AKIRA is feeling great about his run in BJW.
Along with MLW, Big Japan Wrestling has been a part-time home to AKIRA for nearly two years at this point. 'The Death Fighter' has honed his deathmatch craft throughout that time, facing off against stars like Hideyoshi Kamitani, Yuko Miyamoto, Kazumi Kikuta, and Daiju Wakamatsu.
While talking with Jeremy Lambert and Joel Pearl of Fightful Overbooked's In The Weeds podcast for a new interview, AKIRA talked about learning in BJW and how his vision on the sport of wrestling has changed.
"It almost feels like a blast from the past. When I hit the scene in 2020 and 2021, and was two years into wrestling, that’s all I was doing was deathmatches. What’s great over there is, yes, it’s all this stuff, but I’m allowed to play my wrestling into it. I’ve had a lot of people, especially this tour, whatever happened this last year, my wrestling has changed, my philosophy. My vision on pro wrestling has changed. I’ve had many wrestlers come up to me and say, ‘One year ago, okay. This year, excellent.’ It’s been a great tour. I won King of the Deathmatch at the end of the year/beginning of the year. I think I was technically the first match of the year. I feel very fulfilled with what the fans are saying. It’s not like I’m a gaijin who went over there and they kind of like me. I went over there and it’s like when I’m here, ‘AKIRA!’ They are very behind me, 100%, a lot of BJW fans want me to win the Deathmatch Heavyweight Championship. They say that I bring an energy and an eye to Big Japan that is sorely missed and needed. Even just talking about it on Fightful is good for Big Japan and I don’t think anyone else brings this to the table. I want Big Japan to be successful. I want them to be where they were before COVID when they were drawing bigger crowds. I want people to get paid more and business to be good. I firmly believe that I should be the next Deathmatch Heavyweight Champion."
Elsewhere in the interview, AKIRA revealed that he's going to start training with Daisuke Sekimoto soon. Check out his full comments by clicking here.
Fans can check out Fightful Overbooked's full interview with AKIRA in the video linked at the top of this article.
MLW Battle Riot VII will take place in Los Angeles, California on Saturday, April 5. The show will stream for free on the promotion's YouTube channel.
