NJPW Releases Commercial For American Expansion

New Japan Pro-Wrestling has been taking strides over the last year to increase their english-speaking fanbase. They have increased the amount of shows they bring on an english-announce team for, and have been increasing the amount of foreign stars they feature.

The biggest move the company is making to expand into english-speaking markets however, is bringing their famous G1 tournament to Los Angeles this summer.

The company released the following commercial for the show recently:

Witness the first commercial for the debut of New Japan Pro-Wrestling in the United States#njusa pic.twitter.com/Dq8RU1zfFA

— njpw_global (@njpwglobal) May 1, 2017

For those who don’t follow Japanese pro-wrestling, there are some significant differences. NJPW, and most other Japanese companies (not DDT) place far greater emphasis on pretending the sport is real. That is to say they don’t break down the fourth wall as much as WWE does. There is also far less talking, with backstage segments being limited to press-conference question and answer periods.

NJPW also divides much of the year up by holding several tournaments, such as the G1.

The G1 tournament is the main singles tournament of the year (with all do respect to the New Japan Cup). It is a round-robin tournament where wrestlers are split into 2 divisions. The wrestler who finishes with the most points in their division (2 points for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss) moves on to the finals to face the winner of the other division. Whoever wins in the finals, earns a contract for a title match at WrestleKingdom.

The two G1 shows in Los Angeles will most likely be during the round-robin portion of the tournament.