New Japan Pro Wrestling Announces Talent Exchange With Ring Of Honor, Global Force Wrestling, And More
Amid the flurry of speculation that WWE will be working with several different professional wrestling company’s, New Japan Pro Wrestling announced at a press conference that the company will start a talent exchange program, according to Lords of Pain.
While NJPW will not working with WWE, they did announce a “Lions Gate Plan” which will see the company work with a litany of other wrestling company’s around the world. The idea behind it is to do a talent exchange and put on never before seen matches and increase the popularity of NJPW.
The most notable promotion’s to be mentioned were Ring of Honor, Global Force Wrestling, National Wrestling Alliance, CMLL, Revolution Pro, and WXW.
NJPW also announced a “Young Lions” program which will be a developmental program similar to NXT. That should be a good thing as it will give wrestler’s more options as to where they can go to start training or continue their career. It is a huge step for NJPW as president Tezuka, part owner of NJPW also announced several other changes that will hopefully see NJPW grow and expand.
Among those changes will be less camera’s around ringside, an increased effort to expand NJPW’s popularity overseas and eventually transforming the company into the public company. At this time, NJPW is a privately owned company, owned by Tezuka and a company called Bushiroad.
All of this speculation of a potential partnership between NJPW and WWE began earlier in the week. As reported by the Inquisitr, NJPW legend Jushin “Thunder” Liger will be wrestling at NXT Takeover: Brooklyn during SummerSlam week. He will face NXT competitor Tyler Breeze. It’ll be the first time he sets foot in a WWE ring in his career.
There was a belief that WWE was attempting to compete with ROH that weekend as they will have their own show the night of NXT Takover: Brooklyn. Field of Honor will emanate from MCU Park in Coney Island and will also feature NJPW superstar, “The King of Strong Style” Shinsuke Nakamura.
ROH and NJPW have had a working relationship in the past.
However, it doesn’t appear that WWE will be competing with ROH but rather working with them at some point. F4WOnline recently reported that WWE and ROH are in talks and that some “significant moves” would be made. It was noted that NJPW would not be involved.
It is unprecedented to see WWE, a company that likes to have control of as much content and power possible, working with other wrestling federations. But it could potentially lead to dream matches that fans have wanted to see for ages. The same goes for NJPW and their newly announced plans.
Who knows, if Daniel Bryan is able to get healthy and NJPW and WWE do work together at some point, we may see that match between him and Nakamura that was teased earlier this year.
@WWEDanielBryan anytime,anywhere I say ” #YES ” ?
— Shinsuke Nakamura (@ShinsukeN) April 3, 2015
[Image via Catchauquotidien]
