“Right. We’d stay together at university wrestling meets, and when we both went to South Korea with our teams,” Hirooki Goto said when asked about former 5x IWGP Intercontinental Champion and 3x IWGP Heavyweight Champion Shinsuke Nakamura in part two of his Chain Reactions interview with the New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) English website.
Goto would go on to detail how he and Nakamura tried out for the NJPW Noge Dojo at the same time in 2002 when there were 70 total attendees. According to Goto, NJPW cut individuals that were underneath a certain height before the true evaluation began.
“Only five. Me, Nakamura [Shinsuke], (Ryusuke) Taguchi, Yamamoto (Naofumi, now Yoshitatsu in AJPW) and Nagao (Hiroshi, now retired),” Goto responded when asked how many passed the entrance exam.
He would later detail a period during his dojo training when he returned home briefly after suffering a shoulder injury. “For sure. There would be classes going on in the school, so we would get into the dojo in the afternoon and train. U [U-san Goto’s highschool wrestling teammate] kept up, 500 squats a day, and the exact regimen we did in the New Japan Dojo.”
During the interview, he would also explain that he and Katsuyori Shibata went to NJPW’s Battle Formation event on April 29, 1996. That took the conversation to discuss Shibata’s nearly fatal injury on April 9, 2017, and his possible return to the ring.
It was such a huge shock. But, you know, when I went to train with him last year in LA, it really hit home that he hasn’t lost a step when it comes to moving, hasn’t lost any of that musculature. I wonder just how bad that injury still is for him. Obviously, I can’t speak for him, but when it comes to Shibata, I’d love for him to come back. Teaming with him, wrestling him, whatever. I’d love for him to come back someday.
Goto would name G1 Climax match against Jay White on July 13, 2019 as the best match of his career. “It’s still my dream, and it’s still my goal. I might be 40 now, but whatever age I am, I’ll always be trying to win that title as long as I’m wrestling,” Goto said when it was mentioned that a number of fans want to see him win the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.
