The mid-May lull is hitting hard
If you have been keeping up with the recent NJPW Best of the Super Juniors action, you probably feel like I do—it is a grind. We are right in the middle of a massive tour schedule, and the sheer volume of output across the Japanese scene is starting to border on parody. It feels like every promotion is running a "night twenty-something" of a tour that nobody is actually watching in full.
The numbers from the May 16th Pro Wrestling Noah card in Yamanashi were a brutal reminder of the reality. Pulling 294 fans into the Kose Sports Park Gymnasium isn't exactly lighting the world on fire. When the booking feels this repetitive, even the most hardcore diehards start to tune out. You can only watch an 18-minute Boston Crab win so many times before you start questioning why you aren't just watching a loop of 1990s All Japan.
The content treadmill is destroying the vibe
The sentiment on the forums is split between the usual suspects: the apologists who think every card is a hidden gem and the realists who have seen enough to know booking garbage. Over on the main threads, one user put it perfectly: "Watching six different promotions run shows with zero stakes before the big May pay-per-view events is making me miss the days when tours actually meant something."
"If I have to read another result about a 10-man tag that feels like it was put together in a random number generator, I am going to lose my mind. We get it, everyone is getting their reps in, but the lack of character development is genuinely depressing."
That is the crux of the problem. We have Dragon Gate's Mensore Gate running alongside Marigold's Shining Attack, and frankly, it is all noise. It is pure filler. While Shinno hitting an Iconoclasm for the win in a 7-minute triple threat might sound fun on paper, it lacks the gravity needed to make you care when you aren't already invested in the roster.
Is it time to demand better booking?
My take? The problem is the obsession with output over quality. We saw Pro Wrestling Noah's 25th night in Aichi pull in 360 fans, and while that is an improvement over the previous night, it is still a drop in the ocean. The companies are essentially functioning as high-end wrestling schools where we are paying (or at least spending our time) to watch the curriculum unfold.
Some contrarians will argue that having this much wrestling is a luxury. They say if you don't like a specific card, don't watch it. But that ignores the fact that this saturates the market and makes the big shows feel less special. When you have wrestling seven days a week, the word "special" loses all meaning. It is just background noise for people who leave their browsers open on a secondary monitor while playing a game.
We need fewer touring dates with zero heat and more focus on building actual programs. Dragon Gate's 309-fan attendance for their Okinawa finale proves that even in smaller markets, the novelty wears off fast when the card is packed with "Paradox" versus "Natural Vibes" swaps that look identical to the night before. 292 fans showed up for night one, and they managed to jump that to 309 by the weekend, which is hardly a ringing endorsement of a touring model.
I will take a high-stakes, 30-minute main event over a dozen 8-man tags featuring guys I haven't heard of. If the industry doesn't pull back soon, the burnout is going to be total. The fans are already starting to show they can't be bothered to tune into every single show in the chain. They are tired of the treadmill, and honestly? So am I. Let's see some actual consequences for these matches before the schedule gets even more chaotic next month.
