Tokyo Dome Show

Lore & Background

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'. Since 2014, NJPW has scheduled supporting shows on the days before or after January 4, including a second Wrestle Kingdom show in the Tokyo Dome between 2020 and 2023. NJPW began running events at the Tokyo Dome with Battle Satellite in Tokyo Dome in April 1989. This proved successful enough to repeat each year, with Super Fight in February 1990, the collaborative WWF/AJPW/NJPW Wrestling Summit in April 1990, and the World Championship Wrestling joint venture Starrcade in Tokyo Dome in March 1991. The latter WCW/New Japan Supershow became a brief annual theme, with the second & third such events being the first two to take place on the date of January 4, a tradition that outlasted the WCW partnership and has remained since. All of 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.

In Their Own Story

The tunnel is cold. Kenta can hear the muffled roar above him — not the sharp, barking crowd of a Tuesday night in Saitama, but a deep, sustained hum, like the engine of a ship at full throttle. He grips the ring post and feels the vibration travel up through his knuckles. The curtain is drawn. Beyond it, the lights are blinding, and the Dome stretches up and away into shadow, a concrete cathedral full of people who have been waiting for this moment since January. He steps through. The noise hits him like a wall of warm water. Somewhere in the upper deck, a single taiko drum starts, then another, then the whole section joins, and the sound becomes something alive, something with a pulse. He raises his arms. The Dome answers. The year's story is about to be told, and every seat is full.

Reader's Guide

Some of the earlier January 4 show attendance numbers have been disputed. Officially, 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, 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, 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.

Did You Know?

• The January 4 Tokyo Dome Show has been described as 'the largest professional wrestling show in the world outside of the United States'.
• The 1993 Tokyo Dome show officially set the attendance record with 63,500 fans.
• The 2005 Tokyo Dome show had a 16-match card, the largest of any single-night show.