New Japan/Puroresu Thread

[Big Boss Man]

Yea definitely. The story aspect of wrestling I think is very important, as much as any high spot, because without a strong story it's all just a bunch of moves. I would have had Kenny drop the belt to Kota instead of Tana and then do like a bit at the end of the match where it concludes their story, for now anyway. Would have no doubt created genuine emotion from the crowd and fans watching if they are invested in their story.

That aspect in WWE where you create real emotion would do wonders for their product. Like with Roman when he talked about having leukaemia, even the most smarkiest fans in the audience were lost for words and he turned into the #1 baby face on the roster automatically with everyone rooting for him to kick cancers ass. So if you can bring that emotional connection with the crowd and audience at home (it doesn't have to be real serious like with Roman) but so it gets tgem involved in the characters story.

Like back in the day when fans bought into the stories about wrestlers being injured and sending get well cards, letters etc. That wouldn't work now but fans back then believed in what they were seeing. When you watch a movie you have that suspension of belief so I think if that was brought into the wrestling realm it would help the product too. The story is of course very important in that context and you can have the very best workers but if there's no story or investment in the characters from the audience it wouldn't mean anything.

I think New Japan gets it, which is why their product is popular outside of Japan since whilst the language is a barrier, the matches themselves translate worldwide and whilst on paper, WWE is the more financially successful etc New Japan is the real #1 influence wise. They really should have kept Kenny, Marty, Hangman, the Bucks, Cody as they were assisting a great deal in their US expansion.

Plus their matches worked better within the New Japan framework. I don't know how AEW will present itself and whether it'll follow more so WWE. But ideally they should pattern themselves after NJ and essentially be NJPW USA. Because they need to put on the highest quality matches to really compete with WWE. The millions at their disposal matter little if they don't put on great matches and it has to be consistently.

Really New Japan needed to keep the Elite under contract since they were big reasons fans outside Japan got back heavily into their product again. I don't know if Jay White can maintain that same level of interest that they did. NJPW should have offered them huge deals to stay (at least for a couple of years) and partner with AEW down the line. It not only would have strengthened New Japan's US and worldwide presence but gave AEW the likes of Tanahashi, Naito, Okada, Ibushi etc to come in and talent share.

As right now whilst it's not been publicly said they do need each other. Maybe the Khans should have partnered with New Japan and said we'll help with the international expansion by doing New Japan branded shows in the US etc. Then you have an all star cast of talent across the board. But now and this will apply to AEW also you have a strong upper card but lower to mid card isn't as appealing from a fans perspective.

So whilst I think NJPW will rebound from losing the Elite, I do think they should go back to the negotiating table as soon as the ROH deal is up. Because when you're competing with WWE, you ideally need to stand together and keep the best talent away from them since say the Elite all went to WWE that would have weakened New Japan, ROH and the indie circuit. Whilst the Pro Wrestling USA venture ultimately failed AEW, ROH and New Japan should work together to share talent and put on the best available product for the fans.

Heres Kota's speech saying he's staying with New Japan

[Big Boss Man]

Kenny tweeted

またいつか。
頑張って。

Which roughly translates as "also someday, good luck".

[Big Boss Man]

"What I am thinking in myself.
What you decided yourself.
To put it in words.
To tell.
I felt like I was being told the same thing about 30 years ago. I did not understand that time.
From now on. Beginning from!
I will return. ! !"

From Kota's Twitter.

[Big Boss Man]

https://www.sescoops.com/update-on-njpw ... departure/

Spoiler

They'll be running White v Okada at the Garden

[Bandit]

The match will be good. But New Japan doesn't understand their US fans. They think they have to have white headliners. But the fans like the Japanese wrestlers just as much or even more. So Tanahashi vs Okada should have been the main event. The show was sold out anyway, so I don't understand why they just didn't do the best match possible. But it's weird when they toured England they didn't have a white headliner, they even used Suzuki and Ishii main events. Although Ishii is popular in England because he works Rev Pro quite a bit.

[Big Boss Man]

I'm assuming their point of view is that they need a gaijin to headline outside of Japan. There's two sides to the debate whether they should follow that formula. When you have wrestlers like Tanahashi, Okada etc you don't necessarily need a big name gaijin to headline. But you could argue the fans who bought tickets did so because it's a co promoted show with ROH, where there's wrestlers they know. Plus tickets went on sale in August and I'm guessing a lot of fans assumed Kenny, Cody, Hangman, Bucks, Marty would be there. Of that list, only Marty will probably be on the card now. Had they stayed I think the show would have been more intriguing since now you have Kota committing his future to New Japan so you could have done an angle with him. But now, I'm not knocking Switchblade, but idk if him main eventing would have sold out the Garden, because its like he's being rushed to the top and shoehorned into the storylines as the top gaijin. He could prove the doubters wrong and have a 5 or even 6 star match with Okada. But, it's not the same really when Kenny finally beat him to be IWGP champion.

