NJPW legend comes out of retirement to answer Joey Janela open challenge
If you had Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Joey Janela on your bingo card for 2025, Saturday was your night.
The NJPW legend made a surprise appearance to come out of retirement at the annual WrestleCade convention in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to answer Joey Janela’s open challenge.
According to reports, the match lasted just four minutes with Liger picking up the victory.
Nearly three weeks after celebrating his 61st birthday, Liger returned to the ring nearly five years after retiring following his tag team match at 2020’s Wrestle Kingdom 14 when he and Naoki Sano fell in defeat to Hiromu Takahashi and Ryu Lee.
Liger was inducted into the RevPro Hall of Fame this past August after being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2020. He left the sport as an 11-time NJPW Junior Heavyweight Champion, six-time Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion, CMLL Middleweight Champion, and even had runs as WWF Light Heavyweight Champion in 1997 and WCW Light Heavyweight Champion in 1991-92.
Since 2011, Josh has been a contributing editor to Wrestling Observer/F4WOnline.com and also hosts the Punch-Out podcast. He has also written for Fight Magazine, Bloody Elbow, Bleacher Report, and other websites. He's a 2000 graduate of the University of Maine, worked in pro sports, and once was an indie ring announcer.