NJPW New Fan Guide and FAQ (September 2022)

2nd Edition, published 1/13/2024 and to be continually updated.

By u/EffingKENTA and u/Megistrus

Table of Contents

The Basics

1.a – How do I watch NJPW?

1.b – NJPW World Tips: Payments, Navigation, etc

1.c – What’s New Japan’s schedule? Is there a weekly show?

1.d – Do I need to know Japanese to understand what’s going on?

The Product

2.a – What’s New Japan STRONG/NJoA?
– History of STRONG
– 2023 STRONG Rebirth

2.b – What is NJPW TAMASHII?

2.c – What’s the deal with NJPW’s Women’s division and Stardom?

2.d – Why are there so many tag matches?

2.e – Why do the wrestlers not cut promos? The shows are all just wrestling.

2.f – How do I learn more about the factions and wrestlers?

2.g – I want to go see an NJPW show in Japan, how do I do that?

2.h – Where can I buy NJPW merchandise?

1.a) How do I watch NJPW?

The primary way to watch is by subscribing to the company's streaming service, NJPW World. As well as the native website, the service is available as an app for iOS devices, Android devices, Roku, tvOS/Apple TV, Android TV, and Fire TV.

For $9.99 USD a month (when subscribing via the website, prices may vary by app), you get access to the majority of the shows New Japan produces, both live and on demand, as well as to a back catalog of content. The back catalog was greatly reduced when the new version of World launched in November 2023; but the full 7+ years worth of content that was previously available is continually being upscaled to HD and added back to the service, and the catalog will be fully restored by the end of 2024.

The only NJPW shows not included with a World subscription are special event PPVs. There are two types of PPVs: NJPW’s larger overseas events, including the company’s US division New Japan STRONG, and collaborative PPVs with other companies such as Forbidden Door or All Together Again.

Overseas and STRONG PPVs are typically broadcast on World with Japanese commentary and Triller TV (fka FITE TV) with English commentary. They are generally later made available free to World subscribers, STRONG being in the form of smaller weekly episodes called STRONG On Demand. Collaborative PPVs are subject to different distribution methods depending on the collaborator, but ones with other Japanese companies are frequently made available free for World subs at some point after their live airing.

World also sometimes hosts PPVs from smaller promotions NJPW is friendly with (such as GLEAT) or that are produced by NJPW talent (such as TakaTaichiMania), as well as digital versions of Toru Yano’s variety special DVDs (which are only in Japanese with no translations).

In addition to NJPW World, New Japan has a weekly show on AXS TV that airs at 10pm EST every Thursday. This show is an hour long and typically contains the top matches from the past several weeks prior to the airing date. There is also a show on the Roku Channel that primarily shows matches at least several months old.

1.b) NJPW World Tips: Payments, Navigation, etc

NJPW World does not support changing your payment source; you cannot even update the information for a new card for the same account. Instead you must cancel your subscription and re-subscribe. For that reason it is recommended that you use PayPal to subscribe, as you can then change your payment source within PayPal.

If you do not have a credit card, or the website doesn’t accept cards from your country (not an issue for major markets like the US/Canada/Europe), you can download the official iOS or Android app on your smartphone and subscribe within it; the subscription should be processed by the App Store (price may be higher than $9.99 USD). You can then use that information to log in on any device.

The easiest way to browse World is via the Series section. This shows every NJPW show available on the service in chronological order, grouped by the name of the tour. If you are looking for a specific match or event, the best way to find it is by searching for the date it happened, using the format of numerical month/date/year, such as 12/25/2023. Searching for names of wrestlers will not bring up accurate results because not all shows are broken down into matches with wrestler names attached.

In the settings of each individual video during playback, you will find options for either Japanese or English commentary tracks, though some older content will not have an English track available. If you have your profile language set to English, it should default to that track when it is available (though there have been issues with that on some devices/browsers.)

For Backstage Comments videos, there will be an option to turn on translated subtitles in that same area of the video’s settings.

There are no quality options, videos will simply play at the highest resolution available. Videos typically start off at low quality before transitioning to higher quality a few seconds in.

If you are having trouble getting a video to play on a certain device, close the service on that device and open it in a web browser, play the video there for a few moments, then try playing it on the original device.

If you are having trouble playing a video in a web browser, clear your cookies and make sure your browser allows DRM content to be played.

1.c) Do I need to know Japanese to follow what’s going on?

No. Nearly every show broadcast on World has English commentary, including every major show. If a show does not have English commentary during its live airing, it will generally be added within a few days of airing.

