Aaron Henare discusses his contract with NJPW.
The United Empire member has been a member of the NJPW roster since 2016, and has remained contracted ever since. Henare tells PW Mania unlike companies in the west, Japan did not cut any talent during the COVID-19 pandemic despite taking severe financial losses.
I’ve been fully contracted since 2016 and September since my debut. So I’m pretty glad that the company’s it’s a bit different to how you do it in the West. If companies are taking a loss, or for example, COVID. They don’t fire people in Japan. It’s like very rare that they fire people because to them is a corporate responsibility for them to take care of everybody that works for them.
Henare adds that a reason he feels like he was protected was because he came up through the company’s dojo system.
So you’ve probably seen that nobody in Japan, no wrestlers have lost their job because of the pandemic despite company losses. And I’m pretty grateful for that. But it’s also coming through the system. I was protected in that way because they came through the Dojo. I did the young boy stuff. I do do all the hard yards. I’m protected in that regard. But right now I got three more years on my contract, which is pretty good.
Elsewhere in the interview, Henare named Miro and Claudio Castagnoli as two AEW superstars he would like to square off against. You can read about that here.