Details are sketchy at the moment but there are media reports in Japan that New Japan was sold by Yukes, the video game company, to Bushiroad, a popular card game company and the new owners would take over on 2/1.
Takaaki Kidani, the chairman of Bushiroad Group Publishing announced they have purchased 100% ownership of New Japan from Yukes in a deal announced on 1/31 and were taking over the next day. Yukes had purchased 51.5% of the company from Antonio Inoki in late 2005 during a period when the company was losing significant money and it was something of a fire sale. The company was doing better financially of late but was not believed to be operating at a profit.
Reports on the purchase price vary by media source but the price was a shockingly low figure, reported at 500 million yen or $6,550,000 U.S. Bushiroad on its web site said there would be no change in company structure, but companies that buy other companies usually say that and it almost always ends up not being the case.
Kidani, when talking, said that they had approached Yukes over the summer after sponsoring the G-1 Climax tournament and expressed interest in buying. Bushiroad Group Publishing is a Tokyo based company that started in May 2007. The company has also promoted some New Japan house shows and was also a sponsor of Zero-One. They were also a sponsor of pro wrestler/fighter Yuichiro Nagashima and promoted a card in May called Bushiroad Pro Wrestling and Kidani appeared as a character on the show as Danshoku Kidani. He was a big pro wrestling fan growing up, particularly of Inoki. At a press conference on 1/31, he talked about international expansion, which previous owners tried without success as unlike American culture, Japanese culture doesnt export into foreign markets well, particularly in wrestling hotbeds like Mexico, Australia, the U.S. and Europe. New Japan, which was super popular in Italy in the early 80s on television during a boom period, but also a period where the television featured some of the biggest worldwide stars on a regular basis, failed in an attempt in that market a few years back. They did a few shows this past year in the U.S. with Jersey All Pro Wrestling in the Northeast, but given the expense, its doubtful those shows were profitable and they were all on a small-time scale and didnt draw anymore than they would draw in Japan for house shows. Kidani also talked about their goal being to overtake WWE as the No. 1 pro wrestling company in the world. Interestingly, Bushiroad, which lists anime, game cards, video games, social media and manga as its leading revenue streams, was the main sponsor for the Japanese television premiere of a one hour edited version of the top two matches from last years WrestleMania, that aired on 1/29 at 2:15 a.m. on TV Tokyo, which is a national network on the level of CW in the U.S. While the company has been successful in their own businesses, their complete company is not financially on the level of WWE.
Yukes didnt decide for several more months that they were interested in selling and once they did, the negotiations went quickly and quietly. Yukes own financial situation had gone down in the last year and New Japan was not a profitable company on its own. Virtually all insiders in Japan were caught unaware when the deal was announced, and New Japans top stars, in specific Yuji Nagata, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Shinsuke Nakamura, Togi Makabe and Jushin Liger were all shocked when the news broke. The story broke in Tokyo Sports which was given the exclusive and they were told on 1/30.
This did explain why the usual January New Japan contract negotiations, that were always in the news, didnt happen and no explanation had been given. The general feeling among those in New Japan at least after first hearing from the new owners is that this is a very good move, because Bushiroad officials said that they were looking at heavily merchandising the New Japan name and the top wrestlers. New Japan merchandise is only available at the arenas and through the web site and a few pro wrestling stores.
There is a feeling right now from the wrestlers after the news broke that this will open up doors to make bigger money since in Japan, the wrestling pay structure, once the highest in the world, is far behind the U.S. New Japans biggest star, Hiroshi Tanahashi, is believed to be making in the neighborhood of $260,000 per year. Minoru Suzuki faced Tanahashi on 1/4 at the Tokyo Dome in the companys main event on its annual biggest show of the year. Hes not under a long-term deal, and is currently being paid about $13,000 per month. As a comparison, Masahiro Chono was earning $800,000 per year at a time when the yen was worth far less against the dollar (it would be equivalent to more than $1.3 million today) when the company business fell into its bad point. He took a significant cut when business got bad a few years back and left the company, where the presumption was he was a lifer, at the end of 2009.
During the late 70s and into the early 80s, Japan was the place to make money in pro wrestling, until the national expansion of the WWF. Even through the 90s boom period of American wrestling, the money in Japan was the highest in the business besides WWF and WCW and there were a number of full-time well playing jobs for foreigners, which is really not the case any longer.
