NJPW Lost American Television After Refusing To Work With Impact Wrestling

New Japan Pro Wrestling and All Elite Wrestling haven’t worked together yet. That could be changing soon enough.

During Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer revealed that NJPW had an ultimatum of sorts from AXS TV. The network’s new owners Anthem Sports wanted New Japan Pro Wrestling to work with Impact Wrestling. This would have kept NJPW on the air. NJPW did not accept this deal so they lost their television network in America.

“New Japan was under the impression that they were going to be on until January 2021. There was a really good chance that they’d be off at that point because they’re probably not gonna want a better looking product on their station than their own product.”

“What ended up happening was Impact and AXS basically said you can stay on the station if we get a working relationship going and New Japan turned down the working relationship so they lost their television.”

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The previous idea was that NJPW would be on AXS until 2021 which gave them 2020 to tour and get a larger fan base. They could also secure a new TV deal in that time. Since AXS TV yanked the rug out from under NJPW sooner than they expected this changes the game in a big way for New Japan Pro Wrestling.