Hiroshi Tanahashi shares the story of wrestling the Steiner brothers while dealing with a major knee injury.
Still, very early in Tanahashi's career, he got the opportunity to wrestle Rick and Scott Steiner at the famous Tokyo Dome, but Tanahashi's body was nowhere near 100 percent. In a recent edition of Tanahashi's "Ace's High" autobiographical interview series, Tanahashi revealed that he had torn his ACL two weeks before the match.
"Ah, that was the highest position I’d been on a stage like that in my career to that point, but man, that match was hell! I’d actually torn my ACL two weeks before. I should have been out for two months, but I had it patched up," Tanahashi said.
Tanahashi tried his best to keep his body from falling apart during the match, but going up against the Steiners was never an easy task. Tanahashi admitted that he was scared after being hit with multiple German suplexes from Rick.
"It got worse. The older brother, Rick, just threw me on my head with all these German suplexes, I was scared for my life. The pressure about being in the semi main event were one thing, but I was more worried about my body holding together," Tanahashi said.
Tanahashi and his partner Kensuke Sasaki ended up losing the match against the Steiners. You can check out the full interview at this link.
