NJPW Misses Big Opportunity Following Successful G1 Climax

The next two events for NJPW is the upcoming Super-J Cup and the Royal Quest show in the UK. Both events will be outside of Japan (Super-J will will be along the Pacific coastline of the U.S.) and the Royal Quest is obviously in England.

However, Chris Charlton, NJPW’s exceptional bilingual British commentator revealed that neither event will be aired live on NJPW World.  Both events will be aired on tape delay sometime in September.

 

This is tragic news, considering that so many people either got up early or stayed up late to watch most – if not all nights – of the G1,  and the least you could do is air these shows live for those non-Japanese fans as a thank you.  Now it’s no shock that NJPW favors and caters more to their domestic audience, unbelievable I know; but as they’re trying to branch into new networks and avenues this would of been a nice gesture for fans outside of the Japanese boarder.

This, tacked on with a ten day break in all action, has fans thirsting for NJPW relevancy like an IMPACT die-hard.  Wrestling fans want their favorite companies to be always active to some degree so they can always be engaged.  A ten day break works for those G1 competitors who busted their ass, but there over 30 cats who didn’t wrestle at all or only on a handful of cards during the G1.  You’re saying you couldn’t do a weekend show with those wrestlers?

This is a misstep by NJPW, not a death blow, or even a misstep that’ll hurt them. It’s simply a misstep that’ll cause them to not properly capitalize on the positive public feedback of the G1.

That said, here’s the Royal Quest card and it’s loaded;

Royal Quest

IWGP Heavyweight Championship
Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. Minoru Suzuki

RevPro Undisputed British Heavyweight Championship
Zack Sabre Jr (c) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

NEVER Openweight Championship

Tomohiro Ishii (c) vs. KENTA

IWGP Tag Team Championships
Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa) (c) vs. Road to Royal Quest Tag Team Tournament Winners

SANADA & Tetsuya Naito vs. Jay White & Chase Owens

Robbie Eagles & Will Ospreay vs. El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori

Juice Robinson & Kota Ibushi vs. Hikuleo & Yujiro Takahashi

Ren Narita, Shota Umino, & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. SHO, YOH, & Rocky Romero

 

I mean, even the lower card tag bouts are fun to think about.

 

The Super-J Cup also revealed their lineup and the final three competitors.  Will Osprey, Robbie Eagles, and El Phantasmo will make up the rest of the single elimination bracket.

The other cool thing is that the opening round will see Osprey take on Amazing Red, a bout that Osprey has been pushing NJPW to make for several months now.

Fans, like myself, are not going to be happy about the wait in new content from NJPW, as we’re basically going anywhere from two-three weeks without anything new to sink our teeth into and that sucks. However, you can’t argue that the lineups they have aren’t worthwhile.  That makes the wait all that much harder though.