New Japan’s hotly-anticipated Wrestle Kingdom 17 certainly delivered, breaking a record for the NJPW World streaming service.
This year’s January 4, event marked the first Wrestle Kingdom following the passing of Antonio Inoki who died in October last year.
The show saw talent from NJPW, STARDOM, AEW, Pro Wrestling Noah and WWE compete, and also saw the debut of Mercedes Mone’.
Setting the Record
With several of the biggest wrestling promotions on the planet coming together for Wrestle Kingdom 17, it’s hardly surprising that the show was in high demand.
On their website, New Japan stated that 92,409 unique worldwide users watched Wrestle Kingdom, with 30% (nearly 28,000) coming from outside Japan.
NJPW added that this is a record for the service that has been online since 2014, and thanked both existing and new users on the platform.
Those without NJPW World can watch Wrestle Kingdom matches on NJPW’s weekly TV show on AXS TV starting Thursday, January 12.
NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17 drew 26,085 live fans to the Tokyo Dome.
New Year Dash!!
With Wrestle Kindom 17 in the rear-view mirror, New Japan wasted no time in hosting their next event, ‘New Year Dash!!’ the following day.
A collection of tag-team matches filled the card, with the main event seeing Kazuchika Okada and Kenny Omega defeat United Empire (Aaron Henare and Jeff Cobb.)
In the only non-tag-team match, on the show, Shingo Takagi defeated Sho, Great-O-Khan and Toru Yano to become the inaugural Provisional KOPW 2023 Champion.