KUSHIDA Comments On Daniel Bryan’s Challenge, Possibly Wrestling As A Heavyweight Full Time, His Next Goal

KUSHIDA spoke with Justin Barrasso for Sports Illustrated Extra Mustard in advance of Friday’s ROH Death Before Dishonor pay-per-view; you can read a few excerpts below:

KUSHIDA comments on Daniel Bryan saying he would like to wrestle him if given the opportunity: 

Of course my answer is Yes! Yes! Yes!

I was really honored to hear what he’d said. When I was a fan I really loved the American Dragon and Curry Man team and their chase for the IWGP Junior Tag Championships. A guy like Bryan, or Rey Mysterio, they aren’t necessarily the biggest, but they still managed to get to the top of the business. As someone of roughly the same size, I really hold them in high regard. They’re proof you can live your dreams if you believe and work hard.

If he ever comes back, I’d love to wrestle him. I think it wouldn’t be a case of looking to the crowd, we’d just be focused on each other and let our wrestling do the talking. I hope it’ll happen sometime.

KUSHIDA comments on the thought of wrestling full-time as a heavyweight: 

I’d like to be able to wrestle heavyweights in Japan, too. The last two years or so, I’ve had real confidence that if I had a singles match with a heavyweight, it’d be really good. I have a junior heavyweight’s body, and I can’t change that. I’ll always be a junior, but I’d still like to face heavyweights. There are all sorts of ways it can happen.

I think one of the charms of martial arts is honing techniques so that a smaller guy can beat a larger opponent. That’s the idea I have. Nowadays, this size mystique has gone; regardless of how big you are, a good wrestler is a good wrestler. So at home and abroad, I want to carry the junior division and fight all comers regardless of weight class. After all, I still haven’t forgotten the time way back when I challenged Tomohiro Ishii for the NEVER title and came up short. I want revenge for that.

KUSHIDA reveals his next goal in wrestling: 

I want to continue to help grow NJPW and I want, as a junior heavyweight, to prove myself more with the heavyweights. I want to give it my all in Japan and internationally. Hell, I already am. For me personally there are a lot of guys I’d love to have singles matches with, people I really want to wrestle before I ever retire. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii, Minoru Suzuki, YOSHI-HASHI, SANADA, Tetsuya Naito, Kazuchika Okada, it goes on and on. And I want to go to even more countries to wrestle. Places I’ve never been before. South America, I’d love to go to. Bolivia or Chile. Africa, too. I’d love to wrestle in those environments, I’m just waiting for an offer. If that chance comes to get even more people aware of Japanese wrestling and of NJPW, then I could want nothing more.

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