ultimo the great Posted May 6, 2017 Share Posted May 6, 2017 Probably bullshit (no idea where i heard it) but he supposedly said he'd only go back to NJ if he could be Tiger Mask. It's strange what's happened with him in the last year. looked set for the top in NJ then looks set for WWE, changes his mind pops up here and there then becomes another Tiger Mask. he's not working DDT regularly either. I guess he's making more money this way or he gets bored easy. i think we'll see him in a NJ ring without the mask and challenging Omega for the title at some point this year or something else entirely. who knows i doubt he has any plans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingofSports Posted May 6, 2017 Share Posted May 6, 2017 I didn't know he'd asked for that role. Were he to commit, particularly with current injuries & previous departures taken into account (his included oddly enough), you'd have to think he'd be main eventing or at least having matches of significance on a regular basis. Useful to have a guy that can compete at Jr. level upwards. Anyways, it's upto him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted May 8, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted May 8, 2017 On 06/05/2017 at 11:09 PM, KingofSports said: Random thought. Ibushi's a complete waste of space as Tiger Mask W. His stock is falling in my eyes. Then again, I don't get to see whatever he's doing elsewhere or even know what that might be. Apparently, Sayama's training a new Tiger Mask, which could be a good thing. Kanemoto was the last one worthy of the name. Ibushi's a mad bastard, basically. No sense in trying to figure out his motivations, he's still probably talking about wanting to wrestle in a three-sided ring, and coming up with new ideas for stuff to Moonsault off. Sayama's been "training a new Tiger Mask" for years, hasn't he? I know a few years back he had a never-ending inexplicable feud with Atsushi Onita across their respective promotions and a few indies, and he was usually seconded by the new Tiger Mask he was training - someone with an MMA background, if I remember correctly. I don't know if Sayama's RJPW still exists, but the last show of theirs I watched seemed to have a 50% Tiger Mask roster between his new lad, Tiger Shark, Super Tiger II and old Fat Tiger Mask himself, probably others I'm forgetting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westlondonmist Posted May 8, 2017 Share Posted May 8, 2017 What happened to that Kota Ibushi institute thing? I'm guessing it was a dream child that he put no thought into. People say NJPW waste him in his role, but he was the one who didn't want to sign a contract so I don't blame them for not wanting to push him. If he signed I think he would have won the IC title by now. If he were to take up the Tiger Mask full time I would say why not. Tiger Mask IV is far past his best but I would worry about what he would do if he lost the gimmick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted May 8, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted May 8, 2017 20 minutes ago, westlondonmist said: What happened to that Kota Ibushi institute thing? I'm guessing it was a dream child that he put no thought into. People say NJPW waste him in his role, but he was the one who didn't want to sign a contract so I don't blame them for not wanting to push him. If he signed I think he would have won the IC title by now. If he were to take up the Tiger Mask full time I would say why not. Tiger Mask IV is far past his best but I would worry about what he would do if he lost the gimmick. I doubt anything happened with the Kota Ibushi Wrestling Research Institute or whatever it was - like you said, probably put no thought into it. It was never particularly clear what it even was anyway. It seemed to just be a booking agency of which he was the only client, combined with a platform for him to suggest stuff like the three-sided ring. He made it clear it was never intended to be a promotion - though I would be extraordinarily curious to find out what a promotion booked by Kota Ibushi would look like! I agree, that if anyone's to blame for Kota not getting a bigger push it's Kota. If he'd signed an exclusive contract with NJPW, he'd be a major star by now, and probably deep into a programme with Kenny Omega. I hadn't heard the story of him requesting to be Tiger Mask, but it wouldn't surprise me. And given that it's a proper tie-in with the anime and not "just" being handed down the gimmick from Tiger Mask IV, I suspect he's making a fair amount of cash from it, but it's probably a short-term deal. If the cartoon's not on telly, that version of the gimmick doesn't have the legs that the conventional version does. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westlondonmist Posted May 8, 2017 Share Posted May 8, 2017 50 minutes ago, BomberPat said: I doubt anything happened with the Kota Ibushi Wrestling Research Institute or whatever it was - like you said, probably put no thought into it. It was never particularly clear what it even was anyway. It seemed to just be a booking agency of which he was the only client, combined with a platform for him to suggest stuff like the three-sided ring. He made it clear it was never intended to be a promotion - though I would be extraordinarily curious to find out what a promotion booked by Kota Ibushi would look like! I agree, that if anyone's to blame for Kota not getting a bigger push it's Kota. If he'd signed an exclusive contract with NJPW, he'd be a major star by now, and probably deep into a programme with Kenny Omega. I hadn't heard the story of him requesting to be Tiger Mask, but it wouldn't surprise me. And given that it's a proper tie-in with the anime and not "just" being handed down the gimmick from Tiger Mask IV, I suspect he's making a fair amount of cash from it, but it's probably a short-term deal. If the cartoon's not on telly, that version of the gimmick doesn't have the legs that the conventional version does. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maikeru Posted May 11, 2017 Share Posted May 11, 2017 For those interested, I've got a thread going over on Meltzer's board about how according multiple Japanese media sources, NJPW hit 80% of their highest ever annual revenue last year and are very likely to reach 90%+ of it for the August 2016 - July 2017 financial year: http://theboard.f4wonline.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=203619 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Weezenal Posted May 13, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted May 13, 2017 Why can't you post it here? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D@mm Posted May 13, 2017 Share Posted May 13, 2017 Yeah I would like to read about it as well but wish you would post it in here please. