Big In Japan - Wrestling Events at Tokyo Dome In The Early '90s
n Japan, “puroresu” or Professional Wrestling has a long history and is still widely enjoyed today.
Its history began after WW2 but the success story began with Korean-born sumo-wrestler Rikidozan, who started the Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance [JWA] in 1951. But the story of Japanese Professional Wrestling is worth a look into itself. But it's important to know the standing of Wrestling in Nippon to understand why the WWE hosted three major events at Tokyo Dome in the early '90s.
The first and the most important one was the "Wrestling Summit", produced and scripted collaboratively between the US-based World Wrestling Federation [WWF, nowadays WWE] and the Japanese All Japan Pro Wrestling [AJPW] and New Japan Pro-Wrestling [NJPW]. The joint venture took place on April 13, 1990, at Tokyo Dome and drew 53,742 spectators. The show contained 12 promotional matches, with the main event being WWF representative Hulk Hogan defeating AJPW wrestler Stan Hansen. Highlights of the event were even aired on Nippon TV. The show was voted the Best Major Wrestling Show in the 1990 Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards.
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The next event was the "Wrestlefest" on March 30, 1991, where The Legion of Doom [Animal and Hawk] defeated Hulk Hogan and Genichiro Tenryu. The event was split-produced between WWF and SWS, Super World of Sports, a Japanese professional wrestling promotion.
The last of those three major events was the "SuperWrestle", where Hulk Hogan defeated Genichiro Tenryu on December 12, 1991. Both events were split-produced between WWF and SWS, Super World of Sports, a Japanese professional wrestling promotion.
The Tokyo Dome saw many other Wrestling events, mainly hosted by one of the two Japanese associations NJPW or AJPW. Another highlight was the collaborative show with US-Based World Championship Wrestling [WCW] named the WCW/New Japan Supershow I or better known as Starrcade in Tokyo Dome.
