Episode 140: Splendid Curry
August 27, 2026
I had curry rice for lunch today. Ah man, curry is just so delicious, isn't it?
No matter how many times I eat it, I never get tired of it. Back when CoCo Ichibanya sponsored us, the number of times I went there increased even more.
In truth, to me, curry isn't just a simple lunch menu item.
In 2011, when I was holding the IWGP Heavyweight Championship belt as champion, I made it a strict rule to always eat curry before a match.
My lucky food! Superstition, as you'd call it. Back then, I was racking up consecutive title defences and in absolute peak condition. This was also around the time my air guitar routine became a staple (and lasted longer than the actual matches).
However, in February 2012, at the title match in Osaka welcoming Kazuchika Okada—
For lunch that day, for some reason, what I ordered at the coffee shop I walked into wasn't curry, but omurice. The reason? "Because the omurice looked delicious." And little did I know what was to come after that...
As you all know, the result was the Rainmaker shock. My consecutive defence record came to a halt, and the curtain rose on a brand new era. What they call the "Rainmaker Shock."
If only I had chosen curry that day... I suddenly found myself pondering that thought today.
Perhaps the Rainmaker Shock wouldn't have happened, and the rain of money might never have fallen.
Though, thinking deeply about it, it was actually a good thing that the money rained down, wasn't it? I have no choice but to see it that way...
Triggered by that single bout, an era began where the Sun (Tanahashi) and the Rain (Okada) took turns battling for the belt.
It was a busy couple of years, almost like a weather forecast, but looking back, wasn't that precisely the period when New Japan Pro-Wrestling grew the most?
Crops can't grow on sunny days alone. Sometimes rain is necessary, and precisely because the sun and rain alternate, the soil becomes rich.
Now that I've become President, I never imagined that a tiny choice at that coffee shop—omurice or curry—would go on to generate such a massive movement later on.
You truly never know what in life will become foreshadowing.
That being said, every single time I eat curry rice, my body has been conditioned to inevitably recall this memory. Ughhh!
Guess the title of this column is going from "Sunny, Then Sunny" to "Sunny, Followed by Rain"...
Wait, no it won't, so don't worry (laughs).