On behalf of CLICKON Sports, I recently spoke to NJPW superstar Tama Tonga. We spoke about a range of topics throughout the course of the interview, which can be viewed in full below.
On joining the Air Force:
“I feel like some people should join the military right after high school, because it teaches a lot of discipline. Some of the draw backs were that you become property, you lose your freedom. You don’t get your freedom that you’re fighting for.”
On travelling:
“The traveling back and forth to Japan was okay at first, but I’ve been doing it for seven years now and it’s getting pretty hard. Especially now that I have a family, it’s hard sitting there on a plane for 15-16 hours and then it’s a 24 hour travel day altogether. It gets old.”
On being trained by The Dudley Boyz:
“I think they were a good introduction into wrestling. At the same time, I had my dad and Ricky Santana on the side and I was training with them half the time. I was kind of getting a double training, with different viewpoints. My dad had a different mentality to Bubba and Devon, but I’d say they were a good starter kit.”
On preferring either singles or tag team wrestling:
“I really enjoy wrestling, the creativity of it. I don’t want to be stuck doing one or two styles. I really want to learn everything there is and be the most versatile wrestler there is. I have to constantly be on the move, I get bored easily. I have to keep moving.”
On the formation of Bullet Club:
“The booker would see us hanging out with each other all day, every day [Balor, Anderson, himself & Fale]. When you’re out in a foreign country and we all speak English, of course we all have that thing in common. So you stick together, and we became best buds. The booker saw that and it made sense to put us together, and when we worked together we had a lot of fun.”
