MVP Recalls The Meeting He Had With New Japan Officials When He Told Them They Needed To Connect To Fans In The U.S.

MVP shares a very interesting story.

In 2010 former two-time WWE United States Champion Montel Vontavious Porter or better known by his abbreviated on-screen name MVP agreed to part ways with WWE. The following year MVP made his way to an organization in a country that he dreamed of wrestling in which was New Japan Pro Wrestling. During his time in the company MVP competed in a tournament in 2011 to crown the first IWGP Intercontinental Champion. MVP defeated the likes of Kazuchika Okada, Tetsuya Naito and Toru Yano to become NJPW’s first IWGP Intercontinental Champ.

While being interviewed by Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald, MVP reflected on his time in NJPW while it was still an unfamiliar promotion to some in the United States. MVP brought up a meeting that he had with former NJPW president Naoki Sugabayashi and NJPW bookers Gedo & Jado and now-referee Tiger Hattori and during that meeting, MVP told all four men that they needed to reach out to those who want to watch their product in the United States and in hindsight he pitched the idea of NJPW World before it came to fruition.

“I had a meeting with the New Japan office–with the… I guess he’s gone now but the previous President  Sugabayashi, Jado, Gedo, [Tiger] Hattori, all the guys in the office and I explained to them that there was a huge English audience that wanted access to their product, and I actually used my Twitter feed back then before I even had 100,000 followers to… I was telling everybody, ‘If you want New Japan in English, tweet President Sugabayashi and let him know’, and as we’re in the meeting he pulls out his phone and he starts scrolling through and I’m like, ‘Why is your face scrunched up, why are you upset? You see there are potentially millions of dollars left on the table’. I pitched a concept of New Japan World to them in 2011. I said, ‘Man, you guys need to set up a YouTube channel in English, [it’d] be very easy to hire two English play-by-play [announcers] and present your talent, your Japanese talent to this English-speaking audience.” MVP stated. “Your website, you need [a] English website. You have merchandise… money is being left on the table, and, I guess everything is timing. I guess at that point they weren’t ready. So later on when I saw New Japan World come into play and I saw them start doing more shows over here it made me proud because New Japan has been for many years my favorite wrestling organization, and when I left WWE to go to Japan, I remember all the people that were sending me messages on social media telling me I was stupid, I was crazy, what was I thinking going to CHINA to wrestle, why would I ever leave the WWE, and all of those people wear Bullet Club shirts now.”

MVP was also recently interviewed by Chris Van Vliet and Fightful has a few articles from the interviewed published here on the site. To take a look at one of them, click here. If you are going to use the quote above, please credit Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald with an H/T to Fightful for the transcription.