NJPW THE NEW BEGINNING 2019

[Kang]

Expected that.
 

[Brian Fowler]

No Nagata/Ishii? No Cobb/Goto?

[Archibald]

Saw some rumours that due to USA government shut down they couldn't get any visas for Japanese talent. Would explain why there is zero native talent and why they waited so long to announce these cards.

[Brian Fowler]

Supposed to be something in the Observer tonight/tomorrow morning about the delay. That would make a lot of sense. 

And really suck.

[Jiji]

If it's not due to the shutdown, it's a huge slap in the face of those fans who purchased tickets. I really like Trent. Chuck is a wonderful personality and his PWG run in 2017 was one of my favourite things in recent wrestling. Juice is the world's best babyface. But come the fuck on.

[Brian Fowler]

Seriously though, if that's the problem they really should've tried to cut an emergency deal with AEW and get the Bucks on the show or something.

Okay, that's far fetched, but fuck man. And, yeah, Best Friends and FinJuice are fine, but you can't build a whole show around them.

[Archibald]

No other explanation makes sense. They clearly were building Ishii/Nagata and Cobb/Goto for these shows and they are not on other New Beginning shows either. R3K also aren't booked anywhere. These guys were supposed to be in USA shows.

As for emergency, well thats why they ended up using RoH talent.

[Jenalysis]

2 hours ago, Archibald said:

Saw some rumours that due to USA government shut down they couldn't get any visas for Japanese talent. Would explain why there is zero native talent and why they waited so long to announce these cards.

 

Friends are very upset at this card.  Some are talking about being done with NJPW completely over this.

 

[Casey]

Wow, I’m so glad I didn’t buy a ticket to the Nashville show.

[Archibald]

Looks like Dave confirmed that Liger, Nagata, Ishii, Goto and Kojima weren't able to get their visas.

Shit situation for all involved, but I think that NJPW probably should offer at least partial refunds over this mess even if its not their fault entirely.

[Beech27]

Even adding those guys, the cards aren't great--but at least it would feel like a New Japan effort. Whether it's their fault... well, the discussion in the AEW thread has recently been about how a company can build and maintain trust. This is not how you do it. Whispering the reasons to VOW and Dave, rather than announcing it to your fans and offering some tangible apology, only makes it look worse.

[hammerva]

Not sure what you mean by "New Japan effort".   It kind of looks like a ring of Honor show only without the talent that even New Japan won't touch like the Beer City Bruiser or Kenny King kind of guys.   Not saying it is a bad show.  If this show was in my vicinity I would definitely hit it.    But this show didn't sell out in hours because they thought Chuck Taylor and Tracy Williams was going to be in main event matches.  

Makes you wonder if this is going to be the same fate that the ROH/New Japan show at MSG is going to face.  Only with better ROH matches at the top (Lethal vs Castle or Briscoes vs ??)

 

[Archibald]

He means that if it had missing guys then it would look like New Japan effort, not that it looks like that now.

[Beech27]

Right. Ishii, Goto, Liger, Nagata, and Kojima are not the biggest stars in the company right now; but they are all important figures in the company's history (some more than others), and it would feel special for long-time fans to see them. I would have been happy to pay to see those guys live once in my life, even in relatively consequence-free matches; I would not be happy to have paid to see what the cards are now.

But again, I think people could more easily accept that these things can happen, if New Japan were open and honest about it and gave away enough refunds/stuff. If they pretend there's no issue, that will erode trust. 

[Beech27]

And here we are:

Quote

It is with great disappointment that we must announce that due to the ongoing 2018–19 United States federal government shutdown, we were unable to obtain visas for our Japanese talent who were looking forward to seeing our US fans at the New Beginning in USA.

 

[Archibald]

Well good that they addressed it, but I'm not sure that it is going to be enough for many of those who bought tickets.

Complete side-note, but I think that these shows using RoH guys is good indication that RoH/NJPW deal won't end after MSG. I'm sure that RoH weren't obliged to send Gresham and Brody King here, let alone run Cobb/Brody singles match. I mean, it is nice thing that they did it, but if I know that my partnership with NJPW ends after few months then probably I'm not doing them any additional favours.

Or maybe NJPW paid them lots of money and I'm talking nonsense.

[Dewar]

They waited until the last minute to get visas, did not get the visas, and throw out a watered-down ROH show and call it New Japan. I would be very angry if I bought tickets for NJPW and ended up with an ROH show without the Briscoes, Dalton Castle, Silas Young and BCB.

Edit: With just a quick look, Liger, Goto and Taguchi all worked a show in America as recently as November. Sho and Yoh, LIJ, Tanahashi, Ibushi, Okada and Ishii were all in America on September 30. Would be very surprised if none of them had active working visas, especially with the MSG show coming up in less than three months time.

[clintthecrippler]

So, if they are having this much trouble securing visas right now, even if the government shutdown ended tomorrow would that be enough time to get work Visa issues secured in time for MSG?

Because if not, then goddamn ROH/NJPW better be making calls and  thinking about throwing a shitload of money at the AEW folks to pad out the show, because if this is how things end up at MSG, the US expansion will be dead. Even with the shutdown being a legitimate reason for all of the drama, wrestling fans being wrestling fans will still feel burned. 

