Jon Moxley On Wrestle Kingdom 14: ‘100% I Plan To Be At The Tokyo Dome’
The New Japan website conducted a new interview with the IWGP United States Champion Jon Moxley and asked Mox his thoughts on his first experience in the G1, his future goals in NJPW and his relationship with Shota “Shooter” Umino as just a few of the topics. Moxley is set to defend his title against Juice Robinson in a rubber match at King Of Pro Wrestling on October 14, but states in the interview that whether he’s US Champ or not at the time come January he plans to be at the Tokyo Dome for Wrestle Kingdom 14. Quotes are below:
First of all, can you talk about the experience of your first G1?
Moxley: G1 Climax 29 was probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. The intensity never let up. There’s no peaks and valleys in the G1, no ‘go hard tonight, relax tomorrow’. It’s just full throttle constantly for four or five weeks.
A lot of times when you have a blow away performance, and win, you’re on top of the world. You kinda want to have a cigarette and then go and raid the fridge, just relax, y’know? But there’s five, six, seven matches left with the top talent in the world that are trying to hurt you and take you out. I know that everybody brought a certain level of intensity, where they wanted to be the guy that took me off the map and out of NJPW. Guys wanted to make their names off of me. I had a target on my back through the whole tournament, and I proudly brought the fight to them before they brought the fight to me.
Nobody got out of the ring unscathed. Maybe some people got their hand raised (F***ing Yano) but everybody knew they’d been in a war after they got out of the ring with me.
What matches in particular were most memorable for you during the tournament?
Moxley: The first main event I had in Japan was against Tomohiro Ishii in Korakuen Hall. It was the first time I’d been in Korakuen Hall at all, and the main event in that historic building creates a certain kind of pressure. If I’d have gone out and laid an egg on that one, it wouldn’t have been good for my prospects for the rest of the tournament. Being in my first main event, it was really important I got the win, while I showcased my abilities in their purist form.
Ishii was the perfect opponent for me, because I don’t like BS, gimmicks, interference. I don’t like to mess around, I just like to go in gun slinging. Whoever’s the fastest draw, we’ll find out and see who goes down. I don’t want to think about outside interference, I just want to go straight ahead. ‘F*** it, f*** you,’ ‘F*** you too’ and just do it. That’s Ishii, so we’re just perfect opponents for each other. We just had a showcase of glorious violence.
He was another guy trying to make his name off of me, flying through tables. He was trying to out hardcore a hardcore guy, and as I proved, you can’t do that. At the end of the night, standing victorious was one of, if not the most special, purest feelings of my entire career. That’s why I keep doing this. It isn’t for money, fame, or chicks, cars, anything like that. It’s for that feeling, of bleeding, sweating after going full out for 20 minutes. You’re exhausted, but the fans are standing with you because they don’t want to go home yet. You don’t want to take a shower because you don’t want that moment to end.
I hadn’t had that feeling for a long long time, because in companies I’d previously been in, it was always clouded by some other factor. Here it was just the purest feeling. New Japan is just pure pro wrestling, and that’s what I love, that’s what I do.
Were there ever any particularly difficult moments of the tour?
Moxley: The hardest night of the G1 was when I faced Jay White. He isn’t the most physically intimidating opponent when you compare him to monsters like Shingo, Goto or Ishii, but he had a lot of help at ringside. Every time I got the jump on him, someone came in and it was like wrestling three guys at once.
More than that it happened to be… the second day, I wrestled Taichi on the first day, and it was fine. I went through him like a buzzsaw, off to a good start. I’d come in prepared and felt great but I don’t know whether it was the travel or over training or what, but I woke up the second day and ‘ahh!’ I couldn’t move my head side to side. The nerve running through my neck to my shoulder blade and to my triceps. I don’t know whether it was a pinched nerve, or something like a stinger, but even with ice or massage there was no real alleviating it. I kept coming back to different degrees. I could manage it through that 5-0 streak, but by the time I got to Jay White, my second to last opponent, I was really hurting.
I’m not making excuses, we all know why the match went the way it did- F you Gedo- but every time I hit the mat… it was very painful to get through. I felt like I weighed a thousand pounds. I felt a shot of pain every time I hit the mat, hit him, or he hit me. It was a grueling 15-20 minutes at full tilt. I didn’t want to be lazy; I could have tried to protect it or worked a safer style, but this is the G1 and I didn’t want to take my foot off the gas. In the end, I didn’t win, but I was proud of myself just for gutting it out.
