DECEMBER 2019 WRESTLING CHAT.

[Ziggy]

Its crazy New Japan is the Number 2 Promotion in the world and they are right behind WWE in their level of pettiness 

[Archibald]

So NJPW builds their USA expansion around The Elite, then The Elite announces that nah, we are leaving and starting our own company that will operate in USA... Why would NJPW be happy with that and continue promoting them past WK?

[Eivion]

Exactly. Its not even completely a pettiness deal. Bucks and Omega expecting some kind of nice sendoff was arrogant bullshit on their parts. FFS they shit talked NJPW to Meltzer before they even left. Why the hell would they be given a nice sendoff?

Edited December 27, 2019 by Eivion

[Jiji]

They aren't indentured servants. They took a far better deal as any reasonable person would. They gave proper notice unlike Styles, Gallows, and Anderson by the sounds of it.

Those three helped their western expansion tremendously. Instead of gratitude or graciousness, there was pettiness in how they handled the Omega/Tanahashi build and the NY Dash show. They along with ROH then refused to work with AEW to their own detriment. ROH is a husk of its former self and NJPW basically just announced the death of their own US expansion by saying they're done with TV in that market. There is little chance they build on what they have in a meaningful way without tv. They can run all the rinky dink shows in America they want now tho. 

[The Natural]

 

[Archibald]

2 hours ago, Oyaji said:

They took a far better deal as any reasonable person would.

And NJPW decided that it is not worth continue promoting them because they won't be available to them in 2019. Where is the problem exactly?

[Raziel]

2 hours ago, Oyaji said:

They aren't indentured servants. They took a far better deal as any reasonable person would. They gave proper notice unlike Styles, Gallows, and Anderson by the sounds of it.

Those three helped their western expansion tremendously. Instead of gratitude or graciousness, there was pettiness in how they handled the Omega/Tanahashi build and the NY Dash show. They along with ROH then refused to work with AEW to their own detriment. ROH is a husk of its former self and NJPW basically just announced the death of their own US expansion by saying they're done with TV in that market. There is little chance they build on what they have in a meaningful way without tv. They can run all the rinky dink shows in America they want now tho. 

That pettiness came from Omega and the Bucks, not NJPW.  NJPW were the ones that wanted to put Omega over Tanahashi then run Omega/Okada at MSG, Kenny turned it down then pouted on Twitter for weeks about NJPW not catering to his artist self whining because he didn't get his match with Ibushi.  The Bucks blew off the Tag League, then touted on social media how it wasn't worth their time and bitched about the money, then politicked their way into the Tag Title match at the Dome anyway with an angle that was so well recieved that you could hear a gnat fart in the building.

 

Those three hampered the western expansion with getting NJPW to book the entire thing around them, resulting in shows that were largely panned as being glorified RoH shows because RoH was already booking every show around The Elite.  They used NJPW's exposure and talent and RoH's talent and production to kick start their promotion they and their fans act as if NJPW and RoH owed them a Heroes sendoff when they should've gotten the Giving Watts notice treatment, and now people want to act like AEW would be doing NJPW and RoH a favor by daning to work with them.

 

The idea that NJPW and RoH are the petty ones is some high end revisionist history.

[JonnyLaw]

I for one am shocked, just shocked, that a wrestling promotion would bury talent on their way out of the promotion.

[Ryan]

Maybe everyone is at fault and who gives a shit.

[MORELOCK]

The Elite leaving pretty much sank the possibility of a successful American expansion, and Omega and the Bucks used their NJPW-created stardom as a launching pad to start a rival organization that helped to kill the aforementioned expansion. And NJPW is supposed to promote and thank them? Ridiculous.

 

Also, the answer to "who gives a shit" here is always "a board full of devoted wrestling fans," so I'm not sure why that ever gets rolled out.

Edited December 27, 2019 by MORELOCK

[OSJ]

Let's be as objective as possible...

1. Did NJPW underpay the Bucks and Kenny? Maybe. 

2. Did the Bucks and Kenny use the stardom that NJPW gave them to jumpstart their own fed? Certainly.

3. Did the Elite jumping effectively kill NJPW in the States? Sadly, yes.

4. Would we be better off with NJPW having a strong US presence instead of AEW? I think so.

5. Who gives a shit? Well, as a wrestling fan for longer than you've been alive, Ryan, I do.

[Craig H]

Jesus...Omega and the Bucks or no Omega and the Bucks, the NJPW "expansion" to the US was doomed from the start. Even without those three, they still had ways of moving on without them. Even when they announced that they would expand to the US, you had people here who were skeptical of how successful that would be. They were still locked into a deal with AXS, which is a channel not many people even get. As for now, is it Omega and the Bucks fault that Anthem bought AXS just so they could air Impact on it?

NJPW has no idea how to book for an American audience and most stuff would still be run in conjunction with ROH anyway. Hell, AEW tried to still work out a deal to do stuff with NJPW anyway, which would be way better than doing something with the floating corpse that is ROH, and NJPW still snubbed them. 

