We've just released part 1 of a really fun interview with Gino Gambino. Here are some highlights and full interview link below:
Working Wrestle Kingdom 12 and NJPW professionalism
"I feel like they handed me Tokyo Dome for two reasons. One, as a thank you for all the hard work of the New Japan Tours and getting Australia off the ground. But two, they also saw me in the tryout as Mr. Juicey and felt like there was possibly a chance that there might be something there."
"There is an expectation of your professionalism when you're there that you must maintain… Like, you know, we can sit here and talk about, the match and the crowd and blah, blah. That's, that's not important. What's important is the way you hold yourself and the relationships you make outside of the ring."
"Being a good human outside of the ring is more important than what you can do inside the ring. We can hide your shittiness in the ring. They hid mine for years, right? But if you're
you know, an obnoxious egotistical person outside the ring and you think I've made it so therefore I should be treated so-and-so you won't last."
How Okada ended up working MCW in Australia
"We're like how good would it be to have Suzuki how good would it be to have Evil or Sanada would be cool… And then they write back like, Please, Okada-san."
"We couldn't get a venue that would respect the man enough. We couldn't find an opponent to his level… and we went back and we're like, Thank you. That's very generous, but maybe Sanada? And they were like, they're like, No, Okada."
"Someone put it to me this way, it's like Flair showing up with the WCW title. That's how important Okada coming to Australia was at the time."
How ADD and dyslexia almost skittled a NJPW tryout in Australia and New Zealand
"So I have attention deficit disorder which means, and dyslexia, which means I read things and don't take the information in. So when I booked the flights for the office from Japan to come from Japan to Auckland, Auckland to Melbourne, I booked the wrong dates. The flights did not exist. I booked them through the worst website and all I remember is getting a phone call at 11 p.m. on a Thursday from the office and they go Gino San, Gedo San and Jado San are at airport, no ticket."
"And I said, what? They're like, no ticket."
"And I'm like, my God. Luckily, I had a spare credit card and it wasn't a ridiculous price, but I booked three tickets on the spot then and there for them to fly from Tokyo to Auckland that night. So it was so lucky that they were nice enough to call me and tell me, cause anyone else would have been like, fuck these guys. We're not dealing with them."
Full interview: https://youtu.be/GgdWTSXhS6I
by Open-Estate-7171