In 2018, Karl Fredericks had interest from WWE, but went to a New Japan tryout in Los Angeles, looking to secure a spot with the promotion.
Fredericks impressed at the tryout and officially joined the NJPW Dojo, learning under the tutelage of Katsuyori Shibata. Shibata has served as the head coach of the LA Dojo since March 2018, staying active in wrestling following his initial retirement in 2017.
Speaking to Fightful, Karl Fredericks detailed what it's like learning under the legendary Shibata.
"It was an honor. It’s been an honor. Luckily he’s like our dad. That’s someone that’s always looking to improve us in our own specific ways. But goddamn was it hard. A lot of it, too, was going back down to the basics of pro wrestling and then rolling into jiu jitsu for the first time and then kick boxing and then back to natural wrestling in ways that I haven’t since I was middle school. The first several months were just that stuff. So the rewarding stuff came, obviously, from the pain and the physical condition because we got to a point—and I’m not there right now, I’ll tell you that. I did not stay in that shape—but it got to a point where five hundred, seven hundred squats, things like that," he said.
Fredericks continued, describing the grueling nature of the camps and the workouts they were put through.
"Kids would come in for their camps. Alex [Coughlin], Clark [Connors] and I would run the camps, and we would do what we thought were easy workouts. One kid got [rapid] at a seminar, was pissing blood for a week just from lactic acid built in his quads. Someone always pukes, someone always quits. I will say this, every kid that’s puked in the dojo; we have a puke bucket after the first one. First camp we didn’t have a puke bucket. [Connors] called it a puke box, a little trash can. The first time somebody missed, but he cleaned it up himself and went back to the workout. Everyone else puked successfully into the box and they’ve come back and finished the camp. But we got to a point where these fucking ridiculous workouts. Like, if you wanted me to go do one of those workouts today, you’re slipping me a $100 minimum just for me to try. But that was normal for that time period. I think of it now and it gives me a little bit of anxiety," he said.
Shibata would make a return to the ring in an exhibition bout during the final night of the G1 Glimax 2021 tournament, taking on Zack Sabre Jr.
He would officially return to the ring at Wrestle Kingdom 16, taking on Ren Narita
"I know he was dying to," Frederick said about Shibata wanting to return to the ring. "Our normal day, he’s not a standby coach. The only time he’s standing when we’re doing drills is if he has one of those nice whistles with him. He’s got a few because he’s broken a few of them, thrown them across the dojo and two in our asses, but now it’s funny because he has the one broken one and it has the weakest little tweet whistle. It’s funny to all of us, him included, because we remember the day he broke it. That was the first real time he came down on us."
Asked why Shibata got angry on that day, Fredericks replied, "It was a combination, very early in the dojo. We don’t know the cultural do’s and don’t’s, essentially, as young lions, the Japanese ways and because things are very militant, the system is no different than the way we do [military]—well, a little different. Because Clark and I, especially. I get the military. My dad was a police officer with a criminal justice degree. I’d play sports where this is the way. I had great coaches. Other than being afraid of workouts because they’re hard, you can’t come down on me hard enough as a coach to upset me. You can’t. That’s just good coaching, in my eyes. I get it. It was just an issue of instead of just telling us, ‘This is how you walk, this is how you talk,’ these things. We had made all the mistakes first not knowing. As soon as we got the schpiel, we made sure to never make ourselves go through a day like that again. But then it was as simple as, ‘This is how it’s gonna be.’ ‘Aye aye.’ You’re good from there on out."
Fredericks circled back to Shibata's hands on approach when it came to his training and how it kept him in shape for his eventual in-ring return.
"Every day he’d blow the whistle for us to start our warm up and then he’s running around the dojo shadowboxing, stretching, doing his own warm up and then by the time we’re in the ring, he’s in the ring stretching with us. Then with the workouts, he’ll do a lot of them to show us or some days we’ll have a few hundred squats, he’ll jump in and do the first couple hundred and walk away, no sell it, to let us know that’s why he’s in charge for a reason. He was also in there to push us through when you’re tired. If you get tired, he’ll get down there and do the pushups with you.
"I remember my first camp. We’re doing sets of a hundred pushups and crazy things. I’m on the ground doing pushups and he’s standing over me just pulling me up, just giving me a spot so I finish every rep. He was that kind of coach and then go through his own full workout in the weight room after we’re done. Any time there’s free ring, he’s hitting the ropes and then with the wrestling, all the wrestling, everything he taught us was hands on. It was hands on with submissions or jiu-jitsu or just takedowns, things like that. He’ll show the technique a little, you’ll go through it, and then he’ll take you down or if we’re doing jiu-jitsu, he’ll tap you out to show you this is the pain, this is the real shit. So he never stopped moving."
Fredericks has become one of the top students under Shibata, winning the Young Lion Cup 2019.
He is set to take on IMPACT star Josh Alexander at NJPW Strong Style Evolved on Sunday, March 20. Fightful will have full results from the event follow its conclusion.
Fans can check out the full interview with Fredericks in the video above.
