Editing The True Tall Tales of Talos by Jack Talos is a joy to read, and it’s not often that one can say they work on a column written by a seven-foot wrestling giant. So, after sending a message inquiring about the status of his upcoming column, Talos told Slamwrestling.net he had something big to talk about. Naturally, we wanted to hear what’s on the mind of a man living large (literally) in and out of the ring for All Japan Pro Wrestling.
We spoke to Talos via ZOOM early on Monday morning from the All Japan dojo. “I’m actually just getting done with [a] match early tonight,” he said. “It’s the last match before the championship in Chiba, Tokyo.”
Talos will be facing Kento Miyahara on January 25th for the Triple Crown heavyweight title. This historic title had been held by wrestling legends like Kenta Kobashi, The Great Muta, and even gaijin like Big Van Vader and Stan Hansen.
As for how Talos got a title shot, let’s say he can be persuasive.
“It’s going to come out in the column anyway,” Talos said. “Me and Ayabe [Ren]… we called out Kento Miyahara at Korakeun Hall after the New Year’s Eve battles, and long story short, we strong-armed it into it.
“He didn’t want to do it. He openly said he only wanted to wrestle junior heavyweights, and you know, guys in his [weight class] in regular heavyweights, and he never wanted to wrestle a super heavyweight for this belt,” he explained. “But you know, if you’re going to be the champion, you’ve got to take on all comers. And the reality is, he didn’t want to do it, but he spent a couple of minutes with his feet off the ground in the air, with the two hands around his throat, and he changed his tune real fast.”
🗓️1月25日(日)17:00
幕張メッセ国際展示場 ホール4◆三冠ヘビー級選手権試合◆
【第76代王者】
宮原健斗
vs
【挑戦者】
タロース#プロレス#ajpwhttps://t.co/NKhj94JLnPpic.twitter.com/4xOhAYWSna— 宮原健斗 (@KentoMiyahara) January 7, 2026
Again, Talos can be persuasive when he chooses to be, and we’ll let him tell more of the story when the time comes.
That did bring up the question of what things sometimes don’t make it into his column. “There’s some stuff I leave out, right? Because there are multiple reasons,” he explained on his writing process, “Whether it be culturally, whether it be not to give away the business. I know people say kayfabe’s dead, but I don’t believe that all the time.
“The kind of column that I do is the personal stories that kind of come alongside it; as you’re traveling, as you’re doing all this, and the people you meet,” Talos continued, “and you don’t get a whole lot of chance to really let people know those stories, because there’s so much to cover in each column. It’s more about the experiences outside of it, man.
“I could say there’s one thing I’d like to focus on. It would probably be more like the people involved,” he concluded. “Like, you know, the fans. Man, I never talk enough about the fans here in Japan. But they are in a class of their own. It’s all I can ever say about them.”
So, the fans there can be tribal with All Japan and New Japan and points in between, like in America?
“I’d say there’s no vitriol. First and foremost, there’s none of that divide like you’d see with WCW used to be back in the day with WWF or like even modern day WWE,” Talos said. “There’s none of that like, ‘Oh, this promotions better.’ Like, if you’re a fan of Shin Nihan [New Japan], you’re probably a fan of Zen Nihan [All Japan] as well. Same way you’re probably a fan of [Pro Wrestling] Noah, and you’ve probably gone to one of the events.
“Some promotions are bigger than others,” he admitted. “But like I said, the difference there being is they’re fans of all their wrestling here and some styles.”
Plus, a man of Talos’s size and height is impressive to say the least, as he has written about it before in his column.
“Well, yeah. I mean, like even in America [or] wherever I go in the world, the reality is, I’m probably the biggest person a lot of the people that are seeing me have ever seen in their life,” he chuckled. “But yeah, it’s definitely a little bit more over here.”
“Again, that’s one of the things that I like to put out here,” Talos explained on writing his column. “So, they’re in awe, they’re shocked; but they’re such a polite people that as long as you’re respectful, they’re respectful all the time.”
Plus, his column gets some traction, too. “So I get a lot, actually, of the fans hitting me up about the column here in Japan. So I share it all the time on ‘X’ [formerly Twitter], and that’s kind of their main medium here. They don’t use Instagram, [sometimes] Facebook a little bit, but ‘X’ is really their main platform for news and keeping up with the people and stuff. I get a lot of feedback about it, like they found out what I like to eat while I’m here, what I like to do while I’m here. They come and ask me about it. They give me advice like, ‘Oh, you should try this,’ or ‘You should go to this place,’ you know? They’ve been, they’ve been super responsive to it. ”
Respect is a big thing, especially with his Titans of Calamity tag partner, Ren Ayabe. Talos has already covered much of how he and Ayabe formed a tag team and entered the All Japan World’s Strongest Tag Team tournament. While there have been recent developments (which he will cover in a future column), we asked how their partnership came to be.
“The story with Ayabe and me is when I came in here, he was the other giant in the building. He was the ‘Nihan giant,’ the Japanese giant.”
To put this in perspective, Talos is 7 feet tall, and he noted that Ayabe clocks in at 6 feet, 10 inches.
“And you know, me and him had a pretty good back and forth, and that relationship was probably a little rocky there. But eventually you get to know people, and that kind of bloomed from there,” Talos added. “Now I’d say we’re a pretty well-groomed team. Not just a team like in the ring; like him and me are obviously good friends. We go and do stuff out of the ring.”
Obviously, he had more notoriety as a duo with Daisy Kill in the National Wrestling Alliance, even winning the NWA United States Tag Team titles at NWA 75. Currently, Talos is on tour with All Japan until May of this year, and his last match was at The Crockett Cup, where he and Kill lost to Primo and Epico, The Colóns.
We asked when he would return stateside and to the NWA, and Talos told Slamwrestling.net the following.
“I won’t say too much with it. Like I saw an opportunity over here at All Japan, and Daisy understood it the same way I did. This is something I had to pursue to get better and start building things over here in a different part of the world. I wouldn’t say this is the last you’ll ever see of me in NWA,” he pointed out. “Obviously, I have a lot of love and respect for the company, and a lot of unfinished business over there as it is. We’ll just see what the future holds.
“I know in my mind…you know me and Ayabe, the Titans of Calamity just won the World’s Strongest Tag Team tournament,” he mentioned coyly. “I know the Crockett Cup is right around the corner, and, you know…might be a nice feather in our cap. So, we’ll see. We’ll see what happens.”
For now, Talos is focused on the Triple Crown this Sunday, January 25th, which fans can watch by subscribing to All Japan’s website to see this and past matches. But he does have other plans in store for 2026.
“I’m the kind of man that has…I always like to say it’s three plans. You got your immediate plan and your long-term plan. Obviously, right now my short-term plan was winning these titles with Ayabe, and now it’s directly in front of me,” Talos said. “This was always my immediate plan: to come in and take this Triple Crown next, and now I’m executing that long-term plan to just build a legacy here in All Japan.”
Talos added this last thought as to what drives him in and out of the squared circle. “I don’t get into things to be decent at them. I don’t want to just coast around my career. It’s never been the way I wanted to live my life or do the things that I’ve been invested in, and this is no different. This is about building a legacy and being as good as I could possibly be in this business, and this is another crucial step on that path.”
Jack Talos will challenge Kento Miyahara on Sunday, January 25th, at Makuhari Messe International Exhibition Hall in Chiba, Japan. Fans internationally can watchlive at ajpw.tv.
