Hiroyoshi Tenzan’s Final Match To Be Against Satoshi Kojima
The final match of Hiroyoshi Tenzan’s career.
It was made official that former IWGP Heavyweight Champion Hiroyoshi Tenzan’s in-ring career would be coming to an end on August 15th.
He is having his final match as part of the G1 Climax semifinal show. At the 7/18 G1 event, Tenzan announced that his final opponent will be Satoshi Kojima. Tenzan and Kojima have won the IWGP Tag Team Titles together six times, and they’ve won the World Tag League tournament twice.
NJPW wrote the following about the history between Tenzan and Kojima:
“Ahead of action in Sapporo on July 18, Hiroyoshi Tenzan greeted the crowd on night two of G1 Climax 36 with an announcement about his impending retirement at the G1 Climax semifinals August 15 in Ryogoku.
‘I wanted one more singles match with a tag partner, sometimes opponent and close friend,’ Tenzan explained as he announced that his final bout will be against Satoshi Kojima.
Dojo contemporaries, Tenzan and Kojima trained with one another in the Noge Dojo, and while Tenzan would get to debut six months ahead of Kojima, the two would wrestle in Kojima’s debut match on July 16, 1991. Both would win the Young Lion Cup and go on excursions as a result, with Kojima facing Tenzan on his 1996 return from excursion in the Tokyo Dome.
Between nWo Japan, Team 2000 and then on separate rosters in New and All Japan, TenCozy became best friends and better enemies. The two have held the IWGP Tag Team Championships six times, and battled fiercely with famous matches happening in Ryogoku in 2005, where Kojima beat Tenzan to lift both the AJPW Triple Crown and the IWGP heavyweight Championships, and in the 2006 G1 Climax final, when a terrifying Original TTD saw Tenzan to his third trophy.
The only duo to ever main event in the Tokyo Dome both as singles opponents, at Nexess VI in 2005, and as a tag team at Wrestle Kingdom 1 in 2007, these two legends will do battle for five more minutes August 15!”
Head over to Fightful’s results section to keep up with the action of the 2026 G1 Climax tournament.
