NJPW President Harold Meij On If NJPW Would Work With AEW, Current Partnership With ROH

NJPW President Harold Meij spoke with Fox Sports earlier this month about if NJPW would team up with All Elite Wrestling, and its current partnership with Ring of Honor.

Meij was asked outright if NJPW would work with AEW, and he said they would considering working with any companies, if their brands aligned in a compatible way.

"We're very open to working with anyone, we don't exclude anyone," Meij said. "But it does take time to create that trust between companies. And right now AEW is still in the exploratory phase; they're trying to establish themselves as a brand, what is that brand? They're about one year in, and we're starting to see what their brand is all about. Then we'll have to see if that brand fits our brand of course. At this stage, they still have different styles than we do, and that's the only thing. We're looking at what their brand positioning is and whether it complements ours."

Meij also noted that just because wrestlers like Kenny Omega left the company, that wouldn't matter to a potential future partnership.

"No. It's a business, at the end of the day," Meij responded. "The wrestlers we hire, we work with on a contractual basis for a certain period of time. Obviously we would've loved to have kept having them here but I can understand that if there's in their minds a bigger and better opportunity, well then that's just a natural way for competition to move forward. It's a natural thing. I do also believe the likes of AEW is good for the industry, because it puts a lot of new money into the industry, and a lot of people might be getting more interested in pro wrestling – people who might not have been interested if AEW hadn't been established. So it can only be good for the industry."

ROH and NJPW have had a partnership going back to 2014, but with the introduction of NJPW of America added to the mix, would that cause and issue between the two companies?

"I actually think it complements a lot of the relationships that we have, especially with ROH, for example," Meij stated. "As we do these shows and more fans fall in love with our product, as we do more joint matches with ROH?whether ROH comes to us or we go to them?the value of the total package increases. They would see that our wrestlers are very good and so are the ROH ones."

To confirm, Meij also said NJPW would continue sharing wrestlers with Ring of Honor.

"Oh yes. We're here for the long run with partners that we tie up with," Meij said.