Minoru Suzuki Has Fighting Words For Jon Moxley, WWE
Minoru Suzuki sat down with NJPW’s english language site, ahead of his match against IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion Jon Moxley. Suzuki, tired of people comparing the two, had some harsh words for Moxley.
The full interview is available HERE
He’s a guy who stepped in my house and didn’t take his shoes off at the front door. The “former WWE Superstar Dean Ambrose”. Changed his look up a bit and here he is. Look, I’ve been watching him for a while, yeah. Can he grapple? No. Is he strong? No. Tough? No. He can’t do s**t.
When pressed, Suzuki continued to make the case that Moxley is a “cleanup hitter.”
Look at what makes a great wrestler. Tall, muscular, can kick, can throw hands, can suplex people, can tap them out, can fly, is charismatic. Get all that together and you have a cleanup hitter. That’s the kind of guy that makes hacks like you, or the fans in the crowd give them the nod.
But a baseball team that’s full of cleanup hitters won’t go anywhere. It’s the same for wrestling promotions.
Suzuki then went on to make not of how many of the wrestlers in WWE (which he admits is much larger than NJPW) are trying to be Japanese, and how WWE has been unable to make in-roads with “proprietary Japanese” wrestling.
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.
–It’s the influence of UWF, still being felt today.
Suzuki: UWF 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 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.
From his opponent on Sunday Jon Moxley to wrestling coaches, to wrestlers and companies all over the world, nothing is off the table and no punches are pulled in our Minoru Suzuki interview!
Check it out now! https://t.co/gStxT6BzZn#njpw #njnbg pic.twitter.com/mX0HQwLIsi
— NJPW Global (@njpwglobal) February 8, 2020
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