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What’s the story?
New Japan Pro Wrestling announced via Twitter that they have sold 30,000 tickets for Wrestle Kingdom 12.
In case you didn’t know...
Wrestle Kingdom 12 will take place Thursday, Jan. 4th 2018 at the Tokyo Dome. The two biggest matches on the card are Kazuchika Okada vs Tetsuya Naito for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship and Kenny Omega vs Chris Jericho for the IWGP United States Championship.
The heart of the matter
With 30,000 tickets sold thus far for Wrestle Kingdom 12, next year’s pay-per-view has already eclipsed Wrestle Kingdom 10 and 11 for ticket sales.
Wrestle Kingdom 10 featured AJ Styles vs Shinsuke Nakamura and Kazuchika Okada vs Hiroshi Tanahashi with an audience of over 25,000 in attendance. Wrestle Kingdom 11 featured Tetsuya Naito vs Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kenny Omega vs Kazuchika Okada and had a slightly bigger attendance figure of 26,192.
The Tokyo Dome has seating capacity of 55,000, but NJPW has had bigger crowds for some of their previous shows at the same venue.
According to the Internet Wrestling Database, NJPW’s history with the Tokyo Dome dates back to 1989 when the promotion ran the Super Powers Clash Show with an audience of 53,800 people.
The largest attendance the Tokyo Dome has recorded for an NJPW event was 70,000 fans for NJPW The Inoki Final which took place on Saturday, April 4th, 1998. The largest attendance recorded for a Wrestle Kingdom show was Wrestle Kingdom 6 on Wednesday, January 4, 2012, which featured Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Minoru Suzuki with an audience of 43,000.
What’s next?
Wrestle Kingdom 12 will be streaming live on Jan. 4, 2018 on the NJPW streaming service, NJPW World and can be viewed partially on AXS TV two days later.
The AXS TV viewing will be a three-hour block featuring the IWGP Heavyweight Championship match, the IWGP United States Championship match, and the IWGP Intercontinental Championship match between Tanahashi and Jay White.
Author’s take
The hype behind Wrestle Kingdom 12 continues to grow and their ticket sales could reach greater numbers before Jan. 4 at the rate they're going now.
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