New Japan Pro-Wrestling

**New Japan Pro-Wrestling Co., Ltd.** (新日本プロレス株式会社 Shin Nihon Puroresu Kabushiki-Kaisha), operating as **New Japan Pro-Wrestling** (新日本プロレス Shin Nihon Puroresu) and sometimes referred to as **NJPW** or simply New Japan, is a major promotion founded in January 13, 1972 by Antonio Inoki. In 2005, Inoki sold the promotion to Yuke's, who later sold it to Bushiroad in 2012. TV Asahi and Amuse, Inc. own minority shares of the company. Naoki Sugabayashi has served as the Chairman of the promotion since September 2013, while Takami Ohbari has served as the President of the promotion since October 2020.

Owing to its TV program aired on TV Asahi, NJPW is the largest wrestling promotion in Japan in terms of attendance and revenue. From its creation in 1972 until 1986, it was a member of the National Wrestling Alliance. NJPW is known for openly engaging in working agreements with various MMA and professional wrestling promotions around the world, including WWE, All Elite Wrestling, World Championship Wrestling, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, WAR, UWFi, Ring of Honor, Pride Fighting Championships, and Jersey All Pro Wrestling. NJPW's biggest event is the January 4th at the Tokyo Dome show, held each year since 1992 and currently promoted under the Wrestle Kingdom banner.

The promotion is currently owned by Japanese card game company Bushiroad, which parlayed its entry to the world of professional wrestling into a best-selling trading card game, *King of Pro Wrestling*, and appearances from NJPW stars in its various franchises.

## History

### Formation and early history

The promotion was founded by Antonio Inoki on January 13, 1972. The first NJPW event, titled *Opening Series*, took place on March 6, 1972, in the Ota Ward Gymnasium in Tokyo, to a crowd of 5,000. The following year, NJPW signed a television deal with NET TV, now known as TV Asahi. The company was overseen by its governing body, the International Wrestling Grand Prix. In 1983, Hulk Hogan became the first ever IWGP Heavyweight Champion by defeating Inoki. However, this championship was later abandoned and the current version of the championship was established in 1987. Inoki would serve as the president of the promotion until 1989, when he was replaced by Seiji Sakaguchi.

On April 24, 1989, NJPW hosted Battle Satellite, its first show in the Tokyo Dome. The promotion was a member of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) from 1975 to 1985 and once more from 1992 to 1993. NJPW was briefly reaffiliated with the NWA in the late 2000s to the early 2010s as well. On January 4, 1992, NJPW partnered with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) to produce WCW/New Japan Supershow II, the first ever January 4 Tokyo Dome Show, an event that would become an annual tradition for NJPW and is considered their biggest event of the year and comparable to WWE's WrestleMania event. In April 1995, NJPW and WCW held the two-day Collision in Korea event at the Rungrado 1st of May Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea. The event is the first professional wrestling event held in North Korea and also holds the record for most attended wrestling event of all time, with 355,000 people packing the stadium over the two days.

### Inokisim and Inoki's departure

In the early 2000s, the burgeoning popularity of mixed martial arts in Japan was noticed by Inoki, who wanted to integrate elements of shoot wrestling to make the company appear more realistic. The company would partner with martial arts organization K-1 and begin to insert wrestlers into MMA fights, with the goal of pushing NJPW in a more realistic direction and to make it appear as an actual sport. The company's new management was criticized by critics and fans, and the combination of MMA and professional wrestling was dubbed "Inokism". Inoki later departed NJPW in 2005 after selling his share of the company to Yuke's, and began his own promotion, the Inoki Genome Federation (IGF), in 2007. After his departure, Inoki's son-in-law Simon took over the company, before Naoki Sugabayashi was appointed president in 2007 after Simon also left NJPW to join Antonio in IGF. After the departure of the Inoki family, the company began to reintegrate its prior puroresu style of wrestling.

### Resurgence and expansion

Also in 2007, NJPW hosted its first ever pay-per-view (PPV) event Wrestle Kingdom I.

The promotion debuted a new series called NEVER in August 2010, designed to be a series of events spotlighting younger up-and-coming New Japan talent and feature more outsider participation in the promotion. The final NEVER event was held in November 2012.

On January 4, 2011, officially announced the NJPW Invasion Tour 2011: Attack on East Coast, the promotion's first tour of the United States to be held in May 2011. The tour featured shows in Rahway, New Jersey on May 13, New York City on May 14 and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 15, as well as cross-promotion with American promotion JAPW. As part of the tour, NJPW introduced a new title, the IWGP Intercontinental Championship. On January 31, 2012, Yuke's announced that it had sold all shares of to card game company Bushiroad for ¥500 million (6.5 million) of dollars or (4.4 million) of euros.

