“Oh, yeah, huge. Just the visual impact of a character like that is massive, and then when he took the top half of the suit off to wrestle heavyweights, you saw how jacked he was as well,” Yoh said regarding the recently retired Jyushin Thunder Liger.
New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) is in the midst of publishing an interview series that investigates the minds of current NJPW junior heavyweights, and spoke to Yoh before events were back up and running.
“I guess. I was listening to him thinking ‘wait, aren’t you ridiculously strong? You weren’t average at all’ (laughs),” Yoh reminisced after telling a story where Liger called himself ‘average.’
“That’s how I took it. I think that’s what the thinking was when that match was booked. On the one hand I was worried that it would be an impossible match to follow, but thinking about it being the end of one era and the beginning of the next, that got me fired up to get our belts back. And result wise, it was the best possible start to the year,” Yoh would go on to say regarding following Liger’s final match at Wrestle Kingdom 14.
Yoh would also give credit to his mentor Rocky Romero for helping him get to where he is today, “Oh, absolutely. Both as a singles and a tag wrestler, if it wasn’t for Rocky, SHO and I wouldn’t be where we are today. I trust him 3000 percent.”
In the second part of his interview, Yoh gave credit to Suzuki-Gun member Yoshinbu Kanemaru for his excellence in the ring. ” Kanemaru can have a good match with anyone, and he can really establish whoever he’s in with. he’s a master, a lot like Rocky is. I remember having a great match with him in the main event a couple of years ago.”
Being a four-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion Yoh shared some strong opinions concerning tag team wrestling, ” But to go into the process here, I don’t have any respect for the line of thought of tagging just to create a singles opportunity. Success only comes from taking 100% of the expectations people have from you and returning 150%. Roppongi 3K still has a ways to go.”
Yoh also shared that he wants to see Roppongi 3k take the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship. The team challenged Guerrillas Of Destiny (GOD) on September 9, 2019 at Fighting Spirit Unleashed Boston for GOD’s v7 defense of that title.
“Absolutely. Hugely. There aren’t as many native born talents in BoSJ of late, so with a lot of imports from other companies or countries, there is the worry that people might think a talent’s upbringing isn’t important,” Yoh would say near the conclusion of the interviewing concerning being a NJPW Noge Dojo Trueborn (Tier 1 graduate).
