This is just full-on fantasy booking/wish fulfillment and forgive me if I ramble.
To start, I still think that Kenta Kobashi's retirement match (Final Burning in 2013) is still the greatest retirement match of all time. You had Kobashi teaming with Jun Akiyama (perhaps his greatest rival and on/off tag partner), Kensuke Sasaki (whom Kobashi wrestled in the all-time great and famous 2005 Tokyo Dome "chop battle" match) and Keiji Muto (another user of the iconic babyface user of the Moonsault like Kobashi) to take on KENTA, Go Shiozaki, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Maybach Taniguchi (KENTA & Shiozaki being Kobashi's personal pupils and Taniguchi & Kanemaru being NOAH stalwarts).
I would like to see Tanahashi's retirement match take its cues from Kobashi's (fitting, in that Tanahashi always said Kobashi was his favorite wrestler). Instead of an 8-man, I'd make it a 10-man tag. For Tanahashi's partners: Shinsuke Nakamura (Tana's generational rival; if WWE would ever let a talent of theirs go to NJPW, I'd love to think they'd let Nak participate in Tana's last match), Katsuyori Shibata (man who was a part of the same YL class as Tana and someone that Tana had very real bad feeling with for a time, before they reconciled and became close friends), Togi Makabe (the man that Tana had his debut match against and one that he would fight and tag with through the years) and Toru Yano (Tana's "bestie" and someone who would provide some good comic moments). For the opposite team I'm thinking it could be made up of the current crop of young potential stars: Shota Umina, Yota Tsuji, Ren Narita, Yuya Uemura & Ryohei Oiwa.
If Tana takes the pin (as he's liable to, due to his selfless nature as a performer), I'd like to see him do a nod to his mentor Keiji Muto's retirement match: just as Muto attempted to go for the Moonsault Press, only for his body to fail him, causing him to fall to Naito, Tana could go for the HFF only for his body to fail him.
Would love to see Tana's mentors, Keiji Muto & Tatsumi Fujinami, be on commentary for the match. Maybe appearances (or could subbed into the match if you think them more appropriate) from Okada, Naito, Goto.
by MrPuroresu42