A press conference was held by CyberAgent today to announce it has acquired 100% of Pro Wrestling NOAH, making it the company’s newest subsidiary. Sanshiro Takagi, the current President and Representative Director of DDT Pro Wrestling will now also serve as the President and Representative Director of NOAH. Naomichi Marufuji is now the Executive Vice President of NOAH. The previous owners LIDET Entertainment will remain involved as a corporate sponsor.
Takagi says that DDT and NOAH will co-exist and prosper under the same CyberAgent umbrella. They will form a partnership that will create a new landscape for the pro wrestling industry. Takagi’s role in NOAH will only focus on the company’s business side. Everything related to NOAH’s current in-ring product will not be altered. It will still be ran by the NOAH staff who were there before the sale. While there will be interactions between the two companies, NOAH will still be NOAH and DDT will still be DDT.
The interactions include NOAH wrestlers being added to DDT’s “WRESTLE PETER PAN 2020” card at Saitama Super Arena on 7th June. There will also be two Sumo Hall shows held on back to back days in November. DDT will have a Ryogoku show on the 21st and NOAH will have their show on the 22nd.
Another decision made as part of the deal is the broadcast of NOAH shows on DDT UNIVERSE. A live broadcast of tomorrow’s “GLOBAL JR LEAGUE 2020” event will be shown free on UNIVERSE. The plan is to have one or two live showings and VODs added to the service every month. NOAH’s previous TV deals with G+ and Samurai TV remain as they are. There is also AbemaTV available to them now as well.
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Well isn’t this a shocker! Tokyo Sports broke the news 24 hours before the announcement. With this being the third time the company changed ownership since 2016 it was a strong reminder that it was still struggling financially despite on the surface looking like it had stabilized itself with the 2019 rebrand. We can now see in hindsight that Marufuji’s entry into DISASTER BOX was a sign of things to come. People on Twitter are even joking that Miyako Matsumoto stapling a NOAH flyer onto Chris Brookes’s forehead was galaxy brain level foreshadowing.
There is a lot to be excited about. The big one is NOAH broadcasts being added to DDT UNIVERSE. No mention yet of past events going up but if NOAH’s relationship with G+ still stands then the potential back catalogue would be a wonderful addition to the service, even if it only goes back to the REBORN era. And it’s nice to see a sinking ship get saved (sorry, had to use the pun).
But what is the effect this has on the wider wrestling world? Gossip about WWE entering the territory with some sort of NXT Japan project has been coming and going over the last few years. Events during that time gave strong hints of NOAH and WWE dabbling together over something. With NOAH siding with CyberAgent that takes another piece off of WWE’s board for world domination. The first piece was Stardom shrugging off their advances in favour of Bushiroad. If WWE wants to involve themselves in the Japanese scene like they are doing with Europe, then that task was just made harder with today’s news.
Anyway, one last thing. If there turns out to be plenty of DDT involvement happening in NOAH, I’ll write about it. Otherwise I’m taking their word that NOAH will still be its own promotion and I won’t be adding a NOAH section to the site. I have my hands full with the DDT groups. I recommend following @Hi5ame on Twitter to get NOAH news.
Dramatic DDT 