New Japan aired its first internet pay-per-view, the fourth day of the 2012 G1 Climax, on August 5, 2012. The October 8, 2012, King of Pro-Wrestling pay-per-view marked the first time viewers outside Japan were able to order a pay-per-view by the promotion through Ustream. On October 5, 2012, New Japan announced the creation of the NEVER Openweight Championship, which would be contested for on the NEVER series. A two-day tournament to determine the inaugural champion was held between November 15 and 19, 2012.

In February 2014, New Japan announced a partnership with ROH, which saw the promotion return to North America the following May to present two supershows; Global Wars in Toronto and War of the Worlds in New York City. During the tour, New Japan wrestlers also took part in an event held by Canadian promotion Border City Wrestling (BCW). A year later, NJPW and ROH announced another tour together to produce four more supershows; War of the Worlds '15 on May 12 and 13 in Philadelphia and Global Wars '15 on May 15 and 16 in Toronto.

In June 2014, New Japan announced a partnership with the new American GFW organization helmed by Jeff Jarrett. In November 2014, GFW announced that it would be broadcasting NJPW's Wrestle Kingdom 9 in Tokyo Dome on pay-per-view in the United States as a four-hour event. Also in November 2014, the American AXS TV network announced it had acquired rights to rebroadcast a series of thirteen episodes of NJPW matches from TV Asahi. The series premiered on January 16, 2015, airing weekly on Fridays. Averaging 200,000 viewers per episode, the show was considered a success, leading to AXS TV and TV Asahi signing a multi-year deal to continue airing the show In June 2016, the show was also acquired by the Canadian Fight Network. On December 1, 2014, NJPW and TV Asahi announced NJPW World, a new worldwide streaming site for the promotion's events.

On July 18, 2015, NJPW announced the "New IWGP Conception", a global expansion strategy centered on their international partnerships with CMLL, GFW, NWA, ROH, RPW, and wXw as well as holding more shows in Thailand, Singapore, and Taiwan. Also announced was the Lionsgate Keikaku ("Lionsgate Plan"), which would feature up-and-coming outsiders working trial matches in an effort to earn a spot in the promotion. Finally, it was announced that there were plans to take the company public with a listing on the stock market within three to five years.

On December 21, 2015, NJPW announced the creation of its seventh active title and the first six-man tag team championship in the promotion's history, the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship. On January 5, 2016, NJPW announced a partnership with the Amuse talent agency with the goal of making the promotion's wrestlers internationally recognized stars in the vein of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

In March 2017, NJPW partnered with the New Zealand-based Fale Dojo, a pro wrestling training facility run by NJPW performer Bad Luck Fale. NJPW utilized the partnership as an opportunity to scout talent from Oceania until 2020 when it become their New Zealand-based dojo with Fale serving as a head trainer. The following month on April 24, 2017, it was announced that NJPW would co-present the Japanese qualifiers for What Culture Pro Wrestling (WCPW)'s Pro Wrestling World Cup tournament. On May 12, 2017, during the third night of the War of the Worlds tour, co-produced by New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and Ring of Honor (ROH), NJPW United States Ambassador George Carroll announced the creation of the IWGP United States Championship. The following day, NJPW revealed the title's official name as the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship. On May 16, NJPW held a press conference to announce plans to establish a subsidiary company, including a dojo, in the United States. A Los Angeles office is scheduled to be opened before the end of 2017, with a dojo to be opened at the start of 2018. NJPW's second American event was Strong Style Evolved and took place on March 25, 2018, in Long Beach. In November 2017, NJPW signed a television deal with Discovery Communications, which would see the company's programming brought to 70 million Indian homes through DSport.

In January 2018, NJPW announced its inaugural Fallout Down Under tour, a four-show tour of Australia spanning from February 16–19. In March 2018, NJPW opened the New Japan LA Dojo, with Katsuyori Shibata serving as a head trainer and ROH wrestler Scorpio Sky serving as an assistant trainer. On May 13, 2018, New Japan hired its first foreign President, Dutch businessman Harold Meij. On July 6, it was announced the Lion's Break Project a counterpart of the Lion's Gate Project shows in Japan, which would feature NJPW Young Lions trained in the USA dojo.

