Minoru Suzuki shared several interesting and strong comments before his February 9th IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship challenge against Jon Moxley at The New Beginning in Osaka. The following is a portion of some of the comments he had concerning what makes wrestlers a draw in the industry.
Suzuki: Why is Lance Archer popular? Why does Zack Sabre Junior have the support he does? Because there’s stuff they can’t do. Nobody in this goddamn business understands that. Wrestlers don’t understand that. Trainers, people teaching these kids don’t understand that for crying out loud!
[Interviewer, presumably Chris Charlton] –The system wants to create all rounders.
Suzuki: So the kids go in, and they train, and their trainers find what the gaps are in their games, and they try to fill those gaps right up. So you have this perfectly smooth, grey lump of boring trash. Fill in those holes on a wrestler and there’s no way in hell he’s filling seats with asses. It’s up to us to make people talk, to make them disagree. Make them argue. So Moxley? It’s because he can’t do s**t that he’s a good wrestler.
However, his most interesting comments came when addressing the current global struggle for the soul of professional wrestling, and the roles major wrestling markets of Japan and Mexico play.
Suzuki: In this day and age of wrestling being worldwide, it’s a match on a global scale. Let me say this: one thing I have, one strength that I have over anybody? History. Look at guys that are wrestling all over the world. Everyone wears kickpads, and they don’t even kick, right? That started in Japan. We started that. We shaped culture that way.
[Interviewer, presumably Chris Charlton] – It’s the influence of UWF, still being felt today.
Suzuki: UWF [Universal Wrestling Federation] is part of it. Japanese wrestling. Particularly Japanese. Proprietary Japanese. I get this is for NJPW’s site, so maybe you don’t know, or don’t want me saying, but WWE [World Wrestling Entertainment] are the biggest promotion in the world, right? And they want to blend all of the world’s wrestling together, fold it all in.
They’re going into all these countries, buying up promotions, snatching away talent, and sapping the business there. But the one place they haven’t been able to do that yet? Japan. Japan and Mexico are the only places that have carried a strong sense of wrestling culture that was uniquely theirs. Business is down in Mexico. WWE are getting their claws in there, too. But they haven’t come here yet, because Japanese wrestling has too much presence. Uniquely Japanese wrestling does.
While WWE has yet to gain a foothold in Mexico due to the Lucha Libre influence led by Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) and Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (AAA) — Suzuki makes an important point. The United Kingdom’s wrestling culture was previously led by Joint Promotions, yet the scene has suffered in recent decades due to a myriad of reasons. Australia was home to the original World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in Melbourne, which was once the hottest wrestling territory in the world — yet wrestling has struggled in the country for several decades, before a recent resurgence in previous years. Australian wrestler Shazza McKenzie spoke about it in an interview on the Kayfabe Brothers podcast.
Comments from WWE Executive Vice President of Talent, Live Events and Creative, Paul Levesque highlight the companies’ desire to colonize the wrestling world — with the intent of forcing most promotions in major wrestling markets to close. Ite Lemalu Media Relations Manager for the Fale Dojo wrote about the differing approach NJPW applies when working with wrestling cultures around the world in a two-part series.
Through NXT United Kingdom, WWE helped cease a pending boom in the UK scene. Since its launch, many promotions in the region were forced to close their doors. While other factors played into the current strife within the UK wrestling scene, their role cannot be understated. WWE attempted to do the same in Japan but was outmaneuvered by Bushiroad purchasing World Wonder Ring Stardom (Stardom) in October 2019, and CyberAgent who acquired Pro Wrestling Noah (NOAH) last month.
The NJPW led IWGP Conception consisting of international partners CMLL (Mexico), Revolution Pro Wrestling (UK), Ring Of Honor (United States) the company has proven to be an ‘ally’ of wrestling cultures around the world. The All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and AAA alliance place all major professional wrestling companies sans IMPACT Wrestling in some sort of formal agreement with each other against the WWE monolith.
What remains to be seen is if AEW will become a full or loose partner with the IWGP Conception in the future. Wrestle Kingdom 14 opened the door slightly, but there hasn’t been any public movement since early January.
Numerous fans on social media call for solidarity in enjoying every promotion around the world, but at some point, there may come a time when fans have to decide whether they want a strong international wrestling scene or one that contains only one viable option.
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