Trivia / Hiroshi Tanahashi

• Breakup Breakout: He teamed for a time with Yoshi Tatsu as The New Japan Dragons. Tanahashi would go on to become one of the biggest stars in New Japan and multiple time champion. Yoshi spent most of his time in WWE as a Token Minority Jobber. Ironically, this is what everyone expected to happen, just not in this way. The popular belief was that WWE would pick up Tanahashi, and he'd become a big star with them, only for Tatsu to show up instead as a big deal in WWECW. But then WWECW was canceled due to poor ratings and Tatsu never became of any WWE significance again while Tanahashi stayed mostly at home but soared. In fact Tatsu ended up coming back to New Japan as Tanahashi's sidekick against the Bullet Club.
• Executive Meddling: When Tanahashi did a couple of dates for TNA in 2006, NJPW was fine with the results and loaned him out again in for many more dates 2008. After getting footage of Tanahashi and Volador Jr's work in TNA that year, though New Japan prematurely canceled the rest of Tanahashi's TNA appearances in order to prevent what they saw as the Badass Decay of their top star. Over time, this would increasingly be viewed as a beneficial choice. For the record, NJPW would eventually go on to book Volador Jr more than TNA ever did, even if one doesn't include Fantasticamania, including tag team matches with Tanahashi.
• Promoted Fanboy: Tanahashi is a gigantic Kamen Rider fan, taking elements of Rider suits for his gear at times and even adopting Kabuto's hand gestures. In December of 2016, Tanahashi got to play a villain in that year's winter crossover film.