Desperado takes a look back at Independence Day.
During the month of July 2023, the NJPW STRONG brand presented their debut events in Japan titled Independence Day. It was a two-night event and night one was headlined by Jon Moxley and Homicide taking on El Desperado and Jun Kasai in a Doomsday No DQ match.
That bout was Kasai’s debut for the company and in a new interview that NJPW1972.com pushed out with Desperado, he shared that a lot of hoops had to be jumped through to make Kasai’s arrival happen.
Me asking him (Jun Kasai) was the first step, there was a lot of hoops to jump through to make it happen (Kasai’s NJPW debut). And then the ref, it had to be Barb Sasaki.
On night two of Independence Day, Desperado clashed with Moxley in a Death Match. He stated that he went into the match with a fever because his body was trying to recover from the No DQ bout the night prior.
That was rough (death match on night one of NJPW Independence Day), but a ton of fun. (Daisuke) Sasaki told me, ‘Death matches aren’t made to be done on two nights in a row.’ It was definitely something. It hurt like hell waking up.
I was running a fever, because my body was working to heal up all those wounds. So I didn’t want to move at all, but going into the second night, I knew there wouldn’t be another situation like this, where I could wrestle Mox one-on-one.
This interview was conducted ahead of NJPW All Star Junior Festival USA. It was there that Desperado and MAO took on Nick Wayne and Jordan Oliver. Desperado expressed that he wants all three in the 2024 Best of the Super Juniors tournament.
Nick Wayne really is a prodigy. His personal story is incredible, and has so much upside as a wrestler.
His partner Jordan Oliver might not have the story that Wayne does, but physically, skill and size-wise, he’s awesome. They really stood out when GCW came to Shin-Kiba recently. I want them in Best of the Super Junior.
18, right? His dad trained Darby Allin, and that all led to Allin giving him an AEW contract for his 18th birthday. Now he’s over there, I don’t know if we’ll get him for BOSJ…
He had an awesome debut match with Swerve Strickland. Well, I guess if Wheeler Yuta can do B.O.S.J., Nick Wayne isn’t out of the question.
If we can get MAO and both of those guys in B.O.S.J. next year, then this match (at All Star Junior Festival USA) will have become pretty important.
The night after All Star Junior Festival, Desperado was part of a Scramble match at NJPW x IMPACT Multiverse United 2.
