New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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Big Boss Man
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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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I think Kenny said on BTE whilst with New Japan how gruelling the G1 is.

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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Spoiler
Mox lost to Juice and Switchblade beat Naito to win the B Block which sets up Jay White v Kota Ibushi for the G1 final

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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Big Boss Man wrote: Mon Aug 12, 2019 12:40 am
Spoiler
Mox lost to Juice and Switchblade beat Naito to win the B Block which sets up Jay White v Kota Ibushi for the G1 final
I thought that was one of the best crowds New Japan has had. Especially how hot they were for the main event. And they waited so long to even touch and the crowd loved it. Larry Zbyszko will love this match.

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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Show of the year.
Spoiler
!!!!!!!

The Japanese Hollywood Hogan moment for sure. It was like if you combined BATB 96 and the first time Sting returned to take on the nWo into one moment.

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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Here is the full card, which takes place August 31 at the Copper Box Arena in London, England.

Kazuchika Okada vs. Minoru Suzuki for the IWGP Heavyweight title
Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi for the British Heavyweight championship
Tomohiro Ishii vs. KENTA for the NEVER Openweight title
Guerillas of Destiny vs. Winners of the RPW Road to Royal Quest tournament for the IWGP Tag Team titles
SANADA and Tetsuya Naito vs. Jay White and Chase Owens
Juice Robinson and Kota Ibushi vs. Yujiro Takahashi and Hikuleo
Ryusuke Taguchi, Shota Umino and Ren Narita vs. Rocky Romero, YOH, SHO
That's going to be a great day for wrestling with this and All Out.

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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It has been reported Moxley will wrestle Juice at Wrestle Kingdom.

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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He's right. But Japan just doesn't have the same view of concussions as the western sports. Not just for their belief in extreme toughness, but because they don't have a lawsuit culture in Japan. And the only reason the NFL pretends to give a shit is because they could be sued out of existence.

Which is how you know Shibata's brain trauma was really bad if two years later he's only allowed to do limited spots. It means they believe he could die in the ring.

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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Yea the whole New Japan ethos is built upon fighting spirit, so no way would they bring a doctor in to stop the match. When there's a real situation like a concussion they have to let that slide though and get the talent medical help. Its not just exclusive to Japan either, that Kings Road/Strong Style has filtered into mostly all pro wrestling so you've got talent who could legit seriously hurt themselves. When they are putting their health at risk that's the point where it has be reevaluated.

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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Moxley is being advertised in the semi-main event for the King Of Pro Wrestling show in October against Juice. I have my doubts on if he will be there.

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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According to Meltzer New Japan is very angry about Anthem buying AXS because of the grudge Gedo has against them for how Okada and Tanahashi were treated in 2009. They also liked a lot of the people from AXS that Anthem just fired. On Impact's end they aren't happy because they're aware of Gedo burying Impact to Harry Smith and Michael Elgin. They don't understand what his problem is with them since nobody who was shitty to Tanahashi and Okada work for TNA anymore.

The internal belief is that Anthem is going to start putting pressure on New Japan to stop working with ROH and work with Impact instead, which they would obviously refuse to do if they don't even want to work with AEW. There's no way they can force them to stop working with ROH, but they may be able to refuse to air any matches with ROH wrestlers on their broadcasts.

New Japan has a deal until 2021.

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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That's interesting. How are the TV ratings for NJ on AXS and what type of money is the TV deal paying?. Because if they are a ratings draw surely it gives New Japan some leverage in any negotiations. If the contract is for an amount they can say buy themselves out of without any financial hit then they should do that. Because there's no way that NJ will work with Impact and if they are forced into it then that will make relations even worse. Couldn't Sinclair Broadcasting offer them a TV deal instead?.

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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They're one of the highest rated shows, up there with the Sammy Hagar show probably doing 300,000 viewers or around there.

