Opinion: What does New Japan of America mean for the North American Wrestling scene?

Few days ago, New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) officially announced plans to branch out to the western shores. The King of Sports revealed that NJPW will be launching an American Subsidiary called ' New Japan Pro Wrestling of America' - The promotion will be based out of California and will be holding live events all across the US starting next month.

While the announcement has created ripples across the business, select fans have been left bewildered by the announcement, especially given the oversaturated current American Wrestling scene.

While most fans all for competition and companies stepping up and handing out more content, the logic behind NJPW setting up a new subsidiary in a market that is already overcrowded by a plethora of companies just doesn't make any sense at the moment.

New Japan is an established brand in the US with a sizeable fan-following. The company has held numerous shows in the country, some of which have been highly successful while others have been lukewarm at best. At this point, the company doesn't have a big star who can steer the ship for the brand in the US.

The company lost some of its top foreign Superstars to AEW earlier this year and has been struggling with its shows in the US ever since. The G1 SuperCard in MSG sold-out on the back of Kenny Omega and 'The Elite'. The chance of seeing a non-WWE wrestling show in the Mecca of Combat Sports was another reason why the event was a humungous success.

New Japan's biggest show since the G1 SuperCard has been the G1 Climax Opener from Dallas, which saw hordes of empty seats that were visible even during the TV broadcast of the event. New Japan has since moved to smaller arenas for live events which have had little or no buzz, or at least not as much as their shows almost a year ago.

New Japan management revealed that the newly-floated promotion will be holding all across the US (except for a few markets), with some events happening concurrently with those in Japan.

This means that New Japan Pro Wrestling of America, or NJPWoA as it is being called, will have a separate roster. It will be quite a task for the promotion to find big-names free agents in the American independent scene as both AEW and WWE will be looking to any free agent that is there on the market.

In addition to that, what does this announcement mean for the relationship between Ring of Honor and NJPW? The two promotions have formed a strong partnership over the past few years and have successfully co-produced several events. NJPWoA essentially puts a full stop to New Japan's partnership with ROH. ROH and New Japan have stopped producing events for a while now.

Despite many might say, one cannot foresee a boom in wrestling in North America. Sure, there are more places for wrestlers to work and there hasn't been a better time to be a wrestling fan with so many options to choose from, the fact of the matter is that wrestling simply isn't as popular as it once was.

The steadily declining TV ratings of wrestling shows on Cable TV is a prime example of that. Wrestling fans tend to live in a bubble and the past few weeks are an indication that the bubble is starting to break bit by bit, with every passing week.

Instead of floating a new promotion, which is going to be a huge financial undertaking, NJPW could've carried on with their American tours as they do every single year. Introducing a new promotion in an already crowded market with a niche audience doesn't seem like a wise decision. This doesn't in any way mean that one would want this new entity to fail.

As a fan of NJPW's brand of wrestling, one should be happy that the company is serious about its global expansion plans, the only being the fact that this particular move doesn't seem to be well thought out, especially given the current wrestling landscape in the US.

Note: The views of the author do not necessarily reflect those of Sportskeeda.