Dave Meltzer Speculates On WWE And AEW's Internal Reactions To Recent Stardom Firing

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Last night, news broke that Japanese promotion STARDOM was losing its co-founder, Rossy Ogawa, with STARDOM's parent company Bushiroad accusing Ogawa of "poaching" talent and releasing him from his contract. As of now, it's unclear who Ogawa was recruiting talent for, but based on Tony Khan's reaction to Ogawa's firing, it's safe to say that it's not AEW. Speaking on today's "Wrestling Observer Radio," Dave Meltzer elaborated on the reaction within AEW and WWE.

"A couple of months ago, ... WWE made a play — they wanted to work with STARDOM," Meltzer said. "That's where that stands. What that means, if it's going to be STARDOM or if it's going to be Rossy's [new promotion], that remains to be seen."

Paul "Triple H" Levesque and other figures within WWE have known about Ogawa's impending departure from STARDOM for quite some time. Meltzer then said that Kairi Sane, knowing Ogawa would be leaving, decided to depart STARDOM for WWE once again in the middle of last year.

Noting Khan's social media reaction, Meltzer stated that AEW had previously made attempts to bring in talent from STARDOM. However, rather than being held up by issues with Ogawa, the requested talent was reportedly already booked for STARDOM events on the necessary dates and a deal was unable to be worked out. Additionally, STARDOM had an interest in using Kris Statlander but the two sides couldn't come together for an unknown reason. Based on his reaction, Khan clearly believes Ogawa's departure will be a good thing for a potential AEW-STARDOM relationship, which seems likely considering the promotion already works with New Japan Pro-Wrestling.

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Meltzer also went into depth discussing the details of Ogawa's departure. That includes contextualizing Ogawa's role in the promotion and how the relationship with Bushiroad formed and eventually soured.

"This thing's been brewing for months," Meltzer said. "Rossy Ogawa founded STARDOM 13 years ago, and five years ago, in 2019, ... he basically wanted to sell, stay in charge, and wanted a bigger company to help grow it. ... WWE wanted to buy it, and Bushiroad wanted to buy it, and of course he sold to Bushiroad."

According to Meltzer, a sale to WWE would have reflected poorly on STARDOM, and selling to Bushiroad, the owner of NJPW, made sense. The company invested a lot of time and money into STARDOM and things were reportedly going well until the COVID-19 pandemic had a major effect on business. While a great deal of money went into production and publicity over the last several years, Meltzer said that talent and employees didn't see significant pay increases, which led to discontent. Additionally, Ogawa was not satisfied with his position in the company.

"When it came to booking decisions, [Bushiroad] wanted to book really wacky stuff, and [Ogawa] didn't want to book really wacky stuff," Meltzer continued. "They were overruling his booking. ... All these wheels were in motion a long, long time ago. He was going to go, and he had given his notice."

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Despite being on his way out the door, Meltzer said that Bushiroad decided to let Ogawa go earlier than his planned exit date, which had been February 18. The company's reasoning was the accusation that Ogawa was attempting to take some performers and staff along with him.

"They were of the impression that [Ogawa] was gonna start his own company," Meltzer said. "That may happen and I expect that it will happen. It's not official or anything like that, but if you're talking to talent, talking about them leaving — most of the contracts are up in March. We'll see who goes and who stays."

Meltzer noted that it seems evident that STARDOM breakout Giulia will be departing, while Mayu Iwatani is under contract for a longer period of time. As for the rest of the roster, it will reportedly become clear in March who will be staying and who will be joining Ogawa in his next venture. While there has been some speculation that Ogawa is looking to get involved with WWE in some capacity, as of now, that idea remains firmly in the speculation column.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Wrestling Observer Radio" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.