The biggest annual extravaganza in Japanese pro wrestling, and second biggest in all wrestling after WrestleMania, New Japan’s year-opening WRESTLE KINGDOM 19, is in the books.
Today’s event was held at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo and can be watched on demand OUTSIDE JAPAN ONLY on New Japan World. It is also available as a PPV on Triller/FITE for $29.99 or as a combo pack for $47.99 which includes tomorrow’s event and replays for 90 days (until 4/4). This event aired live in Japan as the premiere of WORLD PRO WRESTLING LIVE 2025 on TV Asahi.
The announced paid attendance was 24,107. That’s actually down from last year’s event (27,422). It’s still (and will be) the biggest crowd of the year but against normal capacity for the Dome (65,000 for baseball) and Hiroshi Tanahashi’s goals of selling it out again, on paper that’s actually kinda bad, especially when pre-pandemic they routinely did twice this number. (And it wasn’t a full capacity setup, would have been maybe 50,000 tops)
Pre-show match: Hirooki Goto won the New Japan Ranbo Battle Royal, this year with 17 participants, last eliminating Great-O-Khan. As a result, Goto gets a future IWGP World Heavyweight Championship match.
Match 1: In a Ladder Match, Kosei Fujita & Robbie Eagles beat IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Kevin Knight & KUSHIDA, Francesco Akira & TJP and Drilla Moloney & Clark Connors in a 4-way to win the titles Fujita & Eagles become the 77th IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions.
Match 2: IWGP Women’s Champion Mayu Iwatani beat AZM to retain the title. V9 for Iwatani. Fellow Stardom wrestler Momo Watanabe was a (very unenthusiastic) guest on Japanese commentary for this match.
Match 3: El Phantasmo beat NJPW WORLD TV Champion Ren Narita, Ryohei Oiwa & Jeff Cobb in a 4-way by pinning Narita to win the title. Phantasmo becomes the 7th NJPW WORLD TV Champion.
Match 4: In a Lumberjack Death Match, Hiroshi Tanahashi beat EVIL. Afterwards, the usual H.O.T. beatdown followed until Katsuyori Shibata returned and made the save.
Match 5: Konosuke Takeshita beat NEVER Openweight Champion Shingo Takagi to win the title and retain the AEW International Championship Takeshita becomes the 47th NEVER Openweight Champion.
Match 6: El Desperado beat IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion DOUKI by ref stoppage (injury) to win the title. Desperado becomes the 98th IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion. Unfortunately this was a legit injury and the match only went about 5 minutes. DOUKI suffered a left arm injury on a dive through the ropes. Desperado promised a rematch in the future if circumstances allow.
Match 7: Yota Tsuji beat IWGP Global Champion David Finlay to win the title. Tsuji becomes the 4th IWGP Global Champion.
Match 8: Tetsuya Naito beat Hiromu Takahashi.
Main Event: IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Zack Sabre Jr. beat Shuta Umino to retain the title. V3 for Sabre. This went almost 45 minutes.
The next event is WRESTLE DYNASTY tomorrow. Live streaming on New Japan World and as a PPV on Triller/FITE will begin TONIGHT at 7 PM PT/10 PM ET.
As expected, and not expected, there are several changes to WRESTLE DYNASTY as a result of today’s matches:
The expected:
Konosuke Takeshita will defend both his titles against Tomohiro Ishii.
Yota Tsuji vs. Jack Perry is now for the IWGP Global Championship.
Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Ricochet is now for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship.
The unexpected:
The IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship match between Great-O-Khan & TBA (mystery partner) and Matt & Nick Jackson is now a 3-way with Tetsuya Naito & Hiromu Takahashi added.
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Katsuyori Shibata has been added, it will be a Exhibition Match with a 5 minute time limit
Including the pre-show, that makes 12 total matches for the event.
