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New Japan Pro Wrestling is the talk around the wrestling world for the majority of last year, and now with another successful Wrestle Kingdom under their belts and a crowd boasting an attendance of close to 45,000 in the Tokyo Dome, it begs the question "Can the success of NJPW and Wrestle Kingdom 12 lead to WWE hosting WrestleMania Internationally?"
It's been a while since WWE has done a pay-per-view Internationally with the last one being in 2003 with Insurrection. The last "Big Four" PPV was Summerslam all the way back in 1992 with Summerslam that was held in Wembley Stadium in London, England with a crowd of 80,355.
Even though it has been that long and WWE isn't as big as it was during the Attitude Era, the thought of an International pay-per-view is big. I personally know quite a few wrestling fans that live overseas and follow others on social media and they always stay up till dawn to watch RAW and Smackdown so I have no doubt that they would stay up to watch a Wrestlemania.
This past week they adjusted their schedules to watch New Japan's Wrestle Kingdom PPV, which is NJPW's Wrestlemania, mostly to watch the Chris Jericho vs Kenny Omega. If they did that for NJPW then imagine how many others would do the same to watch the biggest show of the wrestling year itself Wrestlemania.
The one and biggest issue that many people bring up when it comes to hosting WrestleMania, or any PPV in general, overseas is the time zone differences. For example, Wrestlemania starts at 5 p.m. EST and 2 p.m. PST with the pre-show matches. That time equates to 10 p.m. in the United Kingdom.
While that might not be a big issue since WrestleMania would go off roughly a short time after RAW usually ends, in other countries like Japan where 5 p.m. EST would be 7 a.m.on Monday Morning, which would cause an issue since people would be getting ready for work or school at that time.
I don't see WWE taping their biggest show of the year ahead of time allowing for spoilers to leak out, which wasn't a big problem back in 1992 and even 2003 as social media wasn't as big as it is now where things get spoiled easily. WWE could move the time for Wrestlemania so it's fair to everyone but that is easier said than done.
While I don't see WWE doing a PPV internationally, especially a Wrestlemania, anytime soon I don't see the harm with at least testing the waters a bit with a B level PPV, maybe even a Summerslam or Survivor Series. With the amount of attention NJPW has gotten recently and with the success of their Wrestle Kingdom event, it may just open WWE's eyes and they may very well pull the trigger and have an international PPV one day in the future.
International fans, especially in the UK, are some of the most passionate and loudest fans around when WWE does RAW and Smackdown over there so just imagine how they would be if they got a Wrestlemania.
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