7 Reasons NJPW Should Be Worried About 2017
The road ahead for Omega, Naito and co could yet prove bumpy.
2016 could have been a disaster for New Japan Pro Wrestling. Before the first week of the year was done the company saw four major talents go, as Shinsuke Nakamura, AJ Styles, Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson handed in their notices and headed (eventually) to WWE. The exodus presented NJPW with its biggest challenge in years, a true test of Gedo's ability to book top level professional wrestling.
Our worries were for nought however, as 2016 turned out to be yet another excellent year of professional wrestling for NJPW. A whole host of talent stepped up to the plate in a big way, as the hole left by the leaving four became filled by a wide variety of performers. Kenny Omega, Tetsuya Naito, Katsuyori Shibata, EVIL, Michael Elgin, YOSHI-HASHI and more have all seen their stock rise in 2016.
What does 2017 have in store for Okada and company? One would hope that a difficult transitional year would be followed by something approaching plain sailing, but professional wrestling isn't an industry that always follows the script.
There are many things that could go wrong for NJPW in 2017, many reasons the company should be somewhat apprehensive about the year ahead. Here are seven such reasons.