I received an email today that was very critical of my New Japan coverage on this site. This was from a long-time reader of SSS who remembers how thorough and comprehensive my coverage of New Japan used to be, with detailed descriptions of every house show, every press conference, and so on. This person, who I will not name as I respect any opinion of my site, suggested I should close SSS because “others do it better now”.

I’m the first to admit my coverage isn’t nearly as good as it once was and hasn’t been for a long time but there are reasons for this. The primary reason is time, I just do not have the time to spare like I used to and often have to rush to get reports up. Now I have to work more and have other things that take up big chunks of my time.

Secondly, while I have had since 1998 and always will have a strong emotional attachment to New Japan Pro-Wrestling, the other things in my life mean my passion for it isn’t as strong as it used to be. It is natural that when you can’t focus on one thing as much as before that your interest in that thing becomes less intense.

For the last couple of years, I have struggled to make the time to even watch New Japan, whereas in the past I used to watch everything from the secondary tapings to the internet-only matches. Now I have to limit myself to carefully selected matches. Does this mean I don’t know every little thing about New Japan now like I used to? Yeah, probably, but I like to think my longevity in following New Japan since 1998 and covering it in some form since 1999, means I still know a lot of things that many others don’t.

Now, as for the person’s suggestion I should close SSS, I have often wondered if I should when my coverage becomes so basic that it might not interest people anymore but as far as I can tell this site still gets decent hits and is still read by many hardcore and casual puroresu fans. So I still have no plans to close it even though I can’t give as much of my time to it anymore. And while I run this site it will give New Japan/puroresu some relevance in my life and probably stop the risk of me drifting away from it like countless people I’ve known have over the last ten years.

And so that is it, Strong Style Spirit will remain open indefinitely until a time comes when I simply can’t do it anymore – but I don’t think that time will be any time soon. The site is now over a decade old and will be much older before it bites the dust. I am sorry that my coverage may not be as good as it used to be but I will do my best with the time I can spare for SSS.

– Stuart