Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: When was Wrestle Kingdom 9?
Wrestle Kingdom 9 in Tokyo Dome 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 January4, 2015. It was the 24th January 4 Tokyo Dome Show and the first event on the 2015 NJPW schedule. The event featured ten professional wrestling matches and one pre-show match, six of which were for championships.
According to Garrett Martin of the magazine Paste, Wrestle Kingdom 9 "easily could wind up being the best [wrestling show of the year] when the year is done". He praised Jim Ross, whose "timeless voice cut through the language barrier" for American wrestling fans, and likened his commentary to "reading the first English translation of Homer." Martin commented on the ending of the show, stating that a "broken Kazuchika Okada shambling tearfully back towards the locker room... made the moment feel real" which displayed that "Okada isn't just a great athlete but a better actor than most who step into the ring, and elevating the entire scripted, choreographed display into something beyond a sport." Martin wrote that New Japan had transcended puroresu and has produced "some of the most passionate and poignant performance art today."[1]
King of Pro-Wrestling (2017) was a professional wrestling event promoted by New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), which took place on October 9, 2017, in Tokyo at Ryōgoku Kokugikan. It was NJPW's biggest show between August's G1 Climax and January's Wrestle Kingdom 12 in Tokyo Dome. The top two matches featured Kazuchika Okada defending the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against Evil and Tetsuya Naito defending his status as the number one contender to the IWGP Heavyweight Championship at Wrestle Kingdom 12 against Tomohiro Ishii. This was the sixth event under the King of Pro-Wrestling branding.
The event was headlined by Hiroshi Tanahashi defending the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against Kazuchika Okada. Tanahashi won the title by defeating A.J. Styles on October 13, 2014, at the NJPW King of Pro-Wrestling event.[23] Okada became the number one contender at Wrestle Kingdom 9 by winning the G1 Climax on August10, 2014.[6] Over the following months, he defended his position against Karl Anderson and Tetsuya Naito.[23][24] The Wrestle Kingdom 9 main event was the seventh match between Okada and Tanahashi since February 2012 and their second January 4 Tokyo Dome Show main event after Wrestle Kingdom 7 on January 4, 2013.[25][26]
of New Japan Pro Wrestling (in Japanese) of Global Force Wrestling
Kobe Shimbun's "Daily Sports Online" called Tanahashi "Mr. Tokyo Dome" for winning his fifth consecutive Wrestle Kingdom main event in the arena.[54] Jason Namako of Wrestleview.com, who watched the Japanese version of the show via New Japan World, said that the event "proved one thing, puroresu is, beyond a shadow of doubt, indeed ichiban!!"[Note 1][55] Meanwhile, Aaron Oster of The Baltimore Sun wrote that "Wrestle Kingdom 9 has to be considered a success".[56]
On August10, 2014, NJPW made two announcements. Firstly, Wrestle Kingdom 9 would be held at the Tokyo Dome on January4, 2015.[6] Secondly, NJPW revealed a partnership with Jeff Jarrett's Global Force Wrestling, which it approached about bringing the event to a new market.[6][7] On November4, GFW announced that it would present the event live on American pay-per-view television and that it had a PPV market of 125million homes.[8][9]
The event was broadcast on American PPV as the first GFW event.[10][11] The four-hour "GFW Presents New Japan Pro Wrestling's Wrestle Kingdom 9" telecast was available from pay-per-view providers in the United States, including DirecTV, Dish Network, AT&T U-verse, Comcast, Verizon FiOS and all cable systems, and in Canada from Bell ExpressVu, Rogers, Shaw, Sasktel and Telus.[11] The event also aired live on New Japan Pro Wrestling World, an Internet streaming site introduced by NJPW in early December 2014 which reportedly had 20,000 subscribers worldwide in late January 2015.[12][13] In Japan, the event also aired on PPV in SKY PerfecTV!'s Sukachan service.[14] In January 2016, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter stated that Wrestle Kingdom 9 "was the only live pro wrestling PPV event ever broadcast [internationally] from Japan".[15]
According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, although several early matches were "rushed", the final two were candidates for "match of the year".[43] Readers of the publication voted Wrestle Kingdom 9 the Best Major Wrestling Show of 2015; they also named the match between Ibushi and Nakamura the 2015 Pro Wrestling Match of the Year, and the match between Okada and Tanahashi was voted the fourth best of 2015. Dave Meltzer gave commentary for the result in January 2016, describing Wrestle Kingdom 9 as "the blow away show of" 2015 and "the peak show of the rise of New Japan Pro Wrestling from very low levels for much of the late 00s".[15]
The event was attended by 36,000 people. Through NJPW's partnership with Global Force Wrestling (GFW), the event was broadcast with English commentary as a GFW event. It was available on PPV television in the United States and Canada, and broadcast worldwide on the Internet via Flipps and New Japan Pro Wrestling World. Critics issued positive reviews; Philly.com said it featured "good, quality wrestling", while Paste magazine said it presented "some of the most passionate and poignant performance art today". Readers of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter voted Wrestle Kingdom 9 the Best Major Wrestling Show of 2015; they also named the Ibushi–Nakamura match as the 2015 Pro Wrestling Match of the Year.
