Ok so more than what I projected. But how does that turn into anything for AEW. They may get a small piece of that pie either licensing their content but then they’ve licensed that content and they don’t run shows in Japan. Meanwhile they’re spending an inordinate amount of the TV time in the US promoting those characters and those belts that they can’t use to promote their shows full time and diminishing the profile of their own stars because the viewers (many of whom don’t watch Japanese wrestling) see guys getting bumped for one offs from NJPW. It’s bad business.
All of those people are full time performers for WWE No issues with what they’re doing with Takeshita as he appears to be a full-time performer going forward. But having Minoru Suzuki on to main event with Moxley and Eddie Kingston to pop a very niche portion of your audience when that spot could elevate Starks or Swerve is silly.
my point was they weren’t and yet when they debuted they were huge deals, got tremendous pops. If okada showed up and challenged roman for his title it’d be the biggest story on wrestling. These guys and girls are Japanese wrestlers until they’re not.
Not unless he was full time and could cut a promo. Not familiar with the Japanese based wrestlers promo skills so not commenting on whether he can or not but that seems to matter more in WWE than other forums.
Okada would never be allowed to show up and wrestle Roman for his title because of the way WWE correctly presents their World Champions as a big deal and their promotion in general as the big leagues and better than other promotions.
Io was definitely not a huge deal, she debuted at Summerslam and got a decent reaction because it was a surprise but she’s had mild crowd reactions pretty much everywhere but the one night in Puerto Rico if Okada showed up at Smackdown to challenge Roman maybe a third of the crowd would actually know who he was at best
Brock debuted right after Mania and won the title at Summerslam. But he had a physical presence and freak athleticism that hardly anybody has ever had in wrestling
Big deal I like that he was a heel champion of a non-white race and won all of his matches because 2 brothers of the same race kept interfering.
The only people that have debuted and won a world title within a year in WWE were either guys that had spent a large amount of time on TV and carrying WCW/NWA world title in another promotion in the US and had a huge domestic profile (Big Show, Flair, Styles), wrestlers with family/gimmick connections to other huge acts in their time (Yokozuna, Kane), singularly unique talents (Angle, Lesnar), or Sheamus.
To summarize all of my points, there are just a few things I wish Tony Khan would learn from Vince McMahon to make AEW's product better. Cut back on the cross-promotional hot-shotting and either exchange talent for long angles or bring guys over full-time, use your TV time to cultivate your own roster, and only use your TV to present your own limited assortment of titles and make a big deal out of them instead of having 374 belts presented on your programming. And please make a clear distinction between ROH and AEW. Sometimes it feels like Dynamite is an all-star show for like 4 different promotions.
Not sure what the argument is. My point was mainly that promos matter more in WWE then other productions and more so if you were not already embedded in the company. That’s why I mentioned Lesnar. Based on Wikipedia, each of Nakamura, Iyo, and Asuka wrestled in NXT before jumping to the main roster. Okada debuting and immediately challenging Reigns would be more like Brock.
I had no idea who Nakamura or Asuka or Iyo was before they came to NXT. Okada would largely get a Who the fuck is this guy from 75% of the WWE audience.
the point is people know who Japanese stars are, pretending it’s some minute portion isn’t true. The world isn’t flat anymore. People knew who Kevin steen was, people knew who nakamura was, people knew who Kenny omega was, people know who Okada is. AEW doing a partnership event with talent outside of North America isn’t a bad thing and it isn’t catering to some absurdly small niche of fans
I think you’re overstating WWE fandom for wrestling fandom. If Okada showed up in WWE or AEW tomorrow, I wouldn’t recognize him until Michael Cole or JR said his name and recall this thread.
I’m going to say you are wrong. Sure, you might know who those people are but your casual fan who doesn’t read websites and post about wrestling on a message board everyday had no idea who Kevin Steen was until he showed up on NXT. Same with the others. You are conflating your own wrestling knowledge with what the average person knows and it’s just way off.
That wasn’t early days though. Nakumura, Steen, Zayn, etc we’re in the peak of NXT when it was can’t miss and they were having huge PPVs stand-alone.
Sami and Owens both debuted in WWE before NXT Brooklyn which was the first NXT event outside of full sail
speaking of their first even event outside of full sail, so weird they used a Japanese wrestler not employed by WWE. So awkward how the crowd didn’t know who Liger was
lol wasn’t he in the 2nd match with Tyler Breeze? Not exactly a marquee spot they were using to sell the place out
He had been around for 30 plus years and had been wrestling in the states on national television for years as well. You are really reaching man.
Only Don calls it this and no one acknowledges him when he says it or you make it like the "OC" joke from Arrested Development and Bryan just says "don't call it that" every time he says it.