(NOAH) Yoshinari Ogawa, "I went because there are no other challengers" (1st January 2022, Nippon Budokan)
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Q: Why did you decide to challenge for the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship, held by your partner HAYATA?
OGAWA: There are no other challengers, I went as there is no one.
Q: After having a title match on January 4th 2020, you started to team with HAYATA. What kind of changes do you feel in about two years?
OGAWA: After we started to work together, I taught Yano and Kiyomiya before matches and we would practice together and I taught him things he had never been taught before. I think he has changed, but since I started teaching him I haven't done a singles, so there may be something I don't understand.
Q: Originally, HAYATA is from WrestleGate. Do you have a completely different impression compared to how Noah's young are bought up?
OGAWA: If you take a casual glance, he hasn't changed that much, but if you ask me he's a little different.
Q: Does that "little" make a big difference in the match?
OGAWA: These days everyone feels the same; HAYATA is actually producing results, but there are some parts which aren't good.
Q: What do you pay particular attention to when instructing young people? How to stand? How to lock up? What kind of aspect is it?
OGAWA: It's often said whether it is possible or not, the way you stand and the way you lock up will change. Naturally, there are some wrestlers who still have results without it, but if you compare HAYATA and Kiyomiya, it's completely different. If you look at Kiyomiya, you will understand what I am trying to say. Kiyomiya I taught from scratch from the beginning, passive and various other things. In any case, Kiyomiya is the same as Kotaro who also grew up in Noah and if you compare them the basics are quite solid and I think he is already on top.
Q: You used to say that "Using your head in a match is hard", but is Kiyomiya such an opponent?
OGAWA: Because he is a wrestler who can use his head, he is also an opponent who can use his head. You can use your head with Kiyomiya, and in that sense he is different from other wrestlers. Kiyomiya was also troubled this year, but it is what I expected. I don't worry all the time, things get better and worse, in the future there will be waves of ups and down, and I may even get injured. It's all good experience, even that.
Q: After the 1st January at The Budokan, there will be a GHC Junior Tag defense match at the 4th January Korakuen event. How do you switch your mindset when wrestling against your partner?
OGAWA: The tag is a tag, and a single is a single. It's completely okay.
Q: In the past, you fought title matches with your partner, Mitsuharu Misawa.
OGAWA: As I have that kind of experience, so I think it's okay. In Misawa's case, the period of fighting in the match was longer, so there was no problem in the match when we did start to team up. On the contrary, it was more difficult to switch when tagging for the first time. Until then we hadn't tagged at all, and we weren't even in the waiting room together, and so it was quite difficult until I got used to it.
Q: HAYATA wasn't originally a wrestler who you tagged with, so it may be smoother to switch when having a match.
OGAWA: There is no problem there.
Q: This will be HAYATA'S 8th defense. How do you plan to take down the champion who has had a long term reign?
OGAWA: How? Sometimes I change how I do things in the middle of a match, but I haven't thought about anything yet.
Q: Are you planning a strategy in advance?
OGAWA: Sometimes I'm thinking, and sometimes I'm not. I've been doing this for such a long time that I have my own pattern of "I'll do this when it happens like this". I don't think it's necessary to think so much in advance.
Q: Even when you have a career like yours, do you feel that your opponent is in control of the match?
OGAWA: There is that. There was a part where Eita, who we fought in the previous title match (Yoyogi on the 28th November), dominated me and splashed me with water. In the old days this was normal for wrestlers, and when you look at the current Noah there are many similar wrestlers and there are many similar matches, so I think that's a little different. Now it feels like Noah is sharing the same technique with everyone, but I don't do that, so maybe I'm conspicuous.
Q: It is true that you have a shining presence. Did you have an image of a wrestler that you were aiming to be in establishing your fighting style?
OGAWA: Nothing in particular, but at that time everyone was physically big, so can I do this without drawing an ideal image? It was like that.
Q: Did you come up with a style that allowed you to fight against such opponents?
