New Japan Pro Wrestling star Jay White recently joined The Sessions with Renee Paquette to talk about his recent experience in AEW and whether or not he signed with the company.
The Switchblade dispelled those rumors and revealed that NJPW has given him a ton of freedom.
“I didn’t sign with them or anything like that,” White said. “I’m still with New Japan but luckily I have a fair bit of freedom where I can go and do what I want so to speak. I thought it was kind of known, there was never one of those sweet graphics put out with me so…”
Talking about his time training in the New Japan dojo before becoming a full-time wrestler with the company, Jay White revealed the one mistake he made prior to joining the dojo. The Bullet Club member described the toughness of the dojo and why he did not really have a clue what was going to happen when he first signed up.
“My kind of mistake when I went into the dojo is I didn’t do enough research on New Japan’s history itself, the culture, and the way the system works,” White said. “I really had no clue what I was going into, I also didn’t want to ask too many questions because I didn’t want to come off like I was being hesitant about it at all which I wasn’t.
“I just didn’t know, am I going to train? Am I going to get paid? Should I be expecting matches? I had no clue what to expect so once I got there, it was a pretty big shock. We had a couple days before they started training us where we got to watch Wrestle Kingdom and then after that, it was basically wake up early in the morning, go clean everything, 10 am you’ll start training and that’ll last for 3 hours. It was pretty intense stuff.”
“I’m not saying the New Japan system is perfect, I think there’s plenty of flaws to it. That’s just my opinion. I think that whole kind of respect thing, sometimes that can be overdone. In wrestling sometimes people think that just because you’ve been doing something for longer that means you’re above someone else so I feel like you’ve got to find a balance of that. I think it is important but sometimes it can just be overdone.
“Finding a balance of that, listening to the people that have been to the places that you want to go and the experiences and stuff like that, you’d be an idiot not to listen to that stuff.”
Jay White said he has not signed a contract with IMPACT Wrestling:
“I didn’t sign with them. I’m still with New Japan but luckily, I have a fair bit of freedom where I can kind of go and do what I want so to speak,” White answered.
White was trained in Japan early in his career. Renee asked him, “How much do you think that sort of style, and still having that respect, and being brought up through the wrestling business should be instilled in American wrestling?”
White responded, “I think so, but not completely. I’m not saying Japan’s system is perfect. I think there’s plenty of flaws to it. That’s just my opinion. Yeah, I think that whole respect thing, sometimes that can be overdone. Sometimes people think that just because you’ve been doing something for longer means that you’re above somebody else,” Jay said.
“So I feel like you got to find a balance of that, not just who’s been there longer. But I think it is important, but again, sometimes it can just be kind of overdone and stuff. So finding a balance of that, listening to the people that have been to the places where you want to go and the experiences they’ve had, you’d be an idiot to not listen to that stuff.”
“So you’re going to want to be respectful and listen to certain people, and at the end of the day, it’s only going to help you.”
White talked about his experience in IMPACT so far:
“It’s been fun and fresh, Fresh is always good. Bullet Club has been around for a while now, so keeping things fresh is always good,” he said.
“Shaking it up with members, dropping some and adding some more, just so it’s not always the same old thing. Adding the best members and pieces that are going to help us move forward, in my opinion, has been fun.”