I am very happy to announce that this week I will be returning to Japan for the first time since losing the SMASH Championship to Dave Finlay back at the end of November 2011.

On Sunday, February 19 at TDC Hall in Tokyo, I will team up with FCF Wrestling representatives Jessica Love and Hajime Ohara to take on the Zero1 contingent of Masato Tanaka, Shinjiro Otani and Ikuto Hidaka in a huge six-person showdown at SMASH.25.

It will be a great honor for me to step into the ring with especially Tanaka and Otani, who are two of the most revered pros in the game worldwide.  Many will remember Masato Tanaka’s match against Mike Awesome on the WWE version of ECW’s One Night Stand pay-per-view from 2005, while Otani was a legendary junior heavyweight in the early and mid-’90s with New Japan Pro Wrestling, holding both the WCW Cruiserweight Championship (beating the legendary Chris Benoit) and the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship in addition to a slew of others.