Jushin Thunder Liger: I Don’t Want To End My Career On A Sad Note, I Want It To Be A Happy Occasion

Jushin Thunder Liger takes time to reflect on his upcoming retirement match at Wrestle Kingdom 14.

During a press conference to announce a number of matches for both Power Struggle and Wrestle Kingdom, Liger spoke about the eight-man tag team match he will have on the first night of the event. Liger will team with Tatsumi Fujinami, The Great Sasuke and Tiger Mask to take on Naoki Sano, Shinjiro Ootani, Tatsuhito Takaiwa and Ryusuke Taguchi. 

“Well, I don’t want to end my career on a sad note. I want it to be a happy occasion and have it be a show. Tatsumi Fujinami is the reason I became a pro wrestler, and having fought each other and with each other so many times, adding Sasuke in there makes for something new as a tag team. On the other side, with guys like Otani and Takaiwa, I think we can tear into each other and it’ll be a lot of fun. To be honest, I don’t have many feelings about all this yet, but I think whatever happens, the retirement ceremony will be more quiet, so I want to have retirement matches that have everyone on their feet cheering,” Liger said.

For the eight-man tag team match, El Samurai will corner Team Liger while Kuniaki Kobayashi will be in the corner of Team Sano. Liger said he wanted El Samurai to wrestle, but refused. Despite this, he did manage to eventually convince El Samurai to be in his corner for the match.

“I kept on telling him that he should wrestle, but for whatever reason he refused. He was my partner for such a long time though it really wouldn’t be the same if he wasn’t involved, so when it came to the question of having seconds or not with us, I asked him to be mine and he finally caved in and accepted. So to be teaming with the guy who got me into wrestling, old partners, new partners, people I’ve fought against and with, I’m really really happy,” Liger said.

The first night of Wrestle Kingdom 14 will take place on January 4 at the Tokyo Dome with night two taking place on January 5. Liger will also wrestle on the second night against an opponent yet to be named and will have a retirement ceremony on January 6.