Money dear boy....

[Maikeru]

Aren't some of those companies helped as well by the relatively small size of Japan but its massive population?

 

Tokyo has one of the most highly populated density in the world, over 13 million, so drawing 4,000 or whatever, is a very small percentage and that's not including tourist's.

 

Yes that's true, in fact the metropolitan area has 37 million (which is why it's somewhat sustainable for around 60 shows a month - yes I said 60 shows a month - to be run there in small venues and still get reasonable turnouts). Pretty much every day there's at least one on somewhere, usually several a day at weekends. 

[Lionhat]

Thanks for you help, everyone.

 

It is interesting to see that they are not swimming in yen, I have noticed with the smaller shows you get all the little companies working together.

 

So you have a joshi match and then a BJW weapons match.

 

Do you think it has to do with the Japanese attitude, they stay in business no matter what which is different then the American attitude where a company might declare bankrupty if they had money troubles like AJPW. I have a feeling business wise they are company different I have a feeling if NJPW was American they will trying to buy all the opposition now.

[Maikeru]

Thanks for you help, everyone.

 

It is interesting to see that they are not swimming in yen, I have noticed with the smaller shows you get all the little companies working together.

 

So you have a joshi match and then a BJW weapons match.

 

Do you think it has to do with the Japanese attitude, they stay in business no matter what which is different then the American attitude where a company might declare bankrupty if they had money troubles like AJPW. I have a feeling business wise they are company different I have a feeling if NJPW was American they will trying to buy all the opposition now.

 

I wouldn't say they have any real opposition in Japan now - they own NOAH and Dragon Gate/Big Japan/the joshi promotions attract different types of fans. NJPW's main worry at the moment is WWE stealing their talent and becoming more popular than them in Japan in the future. 

 

I think with NOAH and AJPW a lot of it is about trying to honor the legacy of Misawa and Baba respectively for as long as possible. And as I mentioned Dragon Gate is profitable and probably quite a few of the smaller groups at least break even - by running cosy venues mainly in Tokyo (where it's not hard to get a few hundred fans along out of the 37 million residents), having no ring crew, having a few regular sponsors and selling merch at shows. Their talent are not well paid but they enjoy wrestling and would prefer to do that than work a real job. Plenty of Japanese promotions have gone out of business in the past; the ones around now know their niche and their limitations and that's how they survive. 

[Vamp]

AAA are the ones who've apparently had trouble paying people. That seems to have played a big part in them losing Rey and Alberto so quickly. Everything seems to have fallen apart for them in a very short space of time. They make a big deal of the lucha world cup but a beer company is putting the money behind that. There was a suggestion at one stage that people were only interested in working for them to get to the bigger pay days that lucha underground offered but you don't really need to go through AAA first.

 

CMLL can give you a lot of work because they do a boat load of shows. That's the advantage of owning your own venues. They've got to be making a loss on a lot of those shows. It's noticeable that the wrestlers all pick up when it comes to working in Japan though and I'm pretty sure that's because the pay day is bigger to be honest.

 

Some wrestlers seem to find there's more money on the independent scene.

 

Lucha Elite (sort of a brand of CMLL) seem to have chucked some money about to bring in L.A. Park and Cibernetico but they don't seem to be doing good turn outs so I've no idea how that works. I think they thought that would be a bigger deal than it has been. I also suspect CMLL make more money from sponsor shows than many regular shows.

 

Worth pointing out that nobody quite knows how CMLL works. Its far too complicated for the human mind to comprehend.