the future of fale dojo

28 Feb, 2025

the rogue general of NJPW tamashii has a new mission: capture southside.

following a thrilling 2024 which saw NJPW tamashii's first show in new zealand and weekly dojo performances, fale dojo kicked off 2025 with a bang at the new years showdown, which had an attendance of over 150 people.

that's right, i spent my money on NJ tamashii and i'm writing about it again! at this moment, the recording of the event has already been uploaded in full on youtube, so please watch it there if you're interested in seeing the actual fights. this post covers more of my own experience attending the event as well as my impressions on where fale dojo is headed.

let's start with the promotion. leading up to the event, fale dojo advertised it heavily on instagram— working with kumo taiko, nearby shops, and even local newspapers. it was a level of promotion to non-wrestling fans that i've never seen before from a NZ wrestling promo.

but it wasn't all about attracting locals— the lineup was made to target auckland's wrestling superfans. it features all of the top wrestlers from auckland's promotions, like dorian webber of hughes academy and horus of legacy pro wrestling and impact pro wrestling. this seems a bit silly for a scene where most shows only get 50~100 people in the audience, but i think that popular indy wrestlers are a big draw. even if you don't care for the lore of NJ tamashii, you still want to see the wrestlers you like duke it out!

horus is my favorite new zealand pro wrestler so his announcement was more than enough for me to go and buy the special tickets! i never see him up close at IPW's events, so i really wanted to see him here.

unlike the weekly shows that take place within fale dojo, the new years showdown was held at the mangare performing arts centre, a relatively new venue designed for pacific arts.

i got there around 6:30 pm, where a large crowd had already formed. in the hall to the theater, mark tui, the second owner of fale dojo, was running a merch stall featuring NJPW products.

around 7:00 pm, we began filing into the venue. i was shocked by just how many people fale managed to draw in, the amount of staffing present, and how professional everything seemed. i'm used to IPW's high production quality but maybe there was just something about the setting that elevated it.

unfortunately, the seat i chose was absolutely dogshit and the special seats sucked in general. they were front-row tickets in the sense that they were on the side of the ring, but all of the wrestlers were essentially performing for the benefit of the majority audience that were seated in the stands so there wasn't much point to sitting on the edge when you could've sat front row in the stands instead.

we watched a good 10-15 minutes of pre-roll advertising, all of which was for the dojo itself. i kept expecting there to be other sponsors and i got the impression that the dojo was trying to promote more of its services as a regular gym over its pro wrestling front— despite this literally having been a pro wrestling event.

the taiko drummers came out after this. they sounded very impressive but unfortunately i paid $10 for a seat where i couldn't see shit. from there, it was finally time for the matches. i may be biased towards horus but his fight with cian devin and against johnny gunn and uce leroy was the best.

overall, it was a thrilling night and far more exciting than the other fale dojo events i went to— but i was left with the impression that new japan was no longer the target.

reputation runs deep, and i think fale knows he's finished in the international scene. his own career will be fine, but fale dojo as a supercamp can't seem to escape its infamy among aspiring wrestlers. it's a big commitment to drop $7000 on a 3 month course and fly halfway across the world for it. even if fale lowers the cost to $2000 as a "christmas special", the wrestling community is tight knit and i don't know who'd take their chances to unravel things.

well, it's not impossible for things to change. fale dojo could certainly recover if the boys got a reputation for making it to japan (and two graduates, tome and stevie filip, recently just did). i also think replacing tony kozina with someone more well known with less of an mean streak could go a long way.

but as for where the dojo is headed now? i believe that fale is setting his sights inwards and focusing hyperlocally on south auckland.

auckland is new zealand's biggest city, owing to the fact that it's basically three cities in one. i'm from the former southern city, manukau, but i work in the former central city's business district. as such, i travel the full length of the eastern line train pretty often and it's an experience tens of thousands of others take everyday.

but for every driver who traverses state highway 1 daily, there's someone else who never leaves their suburb's borders. and for the most part, you don't need to. most parts of auckland have plenty of restaurants and events for weekend entertainment.

in recent years, pro wrestling in auckland has primarily been centered in the central and the north. fale dojo is actually the only one to be permanently based in south auckland with its own venue and all.

wrestling is fun, but i generally don't think it's big enough of a deal for even hardcore audiences to travel outside of their general area unless it's for a wrestler they really like— so none of the IPW or hughes fans are heading to otahuhu for weekly shows with newbie boys, especially given the dojo's bad rep and how often they put out shows that don't have a strong overarching storyline.

so it's not about drawing in wrestling fans. it's about turning south aucklanders into wrestling fans, and turning fale dojo's shows in to weekend entertainment for the local otahuhu crowd.

new years showdown proved that fale dojo can be very good at promotion when it wants to be. it worked with local businesses and performers to put a focus on its stars.

but i've talked about it before: hyperlocalism is the death of pro wrestling.

you can't go to japan when your career is based on appealing to new zealanders. sure, you can keep your NZ career, but just like any other indy pro wrestler, you're not going to make money from it. so what will make fale dojo different from any other indy promotion?

i have to wonder when NJPW will step in and if they even care that fale is headed for a more localized slant. instead of performing in japan, his boys are performing tiktoks to promote local businesses that sell horse meat. unfortunately, i am very susceptible to being influenced so i want to eat horse meat really bad.¹

fale has recently expanded into fale kava² and is working with more local stores, podcasters, and tiktokers to grow his personal brand. it all seems like good promotion— for a small business, not for a subsidiary of fucking new japan pro wrestling!

giving up and trying its hardest looks the same for fale dojo— and i can't tell which way it's headed.

fale's a good businessman and entrepreneur, but does he earnestly intend on getting his boys to japan?

the promise of going to japan is kayfabe in itself, but it's painful when the boys are dedicating their lives to this and no one even cares about the meta. i'm literally the only person who has written about fale dojo since the 2023 reddit posts, and that's only because i'm lucky enough to be so physically close to it— but it's like watching 10+ people putting fulltime work into a show only i appreciate.

maybe it doesn't matter if he just wants to focus on making south auckland the hub of pro wrestling. the idea of NJPW isn't even a draw for the audience he's aiming to attract, so fuhgeddaboudit entirely.³

new zealand pro wrestling actually does a lot better in cities such as whangarei and invercargill where there's jack shit going on. IPW, despite its high production value, competes with the nightlife of auckland's city center and as a result its audiences are only a fraction of what it could be. what's there to do in southside on a saturday night?

between its weekly events and regular gym services, i think that fale dojo will stay strong in the future— it's just a matter of if it plans to go any further.

#pro wrestling #rant #review