New Japan has had a rather good working relationship with Ring of Honor and their their Honor Rising collaborative events have done good business. However, New Japan’s partnership with ROH might not be a close-knit long term deal.
New Japan is making plans for a United States tour without the help of Ring of Honor. However, ROH and NJPW are still going to work together for the time being as proof from their scheduled War Of The Worlds shows which will include a pay-per-view on May 12th.
According to the latest issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, “New Japan is also making plans for running their own show in the U.S, and even running a regular territory in California in 2018.”
In the end, it all boils down to how much the mucky-mucks at Sinclair (ROH’s parent company) see a partnership with New Japan being beneficial. Dave Meltzer said although Sinclair is a broadcasting company, they still haven’t set ROH up with a quality show in the same vein that TNA or WWE has even though they are a broadcasting company with the supposed means to do so. Meltzer also noted that “Anthem is peanuts as far as the size of its network compared to Sinclair, which is actually a far larger company than any company that owns a wrestling franchise including WWE.”
The fact is that the past two weeks have spelt the height of ROH’s popularity by a long shot based on their Google searches and general buzz. Therefore, only time will tell if New Japan will continue to be a part of ROH’s bigger picture in the distant future.
