Rocky Romero Weighs In On NJPW Talent Going To AEW, Says There’s More To the Backstory

A number of NJPW talents have crossed over into the US by going to AEW, and Rocky Romero recently shared his thoughts on the matter. AEW has become the new home for a number of New Japan stars including Will Ospreay, Kazuchika Okada, Jay White and Juice Robinson, and Romero was asked about the talent departures in an interview with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp. You can see a couple excerpts from the discussion below:

On NJPW talent going to AEW: “It’s like, people don’t fully understand, like Okada leaving New Japan and joining AEW, Ospreay leaving New Japan and starting at AEW. It wasn’t that AEW went and stole that talent exactly. There’s more to these back stories than just AEW just said, ‘Hey, here’s X amount of dollars, come with us.’ There’s more to it. I’m sure, Sean, you hear a lot of things that go on in professional wrestling and it’s not as simple as that. It’s actually, it’s more complex than that. If Okada was gonna leave and say go to WWE, I think that it serves New Japan and it serves AEW for Tony to try to step in and try to keep him on this side and same thing with Ospreay.”

On maintaining relationships with other wrestling companies: “Obviously they have new regimes come in and some have stronger ties with some than others, but I try to give everybody the benefit of the doubt at least and if it makes sense, to everyone that’s on board, why not give it a go? If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. That’s okay too.”