New Japan Pro Wrestling Wrestle Kingdom IV

The January 4 Tokyo Dome Show is a professional wrestling major show, some times broadcast as a Pay-Per-View (PPV), held by Japanese Professional wrestling promotion New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW). The shows often feature wrestlers from North American promotions such as World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) and has on these occasions been shown either partially or in full in the United States. NJPW often invites other promotions to participate in their January 4 Dome Shows as well including several companies that have been involved in scripted interΓΓé¼ΓÇ£promotional rivalries such as UWF International (UWFi), Big Japan Pro Wrestling (BJPW), All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), Pro Wrestling Zero1 and Pro Wrestling NOAH (NOAH), as well as representatives from the Mexican Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) promotion.

It has become an annual event that starts the new year in NJPW since its inception in 1992. NJPW have held shows at the Tokyo Dome as far back as April 24, 1989 but their January 4 show has become the most anticipated shows on NJPW calendar, similar to what the Super Bowl is to the NFL or WrestleMania to the WWE. As of 2010 all the Dome shows have featured championship matches, including several titles not owned by NJPW. On two occasions (in 1998 and 2006 no titles changed hands during the show. The 1993 Dome show set the attendance record with 63,500 fans packing the Tokyo Dome while the 2007 Dome Show drew the lowest gates with only 18,000 in attendance. As of 2011 the January 4 shows have hosted 225 matches, 58 of which were title matches leading to 24 title changes in total. The 2005 Dome show had a 16 match card, the largest of any of the shows while 2001, 2002 and 2007 featured 9 matches, the lowest number of matches on a show.
[edit] Starrcade 1992 in Tokyo Dome
Starrcade 1992 in Tokyo Dome
Information
Promotion World Championship Wrestling
New Japan Pro Wrestling
Date January 4, 1992[1]
Attendance 50,000[1]
Venue Tokyo Dome
City Tokyo, Japan
Event chronology
First Starrcade 1992 in Tokyo Dome Fantastic Story in Tokyo Dome

The first ever January 4 Dome show held by New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) was called Starrcade 1992 in Tokyo Dome and would start the tradition of NJPW holding their biggest show of the year on January 4 in the Tokyo Dome, making it their Super Bowl or WrestleMania event. It was promoted in conjunction with the American based World Championship Wrestling (WCW) with the name "Starrcade" taken from WCW's December Pay-Per-View (PPV) event Starrcade. The show featured a mixure of NJPW and WCW wrestlers facing each other, with most of the matches that included WCW wrestlers being shown in North America as a PPV under the name WCW/New Japan Supershow II. The show drew 50,000 spectators for a gate of the equivalent of $3,700,000 at the exchange rate at the time.[1] The show featured 12 matches, including two Dark matches, matches held before the PPV broadcast began. Six of the twelve bouts featured wrestlers from WCW. On the show Lex Luger successfully defended his WCW World Heavyweight Championship against Masahiro Chono, while the main event saw Riki Ch┼┬ìsh┼½ defeated Tatsumi Fujinami. The match unified the Greatest 18 Championship and the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. Japanese heavy metal band Show Ya performed live music between matches and performed theme music for a match where The Great Muta and Sting wrestled The Steiner Brothers.