Kota Ibushi's NJPW Wrestle Grand Slam Replacement Announced

The Golden Star has been replaced with New Japan's Ace for today's Wrestle Grand Slam event.

by Andrew Pollard
Hiroshi Tanahashi
NJPW

With NJPW's Wrestle Grand Slam event having just kicked off as of this writing, New Japan Pro Wrestling has announced that Hiroshi Tanahashi will be replacing Kota Ibushi in the show's main event.

Previously, Ibushi was due to challenge IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Shingo Takagi at today's Tokyo Dome show. Instead, the Golden Star has been replaced by New Japan's Ace in that main event spot - with Tanahashi now getting a shot at Shingo's prize.

It was revealed last week that Ibushi has been diagnosed with aspiration pneumonia, which threw into doubt his status for Grand Slam. Kota's absence from recent NJPW shows was initially reported as being due to a bad reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine, although New Japan updated on Ibushi's status last week.

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As for Hiroshi Tanahashi, he had publicly talked about how he would step up and replace Kota Ibushi against Shingo Takagi if needed - and now the eight-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion gets the chance to headline the Tokyo Dome for the 11th time.

The last time that Tanahasi and Takagi faced off was at 30 January's New Beginning show, with the Ace picking up the win to become the NEVER Openweight Champion. While Tanahashi has since lost that title to Jay White, Shingo went on to defeat Kazuchika Okada to become IWGP World Heavyweight Champion last month after Will Ospreay was forced to vacate that belt.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer and Presenter, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund and Eli Roth to Kevin Smith and the Russo Brothers, to Kevin Conroy and Frank Miller, to Bret Hart and Sting, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, and Brian Flynn, to many, many more. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is a long-standing season ticket holder and an FSA Award-winner for his time co-hosting the Fearless in Devotion podcast.