Naito chats Okada, AEW and Andrade El Idolo ahead of Wrestling Dontaku.
On May 1st, New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s ‘Wrestling Dontaku’ show will take place inside the Fukuoka PayPay Dome. Headlining the show is Tetsuya Naito challenging Kazuchika Okada for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship.
The upcoming match is going to be the third time that the two talents have gone one-on-one this year. Naito defeated Okada in the New Japan Cup semifinals and Okada bested Naito in February with the IWGP World Title on the line.
Naito was interviewed by Sports Illustrated and he talked to the publication about the idea of one day teaming with Okada and what Okada could add to Los Ingobernables de Japon.
Until now, I’ve never thought about it. Because I think it’s more fun to fight against Okada than it ever would be to team up. However, I’m interested in this idea of Okada and Naito teaming together if he joined Los Ingobernables de Japon. Okada is tall and powerful; he has speed and endurance. And he’s smart. He is an excellent wrestler in all aspects. His heart is a real strength. And there are many groups in the professional wrestling world, but Los Ingobernables de Japon is the top one, so I could see why he would want to join. Maybe we can team up someday. But if it’s going to happen, it would need to be about 30 years from now.
The topic of tag teams continued on as Naito was asked about possibly sharing the ring with Andrade El Idolo again. He questioned if people are excited to see them team up and his response to the question was ‘tranquilo’.
Do people want that? Are they interested in me teaming with Andrade? Are they excited? My answer to that, of course, is, tranquilo.
In June, AEW and New Japan Pro-Wrestling are coming together to present a show titled ‘Forbidden Door’. It is going to emanate from the United Center in Chicago, Illinois. Naito said he will not be making any call outs to AEW talents as he feels it will not take long before those call outs are being made to either him or fellow members of Los Ingobernables.
There is no wrestler I want to call out. The reason is simple. Wrestlers in AEW will all gather and shout, ‘I want to wrestle Tetsuya Naito!’ And, ‘I want to fight Los Ingobernables de Japon!’ It isn’t hard to see this happening. It won’t take long before it does.
Naito has not wrestled outside of Japan since 2019. He stated that if he were to go on a sabbatical of sorts in the U.S., it would need to be for a lengthy period of time.
He did state that he loves New Japan, so he does not want to take a break from being there although he’d be interested in representing L.I.J. across the globe.
I love New Japan Pro-Wrestling, so I don’t want to take a break from the game. But if I ever go abroad, I want to go for a long time. I want to wrestle in the USA, Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica, Australia, United Kingdom, Ireland, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Palau. I want to show Los Ingobernables de Japon to the world.
New Japan is wrapping up their ‘Golden Fight Series’ tour on 4/28. Members of their main talent roster will be in action at the Capitol Collision show in Washington D.C. and so far, Eddie Kingston is set to take on Tomohiro Ishii and Jon Moxley has called out Hiroshi Tanahashi for the event.
