WWE up to it's old tricks

[bradhindsight]

New Japan is backed by plenty of money - what kind of big bucks can the WWE throw around? 20k per dude like the U.K. deals?

[Grimmas]

New Japan is backed by plenty of money - what kind of big bucks can the WWE throw around? 20k per dude like the U.K. deals?

Enough to steal AJ, Nakamura, and Gallows//Anderson last year.

[goc]

New Japan is backed by plenty of money - what kind of big bucks can the WWE throw around? 20k per dude like the U.K. deals?

Come on now. If New Japan had the resources to win a bidding war with WWE then we wouldn't have seen Nakamura, Balor & AJ Styles all leave New Japan to go to WWE. They paid those 3 guys big money because that's what it took to get them, they paid the UK guys 20k because that's all they needed to.

 

WWE doesn't even need to go after that many guys, they'd only really need to sign 3-5 top guys to really hurt New Japan.

[bradhindsight]

The context isn't one-off stars, its funding a pseudo Japanese territory like the U.K. tournament. Given what happened before I'd be very surprised they'd be outbid.

 

was Balor a money thing? Nakamura told them for months he wanted to go. Styles wanted to be closer to his family.

[joeg]

The houses went up at the end of this year though for New Japan. WWE took the top 4 ganjins and 2 of the top natives and New Japan only dipped down for the first half of the year. They did such a great job building Omega and Naito that they actually drew better in the G1 and at the Dome...

[stro]

They've done a terrible job with building Naito. Dude should have been the top star for the past 2 years, but Gedo won't do anything that makes his boy Okada look inferior. Naito got himself over with NO help whatsoever from NJPW.

[supersonic]

Joe Lanza has done an excellent job of conveying how protected Naito was last year.

[Jmare007]

The ROH/NJ relationship has been terrible and the NJ guys stopping bothering almost immediately. Another promotion of shitty West Coast indie guys like Joey Ryan with the occasional appearance by Yujiro or Yano is a waste of everything for everyone. NJ's president seems like he has great business sense, so to put money into this project seems so utterly backwards and stupid, especially since it won't impact WWE in the least and at worst will have WWE headhunting more talent out of spite.

 

Get mad WWE takes your talent, so you decide to start a US branch to expose your talent more to US audiences and make them more popular for WWE, all while actually competing with PWG and their own business partner ROH.

 

I highly doubt Kidani really thinks he's getting back at WWE with this move. He's just hyping the LA dojo reboot and the July shows. From everything he's said it doesn't seem they are gonna be spending any significant amount of money on this project. If their shows suck or you have no interested in them, that's a completely different issue, but I have no clue how this is in any way harmful to New Japan.

 

WWE can take the talent they want regardless. If a promising guy gets more exposure in the US from a couple of shows in California it's whatever at this point. Regal and other scouts are watching every significant show New Japan (and any promotion they are interested in) runs anyway, and it's not like wrestlers that work on this LA project are gonna develop a massive following.

 

I have no clue how they are gonna be competing with PWG considering how PWG works, nor ROH considering they barely run shows in Cali.

 

 

They've done a terrible job with building Naito. Dude should have been the top star for the past 2 years, but Gedo won't do anything that makes his boy Okada look inferior. Naito got himself over with NO help whatsoever from NJPW.

 

I wouldn't go THAT far. Gedo took 1 year too long to let him turn heel - because he's a lazy motherfucker and always takes too long to do interesting shit - but Naito has been given free reign to do whatever he wants with his gimmick and get as over as he has. I despise Gedo's booking in the last 3 years but saying he hasn't given Naito any help is silly.

[joeg]

They've done a terrible job with building Naito. Dude should have been the top star for the past 2 years, but Gedo won't do anything that makes his boy Okada look inferior. Naito got himself over with NO help whatsoever from NJPW.

 

Sometimes I don't know if you are trolling or not... Naito was pinned like 6 times in all of 2016. When they made the first big push for him (when he won the G1) back 4 years ago, it just didn't work out the way that Okada's push the year prior worked out.

[stro]

 

They've done a terrible job with building Naito. Dude should have been the top star for the past 2 years, but Gedo won't do anything that makes his boy Okada look inferior. Naito got himself over with NO help whatsoever from NJPW.

 

Sometimes I don't know if you are trolling or not... Naito was pinned like 6 times in all of 2016. When they made the first big push for him (when he won the G1) back 4 years ago, it just didn't work out the way that Okada's push the year prior worked out.