[Craig H]

Also, NJPW still can't even get their shit together with NJPW World. People here watch their shit on Rokus, Apple TVs, smart TVs, and other devices and the main thing that barely works is using a Chromecast or Fire Stick to watch NJPW stuff on your tv or hooking up your computer or laptop directly to your tv. I always think of NJPW like Nintendo in that they're a brilliant company that does some real head scratching stuff, has the attention of a gnat when it comes to the US, stuff gets introduced without a full push behind it, but what they do at their core is excellent.

[OSJ]

10 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Jesus...Omega and the Bucks or no Omega and the Bucks, the NJPW "expansion" to the US was doomed from the start. Even without those three, they still had ways of moving on without them. Even when they announced that they would expand to the US, you had people here who were skeptical of how successful that would be. They were still locked into a deal with AXS, which is a channel not many people even get. As for now, is it Omega and the Bucks fault that Anthem bought AXS just so they could air Impact on it?

NJPW has no idea how to book for an American audience and most stuff would still be run in conjunction with ROH anyway. Hell, AEW tried to still work out a deal to do stuff with NJPW anyway, which would be way better than doing something with the floating corpse that is ROH, and NJPW still snubbed them. 

I hate to be the one to do this, but I guess I'm going to have to play the race card, or at least the nationality card... Having the Bucks and Omega was vital to NJPW getting over in the US, without them it's a bunch of Japanese guys than only the hardcores are familiar with and a guy from New Zealand that again, only the hardcores know. That's not a recipe for success, that's a disaster waiting to happen.

[Ryan]

21 minutes ago, OSJ said:

Let's be as objective as possible...

1. Did NJPW underpay the Bucks and Kenny? Maybe. 

2. Did the Bucks and Kenny use the stardom that NJPW gave them to jumpstart their own fed? Certainly.

3. Did the Elite jumping effectively kill NJPW in the States? Sadly, yes.

4. Would we be better off with NJPW having a strong US presence instead of AEW? I think so.

5. Who gives a shit? Well, as a wrestling fan for longer than you've been alive, Ryan, I do.

That's two. Who said it was rhetorical? I'm taking a survey.

[OSJ]

2 minutes ago, Ryan said:

That's two. Who said it was rhetorical? I'm taking a survey.

A survey! Kewl! Here are some of my favorite survey questions (which have been retired do to Caller ID):

1. Do you have Prince Albert in a can?

2. Is your refrigerator running?

3. Have you stopped beating your wife?

4. Is that a pencil in your pocket or are you happy I called?

5. And my favorite for calling meat markets: "Do you have leg of salmon?" Hilarity ensues.

[Craig H]

16 minutes ago, OSJ said:

I hate to be the one to do this, but I guess I'm going to have to play the race card, or at least the nationality card... Having the Bucks and Omega was vital to NJPW getting over in the US, without them it's a bunch of Japanese guys than only the hardcores are familiar with and a guy from New Zealand that again, only the hardcores know. That's not a recipe for success, that's a disaster waiting to happen.

Wrestling is already an incredibly niche product here in the US. NJPW would be even more niche than that. If you're already more niche than wrestling itself then the best thing you could do is stick to your guns, deliver what your US fans want to see, and not give a shit about trying to have a white dude at the top.

This all also ignores that US wrestling hinges on weekly TV, which NJPW doesn't do or book for. They're not going to double their roster just to have a core American roster and they weren't going to be flying their Japanese stars back and forth. That's why the US expansion was doomed from the start and always half baked. It was always contingent on working in tandem with ROH, which is just asking for trouble. Whenever something gets announced without any additional details chances are they haven't worked everything out or enough things out to be successful.

And none of this even touches on how contracts used to work with NJPW. Doing contracts year to year is asking to one day be bitten in the ass. In fact, they were already bitten in the ass by Styles, Gallows, Anderson, Nakamura, and Devitt. No one is beholden to any one company and the Bucks, Kenny, and Cody all saw a bigger opportunity running their own promotion than doing whatever it was that NJPW was trying to do, which apparently was going to be cards that didn't even get promoted that well. Plus, they still wanted to work with NJPW, it would have been better for NJPW to co-promote their shows with AEW than ROH, and NJPW still chose ROH.

The backbone of the US expansion was always going to be co-promoting with a US promotion. NJPW could have still had their relationship with Omega, the Bucks, and Cody, but because they didn't pledge fealty or whatever the fuck, NJPW stuck with ROH.

EDIT: One final note about pettiness, NJPW could have gone back to working with Impact, but they still chose not to because fucking YEARS AGO with an entirely different leadership and booking committee they chose to make NJPW stars look like shit. For Christs sake, you don't even need to co-promote with AEW. You could do something with Impact!! And yet, no, because of shit that happened when it was an entirely different company. Hell, working with Impact would probably get NJPW stuff promoted on AXS again.

