It’s About the Moments: An Interview with GHC Heavyweight Champion Shane Haste

By: Ian McCord

Shane Haste began his professional wrestling career in 2003 in Western Australia, and over the past two decades has honed his craft wrestling for almost every major promotion in the world. In 2026, his career reached new heights when he returned to Pro Wrestling NOAH and won the GHC Heavyweight Championship.

Throughout his career Haste has been a major fixture on the international tag team scene as a member of TDMK with long time partner Mikey Nicholls, becoming tag team champions in NOAH and NJPW. Since returning to NOAH back in April, Haste has been a singles competitor, representing KENTA’s White Raven Squad as the man standing atop the Ark with the Global Honored Crowns most prestigious prize.

Haste is set to defend the GHC Heavyweight Title again on June 25th, against White Raven Squad stablemate Tetsuya Endo at LEGACY RISE 2026 at Korakuen Hall.

Monthly puroresu caught up with Shane Haste for an interview to discuss winning the GHC Heavyweight Title, how he got involved with NOAH back in 2011, and the importance of confidence.

Monthly Puroresu:

Congratulations on becoming the 50th GHC heavyweight champion.

Shane Haste:

Cheers, Thank you. 50th winner, but there’s multiple time champions, so I don’t know, cause 50 is pretty impressive, but out of how many people have been two-time or three-time champions, the number is actually a lot less, it’s a lot more exclusive than even 50.

Monthly Puroresu:

It’s an exclusive championship when you look back at the lineage.

Shane Haste:

Yeah, definitely.

Monthly Puroresu:

You’re the third foreigner to hold the championship?

Shane Haste:

Yes. Eddie Edwards and Wagner Jr. I should say Dr. Wagner, he didn’t go through medical school just to be called Mr. Wagner Jr. right?

Monthly Puroresu:

That’s right! You had mentioned before your match with Inamura that winning the GHC Heavyweight title would be a dream come true for you. Does it feel that way now that it has become a reality?

Shane Haste:

Some days. Before the match that’s when it was the most emotional, after it, I was like, thank God we got through that. I just wanted to really do good. I didn’t realize when I first went over to Japan that it was the Ryogoku and Main Event at Ryogoku, you know what I mean? I didn’t know.

There’s a lot of things I didn’t really know until earlier that week or when I returned and challenged Inamura, then I came backstage and did the press stuff and they’re like, how do you feel about main eventing Ryogoku? I’m like, what? really? That’s a lot of pressure, especially to someone returning after 10 years. And then just be thrown into not just a main event title match, but the main event of Sumo Hall Ryogoku. I was like, that’s a lot of faith put in me. So I have to do everything I can to live up to that.

Monthly Puroresu:

Your first defense of the championship was against KENTA, did it feel like a full circle moment considering you challenged him for the title back in 2013?

Shane Haste:

We don’t really know what’s going on until a couple days before the match. I have ideas for things to do and whatnot, but I don’t know what’s happening with it, I’m a bit oblivious. I just go with the flow. I don’t really know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m going to do, it’s not until we’re actually doing stuff, do I really know what’s happening. But in saying that, yeah, it was full circle, but also coming into that match I didn’t really have a lot of ideas.

Again, the first one, the title match with Inamura, I’ll give him some credit too, man, he’s pretty good. He’s so good. We were just on the same page with what we wanted to get outta that match with where we were on the card compared to the matches beforehand. You had OZAWA and Naito on the card a few matches before us, and OZAWA’s style is a lot more of a modern style. Then we had the Jr. Heavyweight title match after, which was just gonna be nuts. Crazy, just nonstop movements and such impressive athleticism that I’m like, we have to do something different.

It very much helps having the stakes of the title in the match, but there’s things that we can’t really plan as pro wrestlers and that’s the emotion going into it and the feeling, it’s like, we have ideas, but sometimes they just fall flat. But both Inamura and KENTA were on the same page as me without having to really talk about it. Like the first half of KENTA and I’s Match we just felt it out there and, I was like, we’ll see what happens, and it was perfect. Those two matches I’ll never watch ’em back because I loved it so much out there. I don’t need to see it again, because I’ll probably end up hating it.

Monthly Puroresu:

Both matches were very impressive. Especially in the match with KENTA, you guys go outside and do all the stuff with the chairs, compared to the match with Inamura it felt like two different chapters. Inamura’s time in NXT seems like it has helped him be able to wrestle anyone.

