Hikuleo talks loser leaves Japan
Saturday February 11 will see Hikuleo face Switchblade Jay White in a loser leaves Japan battle. After Jay White lost the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship, the catalyst of professional wrestling was at a loss as to why his carefully laid plans had collapsed. That was until he homed in on Hikuleo as the first giant domino to fall. Challenging the big man to a match that will change the future shape of New Japan, Jay White seeks to drive Hikuleo out of a country that means everything to him and his famous family. We spoke to Hikuleo ahead of New Beginning in Osaka.
Watch new Beginning live in English on NJPW World!
It’s been a long excursion
–I wanted to start by talking about something you said backstage in Kobe last September.
Hikuleo: OK.
–After you reunited with Tama Tonga and left BULLET CLUB, you said that it had been a ‘long excursion’.
Hikuleo: It had.
–Tama had actually said the same thing, that his years in BULLET CLUB were like a long excursion for him, but with you that was literally the case, you really only returned from a very long excursion last autumn.
Hikuleo: Yeah. I think people forget about that too. I came to STRONG in 2020, but I was still on excursion, I was still learning. I had been in England for not even a full year. I didn’t get the time there that Shota (Umino) did, or a long period like Great-O-Khan had. I was still learning when I came back to the US.
–So you had to shift to wrestling American style, and in the middle of the pandemic.
Hikuleo: Then I had to adapt my style to how things were in the States, which was different again from Europe. So that was a whole other experience, but it was a helpful one.
–At that point, was being part of BULLET CLUB helpful to your development?
Hikuleo: I’d say so. I had my brothers there at that time, Jay as well, and I met El Phantasmo when I was in England. So I was being primed for the BULLET CLUB way and it was all making sense until everything happened last year.
Pressure builds diamonds
–And from returning to Japan, striking out from BULLET CLUB and completing that excursion so to speak, to February 11 in Osaka is not even six months. How do you feel about your Japanese career perhaps ending even before it really gets started?
Hikuleo: It was a shock to hear Jay ask for a Loser Leaves Japan match. In a way, I was surprised he came after me the way that he did. I know he was going to come for me eventually, after what happened in Kobe, but him doing what he did right after he lost to Okada in the Tokyo Dome really made it seem to me that he’d lost his mind. He’d been building this kingdom, this legacy, and it was all destroyed in front of him. So he’s taking it out on me, but I guess that it’s a compliment in a way. The Grand Slam Champion, everything that he’s done, and I’ve been in the back of his head so much that he blames me for losing it all. Jay White is the best at getting into people’s heads, and I’m now in his. It was a shock when I first heard about it but I’m ready for it now.
–No promoter wants to book a loser leaves town match at the best of times, and in this case NJPW in Japan either loses a future top guy in yourself, or a top former Grand Slam Champion as you mentioned in Jay White.
Hikuleo: Right.
–It really speaks to how much Jay White wants you out of Japan this badly then, that he was able to get the company to sign off on this.
Hikuleo: If you go back to his comments after Wrestle Kingdom, he was blaming that loss on me. But it’s all on him. I don’t know what he expected from me, I don’t know why he really expected that I wouldn’t go back to my brothers, that me being loyal to my family was such a shock to him. But something that small, surely that natural clearly hurt so badly that he feels it led to his loss. He just wrestled for the IWGP World heavyweight Championship in the main event of the Tokyo Dome, and I was in the kickoff match. So he’s put me on a much higher pedestal here, and that’s great for me in a sense, but it’s a game seven scenario- it’s either win or go home and that’s nerve wracking for sure. There’s a lot of pressure, but pressure builds diamonds.
If I’m the guy that made Jay leave Japan, my value skyrockets
–When this match got announced, it seemed like right away there were rumours flying around the wrestling world about other promotions that would want your services. Clearly both of you are very valuable as potential free agents outside Japan, and that includes NJPW in the US of course. So why is it important to you that you stay in Japan?
Hikuleo: It goes back to me being early on in my career. I’ve still got so much to learn. I only just came back in the fall of 2022, and the amount of reps I can get, the discipline I can develop, the things that I can achieve in Japan? There’s still so much that I have to do, still.