The company, started by Antonio Inoki and NTV on March 6, 1972, grew to be the largest pro wrestling company in the world within a few years due to its prime time network contract and the mainstream popularity of Inoki, a position it held until 1984. The company was built around the concept of Inoki as a real fighter, and the idea that even if pro wrestling itself wasnt real, New Japan had the best stable of real fighters in the world. That concept remained strong in the early days of real fighting, and New Japan often promoted shooters and mixed matches against fighters from other sports to maintain that aura. However, the boom of MMA in Japan hurt that concept, which was weakened even more when New Japans top shooters went into MMA competition and for the most part didnt do well, and even if they did okay, their moves performed in pro wrestling werent the moves they used. A lot of questionable booking decisions followed, leading to a decline and the company losing prominence.
The company moved from prime time to Saturday afternoon, to late Saturday night (at in 2 a.m. or later) and down to 30 minutes, rendering the television almost completely ineffective in creating new fans. While they have a strong presence on satellite and do PPVs, satellite TV in Japan still doesnt reach enough people and draw anywhere near the audience as compared to U.S. cable, and PPV isnt anywhere near as lucrative.
Raw on 1/30 did a 3.55 rating and 5.21 million viewer. It was the most watched episode of the show since 5/23 (the show right after the death of Randy Savage). It was still only in 4th place for the night on cable behind two episodes of Pawn Stars and American Pickers. The audience was 67.1% male.
It is traditional for the show after the Royal Rumble to do a big number, as last years show did a 3.48 rating and 5.29 million viewers. This years show would have beaten last year handily in viewers except it had the big second hour decline, and this time its hard to blame that on show quality since it was one of the better Raws in a long time.
The show did a 2.4 in Males 12-17 (down 8%), a 3.3 in Males 18-49 (up 14% and actually slightly beating UFC on FOX, although not in total viewers since UFC was on network and not cable so UFC actually had 12% more viewers in the demo), 1.4 in Girls 12-17 (up 21%) and 1.5 in Women 18-49 (up 36%).
In the segment-by-segment, the Rumble interest must have been high and thats what moved the rating since they opened at a 3.90 for the first quarter. Randy Orton vs. Dolph Ziggler lost 580,000 viewers. Brodus Clay vs. Tyler Reks lost 166,000 viewers. C.M. Punk vs. Daniel Bryan in the champion vs. champion match gained 219,000 viewers to a 3.54 which is a weak gain for that time slot. The Miz vs. Kofi Kingston lost 231,000 viewers. The Rock video lost 329,000 viewers. Beth Phoenix vs. Eve Torres and the John Cena vs. Kane brawl gained 325,000 viewers. The HHH with John Laurinaitis performance review and Undertaker showing up gained 753,000 viewers, which is not out of the ordinary and this segment went 17 minutes over, so they had a lot of time to pick up viewers. The main event saw Male teens go from 2.3 to 2.8, Males 18-49 go from 3.4 to 3.9, Girls teens from 1.1 to 1.2 and Women 18-49 from 1.4 to 1.7.
Impact on 1/26 did a 1.17 rating and 1.60 million viewers. The show did a 0.80 in Males 18-34 and 1.08 in Males 35-49.
The show started strong and faded, picking up for the main event. Tara vs. Velvet Sky vs. Mickie James lost 55,000 viewers. A Sting in-ring with James Storm, Jeff Hardy, Bobby Roode and Bully Ray plus Alex Shelley vs. Zema Ion lost 68,000 viewers. Eric and Garett Bischoff in the gym lost 109,000 viewers. ODB & Eric Young vs. Angelina Love & Winter gained 205,000 viewers to a 1.24 quarter. It was a tremendous success and the only thing on the show that spiked viewers. Samoa Joe vs. Matt Morgan lost 164,000 viewers. The in-ring angle with A.J. Styles, Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian lost 55,000 viewers. And the tables match with Hardy & Storm vs. Ray & Roode was a success gaining 110,000 viewers to a 1.16 main event.
