Tama Tonga Explains Why He Has Been Absent From Appearing In AEW As A Part Of The NJPW/AEW Relationship

Tama Tonga discusses NJPW’s growth in the United States.

The current reigning IWGP NEVER Openweight Champion spoke about his loyalty to NJPW during a recent interview with Fightful. He begins by saying how much he enjoys seeing NJPW work with other companies in the industry.

That’s what I like, New Japan working well with others. We’ve always been team players and I love that face that, they know, coming to the States, this is not their territory. We like to play nice with everybody, just like when they come to Japan, hit us up, we’ll play nice with everybody. We’re good dudes, right? New Japan is good guys.It’s a great time. With everything that is happening in wrestling nowadays, it’s a great time to have [partnerships]. It’s a perfect time, especially with New Japan coming to this new market in America, why not have as many partnerships as you can to introduce yourself to a new market?

Tama later explains why he has been largely absent from NJPW’s working relationship with AEW, stating that other talents like Zack Sabre Jr. and Will Ospreay have been doing the leg work.

It is obvious. The focus with me has always been New Japan to America. We have other guys ahead of me, doing the leg work, like Will Ospreay and Zack Sabre. These guys, they love the crossover. Everybody knows that I’m a New Japan guy and I’ve always been committed to New Japan first and foremost, but here we are. This is a new stage, we’re doing new things. I don’t want to give out too much, but there is definitely a future there. We don’t want to shoot all our bullets all at once. New Japan plays the long game. So do I.

Elsewhere in the interview, Tama revealed details about his new NJPW contract and how WWE was interested in signing him and his brother, Tanga Loa. You can read about that here.