Walker Stewart is thankful to be working with Chris Charlton.
Stewart joined the english broadcast team for New Japan Pro Wrestling back in October after Kevin Kelly officially departed from the promotion. Before coming to NJPW, Stewart had mainly served as a commentator for the independent scene, where he worked with promotions like Texoma Pro and Empire Pro.
While speaking to Fightful for a new interview, Stewart talked about how his fellow commentary partner, Chris Charlton, was supportive of him from the get go.
“Traveling to Japan [was] hard, fun, exciting, everything all around. I love Japan airlines, they have big seats for big people, god bless. I flew into Tokyo on November 1 and I met up with Charlton at the airport, he took me to the hotel and got me set up. Charlton is fantastic, he is a wealth of knowledge and he’s somebody that I really see myself finding a lot of inspiration from going forward because I listen to him call shows with Kevin, especially when the New Japan offer came up."
Stewart went on to praise Charlton for his many traits as a commentator before noting that he wants to have a similar role one day.
"The way that Chris can just weave and tell a narrative with this encyclopedia of a mind that he has on Japanese culture, Japanese wrestling. As somebody who about five months ago had absolutely zero of that, it’s almost daunting, it’s almost overwhelming. I have to remind myself that this guy has been speaking the language for twenty years and he’s been doing this and that, so he’s been ingrained in the culture and the New Japan system. I’m very inspired by Chris in the sense of — I know that on the broadcast, especially for the foreseeable future and going forward, i'm going to rely a bit more on Chris then I’m comfortable doing for the historical analysis, the historical callbacks, things that I wasn’t around for, wasn’t alive for, a million things. One of these days, the hope is that I can also do that as well. If at any point, Chris decides to go on to a different venture and we have to bring another person in, I get to be that person for somebody else and that’s something that motivates me.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Walker Stewart recalled Kevin Kelly telling him about his offer from NJPW. Fans can learn more by clicking here.
Furthermore, fans can see Fightful's full interview with Walker Stewart in the video linked above.
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