Lots of AEW/NJPW news, Rocky Romero talks to Fightful about WWE-NJPW (Patreon)

Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful spoke with Rocky Romero ahead of this weekend's New Beginning in Trenton, NJ on NJPW World

Rocky Romero said that New Japan Pro Wrestling has over 2,000 tickets out for this weekend's show and they're hopeful that they get to 3,000. They're hoping to do New Japan USA shows quarterly, and they had to reassess how they would run them. He says there used to be a lot of venues of that size, but a lot of them got knocked down, so finding appropriate venues is a challenge. Romero said that he's always scouting places while at AEW about possible buildings for New Japan.

Romero is very proud of being able to bridge gaps across wrestling and help make dreams come true. He said that more CMLL talent would be on this weekend's show if not for FantasticaMania. He said that the one bridge he never expects to happen is CMLL and AAA, regardless of owner, and doesn't think the two sides will ever work together.

SRS asked about NJPW contracts, and he said that he wishes that New Japan would spread out their contracts a bit more so all of them aren't up at the same time period. He believes that in Japanese tradition, that just becomes how it's done. He's been an advocate for multi-year deals, and doesn't want the company to have a completely new roster right after the hottest part of their year. He said one of the good things Harold Meij did was to immediately sign Kazuchika Okada to a 5-year deal. He is also a proponent of 15 or 18 month deals.

Romero said that the Young Bucks were the first dual-esque deals he heard of. He said it wasn't quite a dual contract, but the Bucks would have "carve outs" in their ROH deals. He said it's becoming very standard procedure to have dual or triple contracts. Romero spoke about AEW taking New Japan talent, and said the alternative is them signing with WWE and never getting to wrestle in New Japan

Romero laughed at the idea Tony Khan shut down Shinsuke Nakamura facing Hiroshi Tanahashi. He doesn't think Tanahashi is going to wrestle again any time soon, but says that anything can happen in wrestling.

As for Forbidden Door this year, Romero thinks that this year a lot of AEW fans will learn more about Yota Tsuji, Knockout Brothers and Stardom talent. He said that every Forbidden Door has been different, and he thinks that this one will be even more different, and says CMLL could be more involved.

He called the WWE-AAA move a very interesting one that made sense on their end. He feels that the success of AEW, NJPW and CMLL work together has helped motivate that and thinks it is good financially for wrestling.

Romero was also surprised to see the Good Brothers on WWE Raw, but was very happy it happened.

The full interview is available on tier 2 for early access members now, and publicly Thursday.