10 Things WWE Can Learn From New Japan Pro Wrestling

1. What Not To Do: Changing Too Much

No one ever said that NJPW was perfect; like every wrestling promotions, their leaders have made big mistakes in the past. Out of all of these screw-ups, the biggest one was when then-owner Antonio Inoki went crazy about Mixed Martial Arts and damaged his own product due to his own ego. When Inoki got bit by the MMA bug, his desire was to either feed his top wrestlers to MMA stars, thus ruining any reputations those guys had as tough guys; or pushing MMA guys in wrestling, despite having little experience in professional wrestling. Either way, the end result was a series of bad matches and tarnished superstars. Eventually, two of his three legendary €˜Three Musketeers€™, Shinya Hashimoto and Keiji Mutoh, left NJPW, leaving the company without any truly big stars to carry the company outside of Masahiro Chono, Yuji Nagata, and a plethora of MMA stars. What this means is that if a promoter changes their product too much, fans won€™t accept it. We€™ve seen this quite often in WWE recently, with the over-dependence on celebrities, promos, authority figures and pushing the wrong people. If a promoter does what he or she wants, instead of truly listening to what fans want, then the company is bound to fail. In many ways, during that MMA phase Inoki was very much like Vince McMahon: he had a radical new idea that his talent and fans didn€™t support, but he knew in his mind it was the right decision; and when it backfired on him it had serious consequences. It took New Japan almost a decade to regain its relevance in Japan, as NOAH and AJPW had taken over during the 2000s. If Vince doesn€™t want to experience a terrible drop in relevance like New Japan did, he€™s going to have to stop making so many changes and unpopular decisions just to fit his own ego.