NJPW president: Strong will be ‘rebuilt’ with focus on quality over quantity
This story has been updated.
Following a Christmas Eve tweet from NJPW president Takami Ohbari indicating change was coming to NJPW Strong and Hiroshi Tanahashi writing in a blog post that the show is coming to “an end,” Ohbari further commented on the future of Strong.
On December 24th, Ohbari tweeted that Strong would be “rebuilt” in 2023. That was followed up on Saturday in the aforementioned blog post by Tanahashi who wrote in Japanese (translated via Google to English), “#NJPWSTRONG, which has been going on for over two years, will come to an end with this recording. It seems that overseas tournaments will be announced in a different form in the future.”
On Sunday morning, Ohbari again commented on Twitter, saying the show will be “rebuilt” and focus on quality over quantity.
#njpwSTRONG will be rebuilt to adapt external and internal environment. We started it when the strict lockdown was forced, so we focused obviously on "continuity".
Fortunately, fan and we are about to overcome the pandemic. We should now focus on "quality" rather than quantity.
— 大張高己/Takami Ohbari (@TAKAMIOHBARI) January 8, 2023
The weekly TV series debuted in August 2020 and is produced by their NJPW of America arm as part of the group’s expansion into the U.S. With their own titles, NJPW Strong includes NJPW roster members in addition to North American talent like Josh Alexander, Eddie Kingston, Wheeler Yuta, and others.
Further adding to the speculation about the future of Strong is AEW & ROH owner Tony Khan’s comments about ROH TV following December’s Final Battle. As he was talking about how ROH’s eventual weekly TV show will be on HonorClub at some point in 2023, he mentioned several times about NJPW being involved but didn’t go into specific details.