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>[NJPW] Hirooki Goto cuts down new champion Konosuke Takeshita’s “shallowness” — “Is that really how someone seeking true strength acts?”
>Hirooki Goto (46), who will challenge for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship at New Japan Pro Wrestling’s November 2 Gifu show, has fired back hard at current champion KONOSUKE TAKESHITA (30). After Takeshita completely dismissed Goto’s so-called “Goto Revolution,” Goto responded with the pride of a man who’s spent his career walking the opposite path. He spoke about the importance of the “conservative side” within Japanese pro wrestling, while also revealing his plans for after recapturing the belt.
>Goto appeared before Takeshita after his title win at the October 13 Ryogoku show and declared his challenge. “Takeshita said, ‘Anyone who’s got a problem with me, come out.’ Once I heard that, there was no way I could just stay quiet—I felt like he was calling me out personally,” he recalled.
>Goto had finally captured the company’s top title at the Osaka show in February, achieving his long-awaited dream, and led the promotion under the banner of the “Goto Revolution” until losing the belt at the June Nagoya show. But Takeshita dismissed him completely: “The most conservative man of all is Hirooki Goto. He’s just pretending to be a revolutionary.”
>The two men’s careers could hardly be more different—Takeshita has been active on the global stage since his twenties as the first wrestler to hold contracts in three major promotions, while Goto has spent his entire career in NJPW. “That I’ve been knocked down again and again and still come back—that’s what my kind of revolution is,” Goto countered. “He calls me conservative, but if everyone were like him, running overseas, what would happen to Japanese pro wrestling? In the end, he’s doing it for himself, right? If that’s what he calls ‘innovative,’ then his whole way of thinking is different from mine. I take pride in being part of New Japan, and I want to protect it.”
