Yuji Nagata On Winning AJPW Triple Crown Championship, Feels Responsibility to Boost AJPW

NJPW star Yuji Nagata is now the AJPW Triple Crown Champion, and he recently discussed the win and his responsibility to help grow AJPW now. Nagata defeated Kento Miyahara on February 19th to capture the AJPW championship, and he spoke with NJPW about the win and more. You can see the highlights below:

On how he feels about the win: “Well, having won the title, I’ve started to have AJPW’s ticket sales in mind, so I think that sense of duty a champion needs has kicked in. I do feel I need to be responsible to boost AJPW, and it didn’t take long for somebody to step up to try and take the title back as well… It is all starting to sink in, and in the meantime, the response, really from all over has been fantastic. I was the official ambassador for the half marathon in my home town of Togane recently, and a lot of the runners were congratulating me on the Grand Slam. So it really feels like it’s something that’s reverberated pretty far, and I’m grateful for it.”

On being a Grand Slam winner between AJPW, NJPW and NOAH: “I’ve won all three major heavyweight titles, and I won the G1, the Champion Carnival and the World League (now N1 Victory). That’s a pretty big deal, and it feels great to have something big like this happen 31 years into my career… What means a lot to me is doing this as a NJPW wrestler through and through. Those other guys have changed promotions, or worked freelance. That in itself is a great achievement, but I’ve always been an NJPW wrestler, and as a New Japan guy, I’ve had those other promotions think me important, or needed for their business, that I’ve been loaned to compete there. There’ve been a lot of ups and downs these last 31 years, but to do all this as a New Japan wrestler to me is really big.”

On the match itself: “Well, (Kento) Miyahara has been the ace of that company for the last five, six years, and he’s carried the promotion on his back. He’s an excellent wrestler, and to have had a good match and get a win against him is something that gives me a lot of confidence.”

On his back and forth with Miyahara on social media leading into the match: “That was really because we didn’t have any preview matches leading up. Last year, there were a lot of tag matches to build up, but this time it was a real first for me, to have a title match with no preview matches to build at all, and only able to build and promote through social media. We both had this duty to promote the match, but all we would have were backstage comments, promos or Twitter posts, and that was the first time I’ve been in that situation. But you know, even with that, we were able to have a really hot crowd and a big reaction to that match in the end, so it was a bit of a culture shock, but in a good way.”