Wrestling start-up AEW tags up with New Japan in challenge to WWE behemoth

TOKYO : U.S. grappling start-up All Elite Wrestling (AEW) may need its Japanese partner to help fill London's 90,000-seat Wembley Stadium for a show in August, its billionaire founder said, looking to wrest market share from its newly beefed-up rival.

The Wembley show is on pace to be one of the biggest wrestling shows ever and the largest not staged by the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), which recently agreed to merge with the operator of mixed martial arts franchise UFC into a $21 billion entertainment giant.

AEW founder Tony Khan said 65,000 tickets have already been sold for the Wembley show, and "it would be a huge benefit to AEW if there is participation from New Japan Pro Wrestling and some of their top stars in the event."

"In a world where the proposed merger happens, as it is suggested on paper, then I would believe the AEW, New Japan Pro Wrestling partnership is more imperative than ever before," Khan told Reuters in a video interview from Jacksonville, Florida.

The scripted and often ridiculous spectacle of pro wrestling is a serious player in the entertainment sector. WWE pulls in about $1.3 billion in annual sales, while its TV programs and those of AEW score near the top in weekly cable ratings, according to Brandon Thurston, principle of industry watcher Wrestlenomics.

The AEW and New Japan co-branding will be put to the test later this month at a joint production in Toronto known as Forbidden Door.

For New Japan, founded by grappler turned politician Antonio Inoki in 1972, the partnership is a chance to restart a global push cut short by the pandemic.

The company set up a U.S. subsidiary in 2019 and sold out a show in New York's Madison Square Garden until the coronavirus caused borders to slam shut and