Shane Haste:

Yes and to be expressive outside of the ring. I think that’s important, especially when you’re in a main event title match and you’re given unlimited time, that very much helps to slow things down and project beyond the guardrail, which is a big thing. When I teach, what I try to instill in people, and it’s such an old wrestler thing where they’re like, it’s not about the moves, it’s about the moments.

You can add those moments and plan for them, but if you can’t emote beyond the guardrail, then those moments mean nothing. Inamura definitely has that personality that explodes past the guardrail and the bigger the venue you’re in, the bigger that expression needs to be, it needs to go all the way to the back.

I’ve watched him coming up before he went to NOAH, and he always had personality, and then going to America and finding more of himself, now he just explodes personality.

Monthly Puroresu:

So for most of your career it’s been TMDK all day, but it seems you’ve taken a side quest joining the White Raven Squad?

Shane Haste:

White Raven Squad was my way back into NOAH, and you can’t say no to joining a team with KENTA. You know what I mean? That’s the coolest thing. It’s a cool squad, cool logo, and It’s a cool name. I’m down for cool man.

I kinda had a real low last year, 2025, I didn’t really do much. I was just constantly waiting for New Japan bookings that never came. But going into 2026 I was like, I’m just going to wrestle for me. I just gotta make the most of it and whatever comes along.

I’m TMDK, I’m White Raven Squad, I’m me, I’m Shane Haste, and my number one focus is me.

Monthly Puroresu:

Do you feel like this is a new chapter in your career being a part of White Raven Squad, doing something a little different, focusing on yourself?

Shane Haste:

Yeah. I’d say the new chapter is more me focusing on me more than being in a team, more than being TMDK, more than being White Raven Squad, it’s mostly about me. You know, I’m in White Raven Squad and all I keep fighting is White Raven Squad guys.

Monthly Puroresu:

A change from all of the TEAM 2000X matches there were during Inamura’s title reign.

Shane Haste:

I was watching all of his title defenses and especially those ones, I’m like, I don’t want to do anything like that, I barely wanted to go out of the ring. I went out of the ring a little bit, but I didn’t want to use anything like weapons and whatnot. That stuff with KENTA was different. That’s the thing like he understands we are older. We wrestled each other 13 years ago in that last title match, right?

Then NOAH put that title match up for free online, and I’m like, why would you do that? I love the Match. I’m very proud of it. But people are gonna watch that and go like, well, where’s all this stuff?

I can’t do the Second Rock album. I literally can’t, I’ve tried it on lighter people. I don’t have the energy and ability to do that stuff anymore, and neither does KENTA, so we had to take different approaches to things. We used a bit more of the outside and things like that, but I definitely wanted to make sure none of the weapon usage or anything like that was intentional. It was all reactionary.

So me going onto the chairs was because the chairs happened to be there. I mean, I did put the chairs in a pile, but they happened to already be on the floor. So it was taking advantage of a situation that’s already there, where TEAM 2000X goes out and grabs a chair and brings it in.

Monthly Puroresu:

It translated well. Your two title matches are very good, they stand out!

Shane Haste:

Thank you. It’s giving me confidence in myself that I had lost over the years of just doing things other people’s way. The biggest thing in wrestling that makes you good is confidence.

There’s some people who aren’t the best wrestlers in the world, not the strongest characters, but they’re confident and whatever they do in the ring, you’re like, that is great. ’cause they’re confident, right? Confidence is a big thing to help you be a good professional wrestler.

Monthly Puroresu:

Self-confidence is huge!

Shane Haste:

I’ve got friends who are standup comedians so I go watch ’em and you watch the acts before who are newer people who aren’t very confident and they’ll just spurt off joke after joke after joke, and they get a bit of a laugh. But someone with confidence on a stage, especially standup comedy, they don’t really need to tell that many jokes. You wanna laugh because you’re like, that person’s confident, I believe what they’re saying. So yeah, confidence man, it translates for everything.

Monthly Puroresu:

I agree! Shifting gears and going back in time a little bit, you debuted for Pro Wrestling NOAH in 2011. You and Mikey Nicholls had your first match against each other. How did you guys get involved with NOAH?

Shane Haste:

So we went to the Harley Race camp and there were scouts there from Pro Wrestling NOAH. We’d come from Perth and were at the top of Australian wrestling, we were doing stuff in LA and kind of killing it there but not spending a lot of time there. So it was hard to get the ball rolling And then we got to this point where we needed to move, we needed to get somewhere else. We needed to go to Japan, to America, the WWE or whoever.

