Wheeler Yuta Shares How Big Hero 6 Inspired Him, Details Shift In His Current Focus

In another life, Wheeler Yuta is definitely a superhero.

Throughout his previous work, Wheeler Yuta dawned a signature green and black facemask reminiscent of a superhero. A staple of his ring gear, Yuta drew inspiration from the 2014 film, Big Hero 6 in creating the mask and his overall look. Nowadays though, Yuta admitted he’s more focused on his in-ring work than cultivating new gear ideas. In speaking with WrestleZone’s own Bill Pritchard, Wheeler Yuta described his current focus in professional wrestling.

“Now I’m really focused on just what I’m doing in the ring, kind of making that adjustment. So it really is sort of stripping everything back right now and then rebuilding from there. It’s tough to say if there’s a pop culture thing that really sticks out in my head right now because I’m more focused on what I’m doing in the ring.”

Although his aim has shifted, Yuta went on to provide the backstory from his previous signature face mask.

“But the mask, the original idea was from Big Hero 6 where Hiro Hamada–the main character is a smaller guy and he’s not really able to do as much. He’s not a superhero, so he builds a superhero basically. Then he builds himself this suit of armor to turn himself into a superhero, so that was kind of the plan with that. I was going to build on the mask and go to different things as well, build myself into a robot almost. [laughs] That never really fleshed out the way I wanted it to. Then I took obviously a different direction, lined up with The Best Friends and now here at The Blackpool Combat Club.”

Speaking of The Blackpool Combat Club, Yuta was a part of a recent viral photo including himself, William Regal, Jon Moxley, and Claudio Castagnoli. There, the stable recreated their own version of a famous British band.

Yuta continued to confirm the inspiration behind the photograph.  “It’s a very famous British ska band, [Madness], and it’s their album cover,” he detailed. “That’s what we were doing in that picture. That’s where that one came from. Beyond Gorilla is one of the photographers. He’s also from the UK, so they were there and they took that picture for us. ”

That album was later identified as Madness’ album entitled One Step Beyond, which William Regal referenced in the original Tweet.

Check out our full video interview with Wheeler Yuta at the top of this post where he also speaks about his title defense against Daniel Garcia at Death Before Dishonor, the Best Friends dynamic and more.

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