AXS to broadcast Okada vs. Omega II in full on June 30

AXS TV has made the call that its June 30th New Japan television show, originally set to be two episodes, each one hour and airing from 7-9 p.m., will now be one two-hour episode.

The change was to allow the entire Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega IWGP Heavyweight Championship match to air in its entirety, which would have been impossible in a one-hour format.

The June 30th show will be airing two hours from this past Sunday’s Dominion event. The Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi match for the IWGP Intercontinental Championship will be shown as well.

This also means that the original plan to air the Okada vs. Omega match from Osaka on July 1st, immediately after the live Long Beach show, has been changed. Instead, the two-hour version of Dominion will be replayed from 6-8 p.m. Eastern time, as the lead-in for the live show from Long Beach, featuring the United States title tournament and Okada vs. Cody.

AXS will be airing New Japan matches starting at 8 a.m. Eastern time, with 12 hours of footage that is said to contain all the significant match of the year candidates from the promotion in 2017.

The Long Beach show is scheduled from 8 p.m. to midnight live, and will be covered as a sports event and not as a pro wrestling show, which means no commercial breaks during long matches.

There is no hard-and-fast finish time for the event like a television show, in the sense that if early matches go long, there is no incentive to trim the later matches or the main event for a midnight exit. In theory, they have blocked off until 1 a.m. if need be for the live show.

The plan for now is that immediately after the live show ends, to air the January 4th Okada vs. Omega match from the Tokyo Dome, and then after that, air a replay of the Long Beach show.