One year ago today the first IWGP Women’s Champion was crowned. Whilst the title matches have been undeniably great, in the year since its inception the vision for the title of breaking established barriers has become blurred, surrounded by confusion with the introduction of the STRONG Women’s title

7 comments

1. In 2024 new Japan need a massive change. Titles need to die and we need better stability in the company.

2. i’m so glad we’re discussing this! it’s important to keep the integrity and vision of the iwgp women’s championship intact. the introduction of the strong women’s title has definitely brought some confusion but i believe it’s up to njpw to find a way to align both titles and establish clearer distinctions. let’s hope they can find a balance and continue breaking barriers in women’s wrestling.

3. I’m going to say it, they should have kept it on Mone…heck Kairi lost it too early and that WK match was done dirty, but Mone as champ with Romero booking most of her run would have done wonders for the belt…we didn’t need the Strong one…

4. New Japan doesn’t need (nor seemingly wants) a women’s division. Unify the belts and leave it in Stardom as their swa replacement.

5. Yeah, the Super J-Cast has been saying this for a while now where NJPW introduces a new belt that has an exact purpose and then just change their minds on it within the titles first year. The Womens belt is kinda the perfect example of this. Even some of the older titles are having this problem, the Never Title, since they put on it Jay White has become the weird unoffcial Foreigners belt until recently where Shingo won it. Oddly enough, the title that still has its intended purpose and also kinda evolved for the better is the KOPW Title.

6. I’m glad these belts pretty much disappeared from the NJPW shows in Japan. These 2 belts don’t exist for their main market, they never wanted to see a women’s division because it just doesn’t make sense when you have women wrestling promotions. It exists only for western PR. Gedo clearly doesn’t give a shit and he shouldn’t have to anyway.

   I guess as we get closer to WK18 we’ll hear more people crying about the show not having women on it but the NJPW roster is way too stacked to waste time with a women’s match that most of the fans don’t pay for. You already have AEW guys on this card, at the expense of some NJPW guys who work hard throughout the year to get themselves over but will get fucked anyway and just be booked in the rumble on the preshow. Adding a women’s match with no build up on the main card “just because you have to” would be even more insulting. And if it’s only to get 5 minutes like last year it’s pointless. Mayu vs Utami was a great title match, you wouldn’t have a joshi match of that level on a NJPW show because it’s not their priority and it shouldn’t be.

7. I can’t help but feel like most plans for the IWGP belt were run off track by the Mercedes Moné injury.