It was noted by a former NJPW official just how badly the value of NJPW dropped with the retirement of Hiroshi Tanahashi:
“Tanahashi retiring removes the single biggest emotional and commercial draw. He was the spine of the boom years, the face of the international expansion and the reason causal Japanese fans came back to the product in the first place.
Post-Tanahashi, the question every serious buyer would ask is, who does those numbers and who carries the global narrative? Right now there is no obvious answer to that. The roster has talent but no one with Tanahashi’s crossover appeal domestically or internationally. That really probably weighed on what serious buyers were willing to pay, and it may be why Bushiroad moved forward toward TV-Asahi and CyberAgent, who bring distribution and platform value rather than betting on a specific talent-derive upswing.”
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@WONF4W