Former NJPW GM Says Promotion Attempted To End ‘Being the Elite’

In an interview with Ad Free Shows (via Fightful), former New Japan Pro Wrestling GM Michael Craven said that NJPW once wanted to end the Young Bucks’ Youtube series ‘Being the Elite’. The series ran from 2016 to 2024.

He said: “One of the criticisms was ‘New Japan is starting to cater to American fans only.’ That criticism comes because of Being The Elite. The office decided, ‘Let’s just shut down Being The Elite. They can’t film backstage. They can’t discuss anything about our product. They can’t show our employees backstage because this is their unofficial show. They shouldn’t be making their own stories about this.’ The issue was, who gets to say this to The Elite? I got to be the one that got to talk to The Elite during the G1, without any proper introduction by the company or anybody. I was told, ‘Go into the locker room’ which was sacred ground, ‘and explain to The Elite the following points……’ You can’t film backstage. I was told we are being charged by the venue for the backstage filming, which I don’t know if that was true or not. I was told to tell them that the company was not happy that employees (were shown). Employees like myself were never supposed to be revealed. Don’t film any employees. Don’t film any wrestlers without prior permission. Don’t create storylines that are not pre-approved. I believe that is the whole key issue of the breakdown of communication. What should have happened is, the system that Rocky Romero and myself eventually made, and worked really well, if there was an issue, I go to Rocky and say, ‘The office has an issue, can you talk to these people.’ Rocky would talk to them, if the issue wasn’t solved, it would escalate up to me and I would talk to the people with Rocky. The system worked really well. Rocky is a wonderful person, and 99% of the time the issue was solved before anybody from the office had to talk to anybody.“