AEW, New Japan Pro Wrestling establish working relationship

[cero2k]

AEW, NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING ESTABLISH WORKING RELATIONSHIP
source: https://www.f4wonline.com/aew-news/aew- ... hip-332261

On the Wednesday edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer said that a "deal is done" on a working relationship between AEW and New Japan Pro Wrestling.

KENTA's appearance at Wednesday's Beach Break and next week's lights out match with he and AEW World Champion Kenny Omega vs. Jon Moxley and Lance Archer are kicking things off, but Meltzer said he's unaware of anything else planned after that.

However, Meltzer said, "I know people that can't wait to go back to Japan. Put it that way."

The impetus for the deal was New Japan's desire to have Jon Moxley defend the IWGP U.S. title he won back in January 2020. Because of pandemic-related travel restrictions, that was unable to happen but they also didn't want to strip him of the title. Since KENTA lives in Orlando, Florida, that made a match possible but since it would have to be in the U.S., a deal had to be struck with AEW's Tony Khan first.

Meltzer didn't say when the deal was struck, but speculated that the pandemic actually helped move things along quicker as Moxley would have just traveled to Japan to defend the title if travel was unrestricted.

Moxley vs. KENTA for the IWGP U.S. title will air on the February 26th New Japan Strong and was taped recently.

There was interest in having both sides work together when AEW was launching, but New Japan was skeptical of how successful the new venture would be and wanted Khan to come to Japan to meet with them. He sent Chris Harrington and the Young Bucks to make the deal instead which they didn't like as they thought it was a slight. Meltzer said that once Harold Meij left New Japan as president, the door was open to talking again.

[Big Red Machine]

Meh.

I'm honestly not sure how helpful bringing in NJPW guys will be for AEW.

[cero2k]

Meh.

I'm honestly not sure how helpful bringing in NJPW guys will be for AEW.

They're not. We're still in a pandemic, the deal is just to work this KENTA and Moxley thing

Also, ratings and buzz

[Big Red Machine]

Meh.

I'm honestly not sure how helpful bringing in NJPW guys will be for AEW.

They're not. We're still in a pandemic, the deal is just to work this KENTA and Moxley thing

Also, ratings and buzz

I mean overall. Even post-pandemic.

As for ratings, have the Good Brothers drawn? Omega really hasn't drawn for TNA much, has he? I think AEW would be better served focusing on AEW and AEW guys. I think if you have people coming in from all of these different promotions all the time, it starts to make your own wrestlers feel less important.

[cero2k]

I mean overall. Even post-pandemic.

As for ratings, have the Good Brothers drawn? Omega really hasn't drawn for TNA much, has he? I think AEW would be better served focusing on AEW and AEW guys. I think if you have people coming in from all of these different promotions all the time, it starts to make your own wrestlers feel less important.

Even post pandemic, I don't think we're getting a lot of crossover

Good Brothers aren't exactly meaningful, they spent the last years being jobbers in WWE. Omega doesn't mean anything on Impact because he didn't so shit on Impact, he cut promos from a bus for a month. It's not just about appearing, it's about how you use them and creating something that feels important.

At the end of the day, it doesn't hurt to work with other promotions and fans love it. Don't let WWE make you think that it's wrong to do it

[Big Red Machine]

I mean overall. Even post-pandemic.

As for ratings, have the Good Brothers drawn? Omega really hasn't drawn for TNA much, has he? I think AEW would be better served focusing on AEW and AEW guys. I think if you have people coming in from all of these different promotions all the time, it starts to make your own wrestlers feel less important.

Even post pandemic, I don't think we're getting a lot of crossover

Good Brothers aren't exactly meaningful, they spent the last years being jobbers in WWE. Omega doesn't mean anything on Impact because he didn't so shit on Impact, he cut promos from a bus for a month. It's not just about appearing, it's about how you use them and creating something that feels important.

But hasn't half of the idea of AEW been that there are people like FTR and Shawn Spears who they can salvage? If they can't make the Good Brothers meaningful, isn't that evidence that maybe AEW shouldn't be bringing people in. Building people up is building people up, whether you're undoing damage or just establishing them to a new audience. Quite frankly, they've failed a building up a LOT of people (the women's division is full of them, plus you've got all of the Cabana-type indy vets and the Kip Sabian type of younger guys. I'd even argue that they've blown it with LAX).