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maikeru Posted May 13, 2017 Share Posted May 13, 2017 7 hours ago, D@mm said: Yeah I would like to read about it as well but wish you would post it in here please. I feel the impression has been given in some recent WONs that despite NJPW's revival under Bushiroad, that it's still nowhere close to what it was before the beginning of its decline in the early 2000s. However, the fact is that the company themselves have gone on the record (in their book 'The Secret of New Japan Pro Wrestling's Revival' - published in Japanese only by Kadokawa in Nov. 2015) to say that their highest grossing year in history was 1996, when they pulled in just shy of 4 billion yen. In 2015 they grossed 3.2 billion yen. What about inflation, you might ask? Fact is there hasn't been any in Japan for about the last quarter century; you're literally looking at about a 1.5% inflationary increase from 1996 to now. Average attendance per show does look to be around half of what they were doing in the late 90s, but the majority of that was down to the number of Dome shows ran annually during that period bringing up the overall stats. Not sure it's a fair comparison anyway as there are so many other ways for fans to follow the product now besides attending live shows - back then it was World Pro Wrestling in the small hours of Saturday night on TV Asahi and that was it. The rest of the puroresu industry is certainly a shadow of what it was revenue-wise during that period, but with Bushiroad tripling New Japan's revenue in a mere 3 years I don't actually think it's a great exaggeration to describe it as a new Golden Age that they've brought about for that company. Not pre-1987 Friday night prime time TV levels, but not that far off the 90s. As an aside to this, in spite of some reports to the contrary (not in WON), even at the WWF's darkest period of 1996 when it grossed a mere $81.86 million, that was still roughly double what NJPW did in the same year (which as mentioned above, was actually New Japan's highest grossing year ever). It may have been bigger than WWWF in the 70s and early 80s - Dave the other week estimated the 1982 revenue when VKM took over to be nearly $10 million (or $25 million in today's money) but without any publicly available data on NJPW finances from that period we'll likely never know for sure. ------------------------------------------ SeanReedy wrote: This just seems so wrong to me after watching NJPW throughout the 90s when they seemed like a huge deal running big shows all the time including multiple packed dome shows and watching them now when outside of August they have the 1 Dome show drawing 25k, 2 Sumo Hall shows drawing 10k, and most other months they do 1-2 shows drawing around 4-5k as their big show. If it's true and they've opened up other revenue streams and raised ticket prices and run a smarter business, then that's great! I'd love to hear that they're really so close to the glory days. Also there's that whole issue of those guys who used to be at ringside wearing sunglasses and who knows how that played with the books. ------------------------------------------ I was skeptical myself at first but unless the company is about the 1996 figure being the highest in history to multiple respected news outlets, I guess it must be true:Source 1 (January 5th 2017, from Nikkan Sports - the most respected sports newspaper in Japan, circulation of 2 million): http://www.nikkansports.com/battle/news/1761037.html 海外進出の背景には、１２年から右肩上がりの経営状況の良さがある。昨年７月期の売上高は３２億円、今年７月には創設４５周年で最高の４０億円超えも確実視される。 "Behind the company's move to expand overseas, is their favorable financial situation that has improved significantly since 2012. Last year's annual revenue (measured in July) was 3.2 billion yen. It looks to be a cert that in July of this year (2017), they will surpass 4 billion yen, the highest amount grossed in the company's 45 year history."Source 2 (May 9th 2017 - two days ago, complete with charts):http://proresu-today.com/archives/22506 対して新日本プロレスの2016年度の売上高は、およそ32億円（※3）となっており、相撲協会の1/3、WWEの1/25の規模です。 当時点では両者と大きく差が開いておりますが、下記の図の通り、ブシロードさんが買収してから、まさにV字回復、急成長を遂げてきており、私は今年度（2016年8月〜2017年7月）、1997年に記録した過去最高の売上高を更新する38〜40億円程度まで伸びると予測しています。 ちなみに国内のプロレス市場規模は124億円（※4）程度となっておりますが、団体、興行会社に加え、周辺ビジネスを展開している会社も含めて、総計の売上高と想定されます。 "In comparison, NJPW's 2016 revenue was around 3.2 billion yen - a third of the Sumo industry and 1/25 of WWE. At present their is a huge gap between the two (WWE and NJPW), however as the chart below illustrates, since the Bushiroad takeover business has taken a complete upturn and recorded rapid growth; I would envisage the company reaching the 1997 figure of around the 3.8 to 4 billion yen mark for this year (August 2016 - July 2017), which was the highest amount recorded in company history. Incidentally, the entire domestic puroresu market in Japan has a revenue of around 12.4 billion yen, however this includes all wrestling promotions as well as peripheral businesses."Source 3 (Interview by Nikkei with Kidani last year - world's largest financial newspaper with 3 million daily circulation): 実際、新日本プロレスの業績は好調です。今期決算（16年7月期）では売上高32億円、経常利益は約4億1000万円です。ちなみに子会社にする前の売上高は約10億円でした。 "New Japan's business is very healthy at present. Our most recent annual revenue (in July 2016) was recorded at 3.2 billion yen, with an operating profit of 410,000 million yen. Incidentally, before we took over as the parent company, NJPW's revenue was about 1 billion yen a year." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D@mm Posted May 14, 2017 Share Posted May 14, 2017 Thank you posting that mate, very informative. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TildeGuy~! Posted June 1, 2017 Share Posted June 1, 2017 So the final is Will Osprey Vs Kushida. Underwhelmed is my thoughts on that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members mim731 Posted June 1, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted June 1, 2017 Ah it'll be decent enough, but there were definitely better options. I have to assume the Kushida redemption story is the end game here, presumably at WK 12, given his loss in the re-match with Takahashi? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TildeGuy~! Posted June 3, 2017 Share Posted June 3, 2017 Kushida won the BOSJ after a good match with Osprey, Scurll continues to shine in matches with Omega and Okada. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marshmallo Posted June 3, 2017 Share Posted June 3, 2017 Worst ever? Love Ospreay but stuff like this isn't entertaining. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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