OGAWA: It doesn't work to attack head on, and I am thinking and thinking, perhaps it's like this isn't it? In the old days, the wrestlers of 190cm or 2 meters were the top wrestlers. When I think I had to wrestle a match against a larger wrestler, I couldn't really talk about my ideals. It wasn't just the bigger opponents, it was also great to wrestle various foreigners. It was just single matches at first after my debut.
Q: Even though there is a one-on-one in the ring, are singles and tags completely different?
OGAWA: It is very different. Singles are physically difficult, and sometimes I use my head to assemble a match myself. Since I was young I've been wrestling both Japanese and various foreign wrestlers, which is significant. I don't remember what kind of match I wrestled because I was desperate when doing it, but when I realized it, I feel like I had learned. At that time, even if I don't remember anything after being so absorbed in myself, when I think about it after a few years I sometimes wonder if what I was doing then made my career....
Q: To change the topic, on January 8th a feud with New Japan has been arranged. The era in which you made your debut was the era of All Japan or New Japan. How does New Japan look to you?
OGAWA: What wrestlers do they have from my youth? I mean, I'm curious. That's because the information was only in magazines about a wrestler making his debut, and I was worried about things like "Is the dojo clean?"
Q: In the old days you couldn't think of going over?*
OGAWA: That's right. Even when Japan Pro came to All Japan, I was so angry when I practiced with them. Choshu and Yatsu* were angry when I returned to the waiting room even if I was taught a little from the ring.
Q: When you are taught that way, do you feel the difference in style what is often said to be taught that way?
OGAWA: It is said that it's different, but it's just the same when you have a match. I was wondering if it would be different, but when I had a match, it didn't change. Even if the practice is a little different, it doesn't change when it comes to a match.
Q: Speaking of rivalry, when you made your debut, Japan Pro Wrestling was in operation and it always felt like a rivalry.
OGAWA: Yes. My debut opponent was one of their wrestlers (Shinji Sasazaki*), and it was a rivalry since then. Even as a rookie I was slapped and slapped and sparks fell. I didn't care about the atmosphere of the rivalry, because I burned from the beginning, and every day came like a rivalry.
Q: It's been 36 years since you were a rookie? What is the secret to being active even after the age of 55?
OGAWA: I'm waning (laughs) I'm tattered.
Q: Still, what do you think is a big part of being able to fight on the title front?
OGAWA: Everyone is about 170cm. In the old days I was thrown fiercely by wrestlers of about 190cm or 2 meters, and so wrestling that kind of match is ingrained in me. Wrestling against a bigger wrestler is utterly different from wrestling one smaller than you in terms of your physical fatigue.
Q: What are you careful about when conditioning your body?
OGAWA: From the time I had my neck injury and was close to death*, my muscles have decreased and I lost a lot of weight, so I thought I would fight as a junior. Sometimes I wonder if that was a good choice. It might have been a lot of work if I had stayed big physically, but the lighter weight does make it less of a burden. Right now, my main training is to create a condition that lets me move, and I usually think about food a little bit, for the sake of my health (laughs).
Q: 2022 is your chance to be a double champion from the start, finally, please give us your hopes.
OGAWA: Two belts? I want to take them if possible. I have the desire to get the belt, and I feel like I want to stir things up a little, and as I have a desire to be involved at the top I think I can still do it. But if I become double champion, won't defending them be difficult (laughs).
*Kenta Kobashi elaborated on this. Contact between All Japan and New Japan wrestlers was forbidden, at award shows they would sit away from each other and not even talk to each other. It could mean the end of your career if you were caught doing so.
*Riki Choshu and Yoshiaki Yatsu
*Ironically, Kinya Okada, Ogawa's pupil, uses his move "The Blockbuster".
*November 14th 2011, he had a Cervical Sprain and joint injury
For more information on Ogawa's early career, please see "The Lonely Technician, born from solitude and hardship"
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