If you’ve followed pro wrestling outside of WWE for the last decade, that picture should make you very happy.
WWE gathered together its “Leaders Of The New School” for an interview on WWE.com, and it’s the best thing you’re going to read today. Last month, NXT star Sami Zayn tweeted that a new generation of stars had truly, finally arrived — himself, Adrian Neville, Daniel Bryan, Cesaro, Seth Rollins and recent developmental signees Fergal Devitt, Kevin Steen and KENTA (now Hideo Itami). They were “the guys” on the independent circuit for years, and now they’re getting a chance to be “the guys” on wrestling’s biggest stage. Well, except for Cesaro. Cesaro gets to be the guy under the guy on wrestling’s biggest stage.
Jokes aside, it’s WWE’s first categorically superior group of new performers since “The Radicalz” jumped ship from WCW back in 2000. The interview is a casual conversation about what got these guys here and where they want to go next, and features a lot of stuff fans would want to ask them. “What are the misconceptions about ‘indie’ guys?” “How do you expect to compete with body builders and ex-football players?” And, perhaps most importantly, “Hey KENTA, are you gonna take all your moves back?”
STEEN: Did you always want to come to WWE? Because things are different in Japan.
ITAMI: When I started, I didn’t think about WWE, but my dream became bigger and bigger.
STEEN: Maybe you also came to WWE to take back the Go to Sleep. (Laughter.)
ITAMI: I hope! (Laughter.)
The sound you just heard is a thousand wrestling nerds yelling I HOPE SO TOO at their computer screens.
The second best part of the interview is the always-funny revelation that English isn’t Kevin Steen’s first language, and that he learned it by watching Raw.
STEEN: French is my first language. I didn’t speak English until I was 12 or 13. I started picking it up, because I was watching WWE. That’s how I learned how to speak English.
ZAYN: Jim Ross taught him how to speak English.
STEEN: I was using, “coming down the aisle” and “stomping a mudhole.”
ZAYN: He thought they were regular expressions! “That was a real slobberknocker!”
Be sure to head over to WWE.com and read the entire thing. Save a copy of the page, too, in case Kevin Steen debuts as one of the Legionnaires and Hideo Itami’s finisher is the Overdrive.