 

Naito has been the most over dude in the company for 2 years. All they've done with him was a token IWGP reign where he did nothing and lost his title right back to Okada, and then stuck him with the secondary title that will never, ever be as important. It's basically like taking Austin in 1998 and sticking him in the IC title feuds all year when he's clearly more popular than everyone on the roster and probably the best guy on the roster.

[WingedEagle]

 

 

They've done a terrible job with building Naito. Dude should have been the top star for the past 2 years, but Gedo won't do anything that makes his boy Okada look inferior. Naito got himself over with NO help whatsoever from NJPW.

 

Sometimes I don't know if you are trolling or not... Naito was pinned like 6 times in all of 2016. When they made the first big push for him (when he won the G1) back 4 years ago, it just didn't work out the way that Okada's push the year prior worked out.

 

Naito has been the most over dude in the company for 2 years. All they've done with him was a token IWGP reign where he did nothing and lost his title right back to Okada, and then stuck him with the secondary title that will never, ever be as important. It's basically like taking Austin in 1998 and sticking him in the IC title feuds all year when he's clearly more popular than everyone on the roster and probably the best guy on the roster.

 

 

It doesn't sound like there's much to say that'll cause you to reconsider the Naito push, but the IC Title in New Japan has been booked and treated as nearly co-equal to the IWGP Title. They let it headline a Wrestle Kingdom a couple years ago with a fan poll, and to this day it headlines PPVs, such as one of the New Beginning shows in a couple weeks. Its not the company's world title, nor should it be. But it -- and Naito -- have certainly been protected and established as legitimate 1B headliners.

[stro]

It didn't headline WK because of the sanctity of the title, man. Come on.

[WingedEagle]

If the goal was to keep it a clearly inferior secondary title, as was suggested by comparing it to the WWF/E IC Title, it wouldn't have been put in a position to headline their biggest show of the year. Or any of the subsequent PPV / big shows that it has headlined since then and continues to do so on a regular basis.

[stro]

Okay. If there is a poll to have Balor/Owens for the Universal Championship or Goldberg/Taker for the IC Championship headline WM, which do you think would win the vote? Do you think the vote would have anything to do with the IC title? Take the IC title out of the equation and Tanahashi/Nakamura with no title would have won the poll to headline that year.

[bradhindsight]

I'm fairly certain Naito had not just the best winning pct for NJPW heavyweights (along with the most wins), but that he also main evented more cards than Okada last year (and more than everyone else). And he drew well on top, beating out the same venues/shows the prior year. That sure sounds like a push to me.

[stro]

I'm fairly certain Naito had not just the best winning pct for NJPW heavyweights (along with the most wins), but that he also main evented more cards than Okada last year (and more than everyone else). And he drew well on top, beating out the same venues/shows the prior year. That sure sounds like a push to me.

His push NOW has nothing to do with what got him over, which was my original point. Naito (and CMLL) got himself over. Gedo's booking actively harmed his popularity, and he had to leave the country and develop something of his own without Gedo's influence to get popular, to the point where they could no longer keep him out of the main events. And then they found a way to make sure everyone knew he wasn't better or higher on the totem than Okada by making him the B team main eventer. NJPW/Gedo were clearly content to book Naito into oblivion like they did with Goto.

[Johnny Sorrow]

 

 

New Japan is backed by plenty of money - what kind of big bucks can the WWE throw around? 20k per dude like the U.K. deals?

Enough to steal AJ, Nakamura, and Gallows//Anderson last year.

How do you "steal" human beings who are making their own choices? Especially Gallows, Anderson, and AJ , who have stated that they were tired of being away from their families.

It's like when people say Vince "raided" the territories. As if he and Pat were kidnapping talent during night time incursions and tossing them in a big burlap sack.

[Loss]

A hostile takeover is also not a private army literally swarming in to take over a company, and when it's raining cats and dogs, my front yard isn't covered in pets. Lots of words are used in the English language for things that aren't literal. They may not have been "stolen", but WWE has a long history of signing guys to hurt the opposition more than to benefit themselves. They've been doing it for over 30 years. I'm not even saying that's what happened in this case, or that's what the intent was. But it's a reasonable assumption based on their track record.

[Grimmas]

 

 

 

New Japan is backed by plenty of money - what kind of big bucks can the WWE throw around? 20k per dude like the U.K. deals?

Enough to steal AJ, Nakamura, and Gallows//Anderson last year.

