What’s the story?
Cyrus from Killing The Town With Storm & Cyrus has spoken out regarding the reception that Stone Cold Steve Austin received backstage at the New Japan G1 USA show in Long Beach.
In case you didn’t know...
NJPW has been on the rise for a few years now, once again becoming the second biggest promotion in all of professional wrestling. With that kind of reputation comes a lot of attention from fans both in and out of the business, as you’d expect, and Stone Cold, in particular, has taken a liking to the product ever since it’s become more mainstream.
The heart of the matter
The Texas Rattlesnake was at the New Japan G1 USA show for the first night on Saturday which was headlined by Kazuchika Okada vs Cody.
Cyrus had the following to say about what happened when Austin entered the dressing room – “To watch Steve kinda walk into the dressing room — none of the boys knew he was showing up. It’s like — taps Tanahashi on the shoulder who’s a God in Japan and Tanahashi turns around and sees Steve Austin standing there it’s like — the kid comes out in all of us.
“It’s like Tanahashi was just like — his eyes were like ‘oh, Steve Austin.’ Cause, of course, he’s a fan of the Attitude Era stuff and so Steve was like super over of course and the boys popped and it was just so cool and I think people didn’t know he was showing up.”
“And to say that I was a babyface to the New Japan office and for receiving credit to rightly or wrongly for Steve showing up — the office could not stop thanking me for bringing Stone Cold to the building. So that was a good side benefit. It got myself over.”
What’s next?
As New Japan continues to grow and grow, we’ll probably see even more top names attending their events. The company clearly want to build a brand within the United States, and there are even reports suggesting that they could put on a show during WrestleMania weekend in New Orleans next year.
Author’s take
It’s always great to see people like Austin lending their wrestling wisdom to other companies and whilst we don’t know just how much interaction he had with the talent, we’d put money on him giving them some invaluable advice when it comes to their in-ring work.
Austin, keep doing what you’re doing because wrestling would be a much duller place without you and your analysis/interviews.