[Bandit]

There's no doubt they are where they're at in the US because of Omega, Jericho and the Bucks. But they were over on their own merits. And fans that came in for them learned about the Japanese guys, so they can stand on their own now. WWE wouldn't have made offers to Okada and Naito if they weren't over in America. So they should realize they're past the point of being afraid too many guys who don't speak English are on the show. If Omega comes back or someone North American can become as popular as he is, they should absolutely headline with them. But to think more people will like Jay White because he speaks English than Tanahashi because he isn't fluent in it is misunderstanding the fans. It's not even a promo heavy promotion. Juice Robinson is good on the mic, but he's not a main eventer yet because he's not up to their in ring standards. And the most popular promo guy to Western fans is Minoru Suzuki who doesn't speak any English but even in subtitles he's their best promo guy.

If New Japan wants a white guy who would be over they should sign Joe Doering.

[Big Boss Man]

Yea I was more referring to New Japans management point of view on things. I agree a lot of fans dig it because of Naito, Tana & Okada. But when you're touring outside of Japan, they were probably thinking we need a gaijin or a number of gaijins to expand into the US & internationally.

Using WWE as an example, they have NXT UK now, so say they do Mania in the U.K. in the future they can establish say Pete Dunne and have him win the belt there like they did with Davey beating Bret at Summerslam 92.

So I would assume they are fast tracking Jay White because they lost a bunch of their A team talent and they still seem all in on expanding New Japan outside of their home country. I think they should realise that fans are into their product because it's different and if they try to westernise it too much (say by pushing wrestlers just to create new gaijin stars) then some fans will turn away from it since there wouldn't be much differentiation from WWE.

New Japan are in an interesting position now since they put a lot of stock in the Elite and like I've said a lot of fans followed their product because of them. Take Kenny and co out of the equation and NJ have to find a way to hook the fans back in. Otherwise the interest will wane and whilst I do think Okada et al can maintain interest for now, say 2/3 years down the line and Switchblade isn't the Ace they hope for and business is down, they'll need to re-evaluate.

Really they should have offered the Elite huge deals to stay and let them still do AEW. Even if it's limited dates, having them at their biggest shows, especially whilst in the US and overseas makes the most sense. Since they are responsible for the resurgence of interest in the Puroresu scene.

So whilst it's not being said, I think both AEW and NJ need each other. ROH should team up with them too since it gives them a bigger talent pool and you can put a lot of dream matches together that would sell out anywhere in the world that's into wrestling. It also freshens things up and they can equally have the best talent on their shows.

If AEW do announce deals with Ring of Honor and New Japan down the line it makes the most sense. They need to keep the best talent away from WWE and say Nakamura, AJ, Finn etc become available you snap them up and put them in the mix. Say they did work together you could have much more appealing matches.

I believe you need a continuous flow of fresh talent to freshen up a territory. Otherwise you get that WWE scenario where they wrestle each other ad nauseum. So a talent share agreement you'd get like a better variety of matches. Have more of an All Star game type of deal where there's a lot more intrigue to the card.

Like for a future WrestleKingdom, make it AEW/NJPW's equivalent to WrestleMania and out on the best matches available. We don't know the final AEW roster yet, but, I think say Kenny needs to be up against the best talent otherwise his talent will be wasted. So really whilst New Japan shouldn't have to rely on gaijins, when you're expanding outside your home territory, ideally you need wrestler(s) fans know of. They've got an English language commentary to make their product more accessible so there's reasoning behind them pushing gaijins to the top. They did it with Finn, AJ, Kenny and now are with Switchblade.

[Big Boss Man]

[Bandit]

It's a lot to ask someone to move to another country for a job they can do in their own country. Plus even if Ibushi was offered more for AEW he'd have to pay American and Japanese taxes which might not make his salary as good as it sounded. With foreign wrestlers going to Japan it's different because Japanese wrestling operates on tours where you don't have to be on all of them, but AEW will probably be 52 weeks a year. Which was why the Americans who worked in Japan didn't want to sign to WWF or WCW full time until business got bad or they couldn't work the harder Japanese match style anymore. A guy like Stan Hansen or Steve Williams were very well paid and only had to work half of the dates.

[Ocelot]

Referencing something a bit ago.

New Japan I would agree is like Akira Kurasawa.

WWE is more like a high school theater class where you have everyone in the class wanting to get their shit in so you end up having to cobble some shit together that takes in a little bit of everything and preplan everything to a T and in the process it just looks....stilted.

New Japan has ONE booker, Gedo, and are doing wonderfully. WWE has 2353298203968029 writers and 2353 agents. See the difference?

