Is New Japan Using the American Academy to its Full Potential?

I seem to have stumbled into constantly fantasy booking and speculating on New Japan and its future recently. It’s no real surprise given the rebuilding that New Japan needs in terms of its talent and roster given retirements and talents leaving over the past few years it allows wide open debate about how is the next top guy or top guys. One of the things that likely also needs looking at is who is that top foreign star post Zack Sabre Jr (ZSJ).

Arguably since the signing of AJ Styles 2014 New Japan has always looked to position at least one non Japanese wrestler from a western country at the top or around the top of its card normally with them in big featured matches and winning titles and at least the world title at some point. Starting with AJ Styles and then followed with the likes of Kenny Omega, Will Ospreay and then Zack Sabre Jr New Japan always wants one guy near the top of the card but isn’t afraid to also add depth with other talents from America and other countries. If it wasn’t for this idea then we would have Bullet Club as a stable and one of the main dominoes to New Japan’s explosion in popularity in the 2010s may never have happened.

However, the explosion in popularity came at a cost. Such was the demand for something not WWE at the time and largely centred around the popularity of The Elite sun faction of the Bullet Club it gave rise to All Elite Wrestling (AEW). Now while New Japan and AEW have a healthy partnership now it presents another company backed by rich owners who can outbid New Japan for talent. One counter measure New Japan seemed to have was to reopen its American training school. It’s a smart idea on paper, if you can’t buy superstars you make them and as such you bring people in who see New Japan as their goal train them up and have people ready to go for your shows. However, I wanted to explore the LA Dojo and its successor the NJPW Academy and if I feel like New Japan is making full use of its American academy in terms of developing talent. This isn’t a case of looking into training methods and what not but more the booking side. I think there’s quick and easy steps to take to rectify this should the conclusion be that it’s not all sunshine and rainbows but let’s have a look.

The Dojo started out with a class with the likes of Karl Fredericks, Clark Connors, Gabe Kidd and Alex Coughlin followed with extra additions of Kevin Knight and The DKC. While Karl Fredericks left to become just another body in NXT due to fustrations the rest have had varying degress of success. While The DKC now works as a key trainer for the NJPW Academy and Kevin Knight has been inconsistently booked now being Junior Tag Team Champion when going months without being booked (which is dumb with how talented he is) the rest found themselves in the War Dogs. Alex, sadly having to retire before he reached his full potential but I think Clark and Gabe both have been great in their current roles. I shows the potential of developing your own western talents as I don't think the likes of Kevin and Clark would have gotten the opportunities in New Japan without this.

However, with the ending of the Strong brand as a weekly show in favour of a redesign of American system. Now there is one event a month normaly and the LA Dojo replaced with a training school which is suppose to offer a clear pathway to New Japan Pro Wrestling. Now, I am just speculating but I imagine this pathway comes with extra costs when compared to other training schools but it does feel like this isn't the case. Currently you have one pre-show match dubbed the 'Strong Survivor' which has been held by Matt Vandagriff for about a year and looking like Zane Jay will be the guy to take it from him. This is fine a good start as well also with Zane Jay training in Ja[an for a bit. But, what else is there? Changing the way you go about things means you have to have a follow through. What happens to Matt post this? Does he get actual matches or does he just get forgotten? Why not have him be in Best of the Super Juniors? It does feel like there's a lack of communication of the American side to the Japanese side a vice versa. 

In my view I would look to show why training in the NJPW academy is that pathway. I think as a company looking to rebuild in 2025 this is the perfect time to start. Zane Jay seems the perfect example to go with. In 2024 he has trained in the NJPW Academy and also been invited to spend time in the New Japan Dojo in Japan likey finishing the year with a win and being crown Strong Survivor. I think in 2025 this title serves no purpose but a pointless sub 5 minute pre-show match, why not actually show him having bigger matches? Sure he could lose them but the idea is to show progression, I think Zane could stand to lose matches facing the likes of Boltin Oleg, Ryohei Oiwa and other in a similar fashion but could also win in some multi man matches. The main point would be by the time 2025 is over Zane Jay has appeared in Japan. No reason he can't team with someone like Bolin in World Tag League next year. Right there you show from training in the New Japan Academy a proof of concept from training to New Japan and not just that but also as part of a tournament.

All in all, I think that showing the benefits to the NJPW Academy to being part of New Japan is an easy fix. It does depend on how the company as a whole sees the prospects of the NJPW Academy. Not everyone is going to be someone they want seeing as this is paid to enter and not a pass an exam to get in like the NJPW Dojo in Japan. As such it has to be the right person in order to show a success. This could be rolled out further with the likes of NJPW Tamashii and the talents there like Jake Taylor & Andrew Villalobos but I feel America may be a more key market for talent and as such it is key to have a full example of what going to the NJPW can achieve.