Hirooki Goto's start in pro wrestling wasn't necessarily through reading magazines or watching it on television, but mainly video games.
The former NEVER Openweight Champion spoke with NJPW's official website and said he first got into pro wrestling thanks to the Fire Pro video game series, which released a majority of its games in Japan during the 1990s. From that point forward, he would go on to read wrestling magazines and watch a number of different promotions on television, such as Michinoku Pro and NJPW.
"Back then there wasn’t just All and New Japan, but I’d watch Michinoku Pro and a bunch of other promotions. The first stuff I watched was joshi wrestling, JWP. Actually, the first thing that got me into wrestling was videogames. It was all thanks to ‘Fire Pro,'" Goto said.
Goto's love for wrestling and how it was first introduced came back full circle when it was announced in 2018 that NJPW and Fire Pro Wrestling World would enter a partnership that will have prominent members of the NJPW roster, including Goto, be in the game.
Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp has done a couple of streams playing Fire Pro Wrestling World and you can check out the latest stream that he did of the game at this link.
