Tokyo Sports revealed their award winners for 2018. Kenny Omega & Kazuchika Okada take the award for “Best Bout” for the second year in a row while Hiroshi Tanahashi won the “Sports MVP’ award for the fourth time in his career. The following was translated by the Wrestling Observer:
Hiroshi Tanahashi has been named the MVP of the year, the first time he’s won the award since 2014. This is the fourth time he’s won the award overall. He won with eighteen votes. Kazuchika Okada came in second with twelve votes, while Kenny Omega got three.
New Japan also won Best Bout, with the Dominion match between Kazuchika Okada and Kenny Omega for the IWGP title winning that category. Tetsuya Naito also walked away with the Technique award.
Shuji Ishikawa and Suwama, who team regularly in All Japan Pro Wrestling, won the Best Tag Team award.
Pro Wrestling NOAH got a couple of nods as well. Kaito Kiyomiya won the Fighting Spirit award, while Naomichi Marufuji won a special award for his 20th anniversary, with an event taking place earlier this year where he faced the former KENTA (Hideo Itami).
For women, Tsukasa Fujimoto of Ice Ribbon also won Joshi wrestler of the year, while Utami Hayashishita of Stardom was voted Rookie of the Year, which includes both men and women wrestlers.
Omega tweeted out the following below:
It was announced today that I’ve won “Best Bout” for my match at Dominion with Okada. From what I’m told it’s the first time in 22 years the same pairing has won back to back awards. The last two were Misawa/Kobashi. Very, very humbled to be in that kind of company.
— Kenny Omega (@KennyOmegamanX) December 13, 2018