We had heard the Harley Race camp usually had someone from New Japan, someone from NOAH and someone from WWE represented. So we’re like, a training camp, are we gonna pay to do a training camp? That’s a bit of a step backwards, but you gotta step back to then take a bigger step forward. And it’s not a step backwards at all, learning from Harley Race is not a step backwards ever. Especially when you have a whole week of it.

So we did that camp, unfortunately it was the first camp after his wife had passed away and I guess she did a lot of the organizing. We had a friend who had gone maybe two years before and there were about 50 people there, and another friend had gone another time and there were like 50 people there. Go Shiozaki was there and Takeshi Morishima was there. That’s all I remember, but they’d have people from NOAH.

Our camp had eight people, no one from New Japan represented, no one from WWE represented, just two guys from New Japan and NOAH. They weren’t even wrestlers, it was just some office guys, one of them was from the NOAH Hawaii office. In the five years I was in NOAH, I saw him twice and I’m like, oh, this guy doesn’t really have much of a say in anything.

But we were impressed enough. It was funny ’cause they had a show at the end of the week or two week training camp, and they’re like, yeah, we’ll put you guys on the show, you just need to go get your blood work done and get your wrestling license. We’re like, oh, how much is that? They’re like, about 250 bucks. I’m like, well, how much do we get paid for the show? And they’re saying, like, 50 bucks, and we’re like, no, we’re good.

So we were the only ones in the camp who didn’t do the show and were the only ones who got anything from it. So that’s confidence. You have to have confidence in yourself when to say no, we were also dirt poor, we couldn’t afford to lose $250 to make $50.

We’d stuck around in Eldon, Missouri for a while with some friends of ours. We went to talk to Harley after the camp and we’re like, we’re just gonna drive to Florida and knock on the FCW door. Harley was like, wait, wait, I’m gonna call them. So for about a week or week and a half, two weeks, Harley called WWE everyday, and eventually he got through and he ended up getting us a paid, flown out tryout. So that was really cool. We got flown out to Florida, put up in a real nice hotel, did a week tryout there, got paid like a thousand bucks or 500 bucks or something like that as well.

Never heard anything back from it, which you know, it was definitely a favor to Harley, but like, I’ll take it, man. It did give us a good idea that the WWE is a machine and it’s a TV show that can make anyone look good and make anyone a star. But the guys at FCW at the time, they were massive. Everyone was just huge. We were like, okay we need to kind of get a little bit bigger before we come here. Austin Creed was there, Roman Reigns was still there, Seth Rollins, EC3, Big E was there. There was a good diverse group of people. Alex Koslov, who Mikey was friends with from back in the New Japan LA Dojo days.

They had us work merchandise for one of the little Orlando shows, which was pretty funny to then come full circle, come back around and then be NXT talent and work that venue again, but as a wrestler, not merch, which is hilarious.

They’re like, it’s a trust thing, they’re trying to test you with trust, and I’m like, I’m not gonna slip myself a 20 from WWE, that’s insane. People must have done it in the past.

But that was a good thing. Then we come back to Australia in the meantime and we’re still talking to someone from WWE who I cannot remember the life of me, who it was. I feel like it was just a receptionist because they seemed keen, but they didn’t seem to have any power over anything.

Then we did another tryout in Melbourne, I think it was 2010 still and they denied us and then just out of nowhere got a call from NOAH. They’re like, Hey, we wanna bring you over on a three month traineeship, are you keen? We’re like, we gotta go with what’s a definite thing, rather than sitting here waiting for a maybe.

So yeah, that’s how that came about. Then we just came over on a trainee kind of scholarship. They told us we would probably have some matches, but wouldn’t be on every show or might not even have any matches. You’re just here to be a young boy. After about a week we got on a show and wrestled each other.

Monthly Puroresu:

That’s awesome. Was there anyone at the NOAH Dojo who taught you something important that had nothing to do with wrestling moves at all?

Shane Haste:

Yeah, definitely, Naomichi Marufuji. Our first match, we went out there and Mikey did a shooting star, I did a dive, and we did everything we could do in under 10 minutes. The crowd just sat there and didn’t care. When we came back and asked Marufuji, how was it? And he is like, nah, no good, And we’re like, oh, why? He says, the crowd here wanna see you grow from something, they wanna see you start off small and then come up.