The thing is I don't think New Japan has anywhere to go. Selling a foreign company giving you either months old matches or tape delayed a few weeks matches is a hard sell. It would have been easier when they had Kenny, but trying to sell Okada, who doesn't speak much English, as the top star to an American television company is a tough sell. Selling Mexican Lucha Libre, even though the US has a large Mexican-American population, is also a hard sell. I really don't know who'd want it. FOX and NBC-Comcast have WWE so none of their stations would take it. Turner has AEW so none of their stations would take it. Sinclair won't even put ROH on their cable channels for some weird reason. That leaves CBS stations but if they wanted wrestling they'd have had it by keeping Impact on POP.

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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Thanks. Is it essential that NJ have a US TV deal as I assume the majority of their core fanbase is more up to date via NJPW World etc. But if they are serious with their international expansion it is necessary. If there's a new boom period on the horizon then networks will have a lot of interest in bringing back wrestling. So if that's the case it will work well in their favour. I wonder if they did work with AEW and they gave them like a showcase type match each week whether that would be beneficial. Since there'd be a New Japan match on primetime US TV. With the potential audience that could be a better way to really ramp up the international expansion.

A co branded tour with AEW would almost guarantee sell outs and allows them to grow the brand internationally so that it can stand on its own so say once a year there's a huge AEW & NJ Wrestle Kingdom equivalent show on pay per view. I know they're loyal to ROH but really if you want to showcase your brand then to do so on TNT is a much better option as a lot of fans were introduced to Puroresu in the 80s because of The Great Muta in WCW and then Jushin Liger, Chono, Ultimo, Muta etc in the 90s.

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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Yes, AXS is very important. They do over twice the number of viewers for the Friday show that was the last subscriber number I've heard. And I'd imagine Moxley helped ratings last month as well.

Sinclair has bought a lot of channels recently, but it's very strange that they have no plans to put ROH on any of them. I think they were planning to put them on WGN, but that deal fell through so they bought a bunch of FOX Sports cable channels (not the ones WWE will be on, lesser channels for local sports teams.) New Japan could give them an ultimatum to put them on one of their channels or they'll do business with AEW.

But the problem is those channels, which were the same ones TNA was on in 2004 and PRIDE was on in 2005-06, don't have set schedules. They air local sports so the syndicated shows never have set times. Fridays are busy, you will probably have some kind of MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS or NCAA game on. So the Friday at 8 timeslot wouldn't work. Sunday is also busy, Monday they'd be up against Raw, Tuesday is a big NBA day, Wednesday they're up against AEW, Thursday has football, and Friday and Saturday have all kinds of sports. So that would be hard.

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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Thanks. Especially this time of year with college football, NFL, the NBA in October, the MLB playoffs and World Series its tough for a promotion like New Japan to get airtime. Its a great product but like you say they need a Mox etc to get the casual fans interested. Losing the Elite I imagine meant ratings took somewhat of a drop too. I do think that if AXS plays hardball and Sinclair won't give them a spot then it makes sense for them to negotiate with AEW. AXS have already dropped the MMA show which was one of the highest rated shows so if they are doing that then it's not good for NJ.

Its weird now because there's so much content available you have to put out something really great to get people interested. NJ has that in their favour, a compilation of the best G1 matches is a perfect example. But the key is drawing back in casual fans who might want to subscribe to NJPW World and buy tickets to see a NJ show. You could argue those fans will do so regardless of a TV presence but it certainly helps in expanding a niche audience.

The best scenario for them is a deal with AEW. The Wednesday Night Wars makes wrestling cool again so you get a lot of lapsed fans come back in and if they partner up with AEW and have Ospreay, Okada, ZSJ, Tana, Kota etc on the show then it puts them in a position to grow their own fanbase and whilst I don't know if Turner would give them their own individual show, but even if its just a match or two on AEWs show each week as a showcase it could draw in new subscribers etc.

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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Ratings actually increased 10% in the time between Omega leaving and Moxley coming in. While the G1 Dallas show didn't sell out and may have come close to if Omega and the Bucks were there, it actually did a better TV rating than the last live show The Elite were on.

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Re: New Japan/Puroresu Thread

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This could be better suited to the questions thread but would New Japan have had a resurgence in the US and internationally without the success of The Bullet Club and Kenny's emergence as a top guy?. I think there has always been a niche audience for Puroresu but the BC & later The Elite changed the game.

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