Various: Shinsuke Nakamura on Great Muta Match, Rocky Romero on Karl Anderson NJPW Situation, Indies

Jan 3, 2023

Shinsuke Nakamura Comments on Match with Great Muta

This past Sunday’s Pro Wrestling NOAH’s The New Year 2023 event featured a singles match between The Great Muta and WWE’s Shinsuke Nakamura, which was won by Nakamura. This match was billed as Keiji Mutoh’s final match portraying his legendary Great Muta character in NOAH.

Following the event, Nakamura gave his thoughts in a backstage press conference about his match with Great Muta.

“Thank you for the miracle!
The more I say the words, the more the emotion that I received from myself will fade away. I have been killing for this feeling for a long time. As a professional I can’t stop, really. Thank you for the miracle.
The wall that was so big is still a big wall & I am so happy & thrilled to be able to be in the ring with him for the last time. Keiji Muto will retire at 60, but compared to him, I’m just a little boy, so I’ll still be fighting in the world.”

SHINSUKE NAKAMURA: “Thank you for the miracle!”#noah_ghc #byebyeMUTA pic.twitter.com/0ibLTnnJJs
— Pro Wrestling NOAH Global (@noahglobal) January 1, 2023

NAKAMURA: “The more I say the words, the more the emotion that I received from myself will fade away. I have been killing for this feeling for a long time. As a professional I can't stop, really. Thank you for the miracle.”#noah_ghc #byebyeMUTA pic.twitter.com/7hGr13GnfF
— Pro Wrestling NOAH Global (@noahglobal) January 1, 2023

NAKAMURA: "The wall that was so big is still a big wall & I am so happy & thrilled to be able to be in the ring with him for the last time. Keiji Muto will retire at 60, but compared to him, I'm just a little boy, so I'll still be fighting in the world.”pic.twitter.com/1ZpC9kODrP
— Pro Wrestling NOAH Global (@noahglobal) January 1, 2023

Rocky Romero Comments on NJPW’s Deal with WWE for Karl Anderson Being “Stressful Situation”

As noted before, New Japan Pro Wrestling and WWE recently agreed to a deal allowing NJPW to continue to use Karl Anderson for their Wrestle Kingdom 17 event despite him currently being under contract with WWE. This deal resolves a dispute NJPW and Anderson had late in 2022 over Anderson’s booking commitments with the company.

Fightful held a recent interview with Rocky Romero. One of the topics discussed included Romero’s thoughts on NJPW’s deal with WWE for Anderson.

“The whole thing was shaky, in some kind of way. Not that WWE was going to go against what they had originally promised Karl, but it’s a big company, they’re super busy, and right off the bat, it got a little scary because he was announced for Osaka to defend the title against Hikuleo and it also happened to be the same day as the Saudi show. It was like, ‘Oh, they just invested a bunch of money back into these guys and they just brought them back on TV, are they going to let Karl go to Japan? Of course not.’ I understand, on the New Japan side, if it was flipped, it would have went that way as well. Kudos to WWE for letting him finish out the dates. He defended the title against Hikuleo in Japan in December and now it’s road to the Tokyo Dome, it’s him and Tama Tonga, a year in the making almost, I’m pumped. Thank you, WWE, for letting it happen.”

Romero also gave his thoughts on the whole situation with Anderson being very stressful for himself and NJPW.

“So much stress. The whole ride was very bumpy. I think everybody’s intentions were good. Karl’s intentions were good, Gallows’ intentions were good, and to make good on everything they had already promised to appear on some these shows. Obviously, Karl is a champion. Everyone’s intentions were good, it was just, how do we get there? That’s always the sketchy part with professional wrestling because there are so many moving parts. WWE is a huge company, and with the regime change, you don’t know what was going to happen. Anything could happen. Vince (McMahon) could come back in power, nobody knows. Obviously, Triple H now being in charge, we can see Shinsuke Nakamura going to NOAH to work against Great Muta and Anderson working New Japan, it does seem like there is a complete change in how they feel about working with other companies or letting talent go and do really cool stuff outside of WWE. It all helps the product. In Japan, New Japan is the market. Everywhere else in the world, WWE has very strong business. It doesn’t hurt WWE by letting Karl Anderson or Shinsuke come over to this market where they are not as strong and letting them get…it’s like free advertising for WWE.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

Former NWA and WWWF wrestler “The Flying Greek” Mike Pappas, real name Emmanouel Savvenas, passed away this past Saturday at the age of 81. Pappas’ passing was first announced by the Cauliflower Alley Club. Slam Wrestling reported that Savvenas’ caused of death was due to colorectal cancer he had been battling for a lengthy time. Savvenas’ career in wrestling spanned from 1968 to 1978. Following his career in wrestling, Savvenas worked as a jeweler and opened up his own store located in Springfield, Missouri.

As noted before, WWE released Mandy Rose last month over issues related to adult themed content she had been posting on her FanTime account. FanTime recently issued an official statement on Instagram congratulating Rose for earning $1 million in subscriptions on their service this past December.

National Wrestling Alliance talent Colby Corino recently announced that his contract with the company expired at the end of 2022 and he is currently a free agent. Prior to his departure, Corino had been with the NWA since 2019.

Wrestling legend and Pro Wrestling NOAH talent The Great Muta was involved in a controversy following his match against Shinsuke Nakamura at NOAH’s The New Year 2023 event this past Sunday in Tokyo. This incident revolved around homophobic comments Muta made during a backstage press conference implied to originate from a spot during his match where Nakamura blocked Muta’s mist attack using his mouth onto Muta’s mouth. While discussing his match with Nakamura, Muta stated “He’s good. Shinsuke, good, but maybe he’s queer. He’s F***** maybe. Bye-bye, Shinsuke. No more.” Muta’s comments quickly generated online backlash resulting in NOAH deleting tweets of Muta’s comments off Twitter and making the video of his press conference private on YouTube.

NOAH recently announced a new match for the card of their January 8th New Sunrise 2023 event in Tokyo, Japan: