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Wrestling World in Taiwan & Wrestling Dontaku

The power team of Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Tomohiro Ishii had a long and dominant reign as NEVER 6-Man champions. However, when Okada left New Japan, the titles had to be vacated, leaving the fate of the 6-Man titles in flux. As a fresh start, a tournament was held to crown new 6-Man champions. Taking place at Wrestling World in Taiwan, It would be the team of Hiroshi Tanahashi, Toru Yano, and fresh dojo graduate Oleg Boltin who would defeat House of Torture in the finals and win the tournament to be crowned the new 6-Man champions. They had one more defense against HoT a week later at Wrestling Dontaku, where they managed to fend off the House once more. 

Dominion & New Japan Soul

Their next challenge came from LIJ. After beating the champions in 8-man tag action, the LIJ team of Yota Tsuji, Hiromu Takahashi, and BUSHI earned themselves a 6-Man Tag title match, and it would be scheduled for Dominion. After a hard-fought match, the LIJ team ended the night as champions, with Tsuji claiming his first title in New Japan. The reign would not last long, however, as in a rematch just a week later, the Main Unit team would regain their titles.

G1 Climax & Destruction

As with other titles, the 6-Man Tag Titles took a bit of a break with the G1 Climax. Notably, Boltin beat both Yano and Tanahashi in order to qualify for the G1 Climax, which was a fun development. However, the next chapter for the 6-Man titles came at the G1 Climax Final, where an undercard match pitted the 6-Man champions and El Phantasmo against House of Torture. The match focused mainly on pitting ELP against the rest of Main Unit, and while that did not ultimately work, it succeeded in letting EVIL pin Tanahashi, giving House of Torture a title claim.

This match was scheduled for the Road to Destruction tour, at a show in Noboribetsu in Hokkaido, pitting the champions against the House of Torture team of EVIL, Yujiro Takahashi, and Dick Togo. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Yano is the tourism ambassador for the city of Noboribetsu, and not only was this the first Hokkaido tour New Japan has had in 7 years, this was the first NJPW show in Noboribetsu since 1985. As such, the Main Unit team had the excited crowd going for them hard, and with Yano ending the match with a rare Onigoroshi on Dick, the champions rode the hometown favor to a win.

However, this was not the end of House of Torture’s campaign. SHO came out after the match, claiming the only reason that HoT lost is because the match happened in a “shitty” place like Noboribetsu. He appealed for a rematch, and Tanahashi accepted. The rematch was scheduled for Destruction in Kobe, with SHO subbing out for Dick. In what would be the fourth match between the championship team and House of Torture for the 6-Man titles this year, and ultimately, the champions would make it a clean sweep, fending off HoT once again.

Building to Wrestle Kingdom

This would be the end of the story for the NEVER 6-Man championship. However, the feud between the two sides would continue on in the form of Tanahashi vs EVIL at Wrestle Kingdom, kicking off the retirement year for Hiroshi Tanahashi. Will EVIL cut Tanahashi’s plans short?