NJPW star Rocky Romero recently spoke with Denise Salcedo about last Sunday’s Forbidden Door pay-per-view, and how the relationship between AEW and NJPW is in a much better spot than it was when AEW first launched. Check out highlights from Romero’s interview below.
How he was the mediator between NJPW and AEW:
I just went back and forth between AEW and New Japan and tried to be sensible and try to be the one to communicate what the ideas were but also sentiment and overall what the show needed. Whether it be, we need more of this or we need more of this and let’s not forget about American fans or Japanese fans. We need to cater to them this way. Kinda really trying to break that down, so that both sides could understand two completely different ways of doing business. The AEW model is obviously a traditional American TV model whereas New Japan is more of a Japanese tour based model so it’s very different, the way they booked shows and do things. So I had to explain that on both sides.
How the NJPW/AEW relationship was on thin ice when AEW launched due to the Elite’s exit:
The New Japan/AEW relationship was kinda on ice when the Elite guys had exited New Japan and there was kind of a worry of how they were gonna go forward. Our president at the time didn’t really see the potential in maybe working with AEW. We already had partners in ROH and CMLL, so maybe they were thinking, ‘Let’s see how this AEW thing works out before jumping into it, so we don’t offend our partners Obviously those guys had left ROH too, so it was a very messy and complicated situation.
Says Kenny Omega also played a big role:
Now jumping forward to, I would say, a year-and-a-half ago when Kenny (Omega) called me and had pitched the idea of kind of opening the doors a little bit. Obviously, (Jon) Moxley and (Chris) Jericho were still working with New Japan, but Kenny and the (Young) Bucks were a pivotal, important part of New Japan prior to AEW and they are EVPs, so they hold a lot of power. Not wanting to forget about them completely, we had to open the relationship and Kenny kind of opened that and said ‘Hey, I have this idea of KENTA coming into AEW and working with Moxley since they already had a storyline’ and that’s kinda where everything started.
(H/T and transcribed by F4Wonline)
