Gentlemen's Wrestling Podcast #134: Is NJPW Losing Its Status As The Top Promotion in Japan?

So I started watching, following Japanese wrestling on a regular basis in, I would say, 2012.

And so for the entire time since I started, you know, really watching it, New Japan Pro-Wrestling has existed, both as the most successful, financially strongest company that draws the biggest crowds, but also really the top promotion in terms of quality, in terms of having the absolute best matches, in terms of having a loaded roster, in terms of kind of being a promotion that the other promotions were st- were chasing, both from a financial perspective and a content perspective.

And there's been a lot of discussion, including on this podcast, about some of the faults with New Japan Pro-Wrestling in recent years.

But it wasn't until I, I, I watched a lot of the Champions Carnival this year, and it wasn't really until I got to the end of the Champions Carnival, and I've been watching some other puro promotions, uh, throughout the year, and comparing that to New Japan.

And I, and I hit a point where I'm like, "You know, there's really not that big of a difference from a quality perspective between New Japan and some of these other promotions anymore." Where it used to be like-

like-Even, even a few years ago when New Japan had lost some key talent and some other guys like, you know, Tanahashi and Naito had slowed down in the ring, it was still like, yeah, New Japan isn't what it once was, you know, in like 2018 when it was, you know, easily the best promotion in the world.

But it's still a really high-quality promotion that all of these other promotions in Japan are kinda chasing, at least from a quality perspective.

But when I watched the Champions Carnival, and that's of course just All Japan, that's just one other promotion.

We can talk about other promotions as well.

But when I was watching, I was like, you know what? The Champions Carnival's, like, probably going-- probably had as many, like, four-star and up matches as the G1 might have, and that's crazy to think about, like, especially a few years ago if you were looking at the comparative rosters.

And I still think New Japan has more depth than most of these other puro promotions, although we'll talk about what depth really means.

To me, especially coming off the Champions Carnival and kind of watching New Japan this year, I was like, "I think All Japan is kinda close to New Japan from a quality perspective," which is, uh, like, like, to me, like, a crazy notion, and thus it must be discussed and covered.

Yeah, um, I, I think you're on the right track there.

Um, I-- Some of this is also, like, All Japan getting its, um, act together after a pretty lackluster 2025 with, uh, way too much comedy as people were complaining about, and I was too, and, uh, you know, the, uh, the, uh, ill-advised [chuckles] long Jun Saito Triple Crown reign.

But they got it back onto Kento Miyahara, and Go Shiozaki joined the company.

Like, that's a huge, um, part of it, uh, that he was, you know, very much responsible for the, how good the Champions Carnival was this year and also the return of Yuma Aoyagi from his, uh, suspension for driving with an expired license.

Uh, and he just came back, uh, like, no-nonsense, wrestled hard, no comedy BS or anything like that.

So, you know, I think it just says, like, you know, when a company wants to get its act together, uh, it can-- uh, these days, it can obviously challenge, not directly or fully, but definitely put, give New Japa-Pan a run for their money, whereas, like, you know, we could also bring NOAH into this conversation and say, "Well, [chuckles] in some ways, New Japan and NOAH are very similar right now, uh, for better and worse," right? And that's also, like, um, a symptom of where Japanese wrestling is right now.

Yeah, a lot of this definitely has to do-- And I'm talking about, like, right in the immediate future.

So, like, I'm not really concerned about, like, All Japan's 2025.

Obviously, we can take a bigger picture and zoom out and say like, "Okay, what promotions are actually heading in, like, a real positive direction, and which ones are kinda stuck in a, in a, in a more negative direction or are heading downhill quickly?" But just wa-watching it right now, and I was like, it really occurred to me, and I was like, I think...

So the Champions Carnival was great because, um, so you have, let's, the, the top guys, right? You have Kento Miyahara, who is the most stable, um, convincing conventional ace in the puro side of pro wrestling right now, um, in terms of just you know exactly what you're getting.

He's incredibly reliable.

Uh, he-- the crowd is always into him, just, like, the kind of the perfect kind of wrestler to be the top babyface in a promotion right now.

Um, and then you have a couple of really interesting things happen.