#3.) Lengthy world title reigns and long-term storylines
Unlike WWE, NJPW is all about long-term booking. When watching shows like RAW, it’s clear to fans that much of what is seen is all last-minute planning and there isn’t any long-term objective, more often than not. With NJPW, it’s the other way around. With both title reigns and storylines, the duration periods are generally quite long.
It shows when the longest IWGP Heavyweight title reign ever was a whopping 720 days between 2016 to 2018. Prior to that, the longest reign was 489 days by Shinya Hashimoto. This isn’t to say that there haven’t been short, transitional reigns – because there have been quite a few.
But as a whole, title reigns are lengthier and used as a prop for long-term storytelling. Storylines can often be told and unfolded over the course of years.
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