New Japan & ROH working together to prevent 2017 talent exit

By Sean Radican & James Caldwell, PWTorch Staff

Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro Wrestling are looking to sign several stars to combined deals for 2017 and beyond.

ROH is facing a potential big roster turnover with several deals set to expire at the end of the year, but they are hopeful that working with NJPW will prevent that.

New Japan is also looking to prevent what happened at the start of 2016 when the company lost Shinsuke Nakamura, A.J. Styles, Karl Anderson, and Doc Gallows to WWE.

NJPW has also expressed interest in running solo shows in the U.S. in 2017, prompting their attempt to sign U.S. stars to mix with the New Japan roster.

One of the first ROH/NJPW stars to be offered a combination deal is Matt Sydal, who is currently under contract to New Japan for another year. To our knowledge, Sydal has not signed the offered combo deal.

Notably, the ROH contracts for Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly of the ReDragon tag team are set to expire at the end of the year.

New Japan has expressed interest in signing Fish and O’Reilly once their ROH deals expire. However, talent believe New Japan and ROH will work together in free agent situations to offer combination deals that would prevent the two companies from bidding against each other.