 | HAVANA PITBULLS AT INOKI DOJO 01/10/03 |
 | Please tell us about yourselves, and how you two met and became tag partners.
ROCKY: We met in Havana as close family friends. I moved out here in L.A. when I was 10 and Ricky was 13. We both had interest in pro-wrestling and started amateur wrestling and grappling training. We found a wrestling school in San Bernandino and took it from there. That was in 1997.
Were you both always pro-wrestling fans?
RICKY/ROCKY: Always, always, always.
ROCKY: We used to watch pro-wrestling in Havana. In Puerto Rico, we had programs like WCW, etc.
Did you have any favorite wrestlers?
ROCKY: Bruiser Brody! Abdullah the Butcher. Those were probably the two most favorites.
Both of you?
RICKY: Yeah, we never liked the good guys, we always liked the bad guys.
ROCKY: I was a big WWF fan, I didn't like WCW. British Bulldog was a great influence on us, especially Dynamite Kid. He was just awesome, probably the best wrestler I'd ever seen.
RICKY: We followed their careers to Japan, and Japanese pro-wrestling influenced us to be better pro-wrestlers as far as wrestling is concerned. Not really the acting part or the comical type of things they do in the ring. We noticed that the crowds appreciate pro-wrestling as a sport and not as an entertainment.
ROCKY: We've got Japanese videos, and the first match we saw was Sayama's original Tiger Mask and Dynamite Kid. That completely changed what we had been seeing..... The greatest wrestling we'd ever seen, and after that, our focus wasn't about watching WWF but was watching more of Dynamite, more of Tiger. And we would trade tapes at our wrestling school.
Did you know about Mr. Inoki?
RICKY/ROCKY: Oh yeah, definitely.
ROCKY: Mr. Inoki has been a huge impact in sport in general all over the world. As long as I can remember, I always knew who he was.
RICKY: In every lockerroom, everyone looks up to him. His brand of pro-wrestling has always seemed to be on another level. Everyone who we ever met has joked about going to Japan because then they'd have to learn how to "WRESTLE." You've got to be a wrestler, an athlete, and a fighter in NJPW. It's a whole new world, that's the difference black and white, wrestling in America and wrestling in Japan.
How did you get to know about this dojo?
ROCKY: In 2000, Justin and we were all working in UPW with Rick Bassman. We wrestled Justin a few times and became friends outside the ring. He informed us of making the dojo, so we just kept on bugging him to tell him that we were interested.
RICKY: We helped to load the ring in here the first day. Ever since then we've been here, from the start.
How's the training here, compaired to other gyms, schools or dojo you've been to?
ROCKY: You have the best fighters in different types of style coming here to train. World's best jiu-jitsu guys are here, best wrestlers in America. We've got kick boxers and boxing trainers, guys who fight in pride and UFC. All of them are coming here to INOKI DOJO, we're learning from all of them. So I think this place is the world's number one training facility right now. People come here to train different techniques and styles, the guys who have been benefiting the most are the guys who come here everyday. American Dragon, Jack Bull, Pinoi Boy and us who just started are learning so much because they are just throwing so much at us.
RICKY: It's hard to come in here and not learn something. You're interested in doing something and you see it happen in front of you. You have your mind set, it's done a certain way and done by somebody who knows what they are doing. You'll learn it that much faster, that much better. You'll want to learn that technique that way.
So, how long did it take you two to wrestle in the series in Japan after coming here to the INOKI DOJO?
RICKY: About three months.
That's what both of you wanted right?
RICKY/ROCKY: Yeah!
ROCKY: Going over there was the biggest experience of our lives. Our goal was set when we first saw Dynamite Kid and Tiger Mask. We said to each other that we didn't want to wrestle in WWF but in NJPW. We didn't want to go anywhere else as long as we went to NJPW first, we didn't care.
Do you like the strong style wrestling which Mr. Inoki created?
RICKY/ROCKY: Yes.
There's more ground work in Strong Style wrestling. The American audience may not understand it?
RICKY: That's because there's more technique involved, and when they don't understand what's going on, they think the wrestlers are just laying on each other. There's so much science involved and of course it's fascinating when you are in it. You see things done so perfectly, it makes you want to be that way and perfect the technique. It will take time but we will teach the audience and they will gradually get used to it.Continued to the next page --> Other Interviews |
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