It's extremely exciting. We're getting a big surge of vision and potential out of the back of the 2019-2022 dark era, which was mostly just treading water or dealing with Kota Ibushi's push, which ended up being a big failure.
I have no doubt Narita, Shota, Tsuji, Yuya, Oiwa and Fujita will all bring great qualities and great matches from out of them, and it's exciting to see them compete for rankings. This is the best transition period that New Japan has had, bare minimum, since I started watching it back in 2009. And I'm not a huge history buff, but I'm led to believe that this has to be better than any transition period in the early 2000s too.
Will it lead to a New Japan on the same level as its peak, either in quality or attendances? Probably not, no. But this year they've been firing on all cylinders and it's only gonna get better. Shota is already treated like a star by the audience, for example.
In terms of gaijin, I'm much more uncertain. David Finlay is good but he has nearly impossible shoes to fill. Ospreay is leaving or becoming a heavy part timer soon. Clark Connors joining BC seems like a good move for him since he has needed direction since Forbidden Door. Kevin Knight is a great Junior style flippy shitter but I'm expecting him to get poached within the next two years. I have faith Aussie Open are sticking with NJPW for a long while before they get poached, but even then they can only fill so much. Oleg Boltin is great but he's already 30 and still green, so there's a limit to how much he'll be able to provide.
In short, there will continue to be a lot of kino and New Japan is in no fear of running out, but on the gaijin side, I'm expecting things to continue as they have since forever: Very little stability while Gedo continues pushing them.
