Hideki Suzuki was hired by WWE in 2021 to be a coach at the WWE Performance Center. He would find his way to NXT TV as Hachiman, part of the Diamond Mine group.
Suzuki was well-known for his time in Japan where he worked for ZERO1, Inoki Genome Federation, and more.
In an interview with Weekly Pro Wrestling (via Connor Writing), Suzuki reflected on an incident with another coach at the Performance Center.
"I didn’t disobey them, but I did kick up a fuss and give them attitude," Suzuki said when asked about disobeying other coaches. "As you might expect, WWE’s a big company, even in NXT alone there are so many people employed, and things change day-by-day, so a lot of things get decided without any contact with you. First and foremost, I did things at my pace. Then I’d train the rookies. Even after the class ended I’d be helping the people who were still in the gym. I didn’t go to the coach room, because I didn’t see any reason why we should have coach meetings."
He continued the story by recalling the incident with another coach, "I’m not gonna go into details about this, but one day one of the coaches asked me 'Why the hell did you [not go to the meeting]?' He tried explaining to me what he was mad about, but I didn’t understand anything of it, and I wasn’t convinced. This was happening in front of the wrestlers, so a bunch of them got in between us like 'Calm down, coach!' Afterwards, Bernard told me '(The coach I fell out with) is really mad at you' and I just said 'So what?' Something had to change. We always kept telling the trainees 'You gotta change, we need to change things up' but at that moment I thought 'It’s you guys who really have to change. Wrestlers don’t need coaches, but coaches couldn’t exist without wrestlers. You’ve forgotten that.' I won’t dive into any further specifics, but I couldn’t let that stuff slide."
Suzuki didn't name the coach he got into the argument with.
"All the coaches I met were nice people, there were a lot of different teaching styles and they were all excellent. I’ve got nothing but respect for them, but what’s wrong is wrong. And I needed to do something to change it," he said.
When asked when the incident happened, Suzuki said, "It was October of last year, because it was still pretty hot. It’d been a long time since I’d gotten that mad. You don’t forget the feelings you had as an active wrestler. This isn’t the 80’s, it’s 2022 — It’s not the coaches who are the main characters, it’s the young guys. After that day, the other coaches would message me stuff like 'What sort of beer you like?' and 'Do you have a favorite restaurant over here? Let’s go together sometime.' That’s what happens when you broach a delicate subject. They took care of me, way more than usual. [Laughs] The wrestlers too would bring it up timidly like 'You got real mad, Coach!' That sort of thing ended up happening more, but I wouldn’t say it meant they all trusted me more."
Suzuki was released by WWE in January 2022. He noted that he wondered if the incident had anything to do with his release, but also said he thought he would be released sooner because his work-style was "anti-social" and he would do things from the perspective of the wrestlers.
You can find Suzuki's further comments on his WWE release by clicking here.