How do you "steal" human beings who are making their own choices? Especially Gallows, Anderson, and AJ , who have stated that they were tired of being away from their families.

It's like when people say Vince "raided" the territories. As if he and Pat were kidnapping talent during night time incursions and tossing them in a big burlap sack.

It's a figure of speech.

[rzombie1988]

A hostile takeover is also not a private army literally swarming in to take over a company, and when it's raining cats and dogs, my front yard isn't covered in pets. Lots of words are used in the English language for things that aren't literal. They may not have been "stolen", but WWE has a long history of signing guys to hurt the opposition more than to benefit themselves. They've been doing it for over 30 years. I'm not even saying that's what happened in this case, or that's what the intent was. But it's a reasonable assumption based on their track record.

Yeah, that felt like a Vince 1980's move.

 

I also want to point out that Omega didn't need "made". He was already a big DDT star and main evented Sumo Hall. NJPW was just stupid to waste him when he first got there like Ibushi and Shibata.

[joeg]

I don't understand your logic at all... how could they have pushed Omega harder? He debuted by winning the Jr title, and held onto it for most of the year. Then after a year of that he dropped the title, and moved to heavyweight. When he moved up to heavyweight he won the IC title, G1 and mainevented in the Dome in a matter of like 10 months. How did they waste him? Should they have debuted both he and Ibushi at heavyweight even though neither of them are heavyweights and were coming from a junior heavy company? And Shibata is damaged goods, that's why he's gotten the treatment he's gotten since his return, everybody knows that. When people criticize NJPW's booking it boggles my mind sometimes. Its been the most consistently good booking for like 6 years now.

[WingedEagle]

I don't understand your logic at all... how could they have pushed Omega harder? He debuted by winning the Jr title, and held onto it for most of the year. Then after a year of that he dropped the title, and moved to heavyweight. When he moved up to heavyweight he won the IC title, G1 and mainevented in the Dome in a matter of like 10 months. How did they waste him? Should they have debuted both he and Ibushi at heavyweight even though neither of them are heavyweights and were coming from a junior heavy company? And Shibata is damaged goods, that's why he's gotten the treatment he's gotten since his return, everybody knows that. When people criticize NJPW's booking it boggles my mind sometimes. Its been the most consistently good booking for like 6 years now.

 

Very much agree with this. You can quibble quite a bit with how they've booked some things on the undercard, but its the undercard. That's just not driving business or storylines and is there as filler.

[Grimmas]

. When people criticize NJPW's booking it boggles my mind sometimes. Its been the most consistently good booking for like 6 years now.

That's ridiculous. There is nothing to criticize in their booking? It boggles your mind when someone does?

[rzombie1988]

I don't understand your logic at all... how could they have pushed Omega harder? He debuted by winning the Jr title, and held onto it for most of the year. Then after a year of that he dropped the title, and moved to heavyweight. When he moved up to heavyweight he won the IC title, G1 and mainevented in the Dome in a matter of like 10 months. How did they waste him? Should they have debuted both he and Ibushi at heavyweight even though neither of them are heavyweights and were coming from a junior heavy company? And Shibata is damaged goods, that's why he's gotten the treatment he's gotten since his return, everybody knows that. When people criticize NJPW's booking it boggles my mind sometimes. Its been the most consistently good booking for like 6 years now.

The junior heavyweight division is not as prestigious as the heavyweight division in any way shape or form and no one really cares about weight classes. In fact, I dare say that calling someone a junior is kind of a black mark in wrestling where usually size > skill.

 

They totally wasted Shibata. They had the obvious programs with Tanahashi and Nakamura that they totally ignored and now they can't even do a Nakamura/Shibata match. I salivated for years over a Shibata return and they turned him into "just another guy" from the start.

[stro]

Consistent is a good word for Gedo's booking, because he's consistently predictable and complacent and only makes moves when he literally doesn't have the option to keep booking someone. Go look at how many Tanahashi/Nakamura, or Okada/Tanahashi, or Okada/Nakamura, or Ishii/Shibata, or Nakamura/Goto, etc etc etc matches there have been under his reign. Anytime there is something fresh or a big upset happens, it's undone by the next show or two unless someone gets hurt.

 

Gedo is the least creative booker of any major company and has been super lucky that NJ has had 4-5 of the top 10 talents in the world that he could keep throwing together in great matches for the past 4-5 years. Gedo's booking on with a weaker roster would have no one interested. He books like he's playing EWR and found a few guys that have great chemistry and book them over and over and over.