Cody: NJPW Should Grow Pair & Do a US Tour

During his AXS TV conference call hyping the G1 Special in San Francisco (highlights via cagesideseats.com), Cody stated that NJPW should grow a pair and actually tour the US. Here are some highlights…

On NJPW Doing an Actual US Tour: “The next time you come over, if you’re NJPW, you should make a tour of it,” Cody said. “When I say a tour, I mean, let’s hit Los Angeles, let’s hit New York, let’s grow a pair — which they have — and make a run of all the ‘A’ markets and see how you do. That might be the first step into seeing what you can do consistently in the United States. “I think, next time, make a tour of it. They won’t, but it’d be really cool if they did. It may take some time, but I think if you hit all the ‘A’ markets you’re going to sell out or come close to it everywhere you go. And I think it’s also real important that you give them New Japan Pro Wrestling, don’t dress it up with something that they might be comfortable with … you don’t have to decorate it with American stars. What’s got them to where they are is the Japanese talent and Japanese stars. “Don’t do enough market research that you change your product.”

On 2018 Being an Era of Choice: “I don’t consider this an era of competition as much as I consider it an era of choice,” Cody said. “Look at the competition and where it got us. We ran WCW out of business, we destroyed an entire region in the US in terms of their love of wrestling and WWE has had to rebuild it. I’m from Georgia, I felt the fallout of a company losing in a competition before. I don’t think it’s about competition anymore, I think it’s about choice. I hope to see more efforts made to cross those bridges.”