NJPW's IWGP championships dumb question

[y4j1981]

Okay so with all the news lately about NJPW recently, with them losing tv in the U.S. and Wrestle Kingdom, etc...I was doing a little reading on the title belts and one thing hit me to ask...why are the words on the title belts not written in Japanese? The belts say "Heavyweight", "U.S.", "Champion", etc in English. But if NJPW is based out of Japan, duh, why are the belts not in Japanese?

[Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby]

Lots of things in Japanese pop culture use English for one reason or another - just thinking of how, for example, all of Osamu Tezuka's manga titles were in English because it sounded "exotic" (this being in the 50's and 60's). My understanding is that English is taught enough in schools that most of the audience will at least recognize words.

The fact that pro wrestling is, at its origin, an import from the US seems to have kept certain things traditionally in English (like how most move names are in English, even the ones invented by Japanese wrestlers).

[Mozenrath]

Having it in English is because it makes it come across a bit more grand to them, I think. It also keeps it consistent with title belts from the US, which puro's never been a stranger to.

[This Player Hating Mothman]

Puro also has a history of kayfabe 'sanctioning bodies' based in America who existed to add an international legitimacy to it. One factor behind it comes nto just from it being exotic, but from what was originally very nationalitic in the same way Hogan in America was; this perceived-as-international prize being held by Japan as proof of its greatness. Inoki played very deep into nationalism in his heyday, and remnants of that like the bits of English are ingrained into the pageantry of the company now

[YAKMAN is ICHIBAN]

Jan 5, 2020 0:34:45 GMT -5 Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby said:

Lots of things in Japanese pop culture use English for one reason or another - just thinking of how, for example, all of Osamu Tezuka's manga titles were in English because it sounded "exotic" (this being in the 50's and 60's). My understanding is that English is taught enough in schools that most of the audience will at least recognize words.

The fact that pro wrestling is, at its origin, an import from the US seems to have kept certain things traditionally in English (like how most move names are in English, even the ones invented by Japanese wrestlers).

Once great upside to this is that if you learn katakana, the Japanese alphabet used for most foreign words, you can easily navigate most Japanese wrestling games because the words are almost all English words written in katakana.

[salz4life]

Japan (not sure if both AJPW/NJPW) was part of the old NWA wasn't it?

[HMARK Center]

Plus guys like Karl Gotch were the forefathers of puroresu and trained a lot of the Japanese talent who built the industry, and they trained in English.

[Fundertaker]

Jan 6, 2020 17:37:24 GMT -5 salz4life said:

Japan (not sure if both AJPW/NJPW) was part of the old NWA wasn't it?

Yes both were part of the NWA, as was JWA before either existed. The extent of which they used their NWA connection would vary with the times, especially with WWF also coming in to its own.