>>16058900Two big reasons which are more or less related to each other:
1) Unironically COVID, New Japan is far more focused on live shows than TV deal unlike US wrestling companies and Japan's COVID restrictions were tight and in place for far longer than in the US.
2) Also to a large degree related to COVID was the fact that the Japanese economy in general has been in shambles in the years since then. More specifically related to NJPW is the fact that Bushiroad in particular had some really grim years and so New Japan simply no longer has the financial backing necessary to retain top level talent especially at a time where AEW and WWE will just throw more money at those guys than New Japan could ever hope to match. You can't even keep young foreign talent for a few years these days because NXT will hire them too.
Those are the two big reasons behind NJPW's current state in my view, sure there's some dogshit booking going on too but the main problem with the company is that they simply don't have a lot of money to compete.
