday, longtime pro wrestler Shuhei Taniguchi announced his plans to retire from the squared circle in around two months. The 49-year-old had not been in action since May after reportedly being the victim of a hit and run car accident and undergoing treatment for Osteoporosis in both of his ankles. Now, he’s looking to step away from in-ring competition.
Addressing the crowd, Taniguchi took the microphone to reveal his intention to retire.
“Thank you very much for coming in such large numbers today. I am truly sorry for being absent for a long time since May and for not showing myself before you all. On a personal note, I, Shuhei Taniguchi, have decided to retire. During these roughly 21 years that I have walked as a professional wrestler in this NOAH ring, there were many joyful times, frustrating times, and painful times, but looking right now, I think every single moment was irreplaceable. And the reason I was able to continue professional wrestling up to this point is thanks to the support of all the fans who cheered for me. Thank you so much for everything up until now. There will also be a retirement match, so I will talk about the details in tomorrow’s press conference. Thank you very much!”
-Shuhei Taniguchi
In a press conference the next day, Taniguchi announced that he will have two more wrestling matches, first on October 12 and finally on January 10 of next year. It’s unclear who he will face in either match, but those details should be made available soon.
Shuhei Taniguchi, also known for much of his career as Maybach Taniguchi, began his career in 2005 after spending the years prior as an amateur wrestler. He made his debut on Christmas Eve of that year alongside the late great Atsushi Aoki of junior heavyweight wrestling fame. Of his 1770 recorded matches on his Cagematch profile, 1732 took place in his home promotion of NOAH.
Over his long career, Taniguchi won the GHC Tag Team Championships on six occasions, all with different partners. Over the years, he was tag champs with KENTA, Takeshi Morishima, Go Shiozaki, Naomichi Marufuji, Yuji Hino, and Takashi Sugiura.
On the tournament front, Taniguchi won the Mauritius Cup in 2007, the Arukas Cup Six Man Tag Tournament with Maybach Don (Manabu Nakanishi) and Maybach Blue Justice (Yuji Nagata) in 2015, and most prominently, the Global Tag League with Naomichi Marufuji.
While he will be mostly remembered as a tag team specialist, Taniguchi also challenged for singles gold. He challenged for the GHC Heavyweight Championship six times against some of the biggest stars NOAH has ever seen. He also took on a guy named Big Van Walter in a losing effort for the wXw Unified World Wrestling Championship back in 2011.
Elsewhere, NOAH announced the lineup for this year’s NOAH Jr. Grand Prix 2. You can read more about that here.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on Shuhei Taniguchi’s retirement as soon as we hear more.
H/T to @meraWRESTLING on X for the translation.
One Comment
Comments are closed.