Besides the Dragon Gate show, there were two other major shows over the weekend in conjunction with the WrestleReunion convention in Los Angeles. Mike Tyson was there and apparently hit it off big with Superstar Billy Graham. Tyson was a big WWWF fan growing up and Bruno Sammartino was his hero, which led to a funny moment on Raw in 1998. Tyson was brought in and on a live mic asked who his favorite wrestler was, and he screamed like a fan Bruno Sammartino, at a time when that name wasnt ever mentioned or probably allowed to be on broadcasts. Tyson also brought up being a fan of Sonny King, The Colorful Valiants, Stan Stasiak and Don Leo Jonathan, and talked about how he remembered Sonny King as tag team champion (with Jay Strongbow 1972-73). He kept telling Graham, Be real with me, stop cutting promos with me, and talk to me brother. Graham was so jazzed up meeting Tyson that he kept talking in promo mode. Tyson loved Graham but wanted to talk with him non-promo style like he did with some of the older wrestlers who asked him about the Super Bowl and todays boxing. When Graham saw Lanny Poffo and hugged him Tyson finally said, Hes now being real, hes an emotional guy because his friend (Randy Savage) died. He kept going off on how excited he was to meet Graham, but also talked with Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake and some of the other guys he grew up watching.
The WWE is well aware of what happened to the UFC web site but thinks it wont happen to them even though WWE also supported SOPA and PIPA. Apparently they investigated the guy taking credit for hacking the UFC site (its not that they know his identity, but supposedly they looked at his twitter account) and found out he was a WWE fan so felt they were safe, and also claim their web site has great security measures that cant easily be hacked.
Rumors regarding the 2013 WrestleMania include the New York market, which corresponds to the recent story, which is surprising since everyone expected New York for 2014 and MSG, but the idea is to do an outdoor stadium show. I dont know about risking New York in April, but I do get the idea of wanting to do New York because theyll get more pub coming from there than anywhere else. Other cities mentioned have been Indianapolis, New Orleans and St. Louis. Toronto was a strong contender this year and its been long enough that they are due back.
The Rock is now being advertised for the 2/27 show in Portland and 3/5 show in Boston, so thats four Raws hes appearing on so far. Hes booked for every Raw live from 2/27 on except the 3/19 show. All out Mania promotion starts 2/20, the day after the Elimination Chamber show, so Id expect him if not live, on tape for almost all the shows from that point. Its going to be his main project, not just Mania and TV but all the things that go with promotion and being the big star of a mega event.
Some updates on the WWE Network. Kevin Dunn has taken a lot of initiative and has hired a lot of mid-level management. A lot of the people hired had formerly worked for the company in the past and moved on, so they are loyal to him. Plus Dunn, as much if not more than anyone in the company, understands how to interface with Vince McMahon and work with him with his constant changing of directions.
WWE hired Eric Pankowski, who had worked for Reveille, as its new Senior Vice President of Creative and Development. He was a new hire of Stephanie McMahon and will report to her. Its another member of the creative chain of command as part of his job will be to manage the creative team and being responsible for storylines. His role also includes creating both new reality TV shows and new kids programming. One person close to the situation described this hire and the above Dunn story as related. Dunn had been pushing new program ideas for the network to Vince that Vince has reacted favorably to since Dunn, more than anyone in the company, knows how to work with Vince. But Dunn is not part of the Stephanie team and shes trying to create her own team. Pankowski is also to oversee the sale of new television programming to networks and studios. Pankowski was Senior Vice President of creative affairs with Reveille.
Someone from WWE texted someone from UFC during the FOX show saying the production was terrible. And they got a text back saying At least we dont have an imbecilic lead announcer ruining our show.
The two people involved in this were not Punk and Chael Sonnen. Punk went to weigh-ins actually with Sonnen and went backstage. Punk also brought Ariel Helwani to his house and did a 35 minute interview with him. He said that he and Sonnen became friends through Gerald Brisco, who has at least broached the idea of pro wrestling with Sonnen after his fighting days are over. Punk noted the two have a lot in common. Punk met all of the main people in UFC, a lot of who are big wrestling fans, or at least were. He got the Weve been fans forever but wrestling sucks now, but your stuff is really good treatment that no doubt he gets far too often. He didnt fight back when hearing. The reaction from UFC is he was super cool. He did attend the show although kept away from being seen.
An idea being batted around for Mania is to have a Money in the Bank ladder match (which is this week planned in some form) to be one where all the people in the match are former world champions. The idea could include Swagger, Orton, Del Rio, Henry, Christian, Kane, Ziggler and/or others.
