The wrestling world is still buzzing about the possibilities that have been opened by KENTA’s appearance on AEW Dynamite.
A few days later, Rocky Romero appeared on The Wrestling Perspective, and he shared some insider knowledge of the collaboration between All Elite Wrestling and New Japan Pro-Wrestling. He pointed to Jon Moxley as the focal point of the crossover.
“The idea of the whole thing, it really goes down to KENTA and [Jon] Moxley, and how Moxley is basically kind of the centerpiece of all this, like he really is,” said Romero. “As much as you want to say Kenny [Omega] is, I really feel like Mox is, right, because IMPACT even coming to AEW was to work with Moxley, obviously alongside of Kenny.
“Then KENTA coming to AEW, showing up on Dynamite, really for one reason and one reason only, and that’s because Jon Moxley is the IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Champion, and this thing kind of got put together, we got the okay from Moxley to come to New Japan Strong, which is every Friday night, NJPWworld.com, and that’s kind of where it all started, not knowing that KENTA was gonna be on AEW. That kind of came later and kind of quickly got put together, and everybody seemed to be excited to work together because they knew it was gonna be, promotion wise, it’s f—— mega huge because nobody was expecting it.”
Romero admitted that the relationship between AEW and NJPW hasn’t been great in the past, but this opportunity for a interpromotional storyline was too good to pass up.
“The relationship with New Japan and AEW hasn’t been a good one, you know,” said Romero. “Even though Tony Khan has been very cool with letting [Chris] Jericho bring the AEW title at last year’s Wrestle Kingdom and little things like that, I just mean it wasn’t really a great situation when the Bucks and Kenny and Cody [Rhodes] left New Japan, it just really wasn’t.
“For it to kind of happen this way and organically happen when both companies are doing well, but during this pandemic, it’s kind of changed everything too, just the way we do business. o here was an opportunity to do something really cool for the fans, and both companies kind of benefit from it.”
Many fans have been buzzing about the collaboration between NJPW and AEW, and many of them have wondered whether it’s the start of a new trend where wrestling companies are working together in exciting ways. Romero stated that he believes this moment is time is the perfect opportunity to do just that. He also acknowledged the argument that these relationships are often contrasted to the monopoly that WWE once had on the wrestling industry.
“Here’s a moment where like, we can actually do things to help each other instead of going the other way, and there’s always gonna be the big guy in the corner, always consistently watching us and trying to screw all of us over,” said Romero. “So why not be cool with each other? Because there’s always the other guy who’s just gonna be ready to pounce at any second and wants us to fail.”
The full interview is available here:
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