Previous IWGP Heavyweight Champion A.J. Styles (of the Bullet Club group) and fellow top contender Tetsuya Naito were slated to wrestle each other at Wrestle Kingdom 9. During the 2014 G1 Climax (when Styles was IWGP Heavyweight Champion), Naito pinned him in a non-title tournament match but did not have a title shot before Styles lost to Tanahashi.[25] Since Styles did not receive a rematch with Tanahashi, it was theorized by the American media that the Wrestle Kingdom 9 winner would be the top contender.[25][29]
On 20 December 2014, Haste and Nicholls made their debut for New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), when they, along with Naomichi Marufuji, were revealed as Toru Yano's tag team partners at Wrestle Kingdom 9 in Tokyo Dome on 4 January 2015. They would go on to win the match, defeating Suzuki-gun (Davey Boy Smith Jr., Lance Archer, Shelton X Benjamin and Takashi Iizuka).
By August 2014, GFW announced working agreements with Mexican promotion Lucha Libre AAA World Wide (AAA), Japan's New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) promotion, multiple European promotions, South African promotion World Wrestling Professionals (WWP), and promotions from Australia and New Zealand.
As part of GFW's relationship with New Japan Pro Wrestling, it presented NJPW's Wrestle Kingdom 9 at the Tokyo Dome on the American pay-per-view market on January 4, 2015. The pay-per-view featured English language commentary from Jim Ross and Matt Striker. Wrestle Kingdom 9 reportedly drew 12,000 to 15,000 buys in North America.
Throughout May 2015, Jarrett announced talent for their roster, which included Bullet Club members Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows, the Killer Elite Squad, and Chael Sonnen as an expert analyst. Jarrett also announced that four champions (Global, NEX*GEN, Tag Team and Women's Champion) would be crowned at the July 24 tapings.
Another rematch from Wrestle Kingdom 9 was scheduled for February14 at NJPW The New Beginning in Sendai between Togi Makabe and Tomohiro Ishii for the NEVER Openweight Championship. When Makabe was sidelined with influenza, NJPW stripped him of the title and scheduled another match, in which Ishii defeated Tomoaki Honma for the now-vacant title.[65] Ishii and Makabe had their title rematch on April29, when Makabe regained the NEVER Openweight Championship.[66]
On December 9, 2018, "Los Ingobernables de Japon" (Sanada and Evil) defeated Bullet Club's Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa to win the World Tag League. Following the match, Sanada and Evil challenged for a IWGP Tag Team Championship match at Wrestle Kingdom before being interrupted by The Young Bucks. A three-way match was later announced for Wrestle Kingdom.
The Wrestle Kingdom 9 undercard featured several matches involving the Bullet Club, which was led by A.J. Styles.[25][38] The group dominated NJPW for most of 2014, holding all four of its heavyweight championships during the summer.[39] After the NJPW–GFW partnership was forged, GFW head Jeff Jarrett joined the Bullet Club on August10.[6] On December 7, during a Bullet Club post-match assault on Tomoaki Honma, NJPW veteran tag team Tencozy (Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima) stormed into the ring to the aid of Honma, driving the Bullet Club away. They then joined Honma to challenge the stable to a six-man tag team match at Wrestle Kingdom 9.[40] Bad Luck Fale, Yujiro Takahashi and Jeff Jarrett—making his NJPW ring debut—were scheduled to represent the Bullet Club at the event.[25]
AXS TV, which acquired the rights to broadcast Wrestle Kingdom 9 from the TV Asahi Corporation, aired the event in five parts from October9 to November6, 2015, to viewers in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. Commentary was provided by Mauro Ranallo and Josh Barnett.[3]
Wrestle Kingdom 9 featured ten professional wrestling matches and one pre-show match. It saw professional wrestlers performing as characters in scripted events pre-determined by the hosting promotion, New Japan Pro Wrestling.[21][22]
Behind the scenes, Jericho became part of a group of people that started pushing for the show to air on American pay-per-view (PPV) for the first time since Wrestle Kingdom 9 in 2015. Some in NJPW felt that airing the show through NJPW World would be enough, hoping that the Jericho signing would increase subscriber numbers. While NJPW was now considered more popular than in 2015, when Wrestle Kingdom 9 did 14,000 buys on American PPV, it was noted that the 2018 show would take place early Thursday morning in the United States as opposed to a weekend like it did in 2015, which was seen as a major negative in terms of getting buys from the country. In late November, it was reported that NJPW had turned down Fite TV's offer for PPV rights outside of Japan and would not be allowing the event to air on American PPV, wanting their streaming service to be the only way to see the event live. On December 3, it was announced that the top matches from the show would air on AXS TV on January 6, 2018, as part of an 11-hour block of NJPW programming with additional matches airing between January 12 and February 9. Five matches, including the top three matches, will air on TV Asahi as part of a special episode of "World Pro Wrestling" on the night of January 4.
