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El Phantasmo learned of grandfather’s passing before NJPW G1 match

El Phantasmo cut an emotional promo following his match with The Great-O-Khan in Nagaoka this weekend. 

ELP is currently winless in the G1 Climax, having dropped his third straight match of the tournament on Friday. During his post-match comments that night, ELP revealed that he learned of his grandfather's passing only an hour before his match against Kazuchika Okada on 7/18. 

"You may think you know how hard the G1 Climax really is on you. You can look up and down the blocks and everybody's got some sort of injury, my traps f—ed, people's necks are f—ed, their legs, their knees, and that's fine, that's what we expect," ELP said.

"But what you guys don't realize is how hard emotionally it can be when you are all by yourself, when you have no friends, you get a call from your dad who says your Papa has passed away an hour before you gotta go out there and wrestle Okada in the main event and you try and block those emotions and go do your job. And then you finish, and the adrenaline wears off and you go back to your little, tiny, dinky ass Japanese hotel and then you realize that it's too late to call your grandma, whose husband of 70 years just died, whose daughter died a year ago, and you've got to stay up all night by yourself, unable to tell them how much you love them.

And then in the morning, you call grandma, and you talk about how Papa's gone and that's okay. But then you have to lie to her and you have to tell her that you're doing good. You can't say that you're here, you lost three matches, you have zero points, the bottom of the block. You've got to tell her that you're winning and you're fighting for Papa.

Then you go to the gym by yourself, you listen to music, and you come here and you pretend everything's okay but it's not. That's what this job is.

I was here all pandemic when my Aunt died and now I'm here when my Papa dies. And I don't know how much the people know but when you guys chant my name, that's the only love I get around here these days and it means so much to me. You guys don't know, you guys don't know, just three little letters keep me going.

I told myself I wouldn't be sad. My Papa was 91 years old. He was supposed to die a month ago, that's why I was at the hospital, I couldn't do Wrestling Revolver. He was supposed to die but he kept fighting, not one week, not two weeks, not three weeks, but he fought four weeks passed the time he was supposed to pass away. Now, that is fighting spirit, that's the fighting spirit that I need. That's the fighting spirit that I need to have to win, to win matches, to win the G1 Climax, to tell my Grandma that I'm okay."

ELP dropped his first match of the tournament to YOSHI-HASHI and his second to Okada before dropping his third straight to Great-O-Khan on Friday. He'll return to action on Tuesday's show from Korakuen Hall against Tanga Loa, who is 1-2 thus far in the tournament. 

ELP made his G1 Climax debut in last year's event. He went 3-3 with wins over Shingo Takagi, Yujiro Takahashi, and David Finlay. His losses were against Will Ospreay, Juice Robinson, and YOSHI-HASHI. ELP's six points were enough for him to finish tied for second in the block. Ospreay advanced out of the group with a 4-2 record. 

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