Announcement teased by Rocky Romero.
Today, beginning at 9:20 PM EST/6 PM Pacific is New Japan Pro-Wrestling Battle in the Valley from San Jose, California.
Talents who are competing on the card are making the rounds on the media circuit to promote the show and Rocky Romero, who is at the helm NJPW STRONG, guest appeared on Wrestling Observer Radio.
Rocky revealed that NJPW is planning to announce a ‘big show’ for May 2023 and said it’ll probably/hopefully be announced at Battle in the Valley.
We’re gonna announce a big show in May that’s gonna happen. We’re probably gonna announce that (at NJPW Battle in the Valley) hopefully and then, so, that’ll also depend, obviously if it’s in May, Best of Super Juniors going on in Japan so might be (a) more heavyweight-filled show, you know? As opposed to having it a mixture of juniors and other talent on there… In July and August, we plan on (doing) a couple of events and those are probably more junior-based because obviously, the G1 is going on during that time. So, we definitely have taken the schedule into consideration for the most part, really as much as we can this year so we can provide the best product but then also have it be a little different depending on what’s going on in Japan.
The Battle in the Valley card is being billed as a double main event with KAIRI defending the IWGP Women’s Championship against Mercedes Moné and Kazuchika Okada defending the IWGP World Heavyweight Title against Hiroshi Tanahashi.
Rocky stated that Tanahashi versus Okada was not necessarily needed from a business standpoint because the event had already sold out, but felt it is important to show the best of New Japan, especially to a new fan base that could be tuning in.
Yeah, it’s a big deal (Okada & Tanahashi wrestling in the USA). Obviously, they did wrestle in the G1 a few years ago in Dallas but I think it’s even cooler because this is even more special because an IWGP World Heavyweight Championship match so, you know, that always brings those two wrestlers to a whole other level. You know, they’re kind of the epitome of that word ‘IWGP’. So yeah, it definitely was maybe not needed from a business sense if you think about it because yes, we did sell a lot of tickets, it was sold out and you know, pay-per-view buys are doing really, really well but I feel like, it’s important to show the product, especially with Mercedes (Moné) coming on. There’s gonna be a whole new set of fan base that maybe wouldn’t normally watch a New Japan Pro-Wrestling show so why not show our best and show exactly that, you know, Okada versus Tanahashi.
As of this writing, here’s the card for tonight’s pay-per-view:
- IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi
- IWGP Women’s Championship: KAIRI (c) vs. Mercedes Moné
- NJPW World Television Championship: Zack Sabre Jr. (c) vs. Clark Connors
- Filthy Rules Fight: Tom Lawlor vs. Homicide
- Loser Can Never Wrestle in NJPW Again: Jay White vs. Eddie Kingston
- STRONG Openweight Tag Team Championships: Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelley & Chris Sabin) (c) vs. West Coast Wrecking Crew (Jorel Nelson & Royce Isaacs)
- STRONG Openweight Championship: Fred Rosser (c) vs. KENTA
- Josh Alexander, Rocky Romero, Adrian Quest & Mascara Dorada vs. KUSHIDA, Volador Jr., Kevin Knight & The DKC
- Kickoff Match: David Finlay vs. Bobby Fish
- Kickoff Match: Alex Coughlin vs. J.R. Kratos
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Wrestling Observer Radio with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
