Various: NJPW Battle in the Valley 2023 News, Delmi Exo MLW Signing, Josh Alexander on NJPW Goals

Feb 19, 2023

NJPW Battle in the Valley 2023 News & Notes

Saturday’s New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Battle in the Valley 2023 event in San Jose, California featured two championships changing hands during the show. The first was KENTA defeating Fred Rosser to become the new NJPW Strong Openweight Champion. The other was Mercedes Mone defeating KAIRI to become the new IWGP Women’s Champion.

Saturday’s event also featured streaming issues from FITE TV’s broadcast during the pre-show that led to the start of the main card being delayed by around 43 minutes. NJPW issued an official statement on Twitter apologizing for the technical issues caused on their end. While the Japanese feed for the show was mostly fixed, the English feed was still impacted with audio issues throughout the show.

Mone paid tribute to the late Hana Kimura with her special Hana-themed entrance and wrestling gear for her match against KAIRI at the event.

CM Punk, musician Lars Frederiksen, Impact Wrestling’s Scott D’Amore and Gisele Shaw, WWE’s Bayley, and Lou D’Angeli reportedly were in attendance at Saturday’s event, according to PWInsider.

Delmi Exo Signs Contract with MLW

A recent episode of the Busted Open Radio podcast featured Major League Wrestling owner Court Bauer as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Bauer revealing that MLW recently signed indie wrestler Delmi Exo to an official contract.

Prior to her signing, Exo most recently worked at MLW’s SuperFight 2023 event earlier this month and had made her official debut in the company in October of 2021.

Josh Alexander Comments on His Career Goals for NJPW

Sporting News held a recent interview with Josh Alexander. One of the topics discussed included Alexander’s thoughts on his current goals for a potential career in New Japan Pro Wrestling.

“I don’t think I have made it a secret that the one thing that has alluded me in pro wrestling is to wrestle in Japan. It’s the one thing on my bucket list – the biggest goal I set for myself 10 years ago was that I just needed to get to Japan and it has alluded me left and right. For whatever reason, it has not happened yet but four years ago I never had a contract for a major company in pro wrestling and look what happened. I’ve never been someone to say it’s never gonna happen – I’m just that person that when it needs to happen, it will be at the very perfect time, just like me signing that contract with Impact Wrestling. Maybe this year’s G1, maybe next year – but I would embrace anything to be able to get over to Japan and get in front of that fanbase to show what I can do.”