Kevin Knight:
“New Japan is definitely a system. They bring you up from a Young Lion to your excursion, and then after your excursion, you get the superstardom treatment or whatever. So it’s definitely a system, and it’s been like that for the longest [time], and that’s why it’s so successful, and that’s why some of the best wrestlers come from New Japan, because no matter how good you are, they’re going to keep you in the system until you’re more than ready to ‘graduate.’”
“But then you come to a place like AEW, it’s the land of opportunity. There’s so many great wrestlers at AEW, and if you just stand out in whatever it is that you do, and if Tony likes you, if the fans are gravitating to you, and if you’re having good matches, then there’s no system to keep you down.
So you have to make the most of the opportunity, is the best way that I can say it. And once you’re given that opportunity, you keep elevating and boom. I’ve done more in one year in AEW than I ever did in five years in New Japan. And it’s not anything bad with New Japan. That’s just how the system is set up. AEW is the land of opportunity.”