In February 2019, NJPW re-established its partnership with the NWA and entered into a new partnership with The Crash Lucha Libre. On October 21, NJPW announced the creation of its American subsidiary named New Japan Pro-Wrestling of America, based in California, with the goal of expanding in the American market. On December 27, NJPW ended its television deal with AXS TV. On February 10, 2020, NJPW established its own dojo in New Zealand with tryouts taking place on May 9 and 10.

### Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

On February 26, following recommendations by the Japanese Ministry of Health regarding the coronavirus outbreak, NJPW canceled the events between March 1 and March 15 including the promotion's Anniversary Event and the first and the second round of New Japan Cup. On March 23, NJPW also canceled the 2020 Sakura Genesis event, which was originally scheduled to take place on March 31. On April 8, NJPW canceled more events from April 11 through May 4, leading to the cancelation of both nights of 2020 Wrestling Dontaku and would also cancel the whole Best of the Super Juniors tournament as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on May 6. During this time, NJPW wrestlers and staff created the *NJPW Together* project in order to do bring content to NJPW World with interviews and old archived matches. On May 6, NJPW announced that their Wrestle Dynasty event would be postponed to 2021, due to the effects of the 2019-20 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

On June 8, during an online press conference, NJPW Chairman Naoki Sugabayashi announced that the promotion would start to held shows on June 15, starting with the *Together Project Special* and the return of the 2020 New Japan Cup between June 16 and July 11, with all shows being held behind closed doors. It was also that the finals of the New Japan Cup and the Dominion in Osaka-jo Hall would be the first shows to allow fans into the arena, but only a third of the venue's normal capacity, after the Japanese Government lifted some restrictions on many regions in Japan.

On September 29, it was announced that Harold Meij would resign as President and CEO and would departing the promotion in October, being replaced by NJoA's CEO Takami Obari. On October 6, it was announced that the 2020 Best of the Super Juniors would be resumed alongside the 2020 World Tag League, due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic, with the tounaments taking place between November 15 until December 11. With both tournaments consisting of ten nights, taking place on alternate days opposed to each other with the exceptions being the first round on November 15, final round on December 6 and the finals on December 11. On November 8, during a press conference, NJPW Chairman Naoki Sugabayashi revealed that since July 11, NJPW had promoted 54 live events, with an combined attendance of 72,706 paid fans, due to their guidelines, there were no positive cases, arising as a result of its live events.

During those months, in July, NJPW partnered with the United Wrestling Network (UWN) to launch its American-based *NJPW Strong* program. Over the following months, NJPW also established a working relationship with Game Changer Wrestling (GCW) and Major League Wrestling (MLW), with both promotions talent featuring on *NJPW Strong*. In February 2021, it was reported that NJPW began partnerships with American promotions All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and Impact Wrestling. On May 4, on the second night of Wrestling Dontaku, it was announced that two wrestlers complain of a fever at the beginning of the show, leading them to undergo examinations and a PCR test. As a precaution, the card has been changed. The following day, NJPW announced that those two wrestlers had tested positive for COVID-19. This was followed by seven more positive cases upon further testing on May 9. On May 18, NJPW announced they would resume promoting events on May 22. On June 20, NJPW announced their return show to the United States with fans, with event being named Resurgence, taking place on August 14 at the The Torch in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. NJPW's last show with a live audience was The New Beginning in USA in Atlanta, Georgia on February 1, 2020 at the Coca-Cola Roxy before the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic hit the United States.

### Post-COVID and new partnerships

On November 20, 2021, NJPW and Pro Wrestling Noah (Noah), held a joint press conference, annoucing the return of their partnership, with Noah's participation at the third night of Wrestle Kingdom 16, featuring an "inter-promotional" rivalry between NJPW and Noah. During Wrestle Kingdom 16 in January 2022, it was announced that NJPW programming, including new programs and reruns of past English broadcasts, would return to AXS TV and Fight Network in the United States and Canada with reruns airing on AXS starting January 20, with all new content to premiering on March 3.

On July 29, 2022, NJPW announced the creation of its nineth active title and the first women's championship in the promotion's history, the IWGP Women's Championship. During that day, it was also announced that NJPW and their sister promotion Stardom were going to promoted a event called Historic X-Over which would take place on November 20, 2022, at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan. On October 10, NJPW President Takami Ohbari and TV Asahi's Hiroyoki Mihira announced the creation of the NJPW World Television Championship, a title created to celebrated NJPW's and TV Asahi's 50-year partnership.

