The big league is not all that great

Karla+Gutierrez

Karla Gutierrez

Karla Gutierrez, Photo Editor

When talking about professional wrestling, everyone thinks about WWE (or WWF as it used to be called back in early 2000s) and John Cena or The Rock. WWE is known worldwide and is the biggest company in professional wrestling. However, there are many other companies that are far better in both the aspects of entertainment and wrestling.

I’m here to expose to you all New Japan Pro Wrestling. I’ve mentioned it before in my other columns, but have never talked about the company itself. NJPW is a company based in Japan and are finally expanding their shows to the U.S. They don’t do anything that WWE does as far as being “entertaining.”

They focus more on the wrestling aspect and telling a story in the ring instead of making up BS for 6 months like WWE. In NJPW, the two wrestlers don’t need to know each other to have a good match, the chemistry just happens. For instance, Kenny Omega vs. Kazuchika Okada at Wrestle Kingdom 11, they have never faced each other besides when they are put in a tag team match against one another. Their match at Wrestle Kingdom 11 was considered the best wrestling match of 2017 and some go as far as say it was the best of all time.

Many of the awards given by the Wrestling Observer (wrestling newsletter) are granted to NJPW; for example, wrestler of the year, match of the year, show of the year, etc.

If I were to show someone wrestling for the first time a match, it would probably be a match from NJPW because they’re that good.

A company that I have to mention is Ring of Honor (ROH). Most of the wrestlers that wrestle for WWE have most likely wrestle in ROH once or have called ROH their home. Wrestlers like Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, CM Punk, just to name a few, have made living working for ROH.

For the past years, Ring of Honor has been growing because of the expansion of Bullet Club, a well growing faction that originated in Japan. Most people in the crowd are always wear Bullet Club shirts or Villain Club. The faction includes The Young Bucks (Nick and Matt Jackson), Cody, Marty Scrull, Kenny Omega, Adam “Hangman” Page, etc.

In recent activities, the storylines that have been going on in Ring of Honor makes more excited to see the pay-per-view Super Card of Honor than WrestleMania in the next two weeks.

Another company that I want to mention is Defiant Wrestling also formally known as WCPW (What Culture Pro Wrestling). This company is based in the United Kingdom, but have competitors from all over the world. One of the classic matches that Defiant Wrestling had was Will Ospreay vs. Ricochet. Watching those two wrestle in any ring is like watching magic.

There’s so many companies that can be mention like Fight Club: PRO, Attack! Pro Wrestling, PWG (Pro Wrestling Guerilla), Evolve, etc. that have put better quality matches than the big mighty company that is WWE.

Everyone has a different taste of what they want to watch. For me, I love watching good quality matches and I feel like for the past years WWE hasn’t been that company to have me invested. I do have to say they have put like maybe three or four amazing matches. Their developmental system, NXT, has put better matches than the main roster in WWE has. One example is Tyler Bate vs. Pete Dunne for the WWE U.K Championship.

I recommend for people who want to start watching wrestling or already watch wrestling, check out some of the matches that I have mentioned.