–How do you react to the rumours that have circulated?
Hikuleo: I know that Jay is valuable anywhere. It’s nice to know that I am too. But at the end of the day, this is about winning. At the end of that day in Osaka, one of us is leaving Japan, and people will remember tat for a long time to come. It’s destiny. When you think of what Jay White has achieved in the last five years, it puts us on entirely different levels, and I can instantly make my value skyrocket if I’m the guy that made Jay White leave Japan.
–Now, it’s going to be a cheering crowd in Osaka, and Osaka always has a unique energy. This time as well, even though Jay White likes to be the antagonist, there will be fans I’m sure who don’t want him to leave just as much as they don’t want you to. Do you think the crowd could play a role in Osaka, and not necessarily to your advantage?
Hikuleo: (long pause) I don’t know. When I’m in the ring, everything goes quiet for me, cheering or not. I’m totally focused on my opponent when the bell rings. Maybe near the end of the match that’s when it starts to affect me but… Yeah, Jay has a lot of pull, and I know for how brilliant he is he might be the fan favourite in Osaka, but if the people understand not just what I’ve done in Japan, but my family’s history here there’s a lot of weight. I don’t know whether I will have the crowd at my back, I really don’t. But I have my family to carry, and that’s enough.
NJPW is a family, it’s my family
–To get onto that family legacy in Japan- Tama Tonga recently wrestled his 1000th match in NJPW, more than any other non-Japanese wrestler in New Japan history.
Hikuleo: Right.
–And your dad, King Haku as the Japanese fans know him, originally came to Japan for sumo and then wrestled through the 1980s and into the 1990s. Do you have any childhood memories at all of him making those trips, or were you too young at that point?
Hikuleo: No, my earliest memories of him wrestling was when he was in WCW, but I do remember Japanese wrestlers coming to our house all the time.
–Oh really?
Hikuleo: I remember (Yuji) Nagata coming here when WCW was taping in the Universal Studios here in Florida. I remember (Manabu) Nakanishi as well…
–Being a wrestling family, and with your father so respected, I assume wrestlers came through your house a lot.
Hikuleo: They did, but what stuck with me was how nice and polite the Japanese guys were. And then when I went to the (Noge) Dojo in 2017, the second person I saw, after Liger-san was Nakanishi. He was eating a bowel of chanko and he looks up-
‘You Haku-san boy?’
‘Yes sir’
‘OH! I remember you,’ and he pulls out this picture that he’d taken in front of our house. It was Nagata, Nakanishi and I want to say (Satoshi) Kojima-san as well. They were there a lot. So we’d always have wrestlers come over to our house, but the Japanese ones were a different level I think.
–Any other memories of growing up with wrestling around you?
Hikuleo: A little later on, I remember (Kazuchika) Okada. He came because IMPACT were taping in the same Universal Studios then. He was right across the street and we used to bring him food. And it all meant those Japanese guys were part of our family. I remember my dad would still go over to Japan, not as much as he used to, but he’d do a few trips here and there, and he’d always come back with all this matcha chocolate that the boys had given him. Dad would give them to me my brothers and my sister, saying ‘here, this is from Nagata-san, that’s from Nakanishi-san’. So we’ve always had a connection, I’ve always had a connection, and then when I went to Japan they hadn’t forgotten who I was. NJPW is a family, it’s my family.
I was a 6’8” 200 lb guy typing emails in a cubicle
–Tama and T will always talk about how Haku never wanted them to join the family business. You being the younger brother, was he a little more accepting, or reigned to it? Or did you get the same reaction?
Hikuleo: No, it was the same exact tune as my brothers got, heh. I didn’t get any different treatment to them, it was the exact same. I wanted to do it right after high school, but my parents told me the same as they did my brothers, to get something to fall back on whether it was a college degree, or a military background like Tama. And to live life a little bit, too. Get a job and see what the world has to offer.
–The civilian life is a very different one.
Hikuleo: And I didn’t get that at the time, but wrestling is definitely it’s own world, and when you get into it there is so much that you have to give up and sacrifice that you don’t have time to live a normal lifestyle that everyone else has.
–So how did you spend that time?
