Tetsuya Naito was named the Tokyo Sports MVP for 2023.
The 2023 Tokyo Sports Pro Wrestling Awards selection committee gave their prestigious pro wrestling MVP award to New Japan Pro-Wrestling megastar Tetsuya Naito. This is Naito first MVP award win since 2020 and his fourth overall MVP Award win.
The four wrestlers nominated for MVP for 2023 were Tetsuya Naito, Hiromu Takahashi, SANADA and Kenoh. Naito secured 11 out of 19 votes to win the MVP award.
Some of his accomplishments in 2023 included winning the G1 Climax and and being given the honour of being Keiji Muto’s final opponent before his retirement in February.
Tetsuya Naito commented on being named the Tokyo Sports MVP for the fourth time in his career at special press conference held in Tokyo in which he discussed his victory:
Thank you for choosing me as MVP. Looking back on this year, I wrestled Kenoh in a singles match, Shota Umino in a singles match, then Keiji Muto’s retirement match. I thought it was a good start to my year, but I lost in the New Japan Cup quarterfinals to SANADA, and then I wasn’t able to make things click for a while. But heading to Mexico in July put me in a better place to win the G1 Climax.
In September in Kobe, I defeated Jeff Cobb and got revenge for my G1 loss. Now I’m heading to ward the main event January 4. Yes, I won the G1, but I’m not sure I was able to really stand out as much as I’d like this year. I never had a title match, and with that in mind, I had thought Hiromu Takahashi would take the prize. I bet Hirmu is pretty disappointed right now. But I’m sure he’ll keep going more and more to increase his standing.
More important, the man who won the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship in April in Ryogoku, and has held the World Heavyweight title longer than anyone, SANADA. Being able to hold the top title for a long period of time is impressive. Yet it feels like ever since April, he’s been less and less prominent. Now he got, how many votes for MVP from the panel? Two? That says a lot doesn’t it. January 4 2024, the main event, it has to be do or die for him. All the same, I will come in as challenger and as Tokyo Sports MVP, win, get my roll call, and get 2024 started the right way. You can imagine what that might look like.’
Tetsuya Naito
Tetsuya Naito has a chance to kick off 2024 in a major way as he has an IWGP World Heavyweight Title opportunity against current champion SANADA at Wrestle Kingdom 18 at the Tokyo Dome on January 4th.
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