Mercedes Mone says working with NJPW is ‘a dream come true’

  • Ian Carey
  • By 

Mercedes Mone says that wrestling for NJPW will be “a dream come true.”

NJPW Battle in the Valley on Saturday will be Mone’s first match since a WWE house show on May 15, 2022. She challenges KAIRI for the IWGP Women’s Championship on the show. Monet was interviewed by Under the Ring recently and spoke about her decision to sign with New Japan. 

Mone said: 

This is such a huge honor for me. It made it a really easy decision to go to New Japan to help kick-start this Women’s division for this company. With New Japan being the biggest professional wrestling company in Japan, it was just an easy, easy decision.

I grew up watching New Japan, I grew up watching Pro Wrestling NOAH, and all these Japanese Women’s wrestling growing up. This was such an easy decision. It’s a dream come true for me and I think tomorrow night is just going to create so much magic and so much history for women’s wrestling. 

Mone was also asked about working with Stardom. 

They have some of the top, top, top wrestlers I have ever seen and I’m just excited to introduce the American audience to the style of Stardom women. I think just giving them the opportunity to show what they can do to a global scale of audience, it’s just going to open up the doors for women’s wrestling all over the world. I think they have the greatest wrestling, so I’m excited to be part of it and just to expand this broad of an audience to something they’ve never seen before. 

She continued to say of Stardom: 

I’m still a student of the game, I’m not done learning. I still want to wrestle the best, I still want to have the greatest matches of all time and I think with the Stardom women, I can do that. There’s so many women that I’ve been watching that I’m just like, wow, we can create magic. I can create magic with her, I can do something with her. I think, for this year, I am the most excited about my wrestling career than I’ve possibly ever been. 

NJPW Battle in the Valley takes place from The San Jose Civic on Saturday, February 18, at 10 p.m. Eastern time. It will air live via pay-per-view on FITE TV. The event is sold-out. The announced lineup is below: 

  • IWGP Women’s Championship: KAIRI (c) vs. Mercedes Mone
  • IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi
  • NJPW Strong Openweight Championship: Fred Rosser (c) vs. KENTA
  • NJPW Strong Tag Team Championship: Motor City Machine Guns (c) vs. World Class Wrecking Crew
  • NJPW World Television Championship: Zack Sabre Jr. (c) vs. Clark Connors
  • Eddie Kingston vs. Jay White
  • Filthy Rules: “Filthy” Tom Lawlor vs. Homicide – Loser Leaves NJPW
  • Mascara Dorada, Josh Alexander, Adrian Quest, and Rocky Romero vs. KUSHIDA, Kevin Knight, Volador Jr., and The DKC