Shibata said he’ll be looking for “samurai” and people with the right spirit in the dojo. Juice mentioned how much more positive his experience in the Tokyo dojo was compared to his experience with NXT, but unfortunately we didn’t get to follow up with him about this later. The panel was followed by Kagami Biraki, a traditional sake barrel breaking ceremony to officially open the dojo. The wrestlers, Tiger Hattori, and the president of LEC Sponges, gathered around two sake barrels and hit them three times in unison with mallets. Shibata’s mallet broke when striking the drum, which was very appropriate for even a recovering-from-brain-injury Shibata. After the ceremony, we joined the rest of the media types in scrum interviewing some of the talent (Shibata, Tanahashi, Page, and White) about the dojo, New Japan’s future, hair care, and more. Shibata and Tanahashi’s answers, except when noted, were in Japanese and relayed to us through a translator. Below are excerpts from those interviews.

Katsuyori Shibata Emily Pratt: What do you think of American pro wrestling? Are there any things from American pro wrestling you want to teach your students to change? Katsuyori Shibata: This is the L.A. Dojo, and a dojo is not a Performance Center. So I will teach American wrestlers to learn the history and tradition of Japanese pro wrestling. I think that this is my mission to teach them … I think that’s going to change everything. Shibata also said that he “likes Los Angeles so much already,” especially because of the blue skies and that fact that it has less noise than Tokyo, which should help him focus on teaching. (Please don’t move to L.A. expecting less noise if you’re coming from almost anywhere else though.) Shibata on the diversity of the talent training in the dojo: I think L.A. is borderless. There’s going to be a lot of people from all over. And I think having border or boundary … that kind of age is over. The color of eyes, skin, nothing matters. What matters is your spirit and your heart. On the transition from wrestler to teacher: At the moment, I am still acting as a pro wrestler. I haven’t retired yet, and I am recovering from my injury. While I was recovering from injury, I found out there was going to be an L.A. dojo. I thought the best idea would be to move here to L.A. and sweat together with the young upcoming talent and recover myself, then come back to the ring.

On his recovery: I still don’t know. I don’t know when I can recover and practice again … Because I don’t want to stop, and I’m actually unstoppable. When I was staying in Japan, that’s such a small country, I was hearing a lot of things about myself and I get rumors. When we hear all that negativity, I became so depressed. I didn’t want to stay myself like that, so I came over to L.A.. And once I came here, as I said, the climate is so good, always skies are blue, and I think that this facility we have in L.A. that makes me very comfortable, and I am feeling very grateful… I still have a number of limitations, but there’s a number of things that I can do right now, since I came to L.A., as I keep recovering and keep training. Shibata’s intensity when talking about his possible return to the ring reminded me of Daniel Bryan, who, maybe you’ve heard by now, was recently cleared to return to in-ring action after two years of retirement. Shibata was forced away from the ring after a subdural hematoma that required emergency surgery. The bout, an IWGP Heavyweight Championship defense by Okada at last year’s Sakura Genesis, happens to be NJPW’s current free match of the week, and you can watch it in its entirety here. Hopefully it won’t turn out to be the wrestler’s last.

Hiroshi Tanahashi Hiroshi Tanahashi on NJPW’s growing popularity in the U.S.: I think the reason for New Japan’s growing popularity over the past two-three years is that New Japan style is original style … especially the existence of Tanahashi. Brandon Stroud: Tanahashi, what do you use to keep your hair looking so good? Tanahashi, in English: Nice question, good question. At first, after shower, towel dry and hair cream and hair oil. Then dryer and hair iron. Brandon Stroud: Very nice. Do you use any kind of conditioner or anything? Hiroshi Tanahashi: I use [consults translator in Japanese] … hair growing serum. Brandon Stroud: What does a young wrestler have to do to be the next Tanahashi? Hiroshi Tanahashi: At first, long hair. Work out hard, get a beauty body. Most important thing, never tired. On his cardio routine, in response to Dave Meltzer: 30 minutes to 60 minutes cardio. Heart rate, 120 to 140 … I love step machine because [it’s easier on his knees.] Dave is nearing Matt Jackson levels with those arms… pic.twitter.com/EKBUs87mS3 — Cody Rhodes (@CodyRhodes) March 24, 2018 Tanahashi on his bicep tear: [flexes and shows surgery scar] I got peak … new peak. Looks good. After the interview, Tanahashi told us, “I’m studying English conversation.” We all told him he was doing well (he was!), and he added, “During cardio, 30 minutes, I listen to English conversation podcast. Next time, I speak English myself … “

Please speculate about whether or not this means we might see Tanahashi in WWE soon, hopefully to cut a blistering promo on and then defeat his American counterpart, John Cena, and do a triple encore victory air guitar performance.

Hangman Page Emily Pratt: Is Bullet Club fine? Hangman Page: Bullet Club is fine. Look, we’re a group of the best wrestlers in the world. Legitimately, the whole group. And when you have guys like that together, working together all the time … we all have egos, and those egos clash from time to time. But we’re all friends, you know what I mean? And I think over time that’s going to prevail. We’re going to have this match tomorrow with Kenny and Ibushi against the Bucks. Kenny and Cody, they’ll do their thing and it’ll be done … I’m not sure that it matters as much what happens other than that it happens. We get it out and we get it done. I’ll be glad when it’s done. I think after Supercard … we’re back, we’ll be fine. Page, in response to Brandon’s question about how he thinks Being The Elite has changed wrestling storytelling: There’s so much wrestling. I mean, if you spent 24 hours a day … watching wrestling nonstop you probably still couldn’t see all of it that’s out there. Being The Elite is once a week, 10-15 minutes, it’s easy to digest. It’s fun, it’s funny, it’s engaging, it can be serious too. And I think people have latched on to that in some way, you know what I mean? And it’s just us hanging out, just joking around… and people relate to that… It’s hard on a television program to get your true and real personality out there. With Being The Elite it’s just us with our phones sticking them up and saying “What if you said this? This would be funny.” It think people appreciate that … it’s helped a lot. Page’s personal thoughts about the dojo: I’m excited for this. I wish this was a thing when I was coming up in wrestling. It would have been something I would have jumped on immediately. This is huge… I don’t know how permanent of a fixture… the dojo here will be, but I’m excited to find out what the plan … this could be huge … there are a lot of American guys going over to New Japan, and that gives them a base here… It’s a great place too. The facility’s awesome. Brandon Stroud: You mentioned Bar Wrestling … Do you have any deeper opinions on Joey Ryan’s penis after your confrontation? Hangman Page: Look, man, this thing’s been going for a long time. He was, for years – like, for years! I don’t know how he managed to do this and nobody called him out on it – for years he was paying guys to grab his junk and pretend like it flipped them. For years he got away with that. I was the only person who saw through it out of all of wrestling, every wrestler, every wrestling fan, every wrestling critic … I saw through it. I called him out on it, and I was right! … Maybe that put some pressure on him to maybe learn how to do this for real … At Bar Wrestling, what I thought would happen was not what happened. And good for Joey. I don’t think that’s the end of the story.

Jay White