[Raziel]

H1B1 Work Visa are only good for 6 months a pop and take several months to process.   It's in the realm of possibility that they had the applications in the pipeline to renew when the current ones expired and the shutdown fucked the whole thing up, so I wouldn't shove this all on NJPW.   Yeah, they're fucking up THIS expansion like they did the other previous 2 because they built the initial expansion around guys that took off when they saw a golden goose and run the shows like B loop shows when RoH and other indies have been running those matches into the ground for months, but the talent not making the trip this time isn't fully on them.

 

Now, even with it being another couple months away, I would say that the shutdown/visa issue might have the MSG show in some kind of jeopardy right now.

[hammerva]

I would be interested in the number of people in the last month or so that got rid of their MSG show tickets anyway given the most popular group and the vast majority of their fanbase isn't going to be there.

[John from Cincinnati]

Food for thought on MSG: There was a story out yesterday saying Mick Mulvaney was asking agencies to send him lists of programs that would be jeopardized by the shutdown running into March or April.

It doesn't feel like this dumpster fire can go on much longer, but when people inside the White House are talking like that... 

[Archibald]

43 minutes ago, clintthecrippler said:

So, if they are having this much trouble securing visas right now, even if the government shutdown ended tomorrow would that be enough time to get work Visa issues secured in time for MSG?

Because if not, then goddamn ROH/NJPW better be making calls and  thinking about throwing a shitload of money at the AEW folks to pad out the show, because if this is how things end up at MSG, the US expansion will be dead. Even with the shutdown being a legitimate reason for all of the drama, wrestling fans being wrestling fans will still feel burned. 

I think RoH wouldn't mind if 90% of MSG show was about their guys

37 minutes ago, Raziel said:

Yeah, they're fucking up THIS expansion like they did the other previous 2 because they built the initial expansion around guys that took off when they saw a golden goose and run the shows like B loop shows when RoH and other indies have been running those matches into the ground for months, but the talent not making the trip this time isn't fully on them.

 

Now, even with it being another couple months away, I would say that the shutdown/visa issue might have the MSG show in some kind of jeopardy right now.

Lets be real here, NJPW are never going to send Tanahashi, Okada or Naito to USA for extended period of time so these USA shows are bound to always be about guys who NJPW doesn't really care that much about. Just like WWE ain't going to make Balor a regular in NXT UK. But it works, to some extent, for WWE because they are much bigger than NJPW. I mean, Omega or no Omega, NJPW deliberately decided to run these USA shows at the same time as they are running shows in Japan. I'm fairly sure that even if Omega stayed then he'd be either in Sapporo or Osaka. Or he'd be taking time off.

As for MSG show, I wonder if those visas haven't already been filled for separately? I mean, unless they are doing some ridiculous rumble then guys like Nagata, Goto, Ishii and Kojima won't be on the card. And I kinda wonder how many Japanese talent will there actually be cause I imagine that they are going to do some kinda 50/50 split with RoH and then you add in Juice, Ospreay, White, Zack, Jericho (likely) and you figure that there won't be that many spots left.

[John from Cincinnati]

2 minutes ago, Archibald said:

I think RoH wouldn't mind if 90% of MSG show was about their guys

I doubt they want the stink of that disappointment lingering on their brand. 

[clintthecrippler]

16 minutes ago, Archibald said:

I think RoH wouldn't mind if 90% of MSG show was about their guys

Lets be real here, NJPW are never going to send Tanahashi, Okada or Naito to USA for extended period of time so these USA shows are bound to always be about guys who NJPW doesn't really care that much about. Just like WWE ain't going to make Balor a regular in NXT UK. But it works, to some extent, for WWE because they are much bigger than NJPW. I mean, Omega or no Omega, NJPW deliberately decided to run these USA shows at the same time as they are running shows in Japan. I'm fairly sure that even if Omega stayed then he'd be either in Sapporo or Osaka. Or he'd be taking time off.

From folks I have interacted with, expectations were already tempered for these shows. People were okay with getting something like Nagata vs Ishii or Goto vs Cobb for a main event.

I like Tracy Williams but I seriously doubt folks here in LA that shelled out 100 bucks for ringside to see an NJPW branded show are enthused to see him in a main event that is essentially a throwaway tag match to build the one title match happening on the other side of the country two days later. 

Also, a reminder that Ospreay, ZSJ, and Jay White are going to need work visas too, though ZSJ might be in the clear since he just worked ROH in December.

And if there are people whose visa paperwork is already secured for MSG, New Japan could probably gain some goodwill and trust if they went ahead confirmed some names now, even if they cant announce matches yet.

[matt925]

1 hour ago, hammerva said:

I would be interested in the number of people in the last month or so that got rid of their MSG show tickets anyway given the most popular group and the vast majority of their fanbase isn't going to be there.

I sold my ticket about a month ago, but it was going to be a stretch for me to make it anyway. I’m not expecting a killer show though and I wanted to make sure I could get my money back so I just sold it.