NJPW News & Notes: AXS TV Marathon, G1 Special, Omega

AXS TV will be holding a New Japan Pro Wrestling marathon Saturday starting at 8AM EST leading up to the live broadcast of the first night of the G1 Special at 8PM EST. The marathon will be showcasing the best match so far this year from NJPW.

The list of matches and air times for the marathon (courtesy of The Wrestling Observer):
* Omega vs. Okada from the Tokyo Dome will air at 8 p.m.
* Okada vs. Minoru Suzuki will air at 10 a.m.
* Hiromu Takahashi vs. Dragon Lee will air at 11 a.m.
* Tetsuya Naito vs. Michael Elgin will air at Noon
* Okada vs. Katsuyori Shibata will air at 3 p.m.
* Omega vs. Tomohiro Ishii will air at 5 p.m.
* Omega vs. Okada II will air at about 6:40 p.m.

In regards to the G1 Special itself, Saturday’s event will only air live on AXS TV in the US and Fight Network in Canada. For those with a New Japan Pro World account, a replay of this event will air at a later time. In regards to Sunday’s event, it will be airing live at 8PM EST on New Japan Pro World for subscribers.

New Japan Pro Wrestling recently had Kenny Omega host a media call hyping up this weekend’s G1 Special in the United States. Some highlights included Omega stating while he would have liked more big matches on the card, he understands why the company wants to start out with something smaller as a way to hook new fans to the product. He thinks this event will still be very successful and lead to bigger cards and arenas for future NJPW U.S. events.

“I mean I always had faith in our product in the States,” said Omega. “And I had really hoped that off the get go we had done something huge but I do understand the humble beginnings and this is going to be more of an intimate atmosphere. And that’s fine too.”

“If we do it again, next time, you know, let’s double, triple, the size,” said Omega. “I think we can do it and that’s just me having faith in our product. And actually me just having faith in myself, the Bullet Club, the elite.”

Omega also believes Bullet Club will play a big role in the future of NJPW’s United States expansion plans since the upcoming G1 Special will help show NJPW how much more popular the group is outside of Japan.

“I think we as like the Bullet Club, especially, as household names, people are more familiar with us than I think maybe our company realizes,” said Omega. “And we’re all chomping at the bit to do more American stuff and we want to get in front of as many live faces as possible. I think with the proper promoting and especially if this show goes well, we can definitely go way above and beyond what we are doing in our first two shows and really go for it the next time we return to the States.”