Shane Haste wants to make this year’s World Tag League in New Japan Pro-Wrestling a Mighty one.
Before Shane Thorne became Slapjack, he was in a tag team in NXT with Mikey Nicholls, then known as Nick Miller. When they were a tag team, they even made it to the finals of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic in 2016.
Eventually, Nicholls left WWE and decided to return to New Japan, and now, with Shane Haste also working for New Japan, he is hopeful that they can enter this year’s World Tag League.
Speaking with Andrew Thompson of POST Wrestling, Shane had this to say about performing on NJPW Strong.
“Our illustrious New Japan career that everyone remembers. I had one match [Haste laughed]. I had one match in [New] Japan. Mikey [Nicholls] had the few and he trained at the New Japan L.A. Dojo so him coming back to New Japan was a huge, like a real cool, huge thing. For me, it just was that’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to go and do a serious run at and then seeing how well JONAH’s been doing there and I’d go along to the shows and hang out and man, the vibe there, this atmosphere, the crowds, it’s awesome. I love it,” he said.
Regarding entering the World Tag League, Shane said that that is his goal. He also mentioned that he wants to see other pairings of the former stable known as The Mighty Don’t Kneel
“Yeah man, that’s our goal, that’s the goal. TMDK, me and Mikey [Nicholls], I’d love to see us in it [World Tag League]. I’d love to see other versions of TMDK as well; JONAH, Slex, Marcius Pitt, Damian Slater, we got Hartley Jackson, Kane Broadrick. We got some good members in that and I’ve said this many, many times, my goal now is to get — well I mean, stabilize myself and get my spot but to bring as many of those TMDK guys over, get them exposed on that national, international level of Japan where they deserve respect that they’ve — they’ve earned respect and deserve to be shown it in pro wrestling, where sometimes you know, you come to America and it’s a different kind of show, a different kind of vibe but in Japan, there’s so much more respect with it and I really want those boys to have a feel of that even if it’s just one tour, you know what I mean? That would be awesome because a lot of them have their jobs and their families and they’re pretty set in Perth. Like man, the world’s gonna open back up, Perth’s a direct flight to Tokyo, it’d be sick. So yeah, I wanna see all of TMDK at the Tokyo Dome.”
SEE MORE: Shane Haste (Slapjack) Says T-BAR Encouraged His ‘Crocodile Dundee’ Character