A year later, NJPW and STARDOM held a joint business strategy presentation, where NJPW announced that they reached their revenue level of 98% of its 2019 peak, before the COVID-19 pandemic, with forecasts setting record setting revenues in 2024. NJPW also announced a new phase of their international expansion, with both promotions seeking a bigger presence further afield in the Asia-Pacific region, due to the growing demand of professional wrestling in the Asian market, established the Asia Pacific Pro-Wrestling Alliance, an interpromotional governing body that seeks to connect wrestling promotions across Asia, while also stressing the importance of American and European markets. On December 15, NJPW was announced as one of the founding members of the United Japan Pro-Wrestling alliance, as part of a joint effort to further develop professional wrestling through promotion and organization, with Seiji Sakaguchi being named as the chairman of the project.

## Contracts

Up until the 1980s, NJPW signed its workers to multi-year contracts, before changing to a system, where the promotion signed its wrestlers to one-year deals that expired at the end of every January. Following the departures of AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura, NJPW owner Takaaki Kidani announced in February 2016 that the promotion was returning to the multi-year contract system. The contracts forbid negotiations with other promotions. Any side contracts or agreements offered to wrestlers under NJPW contracts need the promotion's approval before being signed. NJPW currently has partnerships with several promotions across the world.

Partnerships
 All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW)
 Revolution Pro Wrestling (RPW) | United Kingdom

## Broadcasters

### Domestic

* TV Asahi (1973–present, currently broadcasting weekly highlights show *World Pro Wrestling Returns* and live specials)
* Fighting TV Samurai (1996–present, currently broadcasting live specials, retrospective shows and magazine show *NJPW Battle DX*)
* AbemaTV (2015–present, online linear television service, live-streaming episodes of *World Pro Wrestling Returns*)

### International

#### Current

* AXS TV (2014–2019, 2022–present, United States, broadcasted *World Pro Wrestling Returns* and major shows, dubbed with English commentary)
* The Fight Network (2016–2019, 2022–present, Canada, broadcasting the AXS version of *World Pro Wrestling Returns*)
* The Roku Channel (2021–present, United States, United Kingdom and Canada broadcasting *World Pro Wrestling Returns* and major shows, dubbed with English commentary)

#### Former

* Eurosport (mid '90s–2007, Europe, dubbed episodes of *World Pro Wrestling* and major shows for various continental markets)
* The Wrestling Channel (2002–2005, UK and Ireland, dubbed and undubbed broadcasts of major shows)
* 1Sports (2020, Indian Subcontinent, broadcast the AXS version of World Pro Wrestling)
* J-One (May 2018–2020, France, dubbed with French commentary)
* DSport/Eurosport (2017–2020, 2021, Indian Subcontinent, broadcasting the AXS TV version of *World Pro Wrestling*, with Season 3-5)
* FX (2019–2020, South Korea, broadcasting the AXS TV version of *World Pro-Wrestling Returns*)

### Worldwide

* New Japan Pro Wrestling World (streaming service, in partnership with TV Asahi, broadcasting most NJPW shows live, as well as on-demand classic, documentary and anime content, as well as content from other promotions, beginning with promotional partner CMLL's weekly Super Viernes shows and AEW's weekly *Dynamite* and *Rampage* shows)
* FITE TV (2019–present, streaming service, broadcasting most NJPW big shows live, as well as on-demand classic)

## Championships

### Current championships

#### Tag Team

 IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship |  | Catch 2/2(TJP and Francesco Akira)
 NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship |  | Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tomohiro Ishii | 1

#### Miscellaneous

 IWGP Women's Championship |  | Mayu Iwatani | 1

### NJoA championships

 Strong Openweight Tag Team Championship |  | Guerrillas of Destiny(Hikuleo and El Phantasmo)
 Strong Women's Championship |  | Giulia | 1

## Events

### Marquee events

* Wrestle Kingdom
* The New Beginning
* Sakura Genesis
* Wrestling Dontaku
* Dominion
* Kizuna Road
* Destruction
* King of Pro-Wrestling
* Power Struggle

### Collaborated events

* Fantastica Mania (with CMLL)
* Forbidden Door (with AEW)
* Multiverse United (with Impact Wrestling)

## NJPW Greatest Wrestlers

The **NJPW Greatest Wrestlers** is NJPW's hall of fame, established in 2007 to honor wrestlers who have wrestled for the promotion. Individuals were inducted into the hall of fame from 2007 to 2011 on March 6, the anniversary of the promotion's founding.

Inductees