KENTA chats with Chris Charlton following his NJPW debut.
KENTA spent the last five years of his professional wrestling career in WWE. He competed for the NXT brand but after suffering several injuries that required surgery, he fell into the background until being called up to the 205 Live brand where he mixed up with the likes of Roderick Strong, Cedric Alexander, Akira Tozawa and had opportunities to challenge for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship. He asked for his release from the sports-entertainment company earlier this year and was granted that request and the former Hideo Itami reappeared at New Japan Pro Wrestling's 'Dominion' show as KENTA alongside his close friend Katsuyori Shibata.
In the embedded video at the top of the article, Shibata came out from the entry way first and then pointed back to signal KENTA to come out. KENTA took an extended period of time to show face and he revealed during a recent edition of the NJPW English Podcast with Chris Charlton that the reason he took so long to come out was because he could not find the entrance way in Osaka-Jo Hall.
“Yeah, that has a little bit of story [to it]. Shibata went first then he pointed at me and I tried to go [through the] entrance but I didn’t know where the entrance was. That’s why [I] took a little bit of time and then I tried to look for [the] stairs and finally I found it. I went, ‘Oh okay. I go’.” KENTA explained.
KENTA declared for the G1 Climax 29 tournament and on that same night, Shingo Takagi and Jon Moxley also declared for the tournament. KENTA shared that he wants to mix up with Moxley now that he can wrestle as himself instead of "Hideo Itami".
“Definitely. I want to have a match with him because now I’m not just a stupid Hideo Itami." He said. "Now I’m KENTA so, I wanna fight him as KENTA so I want to kick his ass.”
The field of the G1 Climax will be revealed at NJPW's Kizuna Road show on June 16th.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the NJPW English Podcast with an H/T to Fightful for the transcriptions.