The main live English commentary team for Japanese shows is Walker Stewart and Chris Charlton; however due to scheduling issues, sometimes it will be one member of the regular team and a non-Japanese wrestler performing guest commentary. Post-recorded commentary is typically Stewart by himself. There is also a third member of the team, Australian wrestler Gino Gambino, but his appearances are very sporadic. For US events, the team is frequently Stewart and independent commentator Veda Scott.

Charlton is fluent in Japanese, and when he is on commentary he will do his best to translate any live promos. If there is no live English commentary, Chris and/or the NJPW Global X (FKA Twitter) account will often be live posting translations.

New Japan also uploads alternate-language subtitled (English when someone is speaking Japanese, and vice-versa) promos as part of their Backstage Comments videos, which are posted on World at the end of the playlist for each show as well as the NJPW World YouTube page and X account. There is typically a small delay between when the videos are uploaded and when the subtitles are added–usually no more than 24 hours.

1.d) What’s New Japan’s schedule? Is there a weekly show?

Like other Japanese promotions, NJPW events in Japan operate more like a sports league than American sports entertainment-style promotions. This means there is no weekly show like WWE Raw or Smackdown but rather a “tour,” which is a series of events under the same name that build up to a bigger show roughly once a month.

The exact schedule for these tours changes from year-to-year, but typically the same events happen around the same time, such as the larger show Sakura Genesis in early April. There is one event with a semi-fixed date: Wrestle Kingdom, which is NJPW’s WrestleMania equivalent. The show traditionally takes place on January 4th, but from 2020-2022 it was expanded into multiple nights, with January 4th being the first of two or three.

The shows leading up to the bigger event are generally called “Road To” shows, and they will sometimes be officially named as such. These shows are mostly comprised of tag matches to develop and further feuds, with the occasional low-level title or singles match. New Japan also runs several yearly tournaments, like the New Japan Cup and G1 Climax, which span the length of an entire tour.

You can see the upcoming World schedule here, which shows every event to be broadcast on the service but generally only spans the current and next month. There is also a schedule on NJPW’s English site which lists every officially announced New Japan show, including house shows that will not be broadcast on World.

2.a) What’s New Japan STRONG/New Japan of America?

– History of STRONG (2020-22)

(Just want to know about current STRONG? Scroll down to the next section.)

In mid 2020 when the portion of the roster that lived in North America was unable to travel to Japan due to COVID restrictions, NJPW announced that its US division, New Japan of America, would begin airing a one hour weekly show on World called New Japan STRONG. The division had previously run occasional US special events and short tours, as well as operating the company’s US dojo in Los Angeles.

That iteration of STRONG was pre-taped in batches of roughly a month’s worth of shows, first on a closed set in LA and later in front of a crowd, including as a touring brand. The storylines were generally separate from those on NJPW in Japan, similar to how NXT relates to the main WWE product.

The regular STRONG roster consisted of North America-based NJPW contracted talent (such as Jay White, KENTA, and the students of the LA Dojo), newly-contracted talent or talent who were making STRONG their “home promotion” (such as Fred Rosser, Filthy Tom Lawlor, and JONAH), independent wrestlers (such as Alex Zayne, JR Kratos, West Coast Wrecking Crew, and Blake Christian), and wrestlers from partner promotions (such as AEW’s Eddie Kingston and Christopher Daniels). Once travel restrictions began to ease, they also frequently had guests from the Japan roster like Minoru Suzuki, Tomohiro Ishii, and Hiroshi Tanahashi. During this time, the show was eventually given two of its own titles; the STRONG Openweight Championship (first held by Lawlor) and STRONG Openweight Tag Team Championships (first held by Aussie Open).

On August 14, 2021 New Japan of America held its first North American PPV since the 2019 G1 Supercard (a collaborative show with Ring of Honor that took place at Madison Square Garden), called Resurgence, which was also the first NJoA show since early 2020 to have fans in attendance. Following the success of the show, NJoA began running more frequent PPVs, including a second towards the end of 2021 and six in 2022 (not counting Forbidden Door, a collaboration between NJPW and AEW).

While these PPVs used much of the same talent as STRONG, they did not carry the STRONG branding. The earlier shows had storylines that were more self-contained, as opposed to continuations of the content on the weekly STRONG shows, as well as bigger name talent than the usual weekly shows. Most of Jon Moxley’s appearances for NJPW in the US were on these PPVs. They also often featured a defense of NJPW’s IWGP United States Heavyweight title but very few defenses of any STRONG titles.

