Welcome to Shoot with Smith. I’m Smith, lets shoot!
Roundup, Roundup. It’s that time of week again my little wrestling marks. Gather round and here the new developments in the global wrestling community, you know what I’m saying, lets shoot…
Madison Square Garden, a venue as synonymous to Wrestling as Wembley or the Maracanã is to Football.
The Garden has been called up for Duty in the ongoing struggle between WWE and NJPW. The battle lines were drawn some time ago, New Japan took the bold step of promoting shows Stateside but this recent announcement is equivalent to walking into the McMahons house on Christmas day and pissing all over Linda.
Madison Square Garden gave the usually nomadic WWE an arena to call home for decades, yet the relationship did begin to sour when WWE started to use the venue less & less for a plethora of legitimate reasons – mainly the Barclays Centre offered a much better venue for their needs. With the complete lack of any large scale non-WWE promotions, Pro Wrestling became a rare sight at the worlds most famous arena. WWE did run sporadic shows at MSG yet refused to use the arena for big shows such as Wrestlemania. For an old romantic grappling fan like myself, it was a sad day knowing we probably wouldn’t get another Wrestlemania at the Arena where the inaugural event took place.
Last week heralded the great news that New Japan Pro Wrestling and Ring of Honour would co-promote a show at Madison Square Garden… ON WRESTLEMANIA WEEKEND…WHEN WRESTLEMANIA IS IN THE SAME AREA. Take a breath and recover.
The wrestling twitter-sphere let out a collective “holy shit” as the promotional video for the event was broadcast online. There have been persistent rumours that NJPW/ROH had booked the show months ago yet WWE had put a stop to MSG holding the event. Speculation persisted and eventually, someone gave in and we have one of the most exciting wrestling shows in decades to look forward to – without a single match announcement.
It doesn’t matter in the slightest who or what is on the card (as long as it isn’t a Kennel from Hell match…) or if it is a good show, the very fact that NJPW/ROH can even consider booking the World’s Most Famous Arena really does cement the current power shift in Pro-Wrestling we are witnessing. After the recent special PPV’s in America, many NJPW fans were crying for the promotion to move to a larger venue – boy did they deliver.
This will be the first time a non-WWE/F promotion has put a show on at MSG in living memory. The McMahons have had a stranglehold on Americas North East for a century, now that is changing and no matter what any fanboy tells you – Vince and WWE will be keeping an extremely close eye on proceedings.
WWE only had a whiff of suspicion that ITV was having success bringing British Wrestling back to Terrestrial Television and they reacted by creating the NXT UK tournament and subsequent upcoming weekly show. This has sent shockwaves right through the computers in every wrestling marks bedroom to the desk of Vince McMahon, the gravitas this event holds is undeniable. New Japan hasn’t just rocked up on WWE turf, they have stuck a “for sale sign” in the front lawn and got a deck chair out.
What next? I see a continuing battle between the two large promotions – with NJPW still a gargantuan distance behind in the profit sheets they are making huge ground within the wrestling community – even to the casual fan – promoting a show at Madison Square Garden is only going to perpetuate this as NJPW goes from strength to strength stateside.
Do I see a Monday Night Wars Part II with WWE and NJPW? Not just yet, there is enough space in this world for more than one major player in Professional Wrestling Promotion and the two can co-exist while both helping the industry we all love to grow. One thing is for sure, this is shaping up to be one hell of a story and my eyes are glued on the dirt sheets to see what happens next.
What do you think about an NJPW & ROH show in The Garden? Let us know below or on Twitter.
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