In the long, storied history of New Japan Pro Wrestling, the company has always been steeped in traditions and primarily tried to focus on their own country of origin. However, we’ve seen the company go through a number of changes as it has continued to become more popular with the western world, including shows right here in the United States.

According to a new report by Tokyo Sports (which was translated by Twitter user @EvanDeadlySinsW), New Japan has hired a new President, the first in the history of the company that is not Japanese. Harold Meij is the former CEO for the Japanese toy company TOMY (who produces toys for Pokemon, Sonic The Hedgehog, John Deere and a host of others), is slated to begin his role with NJPW next month. Meij is of Dutch descent, but has been a resident of Japan for 30 years.

Andrew Balaz’s Take: I don’t have a huge breadth of info. I know he apparently turned a toy company around that had it’s worst year in 2014 to being profitable in 2017, as well as being friends with the former president for years. So it seems fine, I feel Japanese fans may be a little more upset than Western fans since New Japan has become significantly more Western than most Japanese feds, and this could just push them further away from the puroresu traditions, but bring more western fame since Japanese mentality is usually very Japan-oriented. This is definitely a wait and see cause I don’t really have any precedent to compare it to since Japan is so different.

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