3. WWE Isnt Big In Japan
WWE.comIt's well known that the WWE keep The Great Khali on their books because he is a huge star in India. India is a growing global market with a huge potential TV audience. From the perspective of global branding and growth, its clear to see why Khali is still with the WWE, even though his match quality is hardly the stuff that legends are made of. The WWE is also big in the UK and Ireland, with Sheamus, Bad News Barrett and Paige all on the main roster and doing well for themselves. However, while wrestling is huge in Japan, its the native promotions like NOAH, New Japan Pro Wrestling and Dragon Gate who are the principle players. The WWE is viewed differently, as more of a pop culture phenomenon than a wrestling promotion like NOAH and co. Although they have just embarked on a brief tour of Japan, the WWE has a presence but not a dominance in Japan, and they realise that this is very unlikely to change. This means that there is no pressing business reason to push KENTA and get a foothold in the Japanese market as there is for India, or the UK. In fact, if anyone from another culture is going to make an impact in the WWE, it will be a wrestler from China, which is a huge untapped global market.