Hello, yesterday TJP made a lengthy pair of replies to a post I made on /r/squaredcircle. This was another thread about the Cobb/TJP issues, and in particular there was a guy who commented several times in that thread saying that TJP declared himself leader of the United Empire without New Japan's approval and basically went into business for himself. I threw doubt on that claim, and TJP replied to me (maybe me specifically because he saw I wasn't hostile? I dunno.)
He says at the end of the his second post to use his responses as a reference point for people who don't know the story, and it "would be appreciated if people understood these things", so I feel it's fine to make a post about it, because I found it to be interesting and even enlightening information.
In particular, people have been wondering why TJP was chosen as Captain. Why not O-Khan, for instance? This actually get answered!
First of all, his first comment is here, and his second one is here.. They're somewhat long walls of text, so I'll summarise as best as I can.
Key Points
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TJP was made leader after the other members turned down the role of leader, including Jeff Cobb.
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O-Khan was the obvious choice, being basically the group's symbol, being able to speak Japanese and being a great networker, but he didn't feel up to it.
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TJP tried to talk O-Khan into it, and insisted that regardless of who is leader, O-Khan is a founding member and should speak to him as an equal.
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After the role of leader fell to TJP, he asked each member again if they would rather do it, and they all declined. At this time Cobb specifically said that he didn't want to be in United Empire at all.
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The head of booking sat down with all the Empire members and explained that TJP was being put into that position, and why.
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O-Khan was the one who came up with the 'Captain' title. They wanted to respect Ospreay, so they wanted a term that wouldn't impose on him. The office suggested "boss" and other terms that sounded too harsh. O-Khan offered suggestions, before he landed on "Captain".
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The storyline that ran around April 2024, with TJP's leadership being in question was not initially planned. Cobb's on-camera comments and attitude towards TJP were unplanned, and were ignored by the others at first, but fans and even the English commentary team inevitably took notice, forcing their hand. Ospreay and TJP came up with the short storyline that culminated with the United Empire vs J5G gauntlet match where TJP won two falls straight to clinch the win.
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Cobb's attitude didn't change and everyone just ignored it at that point.
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TJP claims that Cobb's actions resulted in the group being devalued in booking and losing merch sales. My understanding here is that he's saying even after Ospreay left the group was doing well merch-wise, and Cobb is the reason it was tanking. Don't really see the correlation here but I admit to not having any knowledge of the situation beyond what TJP posted.
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TJP says later on that he lost tours as a result of Cobb too. He uses his matches with Finlay, Taichi and Kojima as an example of something that should have continued, but it was changed and he was told they couldn't continue.
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Cobb was the only member of the United Empire to be on a guaranteed money contract, the other members being on a 'per-date' contract. So if booking goes down, their money tanks too.
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Cobb started getting into "little locker room spats or criticism with other group members when [TJP] wasn't there". He also left the group chat that all the members of the United Empire are in to collaborate on gear and merch, and just generally hang out on the tours.
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At one point management heard of the issue and asked all the Empire members if they had an issue with TJP, who all said no. Cobb was the only one they didn't ask, so TJP knows he started it.
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The Empire was going for darker colours and a darker tone to match their defeat, and transitioning from a royal theme to a raider/pirate theme, but TJP claims Cobb refused to participate and focus on the more serious tone they were going for.
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TJP offered a storyline to Cobb where he (Cobb) went rogue, but the office didn't want them to do it. The office just wanted the Empire as a united (no pun intended) group, and no overt pushes or championships to crown TJP, just a natural transition.
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The money TJP was making got cut in half and was no longer a liveable wage for his family, because of that, and being told his heavyweight trajectory (my assumption, given the examples he gave are the matches versus heavyweights) was changing, he chose to turn down the next contract offering in favour of having more freedom to make money.
Given that New Japan is a Japanese company, we don't often get to peer behind the veil like this, so I found all this super interesting. People have been wondering for a long time why O-Khan wasn't made United Empire leader, and I think that's by far the most interesting bit of information to come out of this. The whole Cobb drama is honestly secondary. You're not going to get along with all of your co-workers. Not a big deal. Obviously the stuff TJP's wife said about Cobb was way over the line though.
by SSJ5Gogetenks