So the next match we had, we just wrestled for a while and then eventually Mikey beat me with a Boston crab or a half crab or something, and the crowd loved it. So yeah, his advice to start small and grow big is great. That helped. Japanese matches start small and then grow up to the peak rather than the western style match where it’s up and down, up and down. So yeah, rather than the moves, it was more of the thought towards the match and how to build it.

Wrestling guys like Go Shiozaki and Akiyama San very much helped with the pacing of matches. Just being out there with Akiyama seeing how chill he is. We’d do stuff on the floor and you just chill and you give things time to settle in.

We had one match and he gave me a piledriver on the floor and I’m like, the hell, this is like a finisher. So he just waited, let me recover a little bit and then he slowly focused back on that rather than stacking a bunch of stuff on it to then make the move seem weak. Just that pacing and the confidence, that confidence to like believe in what you’re doing is right.

Monthly Puroresu:

Other than NOAH you’ve worked NJPW and pretty much every US promotion, WWE, AEW, Ring of Honor, MLW and TNA as well?

Shane Haste:

TNA. Yeah. I feel everywhere but Mexico, I’ve not been to Mexico yet. I’ve only done one match in Europe and that was a New Japan match anyway, so that wasn’t really much of a European experience.

Monthly Puroresu:

Do you think what you learned in the NOAH Dojo helped you translate your style to all the other promotions you’ve worked for?

Shane Haste:

I think it’s all a mix. The experience of working everywhere, doing Japanese style, wrestling in small independent promotions throughout America, working in Australia, to TV show matches in Japan, and doing America TV at all the different levels. It’s important to relax and be diverse. Knowing where you are and taking a step back and finding what the goal is for your matches and knowing what the different crowds want to see.

Having experience everywhere helps but you actually have to take that experience in. ’cause some people will work everywhere, but they’ll just be oblivious to what they’re doing and just be trying to be themselves everywhere. You know what I mean? It’s like, well, you’re best to take a second and think about where you are, how that reaction went and think, well, maybe I won’t do that next time, kind of thing.

Monthly Puroresu:

Is it adapting to your surroundings essentially?

Shane Haste:

That’s it. It’s adapting, but also just taking a second to acknowledge where you are and what happened and take mental notes and give feedback on yourself. Not just “did I hit that move right?” or “Was I in the correct spot for that sequence?” Blah, blah, blah. But rather, did it get a reaction?

If I’m on a show with like Ricochet and Will Ospreay, is my little flippy combo going to really mean anything? No, because then they’re gonna go out there and do it way better. So I gotta think of something that’s gonna make me stand out that someone else later on in the show or before me isn’t gonna do better.

There’s gonna be power wrestlers and high flyers on every show, but there’s only gonna be one of you on the show. So regardless of the moves and the moments, what is you as a person, a character, personality, what’s the one thing that you’ve got? And you have something because you are the only you.

Monthly Puroresu:

That makes a lot of sense. Since you’ve been back, are there any younger members of the NOAH roster that have caught your attention?

Shane Haste:

Yeah, definitely. There’s such a new crop of people. Inamura is definitely one, and now I’ve had the pleasure of working with him at the highest point that you can. The next one is OZAWA. I definitely wanna get in there with OZAWA. It’s hard because I didn’t know him before, I’d only seen him in a few things and he blurs the line between the person and the character. I don’t spend time with him, so I don’t really know if that’s what he’s really like. So yeah, I do wanna get in there with him, especially when he did that poll thing.

Monthly Puroresu:

Oh yeah.

Shane Haste:

And they won and I’m like, up yours, man. Now I really wanna ragdoll him.

Monthly Puroresu:

That’s a match I’d love to see.

Shane Haste:

Yeah, that’s definitely one, and then Kaito. We’ve touched a little bit, but never a singles match. He’s been on my list, he’s been on my hit list. I was there when he joined the Dojo. He joined NOAH a couple months before Mikey and I left the first time, so we never got to see him debut, and all I’ve seen is him skyrocket from there. So yeah, put him down as well.

Monthly Puroresu:

Kaito Kiyomiya is definitely someone to look out for, he’s doing his thing right now, but it’s only a matter of time before he comes looking for a title shot.

Shane Haste:

I welcome it.

