One of the things that got me miffed recently is the news that New Japan Pro Wrestling is ending it’s run with shows on AXS and that the reason supposedly was when AXS’s new owners (Anthem) wanted to have New Japan working with Impact wrestling. New Japan refused the idea and with it so goes the idea of providing wrestling for AXS TV.
Yes, the end of New Japan programming cones at the hands of Impact.
I have been a big fan of NJPW on AXS going back to the very beginning of the show and when it was called by Mauro Ranallo. My introduction to him as well. I had no idea who Ranallo was at the time but he impressed me on that first show and all the ones he did after that. He got picked up by the WWE and despite some issues, he has been my favorite announcer, no matter the wrestling I am watching. He is better than Jim Ross was. Not that JR was terrible then (or is terrible now) but I put him a notch below Mauro presently.
Granted, most of the time the shows weren’t shown live and many of the shows were often years old but it was still fun to watch the action and see what happened. It was cool to see how the original Bullet Club formed or the formation of the Suzuki army. NJPW coverage on AXS provided me with that.
I’m not a big fan of Impact Wrestling and this doesn’t improve my outlook of the company. I haven’t been a fan since the beginning of the promotion back during the Jerry Jarrett days and they have only gotten worse since then. I left watching Impact around the time of the Lawsuit when they had the announcers fighting on their TV shows and trying to tell people that it used to be good until Dixie Carter showed up and that they will be good again now that there is new ownership and it will be awesome. I scoffed then and gave up watching and when they moved for the millionth time to AXS TV for their new show. I found that they hadn’t improved much. I have written on here before about how their first showings for AXS were showing their current world champion losing to a guy going to the WWE ( John Morrison) and don’t really pay attention to what is going on their now.
So the whole situation leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I do get NJPW’s decision to not want to work with Impact in the United States. NJPW can find a new TV carrier if they wanted and they will keep going regardless of any TV they would have in the USA. They have lots of coverage online and their online service covers a lot of the events too, even without the TV coverage in the US.
Impact itself seems more like it is going out of business week to week to me and don’t seem to have an image of where they want to be let alone any plan on getting there. They seem more like an indy group that has some airtime on a TV station than any kind of major player in the wrestling world. If you get into Impact then go ahead and watch it. You can have it. I don’t and with this news, I won’t be watching much of AXS tv anymore either.
It is sad that my watching AXS TV ends this way though, but it is something I had to do. I still have NWA Powerrr and all the stuff the WWE puts on to keep me entertained with my wrestling, but Impact and AXS TV aren’t part of that anymore. They can do whatever they want because I really don’t care that much with this news