Edited December 27, 2019 by Craig H

[RRR]

25 minutes ago, OSJ said:

Let's be as objective as possible...

1. Did NJPW underpay the Bucks and Kenny? Maybe. 

2. Did the Bucks and Kenny use the stardom that NJPW gave them to jumpstart their own fed? Certainly.

3. Did the Elite jumping effectively kill NJPW in the States? Sadly, yes.

4. Would we be better off with NJPW having a strong US presence instead of AEW? I think so.

5. Who gives a shit? Well, as a wrestling fan for longer than you've been alive, Ryan, I do.

2. Kenny? Sure. The Bucks got over in PWG though.
 

3. US fans just don’t have the patience for every match on a show being 20-30 minutes so you get stuff like “Let’s go red shoes” when they get tired of duel chants. 
 

4. I don’t see this one at all. NJPW on TNT? Would be doing WWE backstage numbers(100-200k). 
 

New Japan needed to keep the Bullet Club strong after Kenny and the Bucks left but they just kind of let it blend in to the background. 

[OSJ]

Craig: I'm not going to quote you, because it's an eloquent and accurate response. If I must point out boogeymen that caused the NJPW failure in the US, I'm going to start with ROH. ROH has always been perceived by other companies as far bigger and more successful than they really were, the true fact is that they are ECW without Paul Heyman's genius and have never been more than an eastcoast fed that got a lot of ink in the sheets because there was nothing else to talk about. NJPW hooking their wagon to ROH was a huge mistake, ROH is nothing but a money pit on a national scale.

[Archibald]

36 minutes ago, Craig H said:

As for now, is it Omega and the Bucks fault that Anthem bought AXS just so they could air Impact on it?

Who exactly is saying or implying this?

[Craig H]

6 minutes ago, OSJ said:

Craig: I'm not going to quote you, because it's an eloquent and accurate response. If I must point out boogeymen that caused the NJPW failure in the US, I'm going to start with ROH. ROH has always been perceived by other companies as far bigger and more successful than they really were, the true fact is that they are ECW without Paul Heyman's genius and have never been more than an eastcoast fed that got a lot of ink in the sheets because there was nothing else to talk about. NJPW hooking their wagon to ROH was a huge mistake, ROH is nothing but a money pit on a national scale.

I think this is pretty spot on although I think I enjoyed ROH way more than I ever enjoyed ECW and the booking highs of ROH are higher than ECW's. 

The best company for NJPW to copromote with would probably be Impact honestly. It makes sense for both companies and it makes sense business wise. I even thought with Harold I'm charge that maybe they would understand Dixie has nothing to do with Impact, but I guess it doesn't matter.

[John from Cincinnati]

Kenny should have signed with WWE. If you're gonna be Just Another Guy anyway, be one who's working Roman and Brock.

[OSJ]

4 minutes ago, Archibald said:

Who exactly is saying or implying this?

I'm not sure where this comes from as Craig was making some excellent points. I'm going to have to agree that the failure to push the Bullet Club when the iron was the hottest, was central in NJPW's failure in the States. Hell, look at any crowd of wrestling fans and you see dozens of Bullet Club shirts. Could have easily been the new NWO, but they dropped the ball.

[Raziel]

1 minute ago, Craig H said:

I think this is pretty spot on although I think I enjoyed ROH way more than I ever enjoyed ECW and the booking highs of ROH are higher than ECW's. 

The best company for NJPW to copromote with would probably be Impact honestly. It makes sense for both companies and it makes sense business wise. I even thought with Harold I'm charge that maybe they would understand Dixie has nothing to do with Impact, but I guess it doesn't matter.

I think while Gedo and others still harbor resentment over NJPW talent's treatment in old TNA, Harold's currently blocked from getting something going because of the various international deals going on, namely, Impact's deal with AAA while NJPW is working with CMLL, and AAA and CMLL aren't exchanging gifts under the tree anytime soon (which would also prevent other deals as well).  Also, I'm pretty sure NJPW actually has a working contract with RoH (which is why they can still get Cobb, Gresham, and Lee) which would prevent them from going with any other US company, even if the animosity didn't exist.  

[OSJ]

2 minutes ago, Craig H said:

I think this is pretty spot on although I think I enjoyed ROH way more than I ever enjoyed ECW and the booking highs of ROH are higher than ECW's. 

The best company for NJPW to copromote with would probably be Impact honestly. It makes sense for both companies and it makes sense business wise. I even thought with Harold I'm charge that maybe they would understand Dixie has nothing to do with Impact, but I guess it doesn't matter.

This might well be an age thing... Recall just how bad 1990s WWE was. Suddenly, there was this little fed in Philly that was the coolest thing most of us had ever seen... With the benefit of hindsight it's easy to say that ROH delivered a superior wrestling product, but those of us that remember the early days of ECW will never forget how it made us feel.