Monthly Puroresu:

If you could defend the GHC title against any star from the past or present, who would you defend it against and why?

Shane Haste:

Kenta Kobashi. That’s probably the top of everyone’s list. I was gonna make a joke about that after the KENTA match, saying that I had one more dream and it was to face Kenta Kobashi for this title. Then, ’cause it would’ve got a great reaction from the crowd I’d say, well, I guess that’s not gonna happen, but maybe one day I’ll learn fluent Japanese and I can face him in a talk battle. But that’s probably not gonna happen either.

Monthly Puroresu:

Maybe KENTA can translate that for you.

Shane Haste:

The whole thing, yeah. The likelihood of me finally learning Japanese fluently after 15 years from going there isn’t high.

Monthly Puroresu:

I’m on day 300 and something on Duolingo and I feel like I’m still on day one sometimes, so I totally understand.

Shane Haste:

People ask, “how do you not know Japanese yet?” And I’m like, I can hear it. When it’s spoken I can hear it and I can read little parts of it, but every time I go to speak it, I’ve such an accent that they don’t understand it. Then I’ll show them on Google translate and then they’ll say the exact same thing back to me, and I’m like, it’s all accent. That’s kind of what put me off learning it more. I’m pretty good at just giving up straight away.

Monthly Puroresu:

What’s a match you’ve lost that you’re more proud of than certain matches that you’ve won?

Shane Haste:

That would’ve been the KENTA match back 13 years ago for sure. That was the one I was very proud of. I’ve probably got a lot of those matches, to be fair. I have lost a lot.

Some of the matches we had with the Dangan Yankees [Masato Tanaka & Takashi Sugiura]. We had I think four matches, but we had definitely had three GHC Tag title matches against them and won the titles on the last one. But the other two went longer and I think they had even more in it.

So for those matches, I like them more than the one that we won. When we won it was a shorter match. We just got to the point a bit quicker, the other ones had drawn out moments and whatnot, so probably those.

I’m trying to think of anything in NXT or WWE, but I don’t even know. We had one in Melbourne against DIY. We had a title match which we should have won. We could have lost it the next week back on in NXT, Like, come on man.

Monthly Puroresu:

Title reigns seem like they can be very political at times.

Shane Haste:

I get it. Back then it was black and gold. It was more protected. Like, there were not many people who became the NXT champion. Asuka had the women’s title forever, you know what I mean?

So it was a thing back then where they didn’t bounce the titles around like how they do now. Which I mean, especially in NXT, when you’re trying to build new stars, the quickest and easiest way to do that is to throw a title on them. Whether they’re really good or not, especially in developmental, you should be spotlighting people with titles.

There should be a chance for everyone to win a title in developmental, which I mean, they’re trying to say that NXT isn’t developmental anymore, but It still is. It’s still a place where everyone should be on a level where anyone could win it.

Then when they come up to Raw or SmackDown, they can say, well this person, they won the NXT Tag Titles, and it tells fans’ like, ooh, okay, they could win a title again. It automatically helps.

You know what, so yeah, give us the titles. Just retroactively, give us the NXT tag titles.

Monthly Puroresu:

It does so much like you said, even if it’s for a week. Look at a guy like Matt Cardona for example, his Intercontinental title win was a pivotal point in his career and he only held it for a day, but he still can say was a champion.

Shane Haste:

Isn’t Mick Foley the same?

Monthly Puroresu:

I believe so!

Shane Haste:

He won it on a pay-per-view then lost it on Raw the next day or something.

Monthly Puroresu:

I think it was the WWF Championship.

Shane Haste:

But he’s still a world champion.

Monthly Puroresu:

You can write it on your resume, right?

Shane Haste:

That’s it. They can’t take that away from you. I guess they can, but still.

Monthly Puroresu:

My last question is non-wrestling related. What does Shane Haste like to do in his free time?

Shane Haste:

Nothing. Literally nothing. I work out, walk my dogs, take couch naps and watch tv. I love TV. Big TV guy. You know, I’m an older millennial. We grew up in front of the TV. Also hanging out with my wife and my dogs. I’m very low key. I like eating out, going to restaurants and stuff like that.

I like staying local. I live in LA, there’s just so much stuff around that I can just walk to. And I’m moving soon to another area that’s just gonna be new things to see. But yeah, I like staying local. I’m also a big fan of staying in.

Monthly Puroresu would like to extend our sincere gratitude to Shane Haste for this interview.