Ian Riccaboni, an Allentown, Pa., native and NYU grad, joined Ring of Honor as part of its commentating team in 2014 and three years later became its lead play-by-play man. The 32-year-old former NYU first baseman will be on the call at Madison Square Garden for Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro Wrestling’s G1 Supercard on April 6 starting at 7:30 p.m. The show will be live on Honor Club, New Japan World and replayed on AXS TV in two parts on April 12 and 19.

Before putting on his headset, Riccaboni took some time for a little Q&A with The Post’s Joseph Staszewski.

(Edited for brevity.)

Q: For someone who grew up in Pennsylvania and went to college in New York City, does that add something special to doing play-by-play for a show at the Garden?

A: The shadow of New York always loomed over me growing up. It’s part of the reason that drew me there for college. When I was going to NYU, like any student, I came from a middle-class family. Any student has to make decisions about their budget and they have to pick and choose. I really only got to go to one event at the Garden. I saved up. I saved up and I got to go to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the Garden, and it was like a religious experience.

I know that when any act goes to the Garden whether it’s the circus, it’s the Harlem Globetrotters, the Knicks, the Rangers, Bruce Springsteen, they’re always bringing their best and their A-game. It’s all I could think about since we announced [G1 Supercard] last summer, and it’s been the one constant on the calendar. In a way it drives you a little crazy. It’s like Christmas. You always know it’s off in the distance. You get really excited about it. Now that we are [close], it’s really starting to sink in that it’s just around the corner.

Q: How important is this show for Ring of Honor and New Japan to continue the momentum they had coming off last year?

A: For every Kazuchika Okada and Hiroshi Tanahashi and Jay Lethal and Marty Scurll, there is now a Jay White, there is now a Matt Taven. There are guys that really have been bringing it over the last couple of years that are getting their shot in the main-event scene.

For Ring of Honor, for New Japan I think it’s an amazing opportunity for [the fans] to see the existing big-time stars, the big-money players and see the guys that are right there that are knocking on the door.

You talk about Jay White, he’s a guy that very quickly became IWGP heavyweight champion, who Ring of Honor fans knew as a young lion who came in undefeated in Ring of Honor. And for Matt Taven, he’s a guy that New Japan fans knew as an IWGP tag team champion. He’s one of only two guys to hold championship in CMLL, New Japan and Ring of Honor and he’s getting the opportunity of a lifetime [for the Ring of Honor world championship] that he’s earned through hard work and some great matches.

Q: Now that you have become the lead play-by-play guy, has that made you look back on the way you got into wrestling, basically asking the Blue Meanie how does my “friend” get into wrestling?

A: Looking back it’s kind of crazy. There’s a lot of right-place-right-time things, and it goes back to a lesson that I learned from a lot of people is that you never know whether someone is going to say yes or no if you show up, but if you don’t show up it’s a guaranteed way for them to say no.

I did my best when Kevin Kelly even hinted at an opportunity there would be a Future of Honor brand and a Women of Honor brand to be wherever Ring of Honor was [to work]. There were instances in 2014, 2015 and 2016 where I paid my own way to get to Las Vegas, San Antonio, Dallas because I knew there would be a dark match, there would be a women’s match and there would be nothing promised, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I remember driving to Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Dayton, Ohio. Sure enough in Dayton we ran a story where Steve Corino got suspended and all of a sudden our executive producer is looking around and says, “Hey we need another commentator.” Bobby Cruise raises his hand, Steve Corino raises his hand to say: “Ian drove from Dayton. Why don’t you give him a shot tonight.” They looked at Kevin Kelly. He said he loved it. And there we were, and about a year later I became the lead announcer. It’s one of those things where you have to put your destiny in your own hands.

Q: How would you describe your style as an announcer?

A: I generally, in my day-to-day life, I root for the heroes. I watch the superhero movies and I root for … I hope that Captain America comes out at the end. I hope that Hulk has a change of heart when he’s in the big pit with Thor and I hope that they get on the same page at the end of the movie. So for me, it’s one of the things as an announcer, I want to have principles. I want to stick up for what’s right. I want to make sure the fans can feel the excitement of what they are feeling in the building.

Q: Was there a point where you realized you wanted to go into broadcasting?

A: I always loved wrestling and in high school, Kris [Fried] and I. Kris now a comic, he does the Comedy Cellar quite a big. He’s been on Fox News as a comedian. He and I were always big wrestling fans. We watched all the pay-per-views together and he’s two years older than me and he studied at DeSales University, and at DeSales he had to do a number of film projects.

