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Interviews vor "Wrestle Kingdom 11" Teil 2:

Kushida über sein 2016 und 'Time Bomb' Hiromu Takahashi:

"It's a snail's pace perhaps, but I think the juniors took a step up. I had a lot of different oppenents, went abroad a lot, so for me it was a very busy year. We're at 10 / 20% maybe? There is still a lot to do, but that fuels me, fuels us for 2017. For me, from a results perspective, I might have lost the belt once, but being champion for pretty much the whole year is a big bragging point for me. All the different defences this yeaar .. it has been exhausting, but at the same time, i feel stronger for it and there is sense that I've grown the belt's worth, which is nice. [...] What makes Hiromu different is that I was always chasing someone .. wrestling peers or elders. Up to Bushi that was the case. Hiromu - it's him chasing me. When he left I promised myself to get to the top and be champion before he got back, so this match could happen. I've been blessed to wrestle abroad a lot and have a lot of great foreign opponents, like a Kyle O 'Reilly, but this is really the first time a young Japanese guy has come up to me. [...] I don't know whether you can say he's a different person, but certainly a mix of the Lucha & Us styles are there. The way he carries himself, his facial expressions, all that. He's bloodthirsty maybe, but it was rediculous of him to say he'd kill me. Everything he learned, every move, I can take, absorb and throw it right back at him. He said I wasn't raised in the New Japan system, that I was an outsider, like it was a bad thing .. I walked a very lonely road, but it meant I really forged something different to my contemporaries. [...] I wen into the tryouts, failed, went through Mexico and met so many more people, who shaped me and my story. And after all that work to build something, there's this time bomb wanting to destroy it all. I take issue with him saying he has interest in the title, but not me. You can't wrestle with that closed of a mind. He went to a bunch of different countries, met different people, saw different religions. What has he learned? [...] I'm definitely excited for WK11 .. the match is lower on the card than I'd like and underneath the other three title matches, but we'll steal the show. With next year in mind, I hope the juniors will grow in more and different ways in 2016."

Hiroshi Tanahashi über das Jahr 2016, seine Chance: Tetsuya Naito, Pläne und Änderungen für 2017:

"Things have changed now. I foght Okada so many times and lost once and now everything is different .. when we were younger I always wanted Naito to get into my level and for us to fight it out on the big stage - that's the year. His style is different, but throwing the belt, stepping on it, thats's beyond the pail. [...] I can not lose to Naito, I have to win and have to make 2017 Tanahashi's year again! [...] This year was though. The thoughest of my career. When you are a young wrestler and you go through a patch of losses - that becomes a learning experience for you and you suck it up and carry on. .. and sometimes those spats throw up chances to get you to the top, but then I lost in the G1 as well. [...] Naito's confidence is though the roof. You see that in the way he carries himself, the way he wrestles, what he says. He's like a different person. Whatever happens, he says he is godlike. We haven't had this contrast in between our careers before this year. For me, I say I'm the Ace - that has a certain expectation attached .. an affirmation I get results. [...] 2016 I was a challenger and 2017 I'm a challenger, but one match further down the card. If you are standing still, you're going backwards. In the past I said Naito was my successor. We have similar physiques, similar ability to capture the audience. We faced each other a lot, but 2011 sticks in my head the most. Oct. 10; a hell of a dramatic match, the anniversary of my debut and Naito was in the crowd that day. But at that point, business was still down and there was a big part of me, that wanted to do that match with a bigger spotlight, so doing it in the dome is a big deal. The real reason why I challenged Naito was to have a singles match in the Dome .. and I felt a chance, even slim of being main. I stepped in the ring in November and addressed Naito as the guy, who couldn't be Tanahashi .. I thought it would rile him up, could assert myself over him, but it didn't turn out that way .. I didn't have any leverage. Saying it as champion with Naito challenging it would have landed. [...] But he was my last key to the Tokyo Dome, possibly even the main event. [...] Changing my theme 'High Energy', it's a bit late at 40, but it's time to start a new Tanahashi from square one and have to do legwork myself, a new challenge. [...] In 2017, New Japan will be looking internationally more than ever, but I think there's a lot we can and should still do domestically. I want us to be in bigger buildings, working towards doing a stadium tour and I want people going there to say: "ah, a Tanahashi title match filled this place". So I'm going for every belt in 2017, it's certainly going to be a revival, I hope .. at least from a results standpoint. I want to remind everyone how great Tanahshi is; 'Tanahshi equal greatness', not the frustration of this year."

Tetsuya Naito über den Verlauf der Dinge, Hiroshi Tanahashi und Tokyo Dome:

"Why did he come down at Osaka? He wasn't who I wanted - he was who I expected. He felt if he wanted to be in a main event at the dome, he needed me. .. but there is another meaning to all this, remember? That fan vote. I don't know whose idea it was, but it meant the IC belt was less important than IWGP. Maybe the didn't like me, but I always wanted the IWGP belt .. I still do, but the IC belt came here. You think I'm here to announce a fan vote? No, I don't want one - the main event needs to be the IWGP title, I want the semi. [...] I couldn't be Tanahashi in the end. But I took a different path. I'm glad I'm not him. Tana isn't the heart of NJ anymore, LIdJ is. He can't touch this level, he was finished after WK10. What did he do this year? I know he pulled the company, I saw that, but that is done. [...] Well I think if you thought of a Tanahashi vs Naito title match, you'd go back to me challengeing for the IWGP title. Now it's a bit of a shame it is for the IC title, but we've come full circle in a way. When I debuted, nobody was watching me and I thought: "I have to overtake Tanahashi", that was my duty. I have done that now, but it was not me that did it, it was Okada in 2016. From there he faded away. [...] A key point is how far we've gone with LIdJ since it was founded last year, how far it's come and then when Tanahashi looked me in the eye, he saw: "here's a guy that was so mindful of me, but now I've fallen away." - he talked about it after Osaka. [...] I always hopped for that big match, the biggest stage, both at our primes .. that chance has gone, which is a shame. Maybe I ascended too slowly, or he fall away too quickly, but this match isn't that. I see nothing in this match that interests me. So I have to look for motivation and if the pleasure of overtaking Tanahashi myself, if that is denied me, well then I'll just have to take pleasure in driving the final nail home in his career. That's a bad thing, without Tanahashi, the Naito you see here wouldn't exist. So it's with gratitude, that I'll hammer in that nail. He said I never became him. If I hadn't founded LIdJ, if I was where I was before then, well maybe those words would have stung, would have had weight. But I forged my own path. So it dindn't hurt me at all. Make no mistake. I could never be him. Los Ingobernables was a turning point, but I need to say, who I am on a fundamental level never changed. The way I expressed myself and how people perceived me, that's all that changed. My priorities are different. Before LIdJ I'd think about what the fans wanted and I wrestle to that, now I wrestle the way I do and the reactions follow. I have never changed myself, I don't deny my past, don't hate where I am from. [...] So you think the old Naito needs to be pulled out? OK, do that, what have you got? Someone different? It makes no sense. The only people it does make sense to, are the people who think Tnahashi is the be all, end all. [...] Maybe changing music is a bit of trial and error in reinventing himself and that's fine. Look, January 4 - Tokyo Dome, it is NJPW's biggest show. For me and for LIdJ it's a huge stage. I've never won a singles match in the Dome, I haven't created this Naito winning image, yet. When I do beat Tan, that scene; I'm really excited about. So my plans for the Dome? More People know my name, know LIdJ and being victorious. The main event? I'll watch it. I'm aware of everything, everybody, but they're hundreds, thousands of times more aware of me."