MVP recalls pitching New Japan World to NJPW management long before it became a reality.
During a recent episode of the Marking Out podcast, the AEW star said he told then-NJPW President Naoki Sugabayashi that New Japan was missing out on many marketing opportunities because they didn’t have a website to cater to a broader audience.
“Here’s something that is factual,” MVP said. “This is an absolute fact. The idea for New Japan World — I pitched it to President Sugabayashi long before it became a reality. I had a meeting with Sugabayashi; he was the president back then, along with Jado, Red Shoes, and Tiger Hattori. I was telling them, ‘You guys are missing out on a lot of f*cking money. You have a huge English-speaking audience in the United States, in England, in Australia. You’re not marketing to them.’
“I said, ‘You guys need a website that has an English translation. They’re not thinking about your audience outside of Japan. You need to make your product accessible to English-speaking fans outside the country. You can even set up a YouTube page in English aimed at American fans. Pick three matches a week that you want to highlight, put them on the YouTube channel. I’ll help you get two Americans to do the voiceover in English for those matches and start feeding your English audience. Give the American or English-speaking audience access to the merch.’”
MVP recalls early push for New Japan World
“I would have gone crazy to buy a f*cking, you know, a (Masahiro) Chono shirt at one point, and you guys weren’t allowing that. And just to make a point, at the time, there was no Instagram yet, but there was Twitter. I was very active on Twitter and said, ‘If you want New Japan to start promoting products in English, making matches available in English, or making their merch available, hit up Sugabayashi,’ and I tagged him.
“But we’re in the meeting, and I said, ‘Did you see how many people?’ He didn’t have a very good sense of humor, but with a stoic face, he was almost mad. I said, ‘That’s money — all of those people are money.’ So yes, true story: I invented New Japan World. I pitched that idea to them before it existed. I don’t know how long it took from the time we talked about it until it actually came to fruition, but I’m the one who suggested they do that.
“When I went to New Japan, most guys back then got fired and went to Japan. Not too many guys quit just to go to Japan. We were at the New Japan office doing a press conference. I had posted on Twitter about where it was going to be and what time. A guy who worked in the office, a real nice guy, came and showed me the numbers for that particular event — they were the highest numbers they had ever had. All these people from the U.S., MVP fans who didn’t know about this, were tuning in for the first time or out of curiosity about New Japan.
“I told them, ‘You’re leaving a lot of money on the table.’ Since then, they’ve expanded — now they have New Japan USA. But that’s my New Japan story.”
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