NJPW Hires Non-Japanese President, Sets Sights On WWE

New Japan Pro Wrestling has announced the signing of the company’s first ever non-Japanese President. Dutch businessperson, Harold Meij, is the former Vice President of Coca-Cola Japan. He was born in the Netherlands but spent his childhood in Japan and is fluent in the language.

Meij recently took part in an interview with Japanese language media outlet, Nikkei.com. rNoted NJPW author, Chris Charlton, provided some translated quotes from the article.

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Google translate offered more insight into Meij’s comments. While the overall essence of his comments is captured by Google Translate, the translation is not perfect:

“The quality of New Japan Wrestling exceeds the world’s largest professional wrestling organization” WWE “. It is high and has drama nature, the athletes are all handsome, they have many charms to stick to various sexes and age groups such as longing to strength and muscular fetish, etc. That is, there are goods, There is still insufficient publicity and accessibility to arouse. “

It should be noted that despite the above comments by Mr. Meij, Toru Yano is still not very handsome at all.

“We have already mobilized about 400,000 people a year at 150 times a year. Ticket income accounts for 50% of sales, but there are limits to the number of players and the convenience of the venue. Movie distribution, advertisement etc. Advertisement of monthly fee video distribution “New Japan Pro Wrestling World” has about 100,000 members, but WWE’s video distribution has 1.5 million members worldwide. “

New Japan World subscriber numbers have remained stagnant at approximately 100,000. Meij seems to be indicating the company is too reliant on ticket sales as a source of revenue and need to diversify how they monetize their product.

New Japan Pro Wrestling is just about to move into the 25th edition of the Best of the Super Juniors tournament. The tournament gets underway tomorrow from Korakuen Hall.