MAO Believes His Entry Into The NJPW BOSJ Will Make Everyone At DDT Pro-Wrestling Work Harder

By: Lewis Carlan

The New Japan Pro-Wrestling Best Of Super Jrs 32 tournament is set to kick off on May 10th in Chiba. One of the high profile debuts in this year’s tournament is DDT Pro-Wrestling superstar MAO.

MAO is 28 years and has been a mainstay of DDT Pro since 2015. He has held numerous championships during his tenure with the promotion including the DDT Universal Championship on three separate occasions and holding the KO-D Tag Team Championship an impressive five times.

The DDT Pro star is excited about his immediate future as he will be making his NJPW BOSJ tournament debut in two days. MAO has been waiting for this opportunity for quite some time and he will look to have an impressive showing during the tournament.

In a new interview out now on the NJPW website, MAO discussed his upcoming participation in the BOSJ 32 competition.

MAO was asked how the reception has been to his BOSJ entry. He indicated that fans have been constantly wishing him good luck. In addition, MAO feels his BOSJ entry will make talent at DDT Pro work harder.

From MAO:

”Everywhere I go, every signing, people have been wishing me luck. I definitely feel the expectation from the people. And I want to show to the young talent in DDT that this is a possibility for them. I go overseas a lot, and it makes me proud that now younger guys in DDT want to give that a shot. Now there’s the possibility for them to go into BOSJ as well, and that’s gonna make everyone in DDT work harder.”

MAO credited his Moonlight Express tag team partner “Speedball” Mike Bailey, who participated in BOSJ 30, for making him believe that he could be an entrant in the tournament one day as well:

“I mean, every year I thought I’d like to be in it someday, but what really got me was when Mike Bailey did it. We’d teamed together all that time, and he was the closest guy to me, career wise. Then for him to be in BOSJ and making an impact. I went to the first night in Korakuen- you can see me on camera (laughs). If my partner could make it happen, I wanted to make it happen for me. And it was around this time that NJPW and DDT started working more closely together.

MAO will have his first official BOSJ match on May 11th as he faces AEW’s Kevin Knight in Miyagi.

All tournament cards can be viewed live on NJPW World streaming service.

(Featured Photo Credit: NJPW)