NJPW - News, Results & Sonstiges

"I've never experienced a series like it. It's the thoughest tournament & the most dangerous. There is nothing like it in Canada or America. It's also very different to BOSJ. That is a though tournament for sure, but the G1 is so much more physical. The first couple of matches I wasn't feeling it, but after the Elgin Match I was really exhausted. It's though because I was thinking: 'if I keep up the pace can I make it to the end in one piece?' My plan was obviously to win this matches, but also have the best match in each venue & be the MVP of the tournament. That's a though three goals to reach. Plus the night before the finals .. with Naito - I think we had the best match of the whole series. So I had the best match of the whole G1 as well. A part of me thought I should be satisfied with that and then 'right, just win tomorrow', but then I just felt more & more like: 'no I need an awesome final as well'. I'm always pushing boundaries, but if I can find new ways to find them, well then that's what I should do. The G1 does crazy things to your body. For me, if I didn't have a match, I'd just fall asleep right away - wherever, whenever. So in Yamagata I was facing Nakajima and I really wanted to do some prep - research him before the match .. but I fell asleep. Asleep on the way to Yamagta and woke up to: 'last stop Sendai!'. Luckily I'm always early, so it wasn't a problem. The thing was, I thought I'd get right back on the Shinkansen & there wasn't one, 'oh shit!'. Luckily there was a normal JR-train that got me there in time. But as soon as I got on that one, I fell asleep then too! Yamagata was the last stop so the stadion staff woke me 'huh? am I in Tokyo?'."

"They were both really special. I think before then, my match with Elgin was up there as a match of the year candidate and lots of fans, foreign fans too, thought the same. Then Okada & Ishii went out there & were just awesome. I thought: 'ah, they outdid us', but then there were still chances left. So with who? Naito? But then the day before Okada and Tanahashi had the draw and raised the stakes again. For a wrestler there is obviously pride involved. People are noticing you, for me to have MOTY, it says that people hold my original style in high esteem. But it isn't just for me, but Japanese wrestling at large. There are a lot of fans who think WWE is the top of the pile. Obviously their pyro, music, production is the best. But from where I stand, in ring it isn't the best. It's fun to watch such a high budget production, but they use that to hide a lot of weaknesses."

"Bullet Club was in a very though spot before the G1. Everybody left, popularity was waning. It was important to use the final to remind people of the history of the group. If I went to WWE, there's a lot to do there, but my biggest dreams and goals are in Japan. So when I talked to the fans I wanted to say: 'yeah .. I'm a heel, but I'm not planning on leaving'."

"There are precious few people that can change the face of pro wrestling. It may even just be the two of us. So I'm going to stay here in New Japan, doing my best & waiting for him. I was chasing Ibushi for 8 years and finally outgrew him. I hope that's inspiration for him, right? It's not like I could go to WWE and be a junior, there's no point in that. For him to go there, be a junior in WWE, isn't that embarrassing? I can do so much more here in NJ. I wanted to know why he left. I still don't know. Why he went to WWE or wrestled Ikemen Jiro in Wrestle-1. Something's wrong with his head, he changed. He might never come back .. I really don't know. If he did and we meet each other again after so long? No idea what would happen."

"As long as AJ was there, I woldn't have had a chance to go heavyweight. BC needed a junior guy. So AJ was the "leader" and I was the junior. So if he was still here, that chance wouldn't come round to me. Thing was, at that time I weighed more than him away. He might have had more of a storied career than me, but in Japan, I'm capable of far more than him. So when he left it was a big chance for me, to show what I'm really capable of in NJPW."

"They got in touch with me three times last year. This year I've heard HHH wants me, but I haven't talked with him directly. Even if I did, I wouldn't be going anywhere."

"There is a lot more responsibility now, to be a main eventer. From here I'll wrestle YOSHI-HASHI at the main of another show. If you would have said Yoshi-HASHI being in a main event last year - nobody would believe you. So there is a big responsibility, to get that match over & sell tickets. As G1-winner you have to think about business more .. not just wrestle for yourself, but for the company and Japanese wrestling in general."

"Okada is a good champion. He is still young and in peak shape, the perfect athlete. But then again I'm faster, stronger. There is no comparison there. He is tall, popular and he has the backing of the company. I think it'd be an interesting match. I definitely have a strong mental image of beating him. Real life and image training are different things though. I've beem planning this out for a while now & it is not something I really want to say since it's not very heelish .., but I'm flying my parents out from Canada for WK11. My dad retired in April and that is my present to him."

"I have a home in Canada but I spend most of my time in Japan. I actually like doing the back and forth, the flight gives me a chance to reset. In June I bought a house in Canada for training purpose, still working on it. Maybe holding some training camps there in the future. The hardest part about being in Japan is the mindset that American wrestling is the be all end all. And my job is to elevate Jap. wrestling and make sure it gets the recognition it deserves. The image that WWE is the best wrestling in the world is just that, an image .. and one I want to change. Honestly there isn't a single guy on their roster that's better than me."

