Hideo Itami Talks About Why He Signed With WWE

– WWE’s website has an interview up with the “leaders of the new school” – NXT Champion Adrian Neville, Sami Zayn, Hideo Itami, Kevin Steen and Fergal Devitt. Zayn asked Itami why he chose to leave Japan for WWE. The former Kenta replied:

“I wanted more. I wanted to be famous. I wanted to prove to myself.”

Steen joked and made a reference to CM Punk using Kenta’s GTS move: “Maybe you also came to WWE to take back the Go to Sleep.”

Devitt talked about how he hopes the group can help the rest of the NXT roster improve:

“You can teach a lot of things here at the Performance Center, but you can’t teach passion for wrestling. And the five people at this table definitely have it and have had it for a long time. And hopefully, a little bit of that can rub off on the rest of the people here and bring up the whole team.”

Steen also commented on criticism that the WWE Performance Center hurts the indie scene by signing all the top stars:

“I highly disagree. It all goes back to passion and love for wrestling. When I saw Adam Cole, I was like, “I want to help this guy, because he has a good attitude and he’s great.” It was the same thing with Daniel Bryan, Cesaro and Seth Rollins. Before they left, they did everything they could to help the guys they liked. The scene repairs itself, but anybody who complains that WWE is killing the indie scene is ridiculous.”