David Marquez On NJPW’s Idea For Finn Balor To Be “King Of The Leprechauns”, UWN Working With NJPW & AEW

In a recent interview with The Wrestling Inc. Daily, United Wrestling owner David Marquez discussed NJPW’s creative idea for Finn Balor, UWN working with NJPW and AEW, and much more. You can read his comments below.

David Marquez on NJPW having split rosters during the pandemic and a wild idea the company had for Finn Balor: “I really like it. It gives a lot more opportunity to people that you probably would never see in Tokyo, especially during my time there. I had a hell of a time getting people booked in New Japan and from the dojo. Even Samoa Joe back in the day, they didn’t want him. There’s many others. The whole Fergal Devitt piece, and they wanted to call him ‘King Devitt: King of the Leprechauns’ back then. And I was like, ‘no, no, no, don’t do that. Please don’t do that.’ I pitched the the ‘Prince’ name, and luckily, they went with him. I was like, ‘he’s young. He’s exotic-looking, and he’s a very handsome man. He looks like an underwear model. He’s a prince. He’s royal.'”

On whether UWN and NJPW could work more together in the future: “I would sure hope there’s much more to it. You may not know this, but I was Vice President of New Japan Pro Wrestling, their international division, for five years. I ran the New Japan dojo, the first one in Los Angeles with Simon Inoki where I recruited Fergal Devitt, and Karl Anderson, and Samoa Joe, and Rocky Romero, and Bobby Quance, and Alex Kozlov and the names go on and on and on. That was also through the NWA. That was why the NWA system was so important because you find all these diamonds and you pull them all in and you shift through them. The influx of Australians in the United States was because of the New Japan dojo in myself with EPW Perth and Adelaide in Australia. So Hartley Jackson, Mikey Nicholls, who was in NXT (Nick Miller) for a minute and Shane Haste (Shane Thorne), who is still there, but they all started with me.

On UWN working with AEW and other promotions: “It wasn’t that difficult. We worked with AEW in the past. Of course, Serena Deeb is on the show next week and this week coming up as well just like Peter [Avalon]. It was just a phone call. The talent relations person there and I go way back. Tony Khan was involved in the decision, and they said yes. I have not talked to him one-on-one. I was on a few emails with him early on. We helped them or consulted with them in the very beginning in getting work visas for some of the Chinese performers they wanted to bring in because I did a show in China about two years ago. It’s the first North American broadcast to originate from China, and we brought that back and ran that across the country. We played it a few times because it’s pretty spectacular and special. No one else has done it. It was only through legal lawyers and whatever, and I’m pretty sure he was attached to things, but everybody there in his office, Chris Harrington and other folks, we know of each other from a while back. So I’m very familiar with the people in the office.”