Rocky Romero wants to see NJPW STRONG return to being a weekly show.
NJPW launched NJPW STRONG in 2020, and it aired every week. The company then started holding NJPW STRONG events around the United States. In January 2023, NJPW announced that NJPW STRONG would start airing with a new dual format. In this new format, NJPW STRONG events air live before they play on STRONG on Demand. NJPW STRONG continues to grow, as the brand held its first events in Japan in July.
Speaking on Keepin' It Strong Style, Romero was asked to describe his goals for NJPW STRONG. He stated that he wants the brand to have more influence in Japan and hold more shows there.
"Definitely more influence in Japan. I think that the Japan shows were such a massive hit, I mean a massive, massive hit financially, and just to know that there’s that many STRONG fans that actually know all the wrestlers from STRONG, they know the roster, they know the moves, they know the whole gist of everything, which is really cool to see they we definitely made a huge impact in Japan. So I think that that probably will be a yearly thing, if not twice a year or something. I would love to see it twice a year, but for sure, definitely every year, that’ll be a thing," Romero said.
Romero continued by describing how he believes the return of NJPW STRONG as a weekly show would make sense. He noted that there could be more opportunities for that in the United States, and he stated that it could work on a small channel or platform. Romero made it clear that he's probably going to work on bringing STRONG back to its weekly format.
"As well as I don’t think weekly STRONG is dead in the water completely. I think that makes the most sense…if New Japan was to grow in America, the way America likes to do things and say if we linked up with a channel or another streaming service or whatever it is, the U.S. has more flexibility to do than Japan does to do stuff like that because we are kind of two separate companies. So I think that that’s definitely a possibility. You never know with the writers’ strike and things going on right now, this would be kind of the perfect timing to start pitching around a little bit and see if there’s any interest. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s gonna be TNT or something huge like that, but I think that STRONG could live on a small channel, similar to what MLW is doing, something like that. I think that that would be great for STRONG, kind of have different avenues, whether it’s SVOD and traditional and NJPW World. You have three or four different ways to create income as well as production, etc. The thing is, NJPW STRONG weekly was funded by NJPW World, primarily, and sponsorship and other things. So I think that the next step, if we were to bring that back, and fingers crossed, that’s one of my biggest things I’m probably gonna try to be working on for the next year or so would be to bring STRONG back weekly. I just think it’s too important to the growth of our young wrestlers and finding new talent for the future," Romero said.
Romero then emphasized the beneficial aspects of NJPW STRONG, as he noted that it was helpful with storytelling. He detailed some of the obstacles they faced with booking the show. The veteran described how things change all the time, and taping shows in batches can make that especially challenging. He made it clear that he believes potentially returning to a weekly model would be better the second time around.
"I think overall, in the long term, if New Japan of America is gonna grow, yeah, the pay-per-views do good numbers, and they do well. I just think that we need to be able to fill in the storyline to get those pay-per-views, and it’s good to have two ways to do it. You can have the weekly STRONG shows to build story, and then you can also have the Japan side building story. So we’ve got two ways to kind of feed these bigger shows, which makes them feel a little bit more important and bigger. I know it’s sometimes harder to follow because you’ve got the STRONG world and then you’ve also got the Japan world. So I think the biggest problems with that was, A, taping ahead of always difficult, and then B, at that time, when we were doing STRONG for that period of time, Japan wasn’t so easy to get in and out of. So now that there’s more flexibility and you can get in and get out of the country so easily, I think that if we ever went back to it, it would help, and it would be a much smoother product and storylines wise. So yeah, I feel like that’s always the biggest problem. When it comes to wrestling and booking and putting stuff together is just scheduling everything out because everything is always changing. Obviously, when you’re taping three or four weeks ahead, you have to be thinking two or three months ahead always, but shit happens all the fucking time. All the time, something happens, so you’re just trying to fix some of those things as you go along, and you’ve got to cut stuff from STRONG because you had it planned out but so-and-so gets hurt, and you have to pull that completely out now. You gotta figure it, so it’s a constant editing thing. But overall, it was a very good experience. I think the company leaned a lot, and everybody learned a lot doing it because they had never done it before. But I think that if it does come back, the next iteration of it will be even better, for sure," he said.
As of this writing, there is no word on if or when NJPW STRONG will return to television.
NJPW President Takami Ohbari recently reflected on the growth of NJPW STRONG. Click here to see what he had to say
NJPW recently announced the NJPW STRONG Lonestar Shootout event for November. More information is available here.
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