The 2x GHC (Pro Wrestling NOAH) Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion and 4x RevPro Undisputed British Heavyweight Champion Zack Sabre Junior has made a name for himself across the world due to his incredible catch wrestling style. Many view him as the best technical wrestler in the world, with the ability to turn nearly any situation into a deadly submission.
Zack Sabre Junior’s career has skyrocketed since joining New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) and becoming a member of Suzuki-Gun. He recently sat down with the NJPW website to have a long discussion about his career and immediate goals.
After detailing how he began training in judo and karate as a kid, Zack Sabre Junior explained the environment in the United Kingdom that allowed him to begin his professional wrestling training at the age of 14:
I think it probably speaks to how the UK treats sports differently as a culture. In Japan or America, sports are taken much more seriously from an early age. You get put on a career path early, there are college scholarships, that kind of thing. In the UK, all the sports you do have to come separately, alongside your education.
“I learned a lot from Andre [Baker], but my day to day coach was Jon Ryan. I have to credit him for everything really. Later on, Andre took a shine to me, so he would give me some one on one training, or train in a small group with people he saw potential in,” he explained when asked about his training at NWA Hammerlock.
Zack Sabre Junior would detail how the 1994 Super J-Cup, that he first saw images of in the Power Slam magazine made him realize that he didn’t just want to be a wrestler, but he wanted to be a wrestler in Japan. He would go onto to explain the appeal of the wrestling culture in Japan:
The aesthetic still seems fresh now, let alone 18 years ago. The only wrestling I’d seen on TV was American, but the way everything was presented is completely different. The sports like presentation has always appealed to me the most.
When speaking on his path to joining the Pro Wrestling NOAH dojo, he reiterated that his goal was to immerse himself in the Japanese culture — even if not directly through NJPW, who he was mostly a fan of. “It was always the goal, yes [being a part of a dojo system]. I didn’t want to be a foreign wrestler who just did a few tours here or there, I wanted to be ingrained in the lifestyle. I wanted my whole focus to be in Japan.”
Zack Sabre Junior had an interesting response when asked about if he felt the expectations were different for him being in the dojo as a foreigner:
Maybe the expectations were a little different. I think with the experience that I had at the time, they were testing to see if I would put in the work with chores around the Dojo. There’s always work to do, and I just did as much as I could with the knowledge I had. Maybe in Japan there’s a very proper way that you should do things, but at first they wanted to see that I was willing to do it at all at first, and then after that, whether I was doing it the right way.
ZSJ also would state that he believes the Japanese and United Kingdom wrestling scenes have more in common than they do with Mexico or the United States. The comment is deserving of investigation as the ties between Japan and the UK wrestling scenes run deep, but as do they between Mexico and Japan.
“Your journey as a wrestler is part of who you are and its more important in Japan, where in America it can be more throwaway. That journey should be important as a wrestler. It’s like every record in your discography as a band. That’s part of who you are, part of your identity,” he said when speaking about what differentiates the wrestling cultures in Japan and the United States — specifically the differences between modern ‘Strong Style’ and ‘Sports Entertainment.’
ZSJ would also detail how Danger Tekkers (his tag team w/Taichi) goal of capturing the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship from Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kota Ibushi doesn’t interfere with his goal of beating Jon Moxley for the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship. “I think they can both be up there at the same time. If I was going for two singles belts, that would be different, but the way things are scheduled, I probably wouldn’t have to wrestle twice in one night. I’d be happy to do that, though.”
