Manabu Nakanishi announced during a press conference this morning that he will be retiring next month.
Nakanishi made the announcement during a post Wrestle Kingdom 14 press conference that aired this morning. He noted that he had suffered a neck injury years ago and continued to wrestle afterwards, but couldn’t wrestle to the full extent that he wanted to.
He will be finishing his career on February 22 at a special retirement event at Korakuen Hall. Nakanishi noted that although his contract will come due at the end of January, NJPW will extend the contract through the retirement event.
Nakanishi’s match for the show hasn’t been revealed.
Nakanishi started his career in October of 1992, graduating from New Japan’s dojo. After winning the Young Lions Cup in 1995, he went to World Championship Wrestling in the United States where he competed under the name of Kurosawa for one year.
After his return to NJPW, he won the 1999 G1 Climax, defeating Keiji Mutoh in the finals. Ten years later, he defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi to win his first and only IWGP Heavyweight championship.
On June 4, 2011, Nakanishi suffered a neck injury after taking a German suplex from Wataru Inoue. He didn’t return to the ring until October 2012. After the injury, he mostly remained an undercard wrestler, usually in six or eight man tag matches. In recent years, he had been teaming with Yuji Nagata.
Nakanishi most recently competed on the Janaury 4 Wrestle Kingdom 14 card, teaming with Nagata in a pre-show match losing to Satoshi Kojima and Hiroyoshi Tenzan.