NJPW announces changes to NJPW Strong, effective with Battle of the Valley

17 comments

1. I appreciate the change with how much lag there has been with the US PPV events compared to the Japanese ones.

2. Wow, thought they were gonna get rid of NJPW Strong entirely. This is good news.

3. Someone explain like in 5 please

4. This is great news. More exposure for NJPW Strong with the Fite specials every month, while also giving people a chance to watch those matches on NJPW World much quicker than they used to go up on the site.

   Super happy they won’t be getting rid of Strong or merging it into something else. It’s been one of the best pure wrestling shows around for a long time.

5. This seems like a really bizarre middle ground to reach. I guess I won’t knock it ’til I try it, but my initial reaction is that it looks like an act of self sabotage.

6. if the trade off is getting rid of a middling pre taped weekly shows full of whatever matches in exchange for monthly PPVs with top of the line matches, im all for it.

   Though this calls into the question the point of the Strong singles and tag titles with no weekly show anymore.

7. How about I pay my World subscription and get all the NJPW content, live and on demand, like fans who subscribe to Peacock for the WWE Network?

8. TLDR: No more TV tapings, all Strong content will be from live shows. You can watch each show live for a fee on FITE TV (for English commentary) or NJPW World (for Japanese commentary). After, each monthly live event will be broken up into weekly pieces (standard NJPW World content) which will replace Strong TV episodes.

   Commentary: Strong will become more like regular NJPW in that it will be a touring model, not a taping model. This means more high-quality matches but less matches overall. The “pay for live, free with a wait” model is good enough for me, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Live included in Honor Club (though Live only, no on demand) and NJPW Strong angles to be run on partner (AEW/RoH/indie) shows.

9. I know that it woldn’t make sense business wise – at least short-term – but less wrestling, saved for bigger events would help to make ecerything more imoortant.

   NJPW try to sell that idea with those taped and split-up events and it might help to get larger crowds, still it’s overexposure in media. The brand is too small and hurts the reputation of the original one. The art of making more out of less also got kind of lost in the digital era. Too much oppurtunities with too little reward.

10. I think this should be good, it will up the quality of the matches on Strong while retaining the weekly show. Admittedly, I’m speaking as someone who more often than not did not buy the US PPVs.

11. So kinda like early NWA-TNA?

12. This is a lot better than what I was expecting. Had they merged Strong with RoH and moved it over to RoH’s streaming, Strong would have been effectively dead.

    I think this is a good decision if it eliminates the terrible production quality the weekly shows had. It also clarifies when the PPVs will be available to watch as part of the World sub, as there was a lot of confusion over when they would be available in the past.

    I don’t get why people are complaining about the PPVs. TV Asahi isn’t footing the production bill, so New Japan needed to find a way to offset the costs. And with the release schedule, you no longer have to wonder if the shows will ever become free to watch with a World sub.

13. If they’re only doing live PPV events going forward, how will they set up the matches for those events?

14. I wonder if this means TV Asahi will be more involved with production and this their way of offsetting those costs

15. So pretty much fuck off Honor Club. Good….good

16. Will this new incarnation of Strong be included with NJPW World or is this a separate subscription service?

17. Strong was the result of the global pandemic. It doesn’t make sense to keep it around any longer.