Matt Striker who’s currently doing commentary for Lucha Underground recently spoke to Marc Madison of The News Hub about working with Jim Ross in New Japan Pro Wrestling. You can see what he had to say below and check out the full interview by clicking HERE.
“When we got to Tokyo, we sat very quickly with the people from New Japan and their only direction to me was we want people who have never seen this before, we need you to educate the new fan so that’s what I did. I went out and I tried to and I went out and tried to explain this style and these wrestlers to the new fan. Then social media just, came out in droves with annoyance and utter hatred for me but I always like to talk to those fans and say I wasn’t commentating to you on that night. I was commentating to the new fan and sometimes it leaves a bad taste in their mouth that we want a 10 year old kid to know who Nakamura is but in this day and age, that’s where the money is.
“I mean, when I was a kid I was the same way when people started knowing who Hulk Hogan and the Masked Superstar was I felt offended because in my own selfish narcissism I thought wrestling is mine. This is my little thing, you can’t know who that is. I understand the venom that comes from the fans. But that was the objective to educate the new fan, the first time fan and there were points in that show especially the last three matches where JR was nice enough to kind of let me drive the ship and for him to say kid, go on out there the Paul Brown giving Bill Landry analogy but that was really nice the great, the veteran the hall of famer, the voice Jim Ross literally with his hands said go, go, you do the thing. So during the Nakamura match and the Okada matches pardon the term, I’m losing my sh** because I’m dancing the fine line between fanboy and wrestler and I don’t dance that line well because I’m always going to be a fan.”
