Possible NOAH split.

from this week's Observer:

This is an early line on what could be one of the biggest pro wrestling news stories of both this and next year.

There is a lot of talk that with the NTV budget back under control, that the network will bring pro wrestling back. NTV aired pro wrestling from 1954 until 2009, with only a short break during the switch from All Japan to Pro Wrestling NOAH, at which time they still ran a magazine style weekly show. NOAH has continued to run on NTV’s satellite station, but there is a huge difference financially which has left the company crippled. The problem with Japanese wrestling as compared to the U.S. and Mexico is as much television related as MMA related.

Because Japan’s satellite channels are decades behind the U.S., television viewing is still dominated by the major networks. For example, the numbers K-1 shows still do would beat any sport in the U.S. except the NFL, the Final Four, the World Series and NBA playoff finals. But in Japan, the networks routinely pull bigger numbers for regular programming. The standards are much higher. A pro wrestling television show doing a 4.0 in prime time would be a disaster, so pro wrestling hasn’t been in prime time for years. There was an interesting lag and even before MMA got big, and when wrestling was at its peak of drawing power, there were people in Japan who predicted the fall, noting with TV at 2 a.m., the fervent audience would stay up, or tape the show, plus they could follow it in the newspapers and magazines where it got big coverage. But young kids and teenagers who grew up with pro wrestling during its television glory days in the 70s and 80s was no longer the case. In recent years, the biggest stars were still the guys who had made their names in the 90s. While NOAH had plenty of good workers, the guys people paid to see were still Mitsuharu Misawa and Kenta Kobashi. When the former passed away and the latter battled for his life and then battled through injuries that by all rights should have forced him to retire, the great workers like KENTA, Takashi Sugiura and Naomichi Marufuji, who themselves were all battling injuries from the style, didn’t have the name value to the masses. The combination of the smaller big show gates and non-existent television money, the company was headed for almost an inevitable fall.

Right now, it is likely that NOAH is going to split into two groups because of differing viewpoints on running the show. One group would be headed by Kenta Kobashi, who wants to protect the jobs of the wrestlers. The other, would be headed by longtime NOAH business head Ryu Nakata, who wanted to get rid of some of the veteran wrestlers because the company was losing money, and also because they would slow down the live shows because they couldn’t go and weren’t over. Exactly who would wind up with who is unknown, other than Jun Akiyama is said to be siding with the Kobashi side.

But right now until that new network deal comes in, and if it does, it wouldn’t likely be until April, when the new TV season starts, the company is in a lot of trouble.

Due to money being so low, the front office stopped getting their regular paychecks last week, which is usually one of those signs things are going down, although All Japan had this problem for a long time and they’re still around. A lot of the wrestlers, instead of getting weekly paychecks, are getting paid in cash at the end of the shows they work out of the gate, which may be old school U.S. wrestling, but that is not major league Japanese wrestling.