Wrestle Kingdom is a professional wrestling event produced annually by New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), a Japan-based professional wrestling promotion .
17-662: Since 1992, NJPW has held the January 4 Tokyo Dome Show . The January 4 Tokyo Dome Show became NJPW's premier annual event and the biggest event in Japanese wrestling , similar to what WrestleMania is for WWE and American professional wrestling . It has been described as "the largest professional wrestling show in the world outside of the United States" and the "Japanese equivalent to the Super Bowl ". From 1992 to 2006,
34-477: The 1993 Tokyo Dome show set the attendance record with 63,500 fans packing the Tokyo Dome, while according to Dave Meltzer , the 1998 show holds the record with an attendance of 55,000. The lowest attendances for any Dome Shows were for the 2021 event , held under attendance restrictions due to COVID-19 ; NJPW announced an attendance of 12,689 for the first night and 7,801 for the second. Prior to COVID-19,
51-549: The IWGP Tag Team Championship in a three-way match, also involving Muscle Orchestra ( Manabu Nakanishi and Strong Man ). In addition, the event included two interpromotional matches between NJPW and Pro Wrestling Noah . In the first, Noah's Takashi Sugiura and Yoshihiro Takayama defeated Hirooki Goto and Kazuchika Okada . This match was a one night NJPW return for Okada, who afterwards returned to TNA to continue his overseas learning excursion. In
68-411: The Super Bowl ". The show expanded to two nights, with the 2020 edition being the first one to include matches on January 5, and further expanded to include a third night (January 8) in 2022. The event would go back to one night in 2023. The first two January 4 Tokyo Dome Shows were also the last two WCW/New Japan Supershows . Since 2007 , when the event was renamed Wrestle Kingdom in Tokyo Dome ,
85-559: The 2007 and 2011 Dome shows drew the lowest unofficial gates, with only 18,000 in attendance. As of 2021, the January 4 shows (including matches held on January 5 as part of two-night events) have hosted 328 matches (not including dark or pre-show matches), 126 of which were title matches leading to 69 title changes in total. The 2005 Tokyo Dome show had a 16-match card, the largest of any single-night show, while 2001 , 2002 , 2007, 2013 , 2016 , 2018 and 2019 featured 9 matches,
102-774: The American Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) and Mexican Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) promotions for the fourth and third year in a row, respectively. During the show, the TNA World Heavyweight Championship was defended for the first time in Japan. The three matches involving TNA wrestlers were aired by the American company as part of Global Impact 3 . Wrestlers from DDT Pro-Wrestling , Pro Wrestling Noah and Pro Wrestling Zero1 also took part in
119-498: The Dome shows have been broadcast on pay-per-view (PPV). All the Dome shows have featured championship matches, including several titles not owned by NJPW. On three occasions ( 1998 , 2006 and 2013 ), no titles changed hands during the show. The 2019 show, which featured eight title matches, was the first in which all contested titles changed hands. Some of the earlier January 4 show attendance numbers have been disputed. Officially,
136-429: The event was promoted under different names. In 2007, the event was rebranded as Wrestle Kingdom which has been the event name ever since. From 2007 until 2019, Wrestle Kingdom was held on January 4 on Tokyo Dome, but the show expanded to two nights in 2020. Wrestle Kingdom 14 was the first one to include matches on January 5, and further expanded to include a third night (January 8) in 2022. Wrestle Kingdom VI drew
153-575: The first night and 7,801 for the second. Prior to COVID-19, the Wrestle Kingdom I and Wrestle Kingdom V events drew the lowest unofficial gates, with only 18,000 in attendance. January 4 Tokyo Dome Show The January 4 Tokyo Dome Show is a professional wrestling event produced annually on January 4 in the Tokyo Dome by New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), a Japan-based professional wrestling promotion . NJPW has promoted events in
170-436: The highest single-day attendance since the annual event was branded as Wrestle Kingdom, at 43,000. Counting events held over two nights, Wrestle Kingdom 14 had the highest overall attendance, with 40,008 announced for night one and 30,063 for night two, a total of 70,071 attendees. The lowest attendance was for Wrestle Kingdom 15 , held under attendance restrictions due to COVID-19 ; NJPW announced an attendance of 12,689 for
187-573: The highest-profile of the matches involving TNA, Jeff Hardy successfully defended the TNA World Heavyweight Championship against NJPW's Tetsuya Naito , who had previously worked for TNA as part of the No Limit tag team. In another interpromotional match, TNA's Rob Van Dam defeated NJPW's Toru Yano in a hardcore match . In the first match involving TNA wrestlers, Beer Money, Inc. ( James Storm and Robert Roode ) unsuccessfully challenged Bad Intentions ( Giant Bernard and Karl Anderson ) for
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#1732783314347204-583: The lowest number of matches on a single-night show (again, not counting dark or pre-show matches). The first two-night show in 2020 featured a total of 16 matches, tying the 2005 show for the most in a single event, but each night featured only eight matches, fewer than any previous Dome Show card. The second two-night show in 2021, affected by COVID-19, had only 6 matches scheduled for each night. Wrestle Kingdom V Wrestle Kingdom V in Tokyo Dome ( レッスルキングダムV ｉｎ 東京ドーム , Ressuru Kingudamu V in Tōkyō Dōmu )
221-633: The scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches. Wrestle Kingdom V was headlined by Satoshi Kojima defending the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against Hiroshi Tanahashi in what was described as a "typical" NJPW storyline, where the company had put their top title on an outsider, leading to their biggest star getting it back at the Tokyo Dome. Kojima had started his career in NJPW, but jumped to All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) in 2002 and
238-548: The show. While NJPW announced an attendance number of 42,000, which would have been the largest audience at a January 4 Tokyo Dome Show in six years, Dave Meltzer claimed that the actual attendance number was 18,000, tied with the 2007 Tokyo Dome show for the smallest audience in the event's history. Wrestle Kingdom V featured thirteen professional wrestling matches that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines . Wrestlers portrayed villains , heroes , or less distinguishable characters in
255-410: The venue every January 4 since Super Warriors in Tokyo Dome in 1992. The January 4 Tokyo Dome Show became NJPW's premier annual event and the biggest event in Japanese wrestling , similar to what WrestleMania is for WWE and American professional wrestling . It has been described as "the largest professional wrestling show in the world outside of the United States" and the "Japanese equivalent to
272-576: Was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) promotion , which took place at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo , Japan on January 4, 2011. It was the 20th January 4 Tokyo Dome Show and the fifth held under the " Wrestle Kingdom " name. The event featured thirteen matches (including two dark matches ), four of which were contested for championships . The show included wrestlers from
289-514: Was now working as a freelancer . In the main event of the show, Hiroshi Tanahashi defeated Satoshi Kojima to win the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, bringing the title back to NJPW. The semi-main event was a grudge match, where Togi Makabe defeated Masato Tanaka . The event featured several wrestlers from the American Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) promotion as part of a relationship between NJPW and TNA. In
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