One of them was he went to the Wild Samoans training center and he was filming himself going through being trained. So I went up as well and he took some footage of me bumping and taking flat-back bumps and there was a point in my life where I thought, I’m 6-foot, I’m over 200 pounds, decent shape, decent athlete. Maybe I can do this. And it didn’t take but one flat-back bump for me to realize you know what, if I’m going to be doing this more than once a night, I don’t think this is for me, and why don’t I focus on the announcing part of it? That was 2004.

The announcing thing, though, you could tell when I was a kid and my mom swears up and down, we have home videos of me with my LJN action figures and my Hasbro action figure just calling match after match after match.

And my mom, Shelly, would tell you that I would just sit in my bedroom and I would rent a tape form Blockbuster or West Coast Video. I’d have it on, it would be WWF or WCW or Global or USWA on ESPN and I would just play and play. The interesting thing was I did running commentary through the entirety of however long I was playing. So this was not a surprise to my mom and my dad when I became a wrestling announcer.

Q: When that kid who was calling matches in his room sits down and gets to call matches at Madison Square Garden, what do you think is going to run through your head?

A: I’ll be thinking a lot about [my family]. I’ll be thinking about my brother who used to help me dress up like the Macho Man. My sister used to paint my face like Ax and Smash of Demolition. So, I’ll be thinking about a lot of the people who helped me get there, guys like Kevin Kelly, Steve Corino, Bobby Cruise, Jeff Jones. Those are guys who took an interest in me and really made me feel part of the Ring of Honor family and made sure I was ready when the time came.

Yeah, it will be a surreal moment. It will be neat moment where I hope to get a moment to soak it all in. When I called “All In,” I was so glad at one point Don Callis paused and looked at me and just said, “Take this in for a little bit. You may go further. You may be in bigger arenas, but this right here is pretty cool. Just enjoy it for a second before you go on the air.” I’m, so glad I did. I’ll probably have a little bit of the same moment at the Garden.

Q: How big a part of your life was baseball growing up?

A: Baseball was huge for me. I played at NYU. I was our starting first baseman from sophomore, junior and senior year. Baseball has always been a thread that has been super important to me. It’s something that me and my brother [Bill] really connected with really early on.

My brother is eight years older than me so growing up, once he hit his teen years, there wasn’t much that connected us. But once I grew up and he was already grown up, baseball really brought us back together. Not that we ever grew up apart, but it was easy to talk about. My brother was a much better player than I ever was, but he stopped playing in high school.

It was either baseball or wrestling, any given summer any given day. If it was the summer time I would obsess about baseball. I would make sure I would watch the Phillies or “Baseball Tonight.” If it was the winter it was wrestling, it was WrestleMania season.

Q: What is your baseball story when you tell people about your career?

A: My big claim for NYU was I once hit an inside-the-park home run that I swear to this day would have been a regular home run in Canarsie, but the winds coming off the bay pushed it down. It literally stunted it. It went off the fence and shot into left field and I got the inside the parker. It’s the only home run I ever hit in my life. There’s that, I had a game-winning hit against SUNY-Geneseo in a tournament down in Florida, and those are big moment for me.

In terms of baseball, something that’s really shared across my life, my friend Chris [Kobela] has survived leukemia twice and one of the strongest guys I know and one of the unintended silver linings of him going through that, we were able to go and meet the Phillies [as guests on the field] in 2008, the year they won the championship.

Q: Who were you playing against for the inside-the-park home run?

A: That was a non-conference game against Yale. It was a scrimmage. So it wasn’t even league play. It didn’t even count for my stats. (Laughs.)

Q: So technically you don’t have a home run?

A: I guess not. (Laughs.) I never thought about it like that. They aren’t even in the same NCAA division.

Q: What can Bryce Harper expect from Phillies fans?

A: For so long he was kind of the bane of the Phillies existence and a lot of people didn’t dislike his play, they disliked what they thought was his swagger, his attitude. What’s funny though was the same thing happened with Lenny Dykstra. When he was a Met he was booed constantly by the Phillies fans. Lenny Dykstra was so good and knew when he was with the Mets, Phillies fans couldn’t help but to love to hate him. And then when he came to the Phillies, he was the most popular player for a good five- or six-year stretch, him and Darren Daulton. I think the same thing is going to happen now that Harper is a Phillie, I just think he is going to be embraced.