The 2020-22 STRONG weekly shows are available to watch on NJPW World (mostly without needing a World subscription) and YouTube (there are some episodes missing from YouTube, presumably due to broadcast issues with talent that appeared).

Despite the critiques of other aspects of the product, the quality of matches generally ranges from very good to excellent. Notable highlights include the series between Fred Rosser and Tom Lawlor; the development of LA Dojo products Clark Connors, Alex Coughlin, Ren Narita, Gabe Kidd, and Kevin Knight (and Karl Fredericks, who you may know as NXT’s Eddy Thorpe); the US-of-Jay open challenge series, and many of the guest appearances by main roster/Japanese talent.

– 2023 STRONG Rebirth

On January 29, 2023, NJPW announced that NJoA was being retooled and would now carry the STRONG branding across all of its products. The division now consists of STRONG Live and STRONG On Demand.

STRONG Live is the branding of the PPVs; which do not have a set schedule but generally occur once a month, sometimes on two consecutive days.

STRONG On Demand is the weekly show. Instead of original content, the shows consist of matches from the STRONG Live PPVs divided into 3-4 episodes with select Backstage Comments added in, on anywhere between a one to two month delay. This format of the show debuted on March 11, with the first batch of matches from February’s Battle in the Valley.

This change makes it easier for NJPW World subscribers to watch NJoA content without having to pay extra. It also allows the brand to focus on quality over quantity, as the previous NJoA content had often been criticized for bad production values, a lack of direction, and its disconnect from the NJPW product in Japan.

2.b) What is NJPW TAMASHII?

TAMASHII is the Oceania branch of NJPW, run mainly by long-term wrestler and trusted company representative Bad Luck Fale; who also runs the NJPW-affiliated Fale Dojo. The TAMASHII-branded shows are sporadic, smaller shows with largely local talent. They are not live-streamed but are often added to World at some point.

2.c) What’s the deal with NJPW’s Women’s division and Stardom?

The majority of Japanese promotions, especially the most prominent ones, are single-gender. This is due to the difference in culture between Japan and western countries. While there are some promotions that have mixed-gender rosters and even mixed-gender matches, they are smaller-scale independent promotions. In recent years, some larger promotions like All Japan and NOAH have been including women’s matches on their shows, but women’s matches in men’s promotions are still the exception rather than the rule.

Throughout its history, NJPW has had a handful of women’s matches, mixed-gender team tag, and even intergender matches. But they were very few and far between.

That began changing in 2019 when Bushiroad, the company that currently owns NJPW, purchased Japan’s top women’s promotion World Wonder Ring Stardom (usually referred to as just Stardom). The two wrestling companies are still operated separately, and even have different broadcast partners involved with each, but Bushiroad saw the opportunity for them to work together to boost each other’s profile.

The first notable instance of crossover between the two was the inclusion of a Stardom tag match as a dark match prior to the first night of NJPW’s Wrestle Kingdom 14 in 2020. The following year’s WK had two dark tag matches on the second night, and at Wrestle Kingdom 16 in 2022, a Stardom tag match was the second match on the second night’s main card.

In the Summer of 2022, it was announced that there would now be even more crossover between the two companies. This involved the creation of the IWGP Women’s Championship, the announcement that Stardom and other independent female talent would be appearing on NJoA/other non-Japan shows, and the announcement of the first NJPWxStardom collaborative show; called Historic X-Over.

The first IWGP Women’s Champion was crowned in a tournament that included matches at NJPW’s Royal Quest II event on October 1st and 2nd in England and on Stardom shows in Japan. There were also women’s matches on the October 30th NJoA Rumble on 44th Street PPV in New York City, although they were not tournament-related.

The culmination of the tournament was the main event of Historic X-Over on November 20th, where the recently returned KAIRI (fka Kairi Sane/Hojo) defeated Mayu Iwatani to become the first IWGP Women’s Champion. The show also featured single-gender matches from both companies, as well as multiple mixed-gender team tag matches (not intergender matches where men can fight against women, though there were a few spots where that happened in these matches).The show was generally very well-received by both Japanese and international fans.

In the time since, the majority of the women’s matches in NJPW have occurred on US shows. The IWGP Women’s title has been defended on only two NJPW shows in Japan: Wrestle Kingdom 17 and Sakura Genesis. The only other NJPW Japan shows to feature women’s matches were a special two-night event where they brought the Americanized STRONG product to Japan.

