Various: Jinder Mahal Announced for First Post-WWE Appearance, Hiroshi Tanahashi on Wanting NJPW Strong Titles to be Exclusive to NJPW America Shows, Indies

Jinder Mahal Announced for First Post-WWE Appearance

As noted before, Jinder Mahal was released from WWE this past April as part of a larger batch of talent releases at the time.

Black Label Pro Wrestling announced that Raj Dhesi, former Jinder Mahal, will be making his official debut for the company at their Old Habits Die Screaming event on July 26th in Chicago, Illinois.

Black Label Pro presents:

"Old Habits Die SCREAMING"

Featuring the BLP debut of
"The Maharaja" Raj Dhesi (@JinderMahal)

Friday July 26, 2024
7:30PM CST
Logan Square Auditorium
Chicago, IL

Tickets on sale now:https://t.co/Fi4vKYV171 pic.twitter.com/aih8ydZKGI

— Black Label Pro (@BLabelPro) June 5, 2024

This will be Mahal’s first wrestling appearance since his release from WWE.

OBSERVER
Jinder Mahal announced for first post-WWE appearances
LINK: https://www.f4wonline.com/news/wwe/jinder-mahal-announced-for-first-post-wwe-appearances/ , https://www.postwrestling.com/2024/06/05/raj-dhesi-formerly-jinder-mahal-set-to-appear-at-black-label-pro-event-in-july/ , https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/raj-dhesi-jinder-mahal-announced-black-label-pro-s-old-habits-die-screaming-event-july

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NJPW President Hiroshi Tanahashi Comments on Wanting to Make NJPW Strong Titles Exclusive to NJPW America Events

Bushiroad and New Japan Pro Wrestling held a press conference on Tuesday in Japan to discuss a variety of business related topics. One of the topics discussed included NJPW President Hiroshi Tananashi giving his thoughts about wanting to make NJPW’s Strong Championships be exclusive for their NJPW America event.

“Taking into account the opinions of wrestlers and fans, we want to clarify the roles and concepts of each championship belt, and raise the status of our championships. This will see various forms, but firstly, the NJPW STRONG Championships will be restored to their original roles of being defended only on American events.’

Well, first of all, we want to make the STRONG titles American exclusive. Additionally, there have been a lot of new titles of late, and it’s important I think for wrestlers to understand what championships they want to aim toward, and for fans to understand that as well. Each title can have a role in different events, but we want the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship to consistently be the peak and have those roles take place after that.”

Bushiroad CEO Takaai Kidani responded stating:

“When NJPW was really booming in popularity, in 2017, 2018, 2019 we had seven championships. Right now there are 13. Even hardcore fans might not know who all our champions are. The more titles we have, as well, it’s felt that even though wrestlers should have more choice in terms of titles to wrestle for, they’re more likely to be only tied to one title without much movement.

This process may take time, perhaps over the next year to 18 months, but the important thing is to have the fans understand simply what each title is for and why they matter, and that will be the goal and the key to elevating that status …

As I mentioned, this is a big project and some of those details will take time to iron out. The case with STRONG titles might become one where you have the rarest exception, like a Wrestle Kingdom where the titles are in Japan, but with the rest of the time on US shows exclusively, and there are NJPW events every month in the US right now. That’s meant that feuds over US titles have carried themselves over into Japan as well, making things a bit vague. So the goal is to bring the STRONG Championships more in line with what they were originally intended to be.”

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Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

Peacock recently announced the official cast for the upcoming third season of their The Traitors series. Among those announced for this upcoming new season includes WWE Hall of Famer Nikki Garcia (former Nikki Bella).

TNA Wrestling recently announced that they are continuing their tradition of supporting United States military veterans with free tickets for their shows through non-profit organization Vet Tix.

VICE TV released the full debut episode of their Who Killed WCW? docuseries on their YouTube channel.

Beyond Wrestling recently announced that Alex Shelley and EFFY will be making an appearance for the company at their Americanrana ’24: Where Eagles Dare event on July 4th in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Stardom recently announced that Waka Tsukiyama will be undergoing surgery for an undisclosed injury and will be out of action for the company until their June 29th event.

Matt Cardona filed a trademark for “The Complete” on June 2nd for podcast-related purposes to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Major League Wrestling recently announced that they will be holding this year’s Fightland event on September 14th in Atlanta, Georgia.

Game Changer Wrestling recently announced one new match for the card of their Lights Out event on June 14th in Denver, Colorado:

• GCW World Championship – Jordan Oliver vs. Mance Warner (c)

GCW also recently announced one new match for the card of their Hit Em Up event on June 15th in Los Angeles, California:

• GCW World Championship – Joey Janela vs. Mance Warner (c)

New Japan Pro Wrestling recently announced two new matches for the card of their New Japan Soul 2024 event on June 16th in Sapporo, Japan:

• IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship – SANADA vs. David Finlay (c)
• IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship – TMDK (Kosei Fujita & Robbie Eagles) vs. Bullet Club War Dogs (Drilla Moloney & Clark Conors) (c)

NJPW also recently announced one new match for the card of their co-promoted United Japan Pro Wrestling’s All Together Sapporo event on June 15th in Sapporo:

• Kickoff pre-show: Toru Yano & Tomoaki Honma vs. Andreza Giant Panda & Tomoya