Tama Tonga Discusses How NJPW Has Taken Care Of Talent During The Coronavirus Pandemic
Outside of WWE and AEW, nearly every other major promotion has gone dark during the coronavirus pandemic. Tama Tonga discussed how New Japan is taking care of its talent when he joined The Wrestling Inc Daily podcast.
"They are letting us stay home and be with our families and not coming into work, No. 1. No. 2, they are taking care of us by paying us to be at home during this hard time when the company's not making any money. That's really big. They're not firing any of us right now so I'm very grateful," stated Tonga before being asked about any potential plans of going back to work.
"I think we're just taking it month-by-month and week-by-week and adjusting. I think they've just put out that they've cancelled the Super Juniors until June. So, we're gonna go until June and see how the situation is. We're just taking it day-by-day and step-by-step."
Tonga has a new podcast called Tama's Island which is co-hosted by Ross Berman, a friend of Wrestling Inc's Nick Hausman. Tonga discussed working with Ross early on.
"I'm interested in people and you brought your friend Ross in and I asked him some questions to see who he is and what he does and what he's about. Real easy and simple. From that first meeting, I felt right and felt that things would come on naturally. Getting to work with somebody, you're gonna figure out how to mesh together and I think we figured that out pretty quick. It can only grow from there," said Tonga.
"When talking to Ross, I'm not talking just to talk. I want Ross to know me too and there will be times when I'm gonna pick his brain because I like to know who I'm talking to. As we get deeper in knowing each other in this relationship, it will get better. When I tell this information, it's not just for the fans as it's for Ross so we can mesh better."
On his podcast, Tonga's spoken about his early days in New Japan as a young boy and he says he wants fans to learn more about those times as they were defining moments of his career.
"I want that to be known to the world. It wasn't easy to get here and I want to inspire people that if I can make it, you can make it. I know we touched on the dojo, but I brought him back to what was right before the dojo. To me, the in-between is what's important to me and what's important to me to give out to the people. Nobody ever knows the in-between and that's what I wanna do," stated Tonga.
Tama Tonga's new podcast, Tama's Island, drops every Monday afternoon and can be found on iTunes HERE. For early access to Tama's Island content, and more, please visit the Tama's Island Patreon page HERE.
Tama's full interview with Wrestling Inc aired as part of a recent episode of our podcast, The Wrestling Inc. Daily. Subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as it's released Monday – Friday afternoon by clicking here.