NJPW Owner Talks WWE Global Expansion, Possibly Fighting Or Joining Them

By Joshua Gagnon

Owner of Bushiroad and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Takaaki Kidani recently took to Twitter to talk a little bit about NJPW's strategy towards WWE's ever-growing global presence. Just this past week, WWE announced a brand new UK Championship and tournament that will help build their influence in England and its surrounding areas going forward. Kidani sees WWE is trying to build new global territories as another way to generate revenue and to tour internationally at a lower cost. Here are his tweets translated by Chris Charlton into English.

"WWE strategy 1: raise roughly 2 billion Yen from the network to create a network of global territories and tie up talent. It's very possible WWE purchase a promotion in Japan. WWE are shoring up their network because of cable cutters and prevalence of streaming, meaning declining TV ratings. The cable TV structure as is will collapse in the US within 3-5 years."

Kidani continues about WWE's attempt to cut costs and create new stars:

"There are many reasons for WWE to create local territories. It cuts cost just to send talent on international tours and not the whole infrastructure. WWE are only functionally profitable in the U.S., Canada and U.K. They have TV elsewhere but that's all. By creating territories, they're able to actually create products with awareness of cultural differences and characteristics of markets. WWE have had difficulty in creating new stars. By going to local territories and broadcasting them, they can create network stars. WWE are taking big gambles, in IT for one."

While keeping things vague, Kidani finishes with this bombshell:

"This isn't the platform to discuss NJPW strategy fully, but we will announce something soon. We are entering a phase where you are either with WWE or against them. WWE have a lot of weaknesses and time is not on their side."

It's possible that Japan's biggest promotion could be thinking of teaming up with WWE as a way to enhance their product even more. Although, with how he ended that statement, it's also possible NJPW will look to counter WWE coming to Japan. They may find it necessary to shore up their talent and possibly talent from other promotions, so WWE doesn't continue to siphon away wrestlers. NJPW's owner is likely looking to avoid what happened in early 2016 when Shinsuke Nakamura, AJ Styles, Luke Gallows, and Karl Anderson all jetted NJPW for WWE. Even though William Regal recently stated the UK wrestlers involved in their tournament are "free agents," and can wrestle anywhere, NJPW may still find it necessary to lock up talent.

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Below are the tweets from Kadani and their translation into English:

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