During his interview with NJPW, El Phantasmo revealed that he plans to alter his style when the company re-opens for business. Here’s what he had to say:
Nobody mentions that mentally, everyone is going to be so excited to finally get back in there that it doesn’t take a big outlandish statement. It wouldn’t surprise me if I beat people in under a minute out there because I’ve been doing the mental homework, watching footage, wrestling smarter. I’ll be wrestling a different style when I’m back, because the style will have to change when we are back … When you wrestle five days a week, your body builds up a certain pain tolerance. I haven’t jumped off the tope rope for weeks, so for everyone taking that first dive, that first flip back, there’ll be a moment’s hesitation there. And people’s pain tolerance will take a while to build up. You won’t see those big fighting spirit moments, guys getting hit and roaring right back.
Well for instance, I can’t wait to beat people with superkicks. I’ve been going out in my backyard and superkicking trees as hard as I can. My aim and power are through the roof. When I hit that first kick, it’s gonna knock people out cold.
Well, it’s easy to say I want to go after Hiromu (Takahashi) and the singles title. I haven’t won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship, and I want to cement myself as one of the best in the world. But … Before all of this virus stuff happened, he was going to wrestle (Tetsuya) Naito, right? And that match is almost certainly going to happen at some point … Hiromu is crazy enough that he could make all of that happen and win. He could well be IWGP Junior Heavyweight and Heavyweight Champion. So it makes more sense for me to wait until Hiromu’s stock is at its highest, and then face him.
Credit: NJPW.