WCW/New Japan Supershow I
WCW/New Japan Supershow I | |||
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Promotion |
World Championship Wrestling New Japan Pro Wrestling | ||
Date |
March 21, 1991 Aired April 1991 | ||
City | Tokyo, Japan | ||
Venue | Tokyo Dome | ||
Attendance | 64,500 | ||
Pay-per-view chronology | |||
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WCW/New Japan Supershow chronology | |||
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WCW/New Japan Supershow I, (known as Starrcade in Tokyo Dome[1] in Japan) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event that took place March 21, 1991 from the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan, co-promoted by New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), who hosted the event and the US-Based World Championship Wrestling (WCW) that supplied a number of the wrestlers on the show. The event was the inaugural WCW/New Japan Supershow.
The event was viewed by 64,500 people in Japan and later shown in the United States as a PPV in April, 1991. Several of the matches on the show were not included in the PPV broadcast, held for the benefit of the crowd in attendance only. The WCW/NJPW Supershows were part of a small group of WCW produced PPVs not included in the "on demand" features when the WWE Network was launched in 2014.[2]
Storylines
The event featured eleven professional wrestling matches and two pre-show matches that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed villains, heroes, or less distinguishable characters in the scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.[3]
Event
The main event match between Ric Flair and Tatsumi Fujinami was presented very differently in the United States and in Japan. During the show it was announced that Ric Flair's NWA World Heavyweight Championship was on the line, but not the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, in the US those were considered the same championship and represented by one belt. The PPV announcers stated that Fujinami's IWGP Heavyweight Championship was also on the line in the match even though no such mention was made during the introductions. The outcome of the match was also presented differently, to the Japanese crowd Fujinami defeated Flair by pinfall and thus won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. The title change was ignored in the US, claiming that Fujinami had been disqualified for throwing Ric Flair over the top rope and thus did not win the match.[4] A later rematch between the two at SuperBrawl I saw Flair regain the NWA title, but in all promotional material produced by WCW it was billed as a successful title defense against Fujinami.[5][6]
Results
See also
References
- ↑ "WCW/New Japan Pay Per Views WCW/New Japan Supershow". Prowrestlinghistory.com. Retrieved October 6, 2007.
- ↑ "16 PPVs now on the WWE Network". Archived from the original on July 23, 2014. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
- ↑ Grabianowski, Ed. "How Pro Wrestling Works". HowStuffWorks, Inc. Discovery Communications. Archived from the original on 2013-11-18. Retrieved 2014-01-05.
- ↑ "Can Ric Flair shatter the "myth" of Japanese Superiority?". The Wrestler. Kappa Publications. pp. 11–12. July 1991.
- ↑ "Historical Cards: SuperBrawl I (May 19, