Complete Recap of the Tokyo Sports Pro Wrestling Award

Hiroshi Tanahashi, 37, was named the 41st annual Tokyo Sports pro wrestling MVP in one of the most one-sided balloting in the awards history.
The current IWGP champion got 18 of the 21 first place votes among the key media members from major newspapers and magazines. Tanahashi, having previously won the award in 2009 and 2011, becomes only the fifth wrestler in history to win three MVPs, along with Antonio Inoki, Jumbo Tsuruta, Genichiro Tenryu and Keiji Muto.
Shinsuke Nakamura, Kazuchika Okada and Katsuyori Shibata, all from New Japan, also picked up first place votes.
The G-1 Climax final on 8/10 at the Seibu Dome where Okada beat Nakamura was named the 2014 match of the year. Nakamura had won the match of the year in 2013 for his G-1 Climax match with Kota Ibushi. Other bouts in the running were Ibushi vs. Tomohiro Ishii on 5/25, Takashi Sugiura vs. Daisuke Sekimoto in the Global League finals on 11/8, Okada vs. Ibushi at the 3/6 New Japan Anniversary show, Muto vs. Masayuki Kono at the 11/1 Muto 30th anniversary show, Tanahashi’s IWGP title win over A.J. Styles on 10/13, and the G-1 Climax match with Styles vs. Minoru Suzuki on 8/1.
The interpromotional Dangan Yankees tag team of NOAH’s Sugiura and Zero-One’s Masato Tanaka, as expected, were named 2014 tag team of the year in Japan. The team currently holds both the GHC tag titles in Pro Wrestling NOAH and the Intercontinental tag team titles in Zero-One. What clinched the award for them was doing what is believed to be a first in Japanese history, defending both titles on different shows, in different promotions, on the same day at Korakuen Hall. Other teams under consideration were Yuko Miyamoto & Isami Kodaka of Big Japan, T-Hawk & Eita of Dragon Gate, Jun Akiyama & Takao Omori of All Japan, and Hirooki Goto & Shibata of New Japan. The latter two teams just this past week won their respective tag team tournaments.
The awards are always known for being very political, and heavily favor Japanese. It is rare for a foreigner to win the award, and only once in history, Bob Sapp in 2002, has a foreigner won the MVP award. Of those who have won the MVP award, every winner from 1974 to 2001 is in the Hall of Fame. However since then, besides Sapp, winners who are not in are Yoshihiro Takayama, Satoshi Kojima, Minoru Suzuki, Sugiura and Okada.
The Distinguished Service Award, which for this year is essentially the Most Outstanding Wrestler, went to Ishii over GHC champion Naomichi Marufuji by an 11-10 vote. Others who were in the running were Nakamura, Sekimoto and Ibushi.
Atsushi Onita was given the Fighting Spirit Award to commemorate his 40 years as a pro wrestler, winning over Sekimoto and Miyamoto.
BxB Hulk from Dragon Gate earned the Best Technical Wrestler award, beating out Styles by a 15-6 vote.
Woman wrestler Saki Akai was given the Rookie of the Year award over Leona (Fujinami), Jiro Kuroshio, Big R Shimizu and Desperado. Desperado shouldn’t be up for the award since he started with New Japan in early 2010, and is only a rookie under the masked Desperado gimmick.
Woman wrestler of the year was blank because you needed 11 votes to win an award and 12 of the 21 writers didn’t even fill in a woman wrestler of the year vote because it’s currently so low profile. Io Shirai got six votes and Syuri got three votes.
Tokyo Sports also gave lifetime achievement awards to both Kensuke Sasaki and Akira Taue, who have retired over the last 12 months. Taue had his retirement show on December 7, 2013, which is part of the 2014 voting period.
JAPANESE MVP AWARD WINNERS: 1974 - Antonio Inoki; 1975 - Giant Baba; 1976 - Antonio Inoki (2); 1977 - Antonio Inoki (3); 1978 - Antonio Inoki (4); 1979 - Giant Baba (2); 1980 - Antonio Inoki (5); 1981 - Antonio Inoki (6); 1982 - Tiger Mask (Satoru Sayama); 1983 - Jumbo Tsuruta; 1984 - Jumbo Tsuruta (2); 1985 - Tatsumi Fujinami; 1986 - Genichiro Tenryu; 1987 - Genichiro Tenryu (2); 1988 - Genichiro Tenryu (3); 1989 - Akira Maeda; 1990 - Atsushi Onita; 1991 - Jumbo Tsuruta (3); 1992 - Nobuhiko Takada; 1993 - Genichiro Tenryu (4); 1994 - Shinya Hashimoto; 1995 - Keiji Muto; 1996 - Kenta Kobashi; 1997 - Masahiro Chono; 1998 - Kenta Kobashi (2); 1999 - Keiji Muto (2); 2000 - Kazushi Sakuraba; 2001 - Keiji Muto (3); 2002 - Bob Sapp; 2003 - Yoshihiro Takayama; 2004 - Kensuke Sasaki; 2005 - Satoshi Kojima; 2006 - Minoru Suzuki; 2007 - Mitsuharu Misawa; 2008 - Keiji Muto (4); 2009 - Hiroshi Tanahashi; 2010 - Takashi Sugiura; 2011 - Hiroshi Tanahashi (2); 2012 - Kazuchika Okada; 2013 - Kazuchika Okada (2); 2014 - Hiroshi Tanahashi (3)