Following his release from Stardom this week, Ogawa announced his intention to start a new promotion. The current NJPW Strong Women’s Champion plans on being part of it, at least, initially.
While she is expected to land in WWE eventually, Giulia is delaying her start to help Ogawa kick off his new company.
Our own Dave Meltzer addressed the situation with Ogawa, Giulia, and Bushiroad on the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio.
Meltzer said:
The reason that (Giulia) is delaying her WWE start is so she can, at least, be there to kick off the promotion for a while and get the promotion going and then she is going to end up with WWE at some point.
But when WWE was interested in her she basically gave her word she would help wh(Ogawa) started out and that’s what she’s going to do. She’s actually postponing her WWE debut because she had given her word.
Bushiroad announced on Sunday that Ogawa had been fired from the promotion. They also accused him of attempting to poach talent for his new company. Ogawa would later deny those accusations in an interview with Tokyo Sports. He confirmed his intention to start a new promotion during the same interview.
In a Subscriber Exclusive story posted this weekend, Meltzer detailed what led to Ogawa’s departure from Stardom.
“The story dates back about nine months when Bushiroad execs started overruling Ogawa to the dismay of both himself and talent and some of the more outlandish booking decisions,” Meltzer wrote.
In an interview with Tokyo Sports, Ogawa said he intended on starting another promotion following his firing from Stardom on Sunday, saying that he wanted to do things that he couldn’t do in Stardom.
The company announced on Sunday that Ogawa was fired from the promotion, accusing him of attempting to poach talent and staff from Stardom for a new promotion. In the Tokyo Sports interview, Ogawa denied these accusations.
Starting his career in pro wrestling as a photographer for All Japan Women, he later was the president of Arison. Ogawa was one of three people that founded Stardom in 2010, becoming the booker of the promotion.
Ogawa sold the promotion to Bushiroad, the parent company of New Japan Pro Wrestling, in 2019. Although Ogawa was set to not renew his contract with Stardom when it expired in February, he and Bushiroad had agreed to hold off Ogawa’s departure until February 18. However, Bushiroad announced Ogawa leaving the promotion two weeks earlier than had been agreed upon.
The new issue of the Observer is an in-depth story on the fall of Vince McMahon. We go through all aspects of the story and have reactions from many people on subjects not talked about including feelings of different wrestlers, how this departure was different from the first McMahon departure, John Laurinaitis, Brock Lesnar, Stephanie McMahon, Ari Emanuel, Paul Levesque, Ann Callis and why she may end up a major figure in wrestling and this story going forward and much more. It’s a timeline in detail and what the timeline opens up.
The John Laurinaitis story
More questions on Ari Emanuel’s decision
Paul Levesque’s performance
Shawn Michaels reaction
Reaction from several in the business
Why Vince McMahon apparently stopped payments
Who is Ann Callis and why is she so important to this story
The insurance angle
The original investigation
The timeline of Stephanie McMahon
The various allegations and settlements
Members of the board leaving
Vince’s power play to return
Dwayne Johnson and Pat McAfee
Vince’s background
Full Royal Rumble coverage
Rumble surprises and debuts
WrestleMania original lineup and what is changing
Rumble records
Business numbers
Rock vs. Roman update
The most detailed look at the ratings over the past week
New streaming channel for a promotion that is getting criticized due to price
Okada and Mercedes updates
Anniversary show for one of the most important cultural matches in history
Top matches of 2023
TNA PPV update
AEW valuation
Upcoming ticket sales for the major WWE & AEW shows
International TV ratings and streaming numbers
Update on MJF
Which company has the highest current injury rate, AEW or WWE?
Jericho Cruise notes
Conor McGregor update
TV announcer talks his frustrations with social media
Documentary on MAX about a UFC fighter about to be released
Bryan and I will be back tonight with more Wrestling Observer Radio, talking the fallout from Raw, and a lot more on the Stardom situation as well as the rest of the news.
We’re looking for your thoughts on both the NXT Vengeance Day show and the Stardom 13th anniversary show from yesterday. You can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to [email protected]
For those of you who want to fill out ballots for the 2023 awards, our balloting deadline is Thursday. The January 29th issue on the site has all the categories listed. The awards balloting is only open to subscribers.
The 0.74 that Smackdown did Friday night with Dwayne Johnson on the show may end up being a first in pro wrestling history. While we don’t have the weekend numbers in, among all network broadcasts from Monday through Friday, that was the highest rating of the week. Never before in history has a pro wrestling show ever been No. 1 for the week in network television.
Tonight will probably do a big number for Raw with all the controversy over the Roman Reigns vs. Rock match. The controversy has gotten ridiculous, particularly in the reaction to Ava, as harassing her to begin with, past booing her at matches which is a fan’s prerogative, is just an ugly situation. Granted no thinking person condones the death threats and obviously it’s not representative of the fan base, but it gives the general public the worst perception possible of the fan base.
Raw tonight is in St. Louis. It had 9,764 tickets out, which was a major jump in the last few days stemming from Friday’s show. So that should be interesting but the idea that anything going on in the last few days will keep people from attending, it looks to be the opposite. They will have to talk about The Rock, and it looks like continuing angles where both Raw and Smackdown are trying to get Bron Breakker and Jade Cargill. Matches announced are Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Cody Rhodes in a bullrope match, Asuka & Kairi Sane defend the women’s tag titles against Kayden Carter & Katana Chance, Gunther has a 600 day celebration as IC champion, Akira Tozawa & Maxxine Dupri vs. Ivar & Valhalla.
