Shinsuke Nakamura was recently interviewed by Lillian Garcia at the Ace Comic-Con. During the interview, Nakamura was asked if coming to WWE was always his end-goal when he started wrestling.
Nakamura ended up sharing some insight into why he made the decision to leave New Japan Pro Wrestling.
Here is what Nakamura said (h/t to Wrestling INC for the quote below):
“In Japan, I thought I accomplished everything. So, I tried other things. So, then in 2015, [I thought], what should I do next? At the time, my friend, who works in WWE, called me. Probably it’s time to challenge next. Then I [decided to join WWE].
So, I didn’t follow the WWE history, but I knew big names like Andre the Giant [and] Hulk Hogan, because they wrestled in Japan. When I was a kid, [it was] hard to watch WWE, because I needed to go to [the] video shop, [but] I didn’t have any money.”
Nakamura also says that he didn’t research WWE at all before coming over because he wanted to be surprised.
On a related note, here are some WWE legends who you might not know wrestled for NJPW.