“There is a different sense of unity in Japan,” Tama Tonga said to Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated in an article published on Friday concerning New Japan Pro Wrestling‘s (NJPW) decision to not hold events during the most dangerous periods of the COVID-19 outbreak. “Here in America, the show must go on. Money needs to come in, so the wrestlers are still wrestling. New Japan stopped holding shows. That’s not just for the safety of the fans, but it’s also for the health of the wrestlers,” Tama continued.
While NJPW is in the process of diversifying how the company generates revenue, the first step of which was the introduction of New Japan World beginning on December 1, 2014, most of their income is generated through live event ticket sales. NJPW sold over 460,000 tickets in 2019, and began 2020 by selling over 74,000 tickets over the two days of Wrestle Kingdom 14 and New Years Dash the following day.
“The majority of our income comes from live shows, which has been cut out, but the company has held onto the staff and reassured us that no one will be let go. The company is more of a family in Japan,” Tama said on the topic, not so subtly detailing the differences between NJPW’s COVID-19 approach compared to that of All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), both of which have continued to run live events during the heat of the outbreak within the United States.
Tonga would go into detail concerning NJPW leading a contingent of promotions based in Japan to speak to the Japanese government concerning helping wrestlers and staff members during COVID-19.
New Japan does its best to look out for the entire wrestling scene in Japan. Even Tanahashi going in front of government, that may surprise people in wrestling, but it doesn’t surprise us. He really is our leader. You can see that unity in our roster, too. Our guys go from young to old. This isn’t a factory of young guys that get chopped up and spit out. The mindset around wrestling is different in Japan.
NJPW has yet to announce a date for its return to running live events. During the downtime, the company has published several programming events under the New Japan Together initiative.
