Top NJPW Star Clark Connors spoke with Fightful on a variety of topics such as how his involvement at the AEW and NJPW Forbidden Door Event came about shortly following Tomohiro Ishii's injury and how he did a pretty good job in making a first impression and making new fans in the U.S. and in AEW as well as getting new eyes on himself and the NJPW product.
Clark Connors said:
“I think that they found out Ishii was injured. If Forbidden Door’s on Sunday, then they found out on Thursday, told me on Friday and I was out the door on Saturday morning. So I had no idea. I found out, actually, maybe fifteen to thirty minutes before everybody else did on Twitter or whatever the release was. They were like, ‘Clark, can you go?’ ‘Yep.’ ‘Alright, you’re going,’ and then boom, they just announced it. So not a lot of time to think about it, not a lot of time to prepare. Which, I think for me, was a good thing. Because I was just focused on getting to America and making sure I had my gear basically. The wrestling part, for me, is the easy part. I knew that I could fit in to wherever I needed to. I knew the expectations are very low. Loved that. I love it when you have low expectations and you can just jump over them. So I used that to my advantage as well. I think it went well. Obviously I would like to win. Who wouldn’t like to win? But in terms of making a first impression and making new fans, getting new eyes on myself and the New Japan product. Think I did a pretty good job with that.”
Clark Connors also spoke about how the 4-Way Matchup was cool and how there’s parts of the match that he liked because he wasn't getting his ass kicked the whole time and there were parts that was better than others.
Clark Connors said:
“Yeah, no, it was cool. Those guys are all, obviously, phenomenal wrestlers. They’ve been doing it forever. To get in there and then there’s obviously there’s parts of the match that I liked because I was not getting my ass kicked the whole time, and then parts that were better than others. I knew that no matter what you know you’re in something pretty fun and will leave an impact on someone. So feeling that in there and feeling it in there with guys who know what the hell they were doing was that much better.”
You can check out Clark Connors' full comments in the video below. H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes.
