La Zona Muerta

You know, I’ve made absolutely no secret of the fact that New Japan Pro Wrestling used to be my favorite wrestling promotion on the planet. Of course, that “used to be” is a big part of the equation; for me, New Japan went away from the pandemic and, uh… never quite found its way back. It’s not my favorite promotion any longer.

It’s not really my anything any longer. I’ve kept it at arm’s length, leg’s length, body’s length. I’ve hovered the mouse cursor over the “cancel” button on the NJPWWorld site more than once.

I was speaking with the venerable and wise Mrs. Convoy just the other day, like seriously maybe just two or three days ago, about how some friends of ours had been loving the current New Japan Super Jrs. tournament and how other friends or outlets we respect had stayed away completely. Her favorite promotion is NOAH, and you can imagine, with our mutual antipathy for the Fed and Fed adjacency in all of it’s forms, she too feels the sting of no longer being able to call her favorite promotion hers any longer. We laughed about the mixed reaction to the Super Juniors and I opined that “it would take something monumental to happen to get me back into New Japan.”

An uncomforting reality for those of you who tend towards the younger side of the spectrum… when you are staring down the barrel of fifty, you might need to urinate more often than you did in the bloom of youth. For me, that seems to have manifested in getting up to pee at around 4am, doomscrolling for a few minutes, and then trying to eke out another two hours of sleep before I have to be a human alarm clock for my wife (a real alarm clock won’t do for her highness). So as I rose to fulfill NATURE’S CALL this morning, I did my thing, and as I crawled back into bed and opened my tablet, I was surprised to learn that CyberAgent, parent company of NOAH, had seemingly purchased New Japan.

Then, after some investigation, it appeared that TV-Asahi, NJPW’s TV partner, had actually purchased New Japan.

Then, after some further investigation on (shudder) Reddit*, it appeared that TV-Asahi AND CyberAgent had purchased an EQUAL stake in New Japan.

Look, I have spent the morning commiserating and conferring with people FAR smarter than I on what this all means. The bottom line is that we don’t really know, but we can draw some inferences:

1. From the outside looking in, this appears to be a strategic move for CyberAgent and TV-Asahi BOTH to shore up their own defenses. CyberAgent and TV-Asahi co own a streaming service called ABEMA that currently shows combat sports product, including, for now, WWE. Apparently their contract with WWE ends in October, as WWE moves their content to the Japanese version of Netflix (an aside; while the Japanese DO have Netflix, it is not quite as ubiquitous as it is here). TV-Asahi already owned part of New Japan (reports vary as to how much, but the settled upon figure I’ve seen seems to be around 22.5% prior to whatever was announced last night). It may have made more sense in this case to replace WWE programming with New Japan programming… and then it may have furthermore made sense to buy the thing outright instead of paying a licensing fee
2. I can see where people might be a bit worried about what this means for western (aka WWE) influence, or to put it more bluntly, if WWE have their grubby, little hands in NOAH, what does that mean for NJPW? Believe me, I’m worried about that too, but, since part of this acquisition is VERY LIKELY to do with these two companies trying to protect their streaming assets, I’m actually less worried about that than I was a while ago.
3. What about AEW? What about AEW? Like, chill out. AEW is gonna be fine. Partnerships in Japanese business aren’t generally dissolved at the snap of a finger.
4. Is GEDO gonna get the boot? I doubt it. He’s very, VERY entrenched with the sort of “good ol’ boys” type network in Japan. TV-Asahi are not NEW owners of NJ, just FULLER owners. CyberAgent folks love him, as far as I know (I will happily defer to anyone with more knowledge of the situation than I there but…). I doubt anything changes in THAT regard. The overall morale in NJ, however MIGHT actually change as Bushiroad as owners were not universally well regarded.
5. Well, what about the workers Bushiroad alienated (your Kazuchika Okadas, your Tetsuya Naitos), then? Good question.

I get change can be scary, and we’re all worried about wrestling falling into evil monopolies and etc. I realize my cynical self is rarely a bastion of positivity or even someone who is likely to advise “let it play out,” but one thing I do like to tell people is this.

KEEP YOUR POWDER DRY.

No need to flip out about this yet. In fact, there may, MAY not be a need to flip out at all. CyberAgent is likely to actually put some money BACK INTO NJ for once. I know, I know, that sounds like a WILD concept, but one thing NOAH does better in many regards is put more emphasis on presentational / production matters. I don’t think NJPWWorld is going anywhere, unfortunately, TV-Asahi owns that, so don’t expect NJ on the superior WrestleUniverse service anytime soon (you never know) but who know what the future holds. The most important thing, in my not so humble opinion is that the barnacles and detritus that have COATED the proud Lion Mark since roughly 2020 or so can be scraped away and New Japan can get back to the business of being the King of Sports. Can CyberAgent do that without betraying New Japan’s essence, it’s identity? Answers on a postcard, but I feel at least one percent better about New Japan’s future than I did twelve hours ago.

*good ol’ Reddit where a user said that the interesting previous 24 hours in wrestling had now turned into an interesting 48 hours. When asked what he meant by that, he pointed out that PROGRESS, the tiny UK wrestling outfit that never recovered truly recovered from the trifecta of the pandemic, Speaking Out and the scene destruction caused by NXT UK, had been purchased as well, and while that wasn’t quite on the level of New Japan being bought, it was still an interesting parallel. I, of course, left a downvote and closed the screen in disgust