After Wrestle Kingdom 9, Suzuki-gun declared war on Pro Wrestling Noah because Naomichi Marufuji and TMDK helped Toru Yano.[72] This storyline angle appeared at the January10 Noah event, when Suzuki-gun attacked Marufuji and TMDK at the end of the show.[73] After the event, the eight Suzuki-gun members began working for Noah, and by March15, the group established its dominance by winning all four of Noah's championships: Suzuki became the GHC Heavyweight Champion, Killer Elite Squad the GHC Tag Team Champions, Taichi the GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion, and El Desperado and Taka Michinoku the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions.[74][75]
Before the event, the GFW broadcasts experienced setbacks. Many cable companies decided not to air the event live, opting instead for a replay of UFC 182, and the stream would not run on three of the four most used devices compatible with Flipps: Chromecast, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.[19] According to Dave Meltzer, NJPW undercut GFW by including the event in the $8.42 monthly price for New Japan Pro Wrestling World; the GFW broadcast of Wrestle Kingdom 9 alone was $34.95. The New Japan Pro Wrestling World stream had Japanese commentary only.[20]
Wrestle Kingdom 9 broke Yuji Nagata's streak of consecutive January 4 Tokyo Dome Show appearances at 21 by being featured on the pre-show instead of the main card.[67] In an interview, Nagata said that he felt slighted and thought about quitting when he was relegated to the pre-show.[68] The day after the event, he was scheduled to challenge Shinsuke Nakamura for the IWGP Intercontinental Championship,[60] returning to the IWGP main-event picture for the first time in years.[68] Although Nagata received his title shot at NJPW The New Beginning in Sendai, he was defeated by Nakamura.[65] Nakamura's Wrestle Kingdom 9 opponent, Kota Ibushi, won the 2015 New Japan Cup tournament on March15 by defeating Hirooki Goto in the finals, thus earning the right to choose a championship to challenge. Ibushi picked a match with A.J. Styles for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship (leaving Goto to challenge Nakamura).[61][69] Ibushi failed in his title challenge on April 5 at NJPW Invasion Attack 2015, and Goto defeated Nakamura on May3 at NJPW Wrestling Dontaku 2015 to become IWGP Intercontinental Champion.[70][71]
Hardt entered into a career as an English language announcer for mixed martial arts events in 2000 at PRIDE's first Grand Prix. PRIDE officials needed an announcer fluent in English and Japanese. Although she had no experience with the sport, her agent contacted her about the job and she took it simply because it fit into her schedule. Hardt became a self-described fan of the sport and continued as the English announcer for PRIDE until its final event. When the former staff of PRIDE created DREAM, Hardt was carried over as well. Hardt has also worked with Japanese pro wrestling organization New Japan Pro Wrestling as a special guest English language ring announcer for their January 4 Tokyo Dome shows, announcing both Wrestle Kingdom 8 in 2014 and Wrestle Kingdom 9 in 2015.
Wrestle Kingdom VI featured the NJPW return of Kazuchika Okada. Okada was a rookie in 2010, when NJPW, through their international connections, sent him to the American Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) promotion to gain experience and grow as a wrestler. During his one and a half years in TNA, Okada did little of note; he was dressed up like Kato from "The Green Hornet", dubbed "Okato" and made Samoa Joe's sidekick in an angle with D'Angelo Dinero, wrestling only a handful of actual matches. TNA's poor handling of Okada was one of the key factors in NJPW ceasing their relationship with the American promotion, which made Wrestle Kingdom VI the first Tokyo Dome show in five years to not feature any wrestlers from the company. On December 9, 2011, NJPW announced that Okada would return to the promotion at Wrestle Kingdom VI, facing Yoshi-Hashi, who was making his own return from the Mexican Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) promotion, with whom NJPW also had a working relationship, where, unlike Okada, he had been wrestling a full schedule and improving. Upon his return to NJPW, Okada created himself a new villainous persona named "Rainmaker".
In the double main event, Shinsuke Nakamura successfully defended the IWGP Intercontinental Championship against Kota Ibushi, and Hiroshi Tanahashi successfully defended the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against Kazuchika Okada. A Tanahashi–Okada heavyweight title match had headlined Wrestle Kingdom 7 two years earlier and was also the main event the following year at Wrestle Kingdom 10. Although the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship was successfully defended, the IWGP Tag Team Championship, IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship and NEVER Openweight Championship changed hands. The appearance of Pro Wrestling Noah wrestlers led to a storyline in which NJPW's Suzuki-gun group began wrestling at Noah events starting the week after Wrestle Kingdom 9.