NJPW Star Makes Interesting Championship Challenge

New Japan Pro Wrestling has had its schedule turned upside down by this pandemic. The New Japan Cup and subsequent events have been canceled but that hasn’t stopped El Desperado from making challenges.

In a recent interview with njpw1972.com, he revealed that while he still wants to be the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion, he wants a shot at Shingo Takagi’s NEVER Openweight title even more. Here is the full quote:

Desperado: “Like every junior, I want to be IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion. But I think I want to win the NEVER Openweight Championship as a junior more.”

–”Really?”

Desperado: “That title is there to be the openweight title, right? Who says it has to be about two lunkheads smashing skulls?”

–”There have only been three junior heavyweights to challenge for the NEVER Openweight Championship: Kota Ibushi, KUSHIDA and Will Ospreay. And only Ospreay has won the title while in the junior heavyweight division. ”

Desperado: “Heheh. But I put it out there on Twitter when Taichi won the belt a while back. I have no interest in going heavyweight, I want to win that title as a junior.”

–”The current NEVER Champion was still a junior heavyweight until after the G1.”

Desperado: “When Takagi won the title, he went straight to SHO at ringside, didn’t he? That made me think ‘oh, there’s a possibility here’.”

–”You want a shot.”

Desperado: Nobody, even Ospreay has held that belt while still really carrying themselves as a junior heavyweight, right? If that’s the case there really isn’t any point in it being openweight. So yeah, when Takagi took that belt, I got pretty damn interested in it.

Shingo Takagi defeated Hirooki Goto for the title at New Beginning in Sapporo.

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