Back in November, AXS TV announced a deal that would bring 13 weekly episodes of the best of New Japan Pro Wrestling to North American television. The success of these shows has led AXS to extend this deal into the near future with twelve more episodes. From their press release:
Based on the success of NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING’S (NJPW) inaugural run on AXS TV, the network today announced it has exercised its option to extend the current season by 12 episodes. The second cycle of NJPW will premiere Friday, May 22 at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT with coverage of the “Best of the Super Juniors XXI” tournament.
The additional episodes feature a combined eight hours of comprehensive coverage of the 24th annual G1 Climax Tournament, including full matches and highlights, and three hours of coverage from “Dominion 6.21.”
The first cycle of NJPW episodes will wrap up April 10 featuring the IWGP Heavyweight Championship match between A.J. Styles and Kazuchika Okada from “Back to the Yokohama Arena.” New episodes air Friday nights on AXS TV leading into the network’s weekly, live AXS TV FIGHTS broadcasts.
“In the second cycle of NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING on AXS TV, we will focus a majority of the episodes on G1 Climax 24, which was hailed by many as one of the best pro wrestling tournaments in history,” said Andrew Simon, CEO of AXS TV FIGHTS. “We are thankful to New Japan Pro Wrestling and our programming partner TV Asahi in Japan for allowing us to acquire this unique series and share it with our audience.”
New Japan World is amazing (no, really), however not accessible to those without a working credit card. This is just another facet of NJPW’s push to break into the mainstream American audience, including partnerships with Global Force Wrestling and Ring of Honor. I, for one, welcome our new and incredibly talented Japanese overlords.
As a reminder, EastLink, SaskTel and Source Cable are the only Canadian providers to AXS TV. It is, like most good things, widely available in the US on DirecTV, Verizon FiOS, Dish Network, and most other cable outlets.
