With last week's announcement that Jeff Jarrett's Global Force Wrestling (GFW) would bring the New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) pay-per-view (PPV) event to North American screens, some rumors began to circulate that Ring of Honor (ROH) (man, that's a lot of acronyms in one sentence) would block their contracted wrestlers from working the show.

In the case of ROH tag champs reDRagon, that would result in a particularly sticky situation, since Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly also recently claimed the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag belts for New Japan.

Today, the Sinclair-owned promotion issued a press release which should put an end to any rumors of the champs not defending their belts at Wrestle Kingdom 9 - or any other issues with NJPW and ROH talent exhanges:

reDRagon to Defend Titles at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 9 in Tokyo! November 13th, 2014 [ Baltimore, MD ] - Ring of Honor is proud to announce that Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish, the tag team known as reDRagon, will be defending their newly won IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship on January 4, 2015 at the Tokyo Dome. The match will feature reDRagon vs. Time Splitters vs. Young Bucks vs. Alex Koslov and Rocky Romero. "We are very proud of reDRagon's accomplishments in winning the IWGP Titles," said Ring of Honor Chief Operating Officer Joe Koff. "While they are signed to exclusive deals with ROH, it is a great honor to have them competing in New Japan Pro Wrestling, a most prestigious organization." Ring of Honor and New Japan enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship which allows for top talent from each organization to wrestle on major events with international interest. Later this month, Michael Bennett and Matt Taven with Maria Kanellis will take part in the legendary New Japan Pro Wrestling World Tag League tournament. Then on December 7th live on pay-per view at ROH's Final Battle 2014, ROH World Tag Team Champions reDRagon will defend against New Japan's own Alex Shelley and Kushida, The Time Splitters. "We have the utmost respect for New Japan, " explained Koff. "They are a truly classy organization. We look forward to a long standing relationship so that our talent can appear in Japan and their talent can wrestle at our events in America."

ROH and NJPW have a long history of working together, with frequent trips to Japan for up-and-coming ROH stars and events like this past summer's shows in Toronto and New York packed with puro stars affiliated with New Japan. The new partnership between Jarrett and the Antonio Inoki-founded promotion does present some questions about how Ring of Honor fits in the relationship, though.

After successfully returning to internet PPV earlier this year, ROH held its first ever televised PPV with Best in the World in June. They're set to return to cable and satellite systems in December for Final Battle on the 7th from New York. The deal with GFW ostensibly puts them in competition with NJPW for the first time in North America.

This reaffirming of their desire to work together in the wake of the splashy announcements from Global Force over the last couple of weeks may indicate that Sinclair is taking a broader view. While it's unlikely that a promotion owned by a broadcasting company would use Jarrett as a distribution and production partner like New Japan is for WK9, as long as GFW continues to operate as a worldwide, 21st century NWA, Koff and his team may just see them as a sort of trade organization, creating a bigger market and more marketable stars for their own product.

As Mexico's AAA (who's also announced a partnership with double-J) moves into the United States with shows like Lucha Underground, New Japan uses partnerships with smaller U.S. players to also expand their reach, ROH tries to grow without a national television deal, and TNA...TNA-ing, it will be very interesting to watch how the pro wrestling market responds.

And if any of this will be enough to break WWE's decade long monopoly, or even force them to respond.