In a recent interview with the Wrassle Rap podcast, WWE 205 Live superstar TJP discussed several topics, including his experience of living in the New Japan Pro Wrestling dojo.
“We had a lot of different guys coming in and teaching us stuff, which was really cool and then, you know, Antonio Inoki himself, Tatsumi Fujinami and guys from the early New Japan days. Like, year one, they were teaching us all the Karl Gotch stuff, the way that the Tokyo dojo is built on and they were showing us what they learned and how they were brought up, so we probably got a more authentic New Japan young boy training, at least I did, because the other guys were a little older, so I got the young boy treatment, but we probably got more authentic lessons than a lot of actual New Japan guys have had for generations, because a lot of that started o get lost in Tokyo, but Inoki really grinded the year one stuff into us.
So, we were basically just fighting everyday, I slept in the dojo, they also shipped me off to Tokyo, where as the other guys, they may have spent another night or two in the dojo in Tokyo just if they arrived the day before a tour and they didn’t go to a hotel or something like that, but I actually had to go and be in the dorm rooms in Tokyo. I slept in Chris Benoit’s bed, I was in those dorm rooms and I would sweep the floors and help cook the meals. Thankfully, one of the young boys in my class, Inzowa was his name, he wanted to be a chef, he didn’t really want to be a wrestler, he was just wrestling, so thankfully, he cooked most of the meals because he loved cooking so I didn’t have to do that, but I’d sweep floors and wash Nakanishi’s back, Liger’s back and carry their bags, I did all that stuff, the other guys really didn’t have to do that sort of thing. If I had to go on tour, they would ship me out a month early, two weeks early and I would live in the dojo, sometimes I would stay there between tours, I’d be there for three months at a time or something like that.”
The interview is available in full at this link.
