Kevin Knight reflects on working the NJPW Best of the Super Juniors for the first time.
The NJPW star competed in the annual juniors tournament earlier this year, one that was won by Master Wato. Knight gave his thoughts on this incredible step forward for his career during a recent interview on Busted Open Radio. He says wrestling in BOSJ was a surreal experience.
As soon as I got announced for it, it felt so surreal. Like you said, it was my third overall tour in Japan, but my first singles so they get to see a whole different side of me. They’re used to seeing me in tags with Kushida, so now they get to see how I work when it’s just me in there. It was nerve wrecking at first, but I’m like, I’ve got nobody by my side to walk out there with me. It’s a whole different world, wrestling in Korakuen Hall, wrestling in Osaka-Jo Hall, it was a great experience to learn from everybody in my block.
Knight later says that he did feel a little bit of a learning curve competing in BOSJ, but that overall everyone in the tournament was easy to work with.
Everyone was so easy to work with, so it was a great learning experience. Putting together matches in a singles way, so different than doing it in a tag team way, I had to go deeper into my bag and pull things out. Slowing down is a big one too, i definitely had to learn how to slow and pace myself down a little bit more cause in tags I know I can go a little bit more full throttle cause I know I got a break, but singles, I gotta pace myself because I don’t want to burn out too fast. It was a learning curve definitely.
Check out Knight’s full interview here.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)