What You Need to Know About New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s G1 Special in USA This Weekend

New Japan Pro-Wrestling holds its first ever show in America tonight, and if you have AXS TV on your cable package or subscribe to Sling TV, you’ll be able to watch it live at 8 PM ET. We write about New Japan all the time here at Paste—it is, frankly, the best wrestling promotion in the world today, and thus our favorite—so we assume you’re probably familiar with it. (If you actually visit the weird, tiny little nook of this website that’s devoted to wrestling, that is.) It’s hard to imagine any wrestling fan on the internet who hasn’t grown familiar with New Japan over the last few years, considering how much hype and love the promotion (justifiably) gets online these days.

If you aren’t already enthralled by the unparalleled title reign of Kazuchika Okada, or the cooler-than-cool Tetsuya Naito, or the NWO-style cool heel schtick of Kenny Omega and the Bullet Club, you may not understand why New Japan’s G1 Special in USA shows this weekend are such a big deal. So here’s a quick summary of why wrestling fans of all stripes and preferences should be regular New Japan viewers, and what a new fan can expect from this weekend’s shows.

1. New Japan features the best in-ring product of any promotion in the world right now

Japanese wrestling has long had a rep among American fans for presenting matches that are more realistic and athletic than what’s typically seen in WWE. That was true in the 1990s, when All Japan was putting on some of the best (and most brutal) pro wrestling ever seen, and it’s true again today with New Japan Pro-Wrestling. The current crop of New Japan stars, from champion Okada, to megaface Hiroshi Tanahashi, to the charismatic tweener Naito, are on a multi-year streak of some of the crispest and most dramatic wrestling you’ll ever see. Especially at a major show, like January’s Wrestle Kingdom or any of the G1 tournament events in July and August, you can expect a New Japan main event to go for over 20 minutes with little downtime or slow stretches. In 2017 alone Okada has already wrestled five matches that are legitimate match of the year candidates, including two with Kenny Omega that many consider to be the best wrestling matches in decades. The attempt to blur the lines between fact and fiction can be dangerous—Katsuyori Shibata will almost certainly never wrestle again after suffering a subdural hematoma in a fantastic match with Okada this April—and that raises some legitimate questions over whether this stiffer, more physically intensive style of wrestling should be toned down. If you can turn off the part of your mind that regulates guilt and concern, though, you’ll find New Japan’s matches to be more exciting, from a purely athletic standpoint, than anything on any WWE show these days. And this more serious-minded style lends a gravitas to New Japan’s championships and match results rarely seen in the business today. Simply put, New Japan matches feel more like real sports than most of what you see in this business today, and that makes it easier for fans to get more invested in the matches and titles. As Ring of Honor World Champion Cody Rhodes, who’s taking on Okada for New Japan’s IWGP Heavyweight Championship at tonight’s show, said on a recent conference call with wrestling media, “New Japan Pro-Wrestling and this world of sports entertainment skews heavily towards the sports. I think that’s what gives it that kind of aura… like the Stanley Cup or a major accolade in the sporting world.”

2. That doesn’t mean New Japan doesn’t have showmanship, though

Kazuchika Okada is the best pure pro wrestler in the world today, but his entire act is also one of the flashiest and best developed of anybody in the business. His bleached blond hair, fancy robes and glittering ring entrance evokes Ric Flair, with a confidence that easily crosses over into arrogance and the in-ring acumen to back that up. Tetsuya Naito is basically the coolest guy in any room he’s in, between his crisp suits and utter disregard for all rules, and his Los Ingobernables de Japon stable is perhaps the most visually striking group of wrestlers in memory. Hiroshi Tanahashi, the 40-year-old superstar who was New Japan’s ace and centerpiece for most of the last decade, is like an anime rock star come to life. Kenny Omega, the Canadian daredevil who’s become one of the most popular wrestlers in America despite not working a single match here in over a year, is both a human highlight reel in the ring and a superbly melodramatic actor on the microphone. Toru Yano and Ryusuke Taguchi are more effective at comedy than almost any of WWE’s regular carousel of comedy jobbers, and I’m saying that as somebody who knows maybe three words of Japanese. Despite prioritizing the athletic side of pro wrestling, New Japan is still solidly what Vince McMahon would call sports entertainment, with the larger-than-life characters and show-stopping multimedia entrances that entails.

3. The best non-Japanese wrestlers who aren’t under WWE contract tend to wind up on New Japan shows

New Japan has a working arrangement with Ring of Honor in America and CMLL in Mexico. That means the top stars from both of those promotions regularly work New Japan shows in Japan. Some of that talent, like the Young Bucks, signs split deals with New Japan and their home promotion. Others, like the British high-flyer Will Ospreay, sign directly with New Japan, but regularly work for Ring of Honor in America. But this means that on many major New Japan shows you’ll see both the best Japanese wrestlers and top non-WWE international talent like the Young Bucks, Ospreay, Marty Scurll, Michael Elgin, Volador Jr, Dragon Lee, the Briscoes, War Machine, and more. New Japan will also regularly bring in non-contracted freelancers, like Ricochet, Cody Rhodes, ACH and Trent Beretta. Between these international talents, New Japan’s own roster, and the various Japanese freelancers that often work for the promotion, you’ll regularly see matches in New Japan that couldn’t happen in American promotions.

4. The NJPW World streaming service and AXS TV make it easy for Americans to keep up

If you wanted to watch Japanese wrestling in America before YouTube, you had to trade videotapes with collectors or buy them from shady bootleggers. Today American fans can easily keep up with New Japan in two different ways. Major shows are streamed live on the subscription-based streaming service NJPW World, often with both a Japanese and English commentary track. (The current English commentators are former WWE and ROH announcer Kevin Kelly and former ECW color commentator Don Callis, who you might remember as the Jackal and Cyrus.) Those shows usually happen early in the morning during North American hours, but almost every major New Japan show is available for on demand streaming on the same day that it happens. NJPW World also has a selection of older matches that you can watch, although it’s not nearly as comprehensive as the WWE Network’s vault. If you have a smart TV, you can easily use Chromecast to stream it straight to your television.