The January 4 Tokyo Dome Show is a

professional wrestling Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring o ...

event produced annually on January 4 in the

Tokyo Dome is an indoor stadium in Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan. It was designed as a baseball stadium following its predecessor, Korakuen Stadium. Construction on the stadium began on May 16, 1985, and it opened on March 17, 1988. It was built on the site of th ...

New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion based in Nakano, Tokyo. Founded on January 13, 1972, by Antonio Inoki, the promotion was sold to Yuke's, who later sold it to Bushiroad in 2012. TV Asahi and Amuse, Inc. own minority shares ...

(NJPW), a Japan-based

professional wrestling promotion A professional wrestling promotion is a company or business that regularly performs shows involving professional wrestling that has little relationship to the rules of the amateur olympic form. "Promotion" also describes a role which entails man ...

. NJPW has promoted events in 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 Professional wrestling in Japan has existed for many years. The first Japanese to involve himself in catch wrestling, the basis of traditional professional wrestling, was former sumo wrestler Sorakichi Matsuda. There were subsequent attempts befor ...

, similar to what

WrestleMania WrestleMania is a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event held annually between mid-March and mid-April by WWE, the world's largest professional wrestling promotion. Since premiering in 1985, 37 editions followed, mos ...

is for

WWE World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., d/b/a as WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion. A global integrated media and entertainment company, WWE has also branched out into other fields, including film, American football, and vario ...

and

American professional wrestling Professional wrestling in the United States, until the 1920s, was viewed as a legitimate sport. This view did not endure into the 1930s, as professional wrestling became identified with modern theatrics, or "admitted fakeness" ("kayfabe"), moving ...

. 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 The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...

". 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 Supershow WCW/New Japan Supershow was an annual professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event jointly produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). It was held in 1991, 1992 and 1993, and was promoted as "Starrcade ...

s. Since

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

, when the event was renamed Wrestle Kingdom in Tokyo Dome, the Dome shows have been broadcast on

pay-per-view Pay-per-view (PPV) is a type of pay television or webcast service that enables a viewer to pay to watch individual events via private telecast. Events can be purchased through a multichannel television platform using their electronic program guid ...

(PPV). All the Dome shows have featured championship matches, including several titles not owned by NJPW. On three occasions (

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

and

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...

), no titles changed hands during the show. The

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

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, the 1993 Tokyo Dome show set the attendance record with 63,500 fans packing the Tokyo Dome, while according to

Dave Meltzer David Allen Meltzer (born October 24, 1959) is an American journalist who reports on professional wrestling and mixed martial arts. Since 1983, he has been the publisher and editor of the ''Wrestling Observer Newsletter'' (''WON''). He has als ...

, 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 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

; 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 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

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 Darkness, the direct opposite of lightness, is defined as a lack of illumination, an absence of visible light, or a surface that absorbs light, such as black or brown. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low lum ...

pre-show A pre-game, pregame, or pre-match show is a television or radio presentation that occurs immediately before the live broadcast of a major sporting event. They typically feature previews and analysis relating to upcoming games (either a larger fixt ...

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 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

, 2007,

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

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.

Events

Footnotes

References

External links

The official New Japan website
{{New Japan Pro Wrestling events, January 4 Tokyo Dome Show Recurring events established in 1992 1992 establishments in Japan

Events

See also

Footnotes

References

External links