| No snarky comment for Hiroshi Tanahashi. |
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This here “news”—these rumors, if you will—the only great thing out of that notion is that people are finally viewing New Japan as concrete global promotion and not the large national promotion with global exposure that it is.
This was done for a period with TNA where a sizable regional promotion with national exposure was viewed a potential threat to WWE. A bit further back you had another touring regional promotion with national exposure that got all of the hype and was viewed as a legit big three competitor. Yeah, I’m talking about ECW.
| GLOBAL...EXPOSURE!!! |
Outside that circle of not exactly wrestling fans, but definitely WWE fans you have the definitely wrestling fans who totally watch WWE—because it’s the most accessible product, to support a fave who made it to a large stage, because they like to stay up-to-date on the product, and/or to hate watch it—all in a nice tidy bow of “you better when it comes to WWE, they’ve done this for decades.”
Now group two of fans kind of know that there’s no actual competition between the two and it’s mainly two promotions expanding into each other’s home area with no great advantages because the larger sections of those markets’ fan bases are more likely to check out their major home product before this new, foreign product, but they want something new. It stems from being bored or disappointed in WWE to some significant degree.
| WWE superstar John Cena with improper hate watching posture and expression. |
If you watch something within in a bubble—a concrete bubble, not even just watching TV wrestling offerings, just mainly the one product—then it will go in two extremes: either you’ll become deathly bored with recent developments and your fan booking judgment suffers or you’ll just ditch wrestling in general. As I always say "Watch a variety of things." That goes for comics, movies, TV, and music too.
It also comes from the old days when competition was WWE vs. WCW and the two companies built off of that rivalry. Now some will include ECW in this. Knock that shit off. ECW was basically in the same role as ROH is now: independent development for WWE’s development project.
| "Man, I used to like wrestling but all the good people are gone now and it's for kids." |
| Buy 1 Get 1 Free On Canadian Wrestlers! |
| Price check on "Kaval." |
| This is totally ECW. Often slimy product, filling, but now abandoned. Bring coupons. |
People are expecting Dominos vs. Pizza Hut in the ‘90s, Burger King vs. McDonalds in the ‘80s, Pepsi vs. Coke in the 80’s and 90’s, or Pringles vs. everyone forever when in reality you’d be looking at Dunkin’ Donuts moving to the south in the earlier part of the decade when Krispy Kreme is the home region dominant donut place.
It’s there, it’s nice to have an alternative, but it’s not going to be that huge of threat to the dominant offering off the bat unless they go back and forth aggressively with “WWE is all air” and “New Japan is thick and dry.”
M. Swift is a long time wrestling fanatic. When he's not writing about wrestling history and other stuff he is often writing short sci-fi stories, listening to heavy metal, and playing RPGs. Follow @metalswift | Dunkin' Donuts came to the south and didn't have sweet tea on the menu. Remember that. |