"I was never a big guy at all, so I have always been about making every single move and every single action precise and proper. Be it big moves or just taking a head, an arm or running the ropes. In 2009 I wrestled Kurt Angle and he said I could make it anywhere. I think every time I've trained since then it's never been training to succeed but always training as if for a debut, to constantly broaden my reach worldwide."

"We don't lose out on match quality. We have great guys going up against great guys and there's rarely a gap in levels that lets match quality down. I think English has been a hurdle. So we need to keep the English announcing thing going, like we did in Ryogoku. To an extent it transcends a language barrier, the action speaks for itself, the fans reactions speaks for themselves, but we need to keep doing and keep pushing it hard and find ways to push it hard to the audience, make sure everyone knows that we have "World", that it is accessible, that the action's great and there is English announcing too. Just be really persistent about it. I want more of our roster to travel abroad and be seen foreign fans, so that it isn't just me or Okada or whomever. So if really like all of us to have a international tour, packaged as New Japan and not something else. It starts with people knowing what NJPW is. Knowing who our wrestlers are, what they do. People see a video or two and it makes matches much more significant because they recognize people, moves, everything. That is incredibly important work for World right now. It's a natural direction to look more globally and our talent to go through the dojo into our ring .. have a level of talent that makes them competitive on global stage. So I really want us to broaden our horizon going forward."

"I'm not young anymore so I really don't go on these tours for the thrill of travel. I look a lot at moves and different things guys do, think about wether they could work in Japan or to make them work. And I look at wrestlers too, at who would be good in Japan, who we might want to bring over. Right now, I'm really impressed by Dalton Castle. He's come to Japan before, but he is a guy that can really go far. He has this regal like character with his Boys, but you really watch him and everything he does is very crisp, he has a good look, has good facial expressions. He's really on track to be the ace of ROH."

"I'm really happy to hear that, I am .. but .. Why me and not Okada? That's my humility talking ... Respect from fans is obviously a wonderful thing, but respect from your peers, your fellow wrestlers is the peak. When you have people saying they want to wrestle you, or team with you, it means so much. Being popular with fans is wonderful, but that can come and go perhaps, but the respect of your peers is such a big thing. Then there is invisible politics that comes with that. I read once in a newspaper that nobody could touch my backstage political stroke. Honestly, factually, I have no political stroke at all! I'm a wrestler, that's not a thing to worry about."

Bushi: "Hey Kushida! Title match soon. You like to think you pull the juniors in this company along by yourself? I'm not you! I didn't win BOSJ, lost in the first round of the Super-J. Maybe they think Kushida pulls the place, the main event along .. that it doesn't matter who challenges him. But I'm going to heat things up from here. I'm not him.He'll see. Enserio-Really."

Naito: "The guy with this who respects the belt and this company so much, Elgin? Well he has energy, I'll give him that. I never once said I wanted the IC belt. IWGP title is at the top of my priorities, but if the belt calls to me, that's fine."

"I always thought wrestling was a character driven business, which is our wheelhouse as a company. With more publicity, popularity follows. We've achieved a lot with the company. In this most recent reporting period, we've had sales of 3.2 billion Yen, with profits of 410 million (1000 Yen ~ 9.9 $). Before we purchased the company, sales were just 100 million. In the ten years before purchase there was a brief period where the company was in black, but it mainly stayed in the red. The prior company waived 800 million in debt and we bought the company for just 50 million Yen, from that we took over 450 million in debt and bought the company with 530 million cash. We had to right a lot of issue with the prior company. Yuke's business was in game development. In that industry you have to be very careful with a set budget. Their objective was to cut a lot of costs. But that approach had its drawbacks, in that they had no ability to go on the offensive. For our company that's our speciality. From when we took over I've been constantly working on publicity. [...] One of our wrestlers, Kazuchika Okada, just bought a Ferrari. That's really expensive for his salary. But why buy it? He said people see him come to venues in a Ferrari, it protects a major league image, that they want to be wrestlers too. It's an aspirational thing. And anyway, his salary is going to increase and he's getting a lot of commercial endorsments. He's doing a great job."

"[...] Young people are steadly coming to events, especially in places with relativly little live entertainment. When we went to Kagoshima for the G1, we had 3300 people, spending 10 million Yen on merchandise alone."

"Sports - Its not really been recognized in Japan, but globally we've been a bubble for sports content for the last few years. UFC was bought for 400 million dollars. Even in Japan broadcast rights for the J league went for 2.1 trillion Yen. People are realizing the value of sports. Key part of that is watching and keeping track in real time .. and now that is possible online as well as on TV, the value is increasing."

"We are the market leader in Asia and number two in the world. But the leader is WWE, who are roughly 25 times bigger than us. It's rare to find an industry with that big gap between one & two. But even in this market I can feel we can increase sales to 10 billion Yen. WWE get a lot of broadcast rights & have 1.5 million subscribers to a 10 Dollar monthly service. We have our own, NJPW World, for 999 Yen, but only with 40000 subrcibers. But with so few examples of such a speciality channel drawing, it's a decent number. Like the world's second biggest fan club."