NJPW STRONG Openweight champion “Filthy” Tom Lawlor recently spoke with Denise Salcedo about all things pro-wrestling, including how he believes NJPW STRONG compares with NXT, and what goals he has left to accomplish in a career full of accolades. Highlights from the interview are below.
How NJPW STRONG is similar to NXT:
“I like to equate New Japan Strong to NXT, for the New Japan audience. A lot of times guys just get stuck in NXT and right now if you look at NJPW Strong, we’re stuck there, but it’s a different situation. I think once I go over there, and some of the other guys from New Japan Strong go over there, you’re gonna see a lot more wrestlers in the U.S in the independent scene who want to be part of the New Japan Strong roster. I think you’re gonna see professional wrestlers take the same path that I am gonna take over there.”
What goals he has left in his career:
“I’ll be 40 next year, which sounds kinda old, but physically I felt worse when I was doing MMA. I was more beat up, so this is being a little easier on my body right now, and when I look at guys like Minoru Suzuki, Yuji Nagata, Satoshi Kojima, these are guys who are in their fifties, and Suzuki is a huge star over here he just had an awesome match with Hiromu Takahashi and you wouldn’t know that this is a guy in his fifties. So when I look at that I don’t think I’ve even come close to overstaying my welcome in the pro wrestling world, because I’ve only been here a few years. My long-term goal is to still be wrestling when I am 55, traveling the world. In the short term, my goal is to take the NJPW Strong Openweight title to Japan and in the shorter term it’s to kick Clark Connors’ ass on Sunday at Strong Style Evolved.”
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)