Felix Upton on January 9, 2019
New Japan Pro Wrestling is losing The Elite and possibly Chris Jericho although Y2J might have a special deal where he can work for both AEW and NJPW. No matter, NJPW looks to be losing Kenny Omega and Kushida is gone as well.
NJPW President Harold Meij reacted via NJPW’s website to losing so many top talents recently.
He assured everyone that NJPW will be okay and that talent leaving the company is just all a part of the business. He also spoke about how healthy it is for competition and the new opportunities just demonstrate how strong of a market pro wrestling is.
This is the translation of what Meij said via Chris Charlton:
“‘Is New Japan OK?’ Yes it is. ‘Is this the beginning of the end?’ Twitter’s getting ahead of itself.”
“More promotions in the market is proof of a healthy sector with more people watching. A billion Dollar market is turning into 1.3, 1.5 billion. It’s not a tiny space with everyone fighting over scraps anymore.”
“I used to be in charge of a 1.8 billion dollar business. Not the entire industry, a company worth that much. And forgive me for saying, I did pretty well. And New Japan has a great structure, our people have a lot of skill and know-how, and our wrestlers are great.”
“Talent will come & go. That’s life. Half of Japanese people have had more than one occupation. More overseas. There are different life stages, priorities change. What counts is that while here, people shine as bright as possible & produce the best product possible for us.”
“Our job as a business in New Japan is to make sure our wrestlers are not spending their life worrying about ticket sales, living expense, feeding their family, or injury. They need to be able to focus on the ring “
New Japan Pro Wrestling will carry on and continue to make stars. They are already building up some very exciting feuds as well. We will have to wait and see what happens next as the company and the entire pro wrestling world enters another phase.
January 9, 2019 12:14 pm
Disqus Comments Loading...
