Takaaki Kidani Reveals Bushiroad Considered Selling NJPW When AEW Was Formed In 2019

Takaaki Kidani has opened up on how AEW’s formation nearly led to Bushiroad selling NJPW.

All Elite Wrestling was founded on January 1, 2019, with Cody Rhodes, The Young Bucks, and Adam Page officially signing with the promotion the following day alongside the announcement that Tony Khan would serve as company president, while his father, Shahid Khan, was named the lead investor. The company immediately set out to establish itself as a major competitor to WWE, although the alternative many fans had sought before then had often been New Japan Pro-Wrestling.

In the latest edition of Weekly Playboy, Bushiroad CEO and President Takaaki Kidani revealed that the company considered selling New Japan Pro-Wrestling in 2019 following the launch of AEW, anticipating that fan demand would shift toward the new promotion.

“Around 2019, I began to wonder if Bushiroad was already running out of steam when it came to global expansion. Just as I felt we had done everything we could, “AEW”—a promotion second only to WWE—was launched in the U.S. Up until then, New Japan had, to some extent, been fueling enthusiasm locally by serving as an “anti-WWE” alternative, so I had anticipated that the emergence of a powerful rival promotion would cause demand to shift elsewhere.”

-Takaaki Kidani

In February 2019, All Elite Wrestling announced that Kenny Omega had joined the company as its fourth Executive Vice President alongside The Young Bucks and Cody Rhodes. Since then, a number of prominent NJPW stars have followed Omega from Japan to the United States, including Kazuchika Okada, Will Ospreay, and Jay White, among others.

Despite Bushiroad’s initial fears, All Elite Wrestling officially partnered with New Japan Pro-Wrestling in February 2021, with the two promotions going on to co-produce their annual Forbidden Door pay-per-view beginning in June 2022.

Elsewhere in the interview, Kidani revealed that Yota Tsuji’s controversial comments at The New Beginning in Osaka proved to be a turning point in Bushiroad’s decision to sell New Japan Pro-Wrestling. You can read more about that here.

As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on Bushiroad’s involvement with professional wrestling and the future of New Japan Pro-Wrestling as soon as we hear more.

Translated using DeepL.