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AJ Styles Signs With New Japan, New Japan / ROH shows On Ustream

Posted: Mar 29th 2014 By: CMBurnham

Earlier in the week it was rumored that A. J. Styles had signed a contract with New Japan Pro Wrestling, possibly resulting in a big push for Styles at New Japan, which could even lead to a match for the IWGP Heavyweight Title against Kazuchika Okada sooner or later. It also could be an indication that Prince Devitt won't be in New Japan for long and the Americans were obliged to find a substitute for Devitt.

This, in turn, led to a new contract for the current year and behind the scenes, it is assumed that the Irishman will immediately accept the offer from World Wrestling Entertainment, which has been on the table for months or has already been signed - at least verbally . A. J. Styles on the other hand has no bookings for the first weekend of April - this despite Ring Of Honor holding two shows in Louisiana on the Friday and Saturday before WrestleMania. In addition, Styles has no bookings for the May 25, the date when the New Japan Yokohama Arena is booked for a big event.

As expected for a few weeks, Styles might debut as a contract wrestler for New Japan Pro Wrestling at Invasion Attack on June 4. Since the card for this Pay-Pay-View is as good as complete and Styles is in no match, it can be assumed that he will compete in a surprise appearance to issue a challenge for a match at an upcoming PPV - possibly in Yokohama.

New Japan and Ring of Honor had a great message to announce on Thursday:

A few weeks ago, the cooperation between the two promotions was announced, which will initially lead to two shows in North America. Questions have been raised where and how to see these shows.

These questions were answered with a press release on Thursday. For a price of $14.95 fans can view the two events Global Wars and War Of The Worlds through Ustream.

Ustream is the streaming service that New Japan has used since 2012 for its Internet Pay-Pay-views and has delivered the almost always reliable picture and sound in a high quality to date.

This means a return to iPPVs for ROH after stopping production of its own iPPVs at Best In The World 2013, and September 2013's failed live experiment with GoFightLive.tv.

Since then, the shows were available only as video-on-demand a few days after the shows. Joe Koff, Chief Operating Officer of Ring Of Honor, explained that they really were looking forward to working with the Videostreaming leader, but left open the possibility of other shows, after these two air at Ustream.