At the end of the day, it doesn't hurt to work with other promotions and fans love it. Don't let WWE make you think that it's wrong to do it

It's not a WWE thing. It's adjusting for the reality of the streaming world. It's not hard to get Japanese footage anymore. It's not the mid-2008s and the easiest way to see guys from Noah and Dragon Gate is to buy ROH DVDs. The same goes for Lucha. No one (to my knowledge) has doing Lucha shows in non-border-state American cities with big Mexican populations over the past few years because if you live in Denver or Chicago or wherever and want to see Luchadors, you can get AAA and CMLL with ease.

Also, as both CHIKARA and a lot of places in Japan have shown, if you do much of it, it starts to lose all meaning. I think it's a much better strategy to say "AEW's wrestlers are the best at all of their different styles" than it is to bring people in from other promotions and portray them as the best. AEW is better served building up Luchasaurus/Hager/Sabian/whoever than they are spending time building up KENTA (or Tanahashi or Jay White or whoever) for a one-and-done because your guys will be here in two months and the New Japan guy won't.

And when you've got people from six different promotions appearing on your TV show, it makes you start to feel smaller than you are.

[cero2k]

But hasn't half of the idea of AEW been that there are people like FTR and Shawn Spears who they can salvage? If they can't make the Good Brothers meaningful, isn't that evidence that maybe AEW shouldn't be bringing people in. Building people up is building people up, whether you're undoing damage or just establishing them to a new audience. Quite frankly, they've failed a building up a LOT of people (the women's division is full of them, plus you've got all of the Cabana-type indy vets and the Kip Sabian type of younger guys. I'd even argue that they've blown it with LAX).

No, it's not an AEW idea, this isn't on AEW. it's the idea that no matter who you are, WWE fucks you up. It's not up to AEW (or any other promotion) to show that WWE was wrong, they simply book something and the wrestlers show whether WWE was right or wrong. They also debuted 1 month ago and they've been Omega's lackeys, they're not doing their own programs yet, how meaningful can they be under such circumstances? Don't expect instant gratification, if you want someone to be meaningful, then give them time to develop and establish themselves.
Yeah, some people haven't been big successes, but some have. it's ok.

It's not a WWE thing. It's adjusting for the reality of the streaming world. It's not hard to get Japanese footage anymore. It's not the mid-2008s and the easiest way to see guys from Noah and Dragon Gate is to buy ROH DVDs. The same goes for Lucha. No one (to my knowledge) has doing Lucha shows in non-border-state American cities with big Mexican populations over the past few years because if you live in Denver or Chicago or wherever and want to see Luchadors, you can get AAA and CMLL with ease.

Also, as both CHIKARA and a lot of places in Japan have shown, if you do much of it, it starts to lose all meaning. I think it's a much better strategy to say "AEW's wrestlers are the best at all of their different styles" than it is to bring people in from other promotions and portray them as the best. AEW is better served building up Luchasaurus/Hager/Sabian/whoever than they are spending time building up KENTA (or Tanahashi or Jay White or whoever) for a one-and-done because your guys will be here in two months and the New Japan guy won't.

And when you've got people from six different promotions appearing on your TV show, it makes you start to feel smaller than you are.

if what you're looking for is 'meaning', then you're just thinking in short term quick-scheme hype and ratings, not in long term promotional harmony. Saying your wrestlers are the best and the rest don't exist is what WWE does is, straight up insulting to any smart person. If it's not hard to find footage, than we all know that Okada is better than 99% of the AEW wrestlers anyway, no need to pretend, and it makes it a huge deal when they come along.
Yeah, AEW MUST build guys like those you mention (Ok, maybe not those specifically personally), most importantly, so that when an Okada or a Maki Itoh or Psycho Clown or Nick Aldis shows up, you can sell big dream matches. If you haven't noticed with Impact, AEW didn't stop building their own things just because Omega and Private Party did a couple of shows there.

And I 100% disagree with that last statement, it makes it seem like you're part of a Worldwide wrestling network of promotions, not just a 'universe' bubble that is more of a tv show than a wrestling promotion.

[Big Red Machine]

But hasn't half of the idea of AEW been that there are people like FTR and Shawn Spears who they can salvage? If they can't make the Good Brothers meaningful, isn't that evidence that maybe AEW shouldn't be bringing people in. Building people up is building people up, whether you're undoing damage or just establishing them to a new audience. Quite frankly, they've failed a building up a LOT of people (the women's division is full of them, plus you've got all of the Cabana-type indy vets and the Kip Sabian type of younger guys. I'd even argue that they've blown it with LAX).

No, it's not an AEW idea, this isn't on AEW. it's the idea that no matter who you are, WWE fucks you up. It's not up to AEW (or any other promotion) to show that WWE was wrong, they simply book something and the wrestlers show whether WWE was right or wrong. They also debuted 1 month ago and they've been Omega's lackeys, they're not doing their own programs yet, how meaningful can they be under such circumstances? Don't expect instant gratification, if you want someone to be meaningful, then give them time to develop and establish themselves.
Yeah, some people haven't been big successes, but some have. it's ok.

Gallows and Anderson can be extremely meaningful under those circumstances. Whether or not you want to call them "lackeys," they're the lackeys of the company's top heel. They should be meaningful. They don't need to do their "own" programs because they're involved in Omega's.

I think you're being unfair to the wrestlers here. We KNOW these guys have ability. I think it's AEW's booking that has failed guys like Shawn Spears. I was never that high on the guy, but you can't tell me that a huge part of his problem in AEW hasn't been inconsistent screen time and a gimmick from the 1980s?
Or FTR. They have the ability to be superstars, but no one cares about them anymore because AEW has booked them into the ground.
If you're AEW and you're bringing in someone who you might have baggage from being booked badly- be it in WWE, TNA, ROH, or anywhere else- then you do need to take repairing that damage into your calculus when you figure out how you're going to present that person. Even NXT has to do it with people they get from the main roster (Ember Moon, Breezango).

It's not a WWE thing. It's adjusting for the reality of the streaming world. It's not hard to get Japanese footage anymore. It's not the mid-2008s and the easiest way to see guys from Noah and Dragon Gate is to buy ROH DVDs. The same goes for Lucha. No one (to my knowledge) has doing Lucha shows in non-border-state American cities with big Mexican populations over the past few years because if you live in Denver or Chicago or wherever and want to see Luchadors, you can get AAA and CMLL with ease.

Also, as both CHIKARA and a lot of places in Japan have shown, if you do much of it, it starts to lose all meaning. I think it's a much better strategy to say "AEW's wrestlers are the best at all of their different styles" than it is to bring people in from other promotions and portray them as the best. AEW is better served building up Luchasaurus/Hager/Sabian/whoever than they are spending time building up KENTA (or Tanahashi or Jay White or whoever) for a one-and-done because your guys will be here in two months and the New Japan guy won't.

And when you've got people from six different promotions appearing on your TV show, it makes you start to feel smaller than you are.

if what you're looking for is 'meaning', then you're just thinking in short term quick-scheme hype and ratings, not in long term promotional harmony. Saying your wrestlers are the best and the rest don't exist is what WWE does is, straight up insulting to any smart person. If it's not hard to find footage, than we all know that Okada is better than 99% of the AEW wrestlers anyway, no need to pretend, and it makes it a huge deal when they come along.
Yeah, AEW MUST build guys like those you mention (Ok, maybe not those specifically personally), most importantly, so that when an Okada or a Maki Itoh or Psycho Clown or Nick Aldis shows up, you can sell big dream matches. If you haven't noticed with Impact, AEW didn't stop building their own things just because Omega and Private Party did a couple of shows there.

In the long term, I don't see too much benefit to this "promotional harmony" on such a wide scale. Visits are nice, but other than developmental relationships (and I'm essentially including NJPW/CMLL as one, because that's how NJPW uses CMLL and CMLL doesn't seem to get too much out of it- and I don't think ROH or RevPro have done much for New Japan on that axis), I don't see too much long-term benefit that makes it worth spending time on these guys.
I'm thinking in the long term. I'm thinking about the long-term development of your own wrestlers as stars to your fanbase. The NOAH and DG guys- and I'm just talking about guys coming in on a semi-consistent basis (Marufuji, plus KENTA, Morishima, Shiozaki, and Shingo on their excursions) made more of a difference for ROH in 2006-2008 (and especially the NOAH guys) than a few years of Naito and Tanahashi coming in for ten shows a year made for ROH a decade later, even though Naito and Tanahashi were much bigger stars in the US than the NOAH/DG guys were when they came over.

And I 100% disagree with that last statement, it makes it seem like you're part of a Worldwide wrestling network of promotions, not just a 'universe' bubble that is more of a tv show than a wrestling promotion.

After watching what has happeend to ROH and RevPro, I think there is a point where being part of the Global Network starts to make you feel small unless you're the absolute biggest partner there by far (like New Japan). AEW is certainly not that to New Japan, and arguably they're even smaller than AAA, too.
It worked for Gabe-Era ROH because you knew they weren't that big, and the foreign promotions they were working with (NOAH, DG) felt like they either filled a role equivalent to ROH in their own ecosystem (DG) or were this big mystical place with wrestlers with these work-rate superstars who you couldn't see in the US any other way (NOAH). Any domestic partner ROH worked with was always smaller than them, allowing ROH to look like the big guy (or in SHIMMER's case, it felt like the female equivalent of ROH, with one specializing in men's wrestling and the other in women's).
It failed for Delirious-Era ROH once NJPW established their own presence in he US because it made ROH seem small. RevPro had the same problem, although the way they have booked their titles has made it even worse. They're still in the same place relative to PROGRESS (they draw smaller crowds but run more often), but they now feel a lot smaller compared to PROGRESS than they did before they fully joined on with NJPW.

[cero2k]

Gallows and Anderson can be extremely meaningful under those circumstances. Whether or not you want to call them "lackeys," they're the lackeys of the company's top heel. They should be meaningful. They don't need to do their "own" programs because they're involved in Omega's.

I think you're being unfair to the wrestlers here. We KNOW these guys have ability. I think it's AEW's booking that has failed guys like Shawn Spears. I was never that high on the guy, but you can't tell me that a huge part of his problem in AEW hasn't been inconsistent screen time and a gimmick from the 1980s?
Or FTR. They have the ability to be superstars, but no one cares about them anymore because AEW has booked them into the ground.
If you're AEW and you're bringing in someone who you might have baggage from being booked badly- be it in WWE, TNA, ROH, or anywhere else- then you do need to take repairing that damage into your calculus when you figure out how you're going to present that person. Even NXT has to do it with people they get from the main roster (Ember Moon, Breezango).

But lackeys nonetheless. I'm coming with this from the Impact's perspective, they were Gallows and Anderson, The Good Brothers, formerly famous world wide, tag team champions, they defeated the longest reigning tag champions, and now they're lackeys to some other dude that cuts promos from a bus. Gallows and Anderson have never meant anything in the US, and now they mean less.
It's not unfair, at most, it's a 50/50 relationship. AEW gave A LOT to Spears and he never impressed. They gave a shitty jobber gimmick to the Beaver Boys or a losing streak to Jungle Boy, and they're both getting over. Fixing damage may take time, i agree, so again, not instant gratification, it takes time.

In the long term, I don't see too much benefit to this "promotional harmony" on such a wide scale. Visits are nice, but other than developmental relationships (and I'm essentially including NJPW/CMLL as one, because that's how NJPW uses CMLL and CMLL doesn't seem to get too much out of it- and I don't think ROH or RevPro have done much for New Japan on that axis), I don't see too much long-term benefit that makes it worth spending time on these guys.
I'm thinking in the long term. I'm thinking about the long-term development of your own wrestlers as stars to your fanbase. The NOAH and DG guys- and I'm just talking about guys coming in on a semi-consistent basis (Marufuji, plus KENTA, Morishima, Shiozaki, and Shingo on their excursions) made more of a difference for ROH in 2006-2008 (and especially the NOAH guys) than a few years of Naito and Tanahashi coming in for ten shows a year made for ROH a decade later, even though Naito and Tanahashi were much bigger stars in the US than the NOAH/DG guys were when they came over.

CMLL doesn't get anything from NJPW because they don't really care to get anything from NJPW, all the Japanese people they get, they just put them in the same heel stable and let them work, they would get Kojima or Liger or Naito every now and then, and just have them do a random match. CMLL, pandemic aside, has weekly sellouts with or without NJPW, and because of that, they've never been big-timed by NJPW. ROH and RevPro did and pretty much allowed NJPW to do whatever. I don't think AEW is that case, it was NJPW that came to Tony Khan, not the other way around. I do not see Khan letting the NJPW come to get over their guys or get free tv time.

[Big Red Machine]

Gallows and Anderson can be extremely meaningful under those circumstances. Whether or not you want to call them "lackeys," they're the lackeys of the company's top heel. They should be meaningful. They don't need to do their "own" programs because they're involved in Omega's.

I think you're being unfair to the wrestlers here. We KNOW these guys have ability. I think it's AEW's booking that has failed guys like Shawn Spears. I was never that high on the guy, but you can't tell me that a huge part of his problem in AEW hasn't been inconsistent screen time and a gimmick from the 1980s?
Or FTR. They have the ability to be superstars, but no one cares about them anymore because AEW has booked them into the ground.
If you're AEW and you're bringing in someone who you might have baggage from being booked badly- be it in WWE, TNA, ROH, or anywhere else- then you do need to take repairing that damage into your calculus when you figure out how you're going to present that person. Even NXT has to do it with people they get from the main roster (Ember Moon, Breezango).

But lackeys nonetheless. I'm coming with this from the Impact's perspective, they were Gallows and Anderson, The Good Brothers, formerly famous world wide, tag team champions, they defeated the longest reigning tag champions, and now they're lackeys to some other dude that cuts promos from a bus. Gallows and Anderson have never meant anything in the US, and now they mean less.
It's not unfair, at most, it's a 50/50 relationship. AEW gave A LOT to Spears and he never impressed. They gave a shitty jobber gimmick to the Beaver Boys or a losing streak to Jungle Boy, and they're both getting over. Fixing damage may take time, i agree, so again, not instant gratification, it takes time.

Gallows and Anderson absolutely have the potential to matter, and if you're going to say that they "never meant anything" in the US, then you need to apply that argument to all of Bullet Club during their big ROH run. If Gallows and Anderson didn't matter but were still mega-over, then it was the brand that was over, not the wrestlers.

What AEW hasn't given Spears since early on is consistent focus. Compare that with Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus, who have both gotten that. Spears disappears for months at a time. Do I think Spears is great? No. But do I think that he had the potential to be a lot more than he currently is, especially given the way that he was brought int.

The Beaver Boys got over as comedy goofs on the goofball internet show that only their die-hards watch.

In the long term, I don't see too much benefit to this "promotional harmony" on such a wide scale. Visits are nice, but other than developmental relationships (and I'm essentially including NJPW/CMLL as one, because that's how NJPW uses CMLL and CMLL doesn't seem to get too much out of it- and I don't think ROH or RevPro have done much for New Japan on that axis), I don't see too much long-term benefit that makes it worth spending time on these guys.
I'm thinking in the long term. I'm thinking about the long-term development of your own wrestlers as stars to your fanbase. The NOAH and DG guys- and I'm just talking about guys coming in on a semi-consistent basis (Marufuji, plus KENTA, Morishima, Shiozaki, and Shingo on their excursions) made more of a difference for ROH in 2006-2008 (and especially the NOAH guys) than a few years of Naito and Tanahashi coming in for ten shows a year made for ROH a decade later, even though Naito and Tanahashi were much bigger stars in the US than the NOAH/DG guys were when they came over.

CMLL doesn't get anything from NJPW because they don't really care to get anything from NJPW, all the Japanese people they get, they just put them in the same heel stable and let them work, they would get Kojima or Liger or Naito every now and then, and just have them do a random match. CMLL, pandemic aside, has weekly sellouts with or without NJPW, and because of that, they've never been big-timed by NJPW. ROH and RevPro did and pretty much allowed NJPW to do whatever. I don't think AEW is that case, it was NJPW that came to Tony Khan, not the other way around. I do not see Khan letting the NJPW come to get over their guys or get free tv time.

Yes, CMLL doesn't get much from NJPW (other than the occasional guy who works out really well for them like Hiromu did), but CMLL in Mexico has the same built-in protection that WWE does in the US, where they have been established as the big dog for so long that it will take A LOT for them to not be seen is as at least being equal in any relationship.

Yes, NJPW came to Khan, but I'm pretty sure it was NJPW who came to Delirious, too (and Rocky Romero specifically, if I remember the story correctly).