Rocky Romero On Dual Contracts: It Makes Sense For All Partners Who Are Doing Business Regularly

Rocky Romero comments on wrestling contracts.

Speaking with Fightful for a new interview, the Vice President Of Talent for NJPW dove deep into the art of contracts in the world of wrestling. He first started by talking about multi year deals and how the company is shifting towards deals that will last a year and certain amount of months.

“I think it’s a couple of things. I think traditionally in Japanese business and Japanese culture, I think that once something is done so many times, that’s how it’s done. My personal opinion is I’ve always been an advocate to sign people to multi-year deals. I thought that multi-year deals make a lot of sense, especially for certain talents. I know some talents do have multi-year deals. I’m not an advocate of them all ending in the end of January or February, the beginning of the year, because we just did the hottest part of the year—which is Wrestle Kingdom—so to come out of that and then have a whole completely new roster or changes in the roster, I think it’s just too much at once and it’s not good for the fan base. It’s the way New Japan has done business, [and how] they will probably continue to do business. I think that the people who make the decisions got to figure it out a little bit or maybe start doing a year and three months, a year and six months, a year and nine months. I think those would make a lot of sense as well, because then it also gives them a little padding to work out a deal as well.”

Romero went on to praise NJPW’s former president, Harold Meij, saying that there is a lot of good and bad to learn from when it comes to that era.

“We had Harold Meij as president a few years ago and that was one thing that Harold was really good about. The first thing he did was sign Okada to like a five year contract. I think that we could have learned a lot from that that era, good and bad. But I think that that was one of the good things. I know that not everybody’s like that. Not everybody’s deal is like a one year or two year and then ending on that certain date. There are a few people that are spread out a bit. I think there’s a conscious effort to do it. I couldn’t tell you much about the Japanese side. If the Japanese guys want to do it by year by year in January and that could be like a talent thing as well on that side. So I’m not really sure.”

When it comes to dual contracts, Romero recalled the Young Bucks being under a type of Ring Of Honor deal that carved out specific dates for them to wrestle for NJPW.

“I would say probably with the Bucks, because they were under the Ring of Honor deals and then they had carve outs for New Japan specifically. That’s what it always kind of was. It wasn’t exactly a dual contract, but a lot of people would have carve outs in their deals that would allow them to wrestle for New Japan x amount of times per year, let’s say. That continues to be a thing with certain people, but I think now is the era of the dual contract or, for some people, triple contracts now that we add CML to the mix.”

Continuing on, Romero talked about the recent surge of dual contracts in wrestling.

“I think it makes sense for all the partners who are doing business regularly. Also it feels like it’s an us versus them type of situation. When you’re dealing in a very small bubble of entertainment, like professional wrestling, and you’ve got this crazy, huge conglomerate with tons of money in the WWE. We’ve kind of all, on the other side, have unionized together a bit and working together and trying to create storylines and create events that help each other out. So great example of why we have so many AEW wrestlers on this show as well.”

Romero went on to say that he isn’t sure who would’ve faced Hiroshi Tanahashi in his final match if Okada hadn’t signed with AEW.

“Well, what’s the other alternative is look good at WWE. This year, wrestling was a great example. If Okada had gone to WWE, who would have Tana actually wrestled? Who would have been the opponent? A lot of people had a lot of things to say about who the opponent was and opinions are great. But I think Okada proved that he was the guy that should have been the guy in Tanahashi’s final match. He got the most out of Tana and it was an incredible night and a moment. There was a lot of tears being shed. It was incredible. Not only that, Tana looked like he could go another 10 years after. I think it was the right call and that wouldn’t have been possible, I think, if Okada had gone to another company and I’m glad that he ended up signing with AEW.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Rocky Romero spoke about the future of Forbidden Door and how he’d like to see more women involved with the event. Check out his full comments here.

Fans can check out Fightful‘s full interview with Rocky Romero in the video linked at the top of this article. Check out more of our interviews by visiting our YouTube channel.

Also, remember to catch the replay of NJPW The New Beginning USA on NJPW World.