Before the G1 you compared it to the Olympics. After you’ve gone through the tournament, how did it live up to your expectations?
Moxley: When you look at an Olympian, you’re looking at the top of any sport. Look at Ibushi having won the G1, the things he can do in the ring, the preparation he had to go through, what he had to go through with his ankle injury. You can compare him to any athlete in any sport. Hell, you can compare him to a bodybuilder. Look at the traps on that kid! He even has great hair. I hate him. I hate Kota Ibushi. You know how much work I have to go through for my mediocre traps and bad haircut? He’s gifted. But nobody slacks off for those five weeks. Anybody that goes through that tournament is comparable to any other athlete in any other sport.
You spent a lot of time with Shota Umino during the tour. What’s your impression of him, and what are your expectations for him for the future?
Moxley: Shooter’s a great kid. It’s the family business for him obviously, and that gives him a leg up on the competition, but that puts more pressure on him too because his dad being a famous referee and being born into the business isn’t always a good thing. There’s extra pressure on you because people think you’re being handed a spot and aren’t working as hard as they are. That isn’t the case with Shooter. He’s in the Dojo every day, doing all the work.
You talked a fair bit about Minoru Suzuki before the G1, and you mentioned him earlier. He wasn’t in the G1 but he said on Twitter he’d be interested in fighting you. Can you talk more about Suzuki?
Moxley: He’s just one of those guys I’ve always been a big fan of. He might wrestle another ten years, you don’t know, but you never know how many chances you might have to get in the ring with some guys. I’ve had the chance to wrestle the biggest stars in the business, guys I grew up watching as a kid all the way to today’s best. There’s very few on the list to check off and say ‘I wrestled him once’. Just to get the chance, just to see what would happen. You never know the chemistry we might end up having, or even if I got choked out in two minutes, so be it, it’d be an experience.
You mentioned KENTA. He had said that in America the two of you never got a chance to face each other, that there was a big gap between the two of you. He’d like to face you and show what he could do in New Japan as KENTA. What are your thoughts on him?
Moxley: I love KENTA. He was one of my favourites to watch during the tournament. I watched him every night, watched his match with Okada from the crowd actually, it was tremendous. I love his simplicity, his violence. Just straight up, no BS, hard strikes and hard submissions.
If you’d have seen me and KENTA over there it wouldn’t really have been me and KENTA. At the end of the day I think me and KENTA showed with this tournament: over there they really do put you in a box. In NJPW, you’d be getting violent KENTA, violent Jon Moxley. You’d be getting a fight and that’s what people pay to see.
Our experiences in A and B block kinda mirrored each other. I watched his appearance in the press conference, when he said ‘I’m F***ing KENTA’. I get what he was saying. He wasn’t trying to be cute or funny. He and I were coming from different places to anybody else in the tournament. We were coming to prove a point. A lot of people were surprised we started at 4-0, 5-0. He beat Ibushi, I beat Naito. A lot of people were surprised, but I wasn’t. I wouldn’t have been surprised if we were in the finals because we were both bringing a lot of deep seated anger, violence and frustration that a lot of people at the outset weren’t ready for.
To look ahead, we’re in the Tokyo Dome on January 4 and 5. Is that interesting to you?
Moxley: 100% I plan to be at the Tokyo Dome. I don’t know who I’ll be facing, whether I’m still US Champion. But I’ve been in Wrestlemania, in the G1, and this is the next step. Anyone who’s anyone in Japan has competed in the Tokyo Dome, so I absolutely plan on being there.
You’ve wrestled in some of the most famous venues in the world. Was there any particular venue during the G1 that was significant to you?
Moxley: I’d never been in Korakuen Hall before this tour. that might be my favourite as one of the smaller hotter, sweatier buildings. I always had a lot of affection for the former ECW Arena (the 2300 Arena) in Philadelphia. I had a lot of great moments there in my younger years. Deathmatches, hardcore stuff. I was a fan of ECW growing up so it was special for me to wrestle there, but it’s a hot sweaty dump, and Korakuen is the same way. It just brings a certain kind of fan. Me and Ishii could have had the exact same match that we did but in a different building and it wouldn’t be quite the same.
Sumo Hall as well, that’s where I first worked in japan, the place where I debuted in New Japan and where I fell in love with wrestling for the people in Japan so that’s special as well. The Tokyo fans are the best, so to wrestle in front of 40,000 of them in the Tokyo Dome I imagine would be an amazing experience.
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