Hikuleo: Well, I said ‘whatever you say’, and I went to college, did my four years and got a bachelor’s in marketing. Then I worked for two years, this 6’8’’, 200lbs guy sitting in an office cubicle, typing away (laughs).
–And your brothers were wrestling at that point.
Hikuleo: Right, and the three of us were living together at the time. That lifestyle really reminded me of what it was like growing up, and when you’re a kid, and your dad is wrestling on TV, that’s cool as hell, right? Everywhere my dad went, he was known by everyone, he was such a role model to look up to.
So now here I was working an office job while Tama had just started in NJPW, while Tanga Loa was in IMPACT at the time, he’d just left WWE.
–So that was pretty frustrating, I imagine (laughs).
Hikuleo: I was like ‘man, I didn’t have this size, this body, these good looks to sit at a desk all day’ (laughs). So after a couple years of working 9-5 and not finding my passion I approached Tama. I started training a little with them, and my dad, just a few bumps.
–And then you had to get the conversation about ‘this is what I want to do’?
Hikuleo: Right. And first was Tama, then it was my dad, which people think would be the last hurdle. But it was my mom that was the hardest! Once she gave her blessing, then it was my career.
I was raised in a very Japanese way
–Those family ties made sure you had an open door to Japan, but for you personally was there any question of where to start, or did it have to be Japan for you?
Hikuleo: It was always the plan, absolutely. I’d actually applied for the Dojo a year before I went, but got rejected the first time; at that point the Dojo was full of foreigners, so I went to Fale Dojo initially. Then there was some event there…
–In 2018, there was a charity card in new Zealand.
Hikuleo: Yeah. So NJPW came down and they saw me while I was training. A couple of guys couldn’t make the trip, so they gave me a match against Aaron Henare. So that’s when the Japanese office got a look at me, and the timing was right by then, so I went to Japan.
–And was there any culture shock for you when you finally did come in?
Hikuleo: No, not really. My parents raised us in a very Japanese way. It was a lot of respect, a lot of discipline. Our parents were pretty strict on us, in a good way, and in terms of us having chores, the laundry, cleaning and cooking, that was all pretty much just the same as at home. The only difference was the language that was tough. And the training (laughs).
–Jay White went through the same Dojo process that you did, and had that same sense of respect surrounding him. What do you think then about the attitude he’s taken toward Japan, especially in recent years?
Hikuleo: I feel like he wants more from them, from the country and the fans. For all that he’s done, he wants all the credit, wants the fans to be openly thanking him wherever he goes. Especially having wrestled in the US for NJPW STRONG like he has, and all the other places he’s been, it’s frustrating to him that they haven’t been vocal. And he’s right in a way, but he’s wrong in how he’s expressed himself.
But you know, having said it, I think it’s all part of his mind games. On the surface it’s about getting mad at the Japanese way of doing things, but that’s about getting in his opponents’ heads. That he’s so above his opponent that he finds the time to complain to the people, it’s all about putting his opposition in a false sense of security.
I’ll still be competing against Jay after I kick him out
–You’ve experienced that having wrestled in California last year. Do you feel that match on NJPW STRONG has prepared you somewhat for Osaka?
Hikuleo: 100%. The match in LA was right after he had kicked out my brothers. I was in an emotional state in that match, and it was also one of the first matches I’ve had against a high calibre opponent like Jay. Now I’m one year on, it’s in Japan, with those high stakes, and it’s emotional again. But I’ve learned a lot in the last year. I learned a lot seeing his match with Tama as well, and even though the stakes are high, I’m in control this time.
–Obviously, we don’t want to talk about what you’ll do if you lose. But if you win, you’re the guy who beat the Grand Slam Champion and sent Switchblade Jay White, the ‘catalyst of professional wrestling’ away from the country that made him. So what might you have in mind if you come away with your hand raised?
Hikuleo: Keep working. That simple. Winning would prove how hard I’ve worked to be in Japan, so earning the right to stay means I have to keep going. I have to win my first belt… I mean like I said, Jay set the standard incredibly high. So with all that he did in a five year span, I’ll still be competing against him even after I kick him out. I’ll still have a long way to go and I’m ready to put in the work to get there.
