The cardboard for Recent Japan Pro Wrestling’s biggest show of the yr, NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 20, is beginning to take shape and it has already gotten the wrestling world talking. Hiroshi Tanahashi will wrestle the ultimate match of his profession against AEW Unified Champion Kazuchika Okada, Olympic gold medalist Aaron Wolf will make his wrestling debut against EVIL, and Konosuke Takeshita will defend the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship against Yota Tsuji. With such a loaded card already, it is easy to see why tickets for the event have been selling well, a lot in order that in the newest episode of “Wrestling Observer Radio,” Dave Meltzer stated that Wrestle Kingdom 20 may very well be the most important event on the Tokyo Dome in several many years.
“Tickets have moved extremely quick since [NJPW] made that announcement [of the Tanahashi vs. Okada match] on Saturday. It’s probably going to be the most important real Tokyo Dome number in over 20 years,” Meltzer said. “Paid [tickets] at this point might be in that range already, in 20 years of course, possibly not 25. There have been some interpromotional stuff years ago within the early 2000s I feel could have beaten it, like when [Mitsuharu] Misawa wrestled [Masahiro] Chono or something. However it’s one of the best advance for the reason that [Antonio] Inoki retirement and that was in 1998, so it’s one of the best advance in 27 years.”
The Antonio Inoki retirement show that Meltzer mentioned still holds the record for the biggest attended wrestling show on the Tokyo Dome with a reported variety of over 70,000 people. The Tokyo Dome can now not hold that quantity of individuals, meaning that record will remain in tact no matter how well Wrestle Kingdom 20 does. Nevertheless, if the show surpasses 43,000 people, it’s going to beat every Tokyo Dome show held within the 2010s, and if it reaches greater than 60,000 people, it’s going to change into the primary NJPW show to achieve that figure since 2001.
Please credit “Wrestling Observer Radio” when using quotes from this text, and provides a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.