When Vince McMahon Jr. took over the then-WWF from his father, his plan was to turn the WWF into a global promotion. Vince wanted the WWF to be the only game in town. His method for achieving this was to poach the top talent from every territory and sign them to the WWF.
Back then, the poached talents were stars who helped the WWF to grow. Over the next few decades, WWF, now WWE has continued to poach talent, but not necessarily to benefit the WWE. All signs point towards a new WWE talent raid.
The WWE Ulterior Motive
Lately, WWE have signed talent away from other companies, but the signings were more likely concluded with the intention of weakening the other promotions, more than they were to help WWE. Many of the signed talents floundered in WWE, but at least the other companies couldn’t use the stars to make money. Taking the Good Brothers (Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson) and Mauro Ranallo from New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), or Eric Young and EC3 from Impact Wrestling could help WWE if they were used properly. However, having the talents under contract prevents other companies from benefiting from the talents. This seems to be important to WWE.
Recently, there have been stories about WWE negotiating with NJPW. Vince wants WWE to be the exclusive US partner with NJPW. This would mean that WWE would send talent to Japan in exchange for NJPW stars visiting the WWE Universe.
The problem with this is that several other US companies are currently doing business with NJPW. New Japan has sent talent to Impact and All Elite Wrestling (AEW). Jon Moxley currently holds the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship. Rocky Romero has wrestled matches in both AEW and Ring of Honor. All of this would stop if WWE becomes New Japan’s exclusive partner.
Several months ago, AEW President Tony Khan began talking about opening the “forbidden door”. This led to AEW World Champion, Kenny Omega capturing the Impact World Championship. If WWE were to become NJPW’s exclusive US partner, Moxley would have to surrender his IWGP US title; FinJuice would not get their Impact World Tag Team Championships rematch; and no one working on the indies could work for NJPW Strong.
WWE has long been considered the top wrestling promotion in the world. They have done this by working separately from every other company. With WWE suddenly desiring to work with another promotion, it appears to be WWE hurting others more than WWE helping themselves.
Vince McMahon believes that the key to victory is not in running faster but in making the other guy run slower. This is why he would rather keep other companies from working with New Japan than create characters and story lines that will keep viewers engaged in WWE. Expect a WWE talent raid soon.
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