We’re looking for reports from the show with any live reaction, as well as results of the Main Event matches and off-TV stuff to [email protected]
Rossy Ogawa confirmed that he was planning on starting a new promotion. He said he was completely surprised at what happened after the 13th anniversary show yesterday in Osaka. Ogawa was fired and sent home in a taxi right after posing in the ring with the entire roster at the end of the 13th anniversary show. Ogawa said that he gave notice in November. Taro Okada of Bushiroad said that they told Ogawa not to poach talent and continued to do so. Regarding rumors of WWE involvement, there is none at this point. As noted last night, WWE did contact Ogawa and Bushiroad in December about working with them, at first figuring they were one and the same. From those close to the situation, Ogawa wants to run a company with no interference and Bushiroad overruled him on key things so he wanted to leave. Ogawa wants to run and own his own promotion with no outside entity overruling him, and that wouldn’t be the case with WWE. As far as if WWE could make a deal with them, of course that’s possible. But WWE probably wants to work with the No. 1 women’s promotion, and until we see the fallout of who goes where, nobody knows what that will be, but from a financial standpoint Stardom is going to be the one with more money.
Yuya Uemura will face Yota Tsuji in a hair vs. hair match on 2/24 in Sapporo, which is also the night of Kazuchika Okada’s final match with New Japan. At today’s show in Korakuen Hall in the team challenge with LIJ vs. Just Five Guys, it came down to Tsuji vs Uemura in a no time limit match and Tsuji came out the winner. The night before, Uemura tapped out Tsuji in a ten-man tag match.
There are some tickets available but very few for the 5/3 Smackdown and 5/4 Backlash PPV event from Lyon, France.
The start time of both nights of WrestleMania was moved up again, now to 6:30 p.m. It was originally 8 p.m., then moved to 7 p.m.
Best wishes to Jim Ross, covering from another surgery.
It was 40 years ago today when El Santo passed away due to heart failure at the age of 68. Santo is likely the biggest cultural icon ever to come out of pro wrestling in a major wrestling country as a famous movie star and the biggest wrestling star in history from Mexico.
Orange Cassidy faces Tomohiro Ishii on Collision this coming Saturday for the International title.
Phil De Fries, the KSW heavyweight champion (Poland’s top MMA group) will face Josh Barnett in a submission match (real submission match) on 2/24 in Gilwice, Poland.
There is definitely a women’s Chamber match on 2/24 where the winner faces Rhea Ripley for the title. Becky Lynch is the obvious favorite. Ripley is likely to defend against Nia Jax on the Australia show. There seems to be no reason to have a men’s Chamber match, but they may come up with a reason.
Diamond Dallas Page is spearheading a Go Fund Me for the family of Harold “Ice Train” Hoag, who passed away last week. They are attempting to raise $50,000 for his family and as of a few hours ago had topped $21,000. Page contributed $10,000, Chris Jericho contributed $5,000 and Mick Foley and Cody Rhodes contributed $1,000. The link.
Thanks to JT Elliott and Shannon Walsh for the reports from the weekend WWE events.
Michael Venom Page makes his UFC debut on 3/9 at UFC 2999 against Kevin Holland.
Bully Boy Ian Muir who also wrestled as Bruiser Ian Muir, passed away recently. Muir was a noted U.K. wrestler who was a frequent opponent of Big Daddy, wrestling from the mid-70s to late 80s. He was also in several television shows, movies and television commercials. He was a well respected and popular wrestler among his peers. Muir was 81 (thanks to Tony Earnshaw)
PFL announced the first of eight Bellator shows this year will be on 3/22 in Belfast, Northern Ireland at the SSE Arena. Corey Anderson defends the Bellator light heavyweight title against Karl Moore of Belfast in the main event. Leah McCourt of Belast faces Sinead Kavanagh. The Bellator shows will air live on DAZN as well as on a U.S. broadcast partner.
The UFL, which Dwayne Johnson would be a 16 percent owner of, will have 10 games on ABC, 10 games on ESPN, 21 games on FOX, one on FS 1 and one on ESPN 2 this season.
Nikki Cross is training to run the New York Marathon in November to raise money for children’s Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.
The NWA debuts on the CW app tomorrow with the fist NWA Powerr show with EC 3 vs Matt Cardona in the Ultimate Match of death, tag champs Blunt Force Trauma defend against Tim Storm & Jax Dane and women’s champion Kenzie Paige faces Tiffany Nieves.
Stardom founder Rossy Ogawa is no longer employed as their parent company announced Sunday night that they have terminated his contract.
In their statement, Bushiroad stated the reason was because they learned he had “poached many Stardom players and staff.”
From their statement (via Google Translate)
“Since 2019, our company has entered into a contract with Rossy Ogawa, the founder of Stardom, and has appointed him as an executive producer and outsourced work related to Stardom. However, we would like to inform you that we have come to know that he has poached many Stardom players and staff, and we have decided to cancel this contract.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. As a company, we will continue to aim for the further development of Stardom, and the players and staff will continue to work together to deliver excitement to all the fans, so we will continue to receive the same compliments as before. I am very fortunate.”
The release didn’t go into further detail about Ogawa’s alleged actions.
Ogawa posted on X Sunday night that he was told about his firing after Stardom’s Saturday night event and that “the truth of the matter may be told someday” and that he is “worried about the players right now.”
After thanking Ogawa on X for creating the company ten hours prior, the company later announced on X that wrestlers and staff were told about his firing after the event.
The 66-year-old promoter founded Stardom in 2010, selling the company to Bushiroad, owners of New Japan Pro Wrestling, in 2019.
This website’s Bryan Alvarez posted on X that “the Stardom story is way bigger than just Rossy leaving” and that he and Dave Meltzer will have more on the situation on tonight’s Wrestling Observer Radio.
AEW head and NJPW partner Tony Khan seemed happy with the news, sharing the following on X:
