Comparing DDT, NJPW, and Dragon Gate is basically impossible. The reason they excel is because they all offer different things. If they were all after the same crowd as NJPW/AJPW/NOAH etc.... Well, they wouldn't be where they are today. DDT being more comedic(kind of like a Chikara but the wrestlers actually have different styles instead of all wrestling like they were trained by Quack) and it's run by a wrestler since the beginning which is always super cool to see Takagi get success. He really deserves it. Dragon Gate is closer to lucha libre but with more Japanese sensibilities. They've always been 'Ultimo Dragon's students' even when they've tapered off into their own thing. All three(NJPW, DDT, and Dragon Gate) have one thing right and that it's appealing to all demographics. NJPW brings in older male wrestling fans who liked Nagata/Tenzan/Kojima/Liger growing up or who like guys like Shibata and Goto because they remind them of old school strong style wrestlers, former Pancrase/PRIDE fans who like Suzuki, older women who like Tanahashi, younger women who like naito, taichi, and ibushi, little kids who like tiger mask, liger, kushida, naito and ibushi, drug dealers who like shinsuke, american fans who know aj and follow him wherever they go, Lucha fans who watch all the luchadores who do regular tours over there now and little kids who love them. Seriously, little kids fucking LOVE luchadores and masks. Even the damn sushi dude in AJPW is over big time in AJPW. NJPW's roster is completely fucking loaded and no one can compete with them. America or Japan or Mexico.
Dragon Gate has a strong roster as well though they've usually just kept on doing what they've always done and Japan has sort of grown with that roster because it's mostly stayed the same over the years so fans get attached. They, like NJPW, also have a bunch of handsome dudes who work there, but they can wrestler so it pulls in a wide array of fans. Little kids love K-Ness, Dragon Kid, etc. DDT's popularity, I like to think, has been due to all the workers going to different places and just pulling in fans and bringing them back with them to DDT. Maybe someone hates 'comedy wrestling' but they see Sekimoto and say 'hey this guys awesome, where else does he wrestle?' and grows from there. Or Ibushi. Or Omega. Takagi is also smart in booking the right guys to bring buzz to his matches. He booked Jun Kasai and Minoru Suzuki for a tag match. He booked the meanest man in wrestling and the man who invented razorblade cross boards to work a comedy match in his show that kids come to, and it was the most over match of the night.
NOAH has the best juniors division in Japan. Of that particular style, of the Liger, Tiger Mask, Dynamite Kid, Koji Kanemoto, etc style. Not the style Dragon Gate works. They have so many talented juniors that I could see all as champions. And an incredible juniors tag division because of this. Something NJPW doesn't have at all. I look at NOAH and can see all these guys who could be the future of junior heavyweight wrestling in Japan. But the problem is, how many of the most notable names of all time in Japanese wrestling are junior heavyweights? You'll find the majority to be heavyweights. I think NOAH is doing the right thing right now and trying to highlight their juniors division because it kicks the shit out of their heavyweight division and it kicks the shit out of NJPWs juniors division. Their only competition would really be Dragon Gate if they went further in that direction, and I think those are very different styles. And the older wrestling fans have no reason to watch NOAH since Akiyama left. It's a young guys company now with a few exceptions. It's actually really 'new generation' these last couple years. It's why Marufuji worked the angle with Nagata to 'humble' himself. Getting beaten repeatedly by a veteran by making stupid mistakes. KENTA busted his ass when he won the title, and he's never performed better, but people just weren't watching with the focus on smaller guys in NOAH.
I think Zero-1 has a really solid product with all the potential to be great. I actually think it has more potential than it's ever had before, even more than when it was 'Hashimoto kills all your faves' days. It's got a solid range of talent in its roster, guys who might be B+ player versions of those guys in NJPW but still filling in all those spots. Appealing to everyone who wants to watch. It's just that people don't want to watch. They actually cancelled a show in 2014 because they couldn't drum up enough interest because the promotion was shit for years and years and years. In recent years, it was 'hey that's where Hashimoto's overrated kid wrestles. He's not very good.' and you might think people watched for Sekimoto, but Sekimoto didn't catch on with wrestling fans until about 3 years ago despite being with Zero-1 for so long. And that was because of his appearances in OTHER promotions. I had never even heard of anyone talking about Zero-1 poitively post-Hashimoto's death until Dangan Yankees became a thing.