The division still saw a major boost in 2023 with the debut of Mercedes Moné, fka WWE star Sasha Banks. And in May, NJPW created the STRONG Women’s title, which is focused more on that brand’s events while the IWGP title is generally more present on Stardom’s shows in Japan. AEW’s Willow Nightingale defeated Moné at Resurgence to become the inaugural STRONG Women’s Champion, before losing it to Stardom’s Giulia in July. The title has since been defended in Stardom as well as on some of NJPW’s US shows.

In late 2023, it was announced that there will be a second NJPWxStardom show in 2024 and that there will not be Women’s matches at Wrestle Kingdom 18. Instead, Stardom will have its own event nearby a few hours earlier in the day, which will be headlined by an IWGP Women’s title defense.

2.d) Why are there so many tag matches in NJPW?

NJPW’s traditional booking philosophy is based around drawing fans to live events, which is their main source of revenue. To do that, they protect singles matches (or straight 2-on-2 tag matches for the tag division) and generally save them for bigger events.

This plays into the fact that NJPW is a faction-based promotion, with most of the talent belonging to a group that they regularly team with. Because the majority of NJPW matches have decisive finishes as opposed to DQs or count outs, this style allows the two wrestlers feuding to stay strong by not having to be pinned (or sometimes even wrestle each other at all) during the build to their singles match.

Because of this, most wrestlers have less than a dozen singles matches a year, and only the top guys exceed that number. This makes the singles matches they do have feel more important.

2.e) Why don’t the wrestlers cut promos? The shows are all just wrestling.

As stated above, New Japan is presented as a legitimate sport, not sports entertainment. UFC fighters don’t cut promos right before a fight, nor does Heung-min Son after the first half of a football match. While wrestlers sometimes cut promos after matches to advance a story or make an in-ring announcement, the majority of promos cut during the show are done by the winner of the main event to send the crowd home.

The other wrestlers do cut promos, but they’re in the form of Backstage Comments, which are similar to post-fight/game press conferences. These are a chance for wrestlers to express and build their character, and you should make a point to watch them when you are just starting out.

NJPW also frequently does separate Press Conferences to make announcements, as well as both in advance of and following major shows or tournaments.

The Backstage Comments and Press Conferences are posted with alternate-language subtitles (English when someone is speaking Japanese, and vice-versa) on NJPW World, as well as the NJPW World YouTube page and X account. They’re usually uploaded within a day of the event airing, with the subtitles being added within a day of the upload.

2.f) How do I learn more about the factions and wrestlers?

You’ll learn a lot just by watching the product and the Backstage Comments. The English commentary team does a great job talking about the motivations and history of the wrestlers, factions, and matchups during the shows. New Japan has also done some videos in English on their YouTube channel that, while now dated, provide some historical context on factions like CHAOS and Bullet Club as well as bits of NJPW History.

Of course, you can also always ask questions on this sub.

2.g) I want to go see an NJPW show in Japan, how do I do that?

NJPW traditionally offers international ticket sales online for Wrestle Kingdom and New Year’s Dash. In 2023, they also began offering them for select larger events, such as Sakura Genesis and the G1 Finals; however, it is sometimes on fairly short notice for those who do not already have a trip planned.

Otherwise, the online ticket sales are locked to people who have Japanese addresses, phone numbers, and credit cards. So for events without official international sales, there are two options:

– A third party ticket service or reseller. BuySumoTickets comes highly recommended by members of this sub.

– Buying tickets when you get to Japan. Tickets can be purchased in person at machines inside Lawson, 7-11, or FamilyMart convenience stores, from NJPW’s physical store in Suidobashi, or often at the venue itself.

It is generally recommended to secure your tickets before your trip, especially if you are looking to attend a larger show that may sell out in advance.

2.h) Where can I buy NJPW merchandise?

New Japan has both an online Global Shop and an online Japanese Shop.

The Global Shop has a curated selection of print-on-demand merchandise, select imported items, and some exclusive print-on-demand items.

The Japanese Shop has the full selection of NJPW-produced merchandise, but they do not ship internationally, so you will need to use a forwarding or buying service such as Tenso or JapanRabbit. If you purchase from the Japanese shop, keep in mind that Japanese sizes run about one size smaller than U.S. ones, so check the sizing chart to determine which size is right for you.

There are also select items, mainly shirts, available on PWTees. The advantage to buying there is that you can choose which type of garment you would like the design on, including long sleeve shirts and tank tops. However, there are some customers who believe the quality of PWTees printing is lesser quality than the printing by the third-party service that Tokon Global uses for many of its shirts, so choose at your own discretion.