United they stand.
On Monday, January 20, New Japan Pro Wrestling led a press conference and announced the official creation of a new incorporated association, United Japan Pro Wrestling. Along with NJPW, promotions such as All Japan Pro-Wrestling, Big Japan Pro-Wrestling, DDT Pro-Wrestling, DRAGONGATE, Ganbare Pro-Wrestling, Kyushu Pro Wrestling, NOAH, STARDOM and Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling were all announced as participants in the partnership.
Led by chairman Sanshiro Takagi, the goal of United Japan Pro Wrestling is to "support the people of Japan through professional wrestling" and "show the strengths of pro wrestling" to the world. Takagi also noted that the creation of UJPW was inspired by the challenges that the pro wrestling industry faced during COVID-19 pandemic.
Fans can check out the full press release on the creation of UJPW below.
From NJPW:
A special press conference on January 20 saw the official recognition of United Japan Pro-Wrestling as a general incorporated association. The legal designation of the industry group strengthens governance and enhances public transparency, as well as allowing for more freedom in the scope of UJPW, while maintaining that commercial activity is not a core goal of the association, which is a non-profit organization.
Chaired by Sanshiro Takagi, the press conference explained the move to incorporation and its function in UJPW’s mission statement ‘to support the people of Japan through professional wrestling’, as well as to ‘show the strengths of pro-wrestling to the world’. Takagi recalled the thought process behind UJPW’s establishment, inspired by the challenges faced by the pro-wrestling industry during the COVID pandemic and the need for a unified ‘point of call’ for the industry at large during social issues, as well as to benefit communication between member organizations.
Currently, those member organizations comprise All Japan Pro-Wrestling, Big Japan Pro-Wrestling, DDT Pro-Wrestling, DRAGONGATE, GanbarePro-Wrestling, Kyushu Pro Wrestling, NJPW, NOAH, STARDOM and Tokyo Joshi Pro, but Takagi would also present a roadmap for future members to join.
The seven requirements to join UJPW are:
- an organization to be a regularly running, active promotion in Japan.
- to be a legally recognised company
- to have at least one contracted wrestler working for them
- to have annual revenue of at least 50 million Yen
- to have been established for at least two years
- to have a corporate compliance system in place for wrestlers and staff
- to share in a vision of betterment for the pro-wrestling space at large even in competition with other members.
Takagi also explained a road map for ‘supporting members’ of the association to join would be announced in the near future, with the key difference in barrier to entry being that the annual revenue and contracted wrestler distinctions are waived.
Takagi went on to discuss the broader vision of UJPW. The four central goals of the group, Takagi said, started with introducing more people to professional wrestling and ‘elevating its status in society.’ In elevating social status, a core tenet will be charitable activities, such as the support for Noto earthquake survivors expressed in the last year.
Takagi also talked about more international efforts, explaining the need to introduce the world to the unique culture of Japanese professional wrestling, and using this as the basis to drive tourism to Japan. Takagi’s fourth goal was to ‘expand the marketplace’ of professional wrestling in Japan, with a vision to grow the entire industry to double its current size within the next decade. Citing 1954 as the beginning of the current era of professional wrestling in japan in the form of the JWA under Rikidozan, Takagi discussed a vision of ‘supporting the people of Japan as we approach pro-wrestling’s centennial’.
Takagi closed by discussing the immediate goals for the group, which will see further strengthening and regular meetings with the Japanese government, as well as collaboration between member organizations on policies for health and safety of wrestlers. ‘We look forward to your support and understanding in our ongoing mission'.
Fans can check out previous results from a number of Japanese promotions by visiting our results section at this link.
