Shingo Takagi’s dream opponent has not changed from the moment he’s entered New Japan Pro-Wrestling.
Shingo Takagi made a monumental transition in 2019 when he shifted from being a junior heavyweight to a heavyweight. This change came after he lost the IWGP Best of the Super Juniors tournament to Will Ospreay.
Speaking with the official website of New Japan-Pro Wrestling, Shingo officially named the match that finished the tournament between himself and Ospreay as his favorite match so far in New Japan Pro-Wrestling.
“Definitely June 5, 2019, the Best of the Super Juniors match with Will Ospreay sticks with me. I’d been undefeated in eight months. Certainly, the result wasn’t what I had envisaged, but it changed my viewpoint to become an openweight wrestler and then a true heavyweight,” Shingo began. “I had the idea to at one point be able to say ‘hey, you can clearly see, I have no competition left in the junior heavyweight division, so I’m going heavyweight’. But then I lost, so that screwed that up, and I went into the G1 as an openweight. That said, this match; I really put my absolute all into wrestling Ospreay and still ended up losing. It was just unreal.”
He continued, “It was the main event in Ryogoku, and being seen all over the world on NJPW World, so it really was a huge stage, a huge platform. From the very first move to the finish though, I just saw first hand the potential and the ability of Will Ospreay.”
Later in the interview, when asked who his dream opponent is in NJPW, Shingo named Kota Ibushi and said that his dream match has not changed from the moment that he entered New Japan as a competitor.
“I got asked this same question when I first came to NJPW. I said Kota Ibushi then, and that hasn’t changed,” he said. “I’ve wrestled Naito, I’ve wrestled Ishimori now. I’m definitely interested in the guys that are the same age as me, and I’m definitely interested in doing it sooner rather than later. I don’t want to wait until we’re in our 40s, after saying ‘we need to do this’ for over a decade.”
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