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Wheeler Yuta On Joining Blackpool Combat Club, Facing Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley

April 26, 2022 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
Wheeler Yuta AEW Rampage Image Credit: AEW

Wheeler Yuta is the fourth member of the Blackpool Combat Club and he recently discussed joining the group, his matches against Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley plus more. Yuta spoke with Wrestling Inc for a new interview and you can check out some highlights below:

On his matches against Jon Moxley and Bryan Danielson: “Yeah, both of those matches in consecutive weeks were the biggest test of my career, right? Being in there with Bryan Danielson, who for my money is the best wrestler of all time. And the fire that he was trying to get out of me. I could tell that he was hitting me harder, trying to see if I had that fight within me. I think I found it, or at least I thought I had found it until the next week when Moxley pushes me even further, and further, and harder and harder. There’s definitely a different atmosphere when you’re in the ring with those guys that you don’t get just on a normal match. There’s something there that elevates you, and you either have to match that, or you’re just going to be left behind. That’s what those matches felt like to me.”

On becoming part of the BCC: “It all just kind of started happening around me before I ever really found out much of anything. Like even the Danielson match I found out on the day of, the Moxley match I found out on the day of. I had a lot of ideas in the back of my head like, ‘what if this happens?’ But I was never explicitly told, ‘alright, this is what’s happening.’ I had things in the back of my head, that I was getting ready like, ‘well if this happens, how would I approach a match with Danielson, or how would I approach a match with Moxley again?’ But, there is never anything definitive until right before it happens. I had things in the back of my mind, but I was never 100 percent sure.”

On being invited into the group after his match with Moxley: “I think it really depended on my performance, I really do think it did. Everything obviously worked out, and I think I did as well as I could in that match. I think it was the best match I’ve had. But that was one where I was like, ‘I really hope, legitimately really hoped, that I could make these guys trust me, and that they’re proud of me, and that they think that I can do this moving forward.’ I think I pulled that off.”

On working on his promo skills: “It’s absolutely a part of my game that I have been working on, and been trying to improve, and they’ve been very helpful with a lot of that. It’s really cool to be able to stand there and do interviews with them. On Dynamite, we did one before the match with The Gunn Club that aired that week on Rampage, and just being able to kind of discuss with them how they approach just doing interviews was mind-blowing to me. They’ll stand in front of mirrors and work on gestures, and things like that. Things that I never thought of, there’s drills for that, just like there’s drills for being in the ring. Being able to stand by them and learn from example watching them, and also having my little moments where I can interject my own verbiage, or my own personality has been really helpful.”