Was watching new years dash and I fell in love with katsuya murashima. His physicalilty and his 1v1 with ishii was awesome and since he's going on a excursion soon I was wondering could a aew televised excursion work.
I think it would be cool to have aew put over the idea of young lions being growing wrestlers who get better with every loss and victory( and wishful thinking he could come back from excursion with a AEW title). That would be a very fun mid card storyline that would really showcase njpw more
The closest thing I could compare to was okada's tna excursion which was very debated and tna at that time wasn't what aew is now but I just wanted others opinions on the idea.
by dreemedteemed
31 comments
I mean, if they are partners, a Lion doing an excursion to AEW makes sense.
Yes? Why wouldn’t it
They did it with TNA most recently with Yuya Uemura, I definitely think it would work. Although maybe said Lion might be used more on ROH?
Would likely be more successful if it’s for ROH. They could still appear on AEW but would be likely to have a featured spot on ROH. That roster could probably really benefit from one too.
It could, for sure. Only issue is AEWs roster is very bloated.
This might not be popular on here but in ROH they’d get more consistent minutes and matches and probably be booked stronger. Chances of coming back with a ROH Pure or TV title to defend would actually be pretty strong.
As a Brit I’m excited to see who of the new crop turns up in Rev Pro soon.
ROH, absolutely
AEW doesn’t even have enough time to get their own wrestlers on TV regularly, there’s no way they’d dedicate time for a young lion to get exposure. Maybe on Ring of Honor, but that’s essentially a dead brand anyway.
More likely to take off in ROH
If they pick up outside dates with MLW and MLP (if they’re even a real company at this point) and assorted US indies then absolutely, yeah. Probably could land about a match a week even if they end up more an ROH and Collision mainstay.
Here’s a question within this question. With excursions, you expect the wrestlers to pick up a little bit of the place they went. Guys who went to revpro come back with some more technical stuff in their arsenal. Guys in CMLL have a little more high flying moves.
What do we think an AEW excursion would add to a Young Lion’s Game that would make them stand out? (This isn’t accusatory or saying there’s nothing to be gained. Just wondering what people think that would look like.)
They own ROH, so it would be a good way to help season talents before putting them in dark matches and the occasional opening match of Collision.
been waiting for it tbh . . i mean, revpro and tna do it (revpro better imo) – why not roh
evil did his excursion in roh. right?
I think excursions can work and benefit both the companies and talent but it has to be the right talent at the right time, Takeshita was on excursion when he debuted in AEW and is now one of the biggest stars in AEW/DDT/NJPW
I would not let them anywhere near AEW
I’d advise against it, as they simply wouldn’t get enough reps in AEW/ROH.
EVIL did at least part of his excursion in ROH and got some tv and ppv matches out of it. Not a ton, but exposure is exposure at that point in your career
Probably just ROH. AEW is a tv promotion and they probably wouldn’t see the point in putting a Japanese trainee on TV. They have a huge roster and limited tv time
I feel someone like Zane Jay would be the best person for an AEW excursion. Someone who could work ROH and do promos.
If he showed out enough, make it onto AEW as a lackey for a group Wheeler style.
The major benefit would be building his promo game and presence in a language he is comfortable with. Like Jay White.
No
You ever hear about the problem with Interim Managers in sports?
If they’re any good, the fans want them to stay, in spite of what the greater plan might have been, and the team caves and hires them. Most of the time, the short term boost doesn’t last and both the manager and the team are left worse off for the experience.
If they’re bad, or even just okay, the fans are happy to see them leave, both the team and the manager are left worse off from the experience, having gained little and needing to build back up again.
Point is, while I’ve always kinda liked the excursion philosophy I don’t think I’d ever send an excursion to AEW. The pull is too big if they succeed, so you’ll lose anyone who’s good.
Look at Takeshita. Was with DDT, had offers from New Japan, does a short stint in AEW as a free agent because he’s mates with Kenny, the fans fall in love with him, and AEW can offer him more money and wider exposure so he signs for AEW. If he hadn’t done that stint with AEW, I think he’d already be the cemented top guy in New Japan right now, probably a multi-time world champion.
I know it worked with TNA (sort of), but AEW has a lot more money and exposure than TNA had at the time, and an ownership that actually listens to fans and likes wrestling enough to know when they’ve got talent in their hands.
I’d stick with excursions in smaller companies and Indy promotions. Maybe do an appearance in ROH at a push.
The AEW roster is just way too stacked honestly. Even ROH I feel like an excursion guy probably wouldn’t be guaranteed to work every show, and they do what like one show a week.
Murashima and nagai are future goats
They would need to be competing regularly enough in AEW for it to work. AEW is just too stacked for a young guy from another company to be able to sustain a frequent spot on the card, when not even the most experienced wrestlers have that.
As an AEW fan, I don’t think it would work, simply because they don’t even have enough TV time to feature most of their own roster on every show, let alone a Young Lion every week.
That said, I love the idea, and it’s basically how they presented Takeshita on TV when he first came to AEW, and it worked out pretty well in the end.
RoH, yes, but I don’t see there being room for a Young Lion on Dynamite/Collision unless he’s extremely special, or a high-level AEW talent requests/outlines a program to work with him, or he’s added to an existing faction as a pin-eater (which is somewhat antithetical to the whole point of an excursion).
I’m primarily an AEW fan, and I love seeing international stars come in and show out. Might be difficult to fit them into the mix, but if they got associated with something significant on the show already (The Opps, DCF, if they are good at Conglomeratin’) they could get into it enough to make it worth it.
Takeshita showing up a few years ago and just being awesome made a fan out of me. Why not a Young Lion?
Njpw and aew have been partners for years and this hasn’t happened. Unless he’s going to offer them a contract while they’re still signed, Tony Khan has no interest in having njpw wrestlers on his shows.
I mean, it would make sense
Yeah, I think if it was a hybrid deal where they work ROH/AEW it could work. It doesn’t matter much how a wrestler is presented on excursion, but you would want some kind of guarantee of a minimum amount of matches/ring time they would get while there.
It’s up to the young lions where they want to go
LMFAO.
Nope.
The point of excursion is to “learn how to work” …
How is anybody going to learn how to work with one show a week, doing multiple person matches, and hardcore bullshit?
You also have to worry about Tony taking a liking to them and hands them a contract, and oops there goes another NJPW talent.
Or worse, Tony gets mad at them and pays them to stay home for their excursion.
All of the US companies are off the table at this point bc TNA is now a pipeline to the WWE, so they’re only going to teach how to work a WWE match….
Mexico may also be compromised depending on how their developmental works now that CMLL & AAA are working with AEW / WWE.
NJPW needs to think outside the box.
I would reach out to Minnesota & Oklahoma Universities to establish a partnership and send wrestlers to those schools to learn how to be legitimate shooters.
They wouldn’t be “students” at the universities, and their training would be adjacent to whatever collegiate competitions the university students would be doing …. but they would all get a wrestling education in how to be legitimate badasses.
Also …. I don’t know what Fale has got going on in NZ/AUS, but NJ should be looking to team up with REVPro and invest in those countries for developmental, establish a presence with the NZ/Aus wrestling community, and then they would have their own pipeline to NJ.
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