New Japan Pro Wrestling is taking further steps to combat WWE’s international growth strategy. The company launched their full-english site earlier this week at NJPW1972.com. The site has interviews, match results, and news available in english. The company’s online streaming service, NJPWWorld.com, has both English and Japanese versions available as well, though you may have to use google translate to access the english version.
New Japan Pro Wrestling Expansion to English Markets
The popular Japanese-based promotion has been slowly taking steps to expose their product to english speaking markets in recent years. Since launching their streaming service NJPWWorld.com, the company has been bringing in english announce teams to cover their bigger events. Recent events had been covered by Kevin Kelly and Steve Corino. With Corino now employed by WWE, Don “Cyrus” Callis will be replacing him for future events
Congrats to my Podcast partner @CyrusOverHuge on his New gig as the New Colour Commentator for NJPW World. First show Feb 5th
— Lance Storm (@LanceStorm) January 17, 2017
The New Beginning in Sapporo
The first event NJPW will be running after the launch of their new site, and with their new english announce team, will be this Sunday in Sapporo. The show will feature the return of many NOAH wrestlers who have recently been brought back to NJPW.
The lineup for the card is as follows
IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match
Kazuchika Okada (Champion) vs. Minoru Suzuki
IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship 3-Way Match
Ishii and Yano (Champions) vs. Honma and Makabe vs Davey Boy Smith Jr. and Lance Archer
NEVER Openweight Championship Match
Hirooki Goto (Champion) vs. Juice Robinson
IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championship Match
Roppongi Vice (Champions) vs. Taka Michinoku and Taichi
– Dragon Lee, Taguchi, Nakanishi, Tanahashi and Michael Elgin vs. Takahashi, Bushi, EVIL, Sanada, and Naito
– Yoshi-Hashi vs. Takashi Izuka
– Tiger Mask, Justin Liger, and Shibata vs. Will Ospreay, Gedo and Jado
– Nagata, Kojima and Tenzan vs. Oka, Henare, and Yoshi Tatsu
– Kawato and Kushida vs. El Desperado and Kanemaru
