Tetsuya Naito is enjoying his time as the double IWGP Heavyweight & Intercontinental Champion, but he hopes that he doesn't have to defend both titles each time he is in a title defense.
During an interview with NJPW, Naito was asked about a past conversation with Kazuchika Okada who said he only wanted to be Heavyweight Champion and had no interest in the other belt. Naito then talked about wanting to defend one title in each title defense instead of both belts at the same time.
"Heheh. I think it’s awesome, isn’t it? He has never once shifted from that position, from that obsession with the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. I really do respect that. And I think it’s a good thing to have different stances and different viewpoints being put out there. It’s good to have guys that think there should only be one belt," Naito said. "I mean, I think I should only be putting one belt on the line. Maybe the company should listen to that and rethink everything? Do we really need to be running these double title defenses into the ground?"
Although NJPW has never had someone hold both the IWGP Heavyweight & Heavyweight titles, WWE has experimented with double champions on a number of occasions in the past. Two recent examples were Seth Rollins as WWE and United States Champion and Becky Lynch as Raw and SmackDown Women's Champions and the two did have to defend each belt in separate matches instead of defending both belts each match.
When it comes to NJPW, Naito believes that should be the standard for his double championship reign. Naito argues that if he's defending both belts in every title defense, then there's not much of a point to holding two different championships.
"If every defense I have is going to be for both titles, then what’s the point of having two titles? Why not unify them at that point? Maybe that’s a conversation that we have, but for the time being there are two titles, so why not use them both? I think it should be fine to defend one title belt at a time," Naito said.
You can check out the interview at this link.
