7 Wrestling Promotions Which Tried To Beat WWE
1. NJPW
New Japan Pro Wrestling has almost everything in its arsenal to take on WWE. Running for almost half a century, it has the prestige which only tenure can invoke. The roster, though far from extensive, is almost unparalleled in quality. In Kazuchika Okada and Kenny Omega alone, New Japan possesses the two crown jewels (not that one) of professional wrestling. The company also benefits from not being ran by Jeff Jarrett.
There's just one barrier: they're Japanese.
No matter how aggressively NJPW pursue their American expansion, they will always be at a disadvantage. Wrestling fans are not the problem. Any self-regarding follower has already found New Japan as WWE's tonic - but that vein might be entirely tapped. How do they create new fans?
The answer is that they probably can't. Anyone not tuning into WWE is unlikely to take the plunge on a foreign product with no recognisable English-speaking stars. Accessibility helps, but nothing is more accessible than the market leader, and they haven't been able to attract new devotees since 1998.
Like Japanese electronics companies of the '80s, NJPW could gradually ingratiate itself as a household name in the States. The problem is how it goes about doing that whilst wrestling remains totally passé. A link-up with a genre straddling AEW - fuelled by Being The Elite - could be a start.
Status: Alive, and stronger than ever - but still need a huge amount of work to go global.