[Big Boss Man]

It's a lot to ask someone to move to another country for a job they can do in their own country. Plus even if Ibushi was offered more for AEW he'd have to pay American and Japanese taxes which might not make his salary as good as it sounded. With foreign wrestlers going to Japan it's different because Japanese wrestling operates on tours where you don't have to be on all of them, but AEW will probably be 52 weeks a year. Which was why the Americans who worked in Japan didn't want to sign to WWF or WCW full time until business got bad or they couldn't work the harder Japanese match style anymore. A guy like Stan Hansen or Steve Williams were very well paid and only had to work half of the dates.

Yea that's true. I'm kinda surprised he hasn't talked to Kenny and he wasn't involved in his negotiations to bring him to AEW. I guess legally he couldn't. It seems he's distancing himself from Kenny a bit too or they've had a falling out with the tone of what hes saying. However it's being translated from Japanese so we don't know the original context.

[Bandit]

It's probably just that Omega is very busy. He was saying they were on good terms at Wrestle Kingdom when he last saw him.

[Big Boss Man]

That's good, yea Kota mentioned about that Kenny wanted him in his corner against Tana but Ken said he should go get himself checked out for the concussion he suffered instead. I'm wondering if New Japan have Ibushi lined up as their future Ace in the future which is why he's commited his future to NJPW.

This is a cool doc about the G1 Climax 28 and it's fun to see the fans perspective.

[Bandit]

I think so. He could beat Jay White and then do a years-long feud with Okada like Okada had with Tanahashi.

[Big Boss Man]

Yea that sounds good. A bit off topic I'm not sure if the Switchblade experiment will work. He's not as charismatic as Kenny, Okada & Tana and I think there's better gaijins who NJPW could fill that role. But maybe Jay White will grow into the top guy position. Plus New Japan should focus more on developing their own stars like Kota who says he'll remain loyal because say they put a lot of stock in White being the #1 then soon as his deal is up and WWE come calling they could lose their top star. It's already happened a lot of times now with Nakamura, Finn, Styles to WWE and Kenny & The Elite to AEW.

[Bandit]

I think there's better gaijins who NJPW could fill that role.

There's reasons why they're not.

Jericho: He'd be the guy if he was full time, but now he will be there even less with AEW.

Ospreay: He's getting injured too frequently to plan on holding the title for a year doing 30 minute epic matches. But if he was healthier I'd go with him.

Sabre: ZSJ is good but I don't know if his matches are better than White's.

Davey Boy Smith Jr.: He's not at a main eventer level.

Juice: He's definitely not at a New Japan main eventer level. He's a great promo, but I'm not sure that matters when you're in Japan 95% of the year. Remember even though they do want to expand Japan will always be their top priority. So they're never going to push a guy just because he cuts a good promo in English. Omega isn't a spectacular promo, but his work was why they went with him.

Chase Owens: Also not a main eventer.

Finlay: He's still learning, he is only 25. He will be great in a few years, though.

Cobb: He can't give priority to New Japan since he's mainly in ROH and just does a few tours of Japan.

Elgin: He peaked in 2017. They haven't wanted to do much with him since the Naito feud. He also pissed off Gedo complaining about his role.

Archer: He's a tag wrestler, his singles work isn't that good.

[Big Boss Man]

I wonder say if Rusev went there whether you could make him the top gaijin, but idk if his in ring work would translate well against say Tana, Okada et al. Although he does have a solid fanbase who'd subscribe to NJPW World to see his matches. Watching the G1 doc and seeing the Japanese fans perspective was interesting. They take things like Fighting Spirit more into account than whether they are good on the mic etc. But from the international perspective we see things differently in terms of a guy being a draw because he's a good talker, has a good gimmick etc. So internationally, New Japan need a gaijin who can draw that audience in, whereas say they were focusing more domestically, they could just go with Okada as their Ace and have Tana pass the torch to him to really solidify his position as the top guy. Then down the line, Okada passes the torch to Ibushi. I don't know the stats, but I'm assuming subscriptions dropped a bit when the Elite left. One guy who I just thought of who might be a good choice for New Japan is Marty Scrull. Marty's got a good gimmick, good promo etc so he ticks all the boxes for the international fan base but he's not got pass the junior heavyweight level as of yet, but once he goes up to heavyweight, I wouldn't rule out The Villain being a top guy for them or at least in the mix. I think if he doesn't go to AEW, Marty would be an interesting choice and have him go up against Jay White to head up the Bullet Club.

[Bandit]

No, Rusev wouldn't be a good fit. He'd be better off in AEW where he can create his own promos.

[Bandit]

I'm not making this up. They did a sequence where The Kingdom worked over Tanahashi's nipples.