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Rumors are swirling that the Ospreay situation is a lost his smile/took his ball and went home scenario. Dave seemingly lent credence to the rumors on WOR when he said that Ospreay dropping the title due to a neck injury isn't the whole story and there are a lot of issues behind the scenes. He even likened it to 90s HBK. I seem to recall that Harold Meij got the ax largely because the foreign wrestlers hated him. Well, relations now seem more strained than ever. New Japan post-Meij is starting to remind me of CMLL post-Paco Alonso.

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2 hours ago, strobogo said:

That seems like an issue to take up with the Japanese government, not NJPW. But didn't Ospreay move to Japan full time 2-3 years ago? And also Dave is always wrong about NJ scoopz anyway.

He did, but his lady just moved back to the UK.

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Bryan was hinting at it before Dave did.  I think it's possible that one or both of them is talking directly to Will.  Bryan talks to Romero at the very least, and I'm sure some others.  They're not without NJPW sources

I thought the way things went down with Bea was really odd.  They debut this new stable, his real life girlfriend is a featured part of it, then he turns on her and she's gone from the company.  I know the story was she was finishing up and planning on going back to the UK anyway, but the timing seemed really odd to me and I figured there had to be more to the story.  It wouldn't shock me if they were expecting her to be signed to a new contract, NJPW balked due to the pandemic, and Will not being happy about it

What are the downside guarantees like in NJPW?  I could see talent being pissed if they turned down bigger guarantees elsewhere to be in NJPW with the possibility of making more, and their money taking a big hit right now with the small crowds and cancellations.  Dave has also been saying repeatedly that the product is really cold over there right now, and merch is way down, which I'm sure he's getting directly from Fumi who's on the ground

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7 hours ago, cm funk said:

Dave has also been saying repeatedly that the product is really cold over there right now, and merch is way down, which I'm sure he's getting directly from Fumi who's on the ground

I know people have said before that this was pandemic time and it did not matter, but I still wonder how much the awful EVIL push to the top with these main events overloaded with run-ins like it's WWF in 1999, followed by the single push of a stupid gimmick on a crappy worker like Great O-Khan have hurt the perception of the product. Cards who used to be loaded with great matches are now one match shows with one usually great main event (if EVIL isn't involved) and a useless, boring mid and undercard. Stupid americanized gimmick matches and angles (the Bea Priestley stuff which, again, reeked of WWF 1999) probably haven't helped either. Gedo has had an awesome 10's, but he totally seems to have lost the plot since last year. Yeah, he can still book a mean Dome Show and G1 for sure, but if the booking sinks for the rest of the year (not to mention ill-advised decisions from the business side to book TWO Dome shows in a middle of a pandemic while running a cold product), it won't help.

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I feel like NJ having 1-2 match cards and the rest being filler holding pattern bullshit + Bullet Club nonsense going on years and years past expiration point have been the main knocks on NJ for like....idk 5-6 years. Also the let someone cook, get them as hot as possible, then cool them off for a year and put the belt on them a year after people stopped caring.

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The both can be true; they can be really hampered and limited by the pandemic and be ice cold. And at a certain point, the fact that they can point to the pandemic as the reason doesn't matter. They're coming up on almost a year now since they came back to running shows; you go cold for a year and it's going to hurt, even if there's a good reason behind it. It's a little unfair to crush Gedo when he hasn't had his gaijin and is trying to book six "big shows" on a tour with a limited crew, but it's also on him to try and find a way out of it, and glove on a pole matches aren't it.

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So it seems the gist of the Will stuff is that he does have a neck injury that he probably could work thru if needed but between that, frustration with NJPW management, and whatever's going on with Bea (at the least, she left Japan to go home to tend to a family member so there's some stress there no matter) he just decided to go back home for a while. 

There's some people in NJPW who think he's not really that injured and he's straight up pulling an HBK, which is why he posted a photo of his neck X-ray that shows some jacked up discs and some narrowing of the spinal column. 

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A confluence of factors makes a lot more sense.  If it was simply burn out, frustration and/or personal issues I can't imagine NJPW would've taken the belt off of him so suddenly.  Would imagine that in such a situation they'd at least play it week to week for a while and wait to get a read on things before taking such a drastic move, but an injury would certainly compound that.  But what do I know?

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Per Meltzer, Nick Khan has been in talks with New Japan about a possible partnership and make WWE the sole provider of U.S. content for them.

On the one hand, I have no idea if they're in any real financial trouble. On the other hand, teaming up with the most creatively bankrupt promotion that wants to monopolize wrestling seems like a bad idea.

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I think it's gonna come down to if NJPW believes WWE is a better way for them to break in the US market.

Because from a partnership standpoint, what they're doing with AEW and Impact so far works great enough for me. But who knows how NJPW will see this.

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On 5/28/2021 at 1:48 PM, Boss Rock said:

Per Meltzer, Nick Khan has been in talks with New Japan about a possible partnership and make WWE the sole provider of U.S. content for them.

On the one hand, I have no idea if they're in any real financial trouble. On the other hand, teaming up with the most creatively bankrupt promotion that wants to monopolize wrestling seems like a bad idea.

Putting NJ stuff up on WWE Network would be pretty awesome for me as a fan who has Peacock built into my cable, but I can't see WWE being happy with NJ shows blowing theirs out of the water quality wise on their own network every few weeks.

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So Okada totally buried the double title concept in an interview, calling it the 2nd biggest mistake in NJPW's entire history. I think it was a cool idea when conceptualised, and gave Naito a great moment, but in hindsight, it was a failure in practice. The pandemic certainly didn't help, but it has led to their world title being erased and now there's a new world title with zero lineage. One of the cool things about watching IWGP world title matches was the montage with all previous champions before the entrances. Now they cannot do that without looking stupid

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Loved the pacing - slow and logical. Loved the lack of finisher and kick-out spamming. Loved the outcome, hope there'll be some stability at the top.

Also, I don't think I've ever seen a Shingo lariat that didn't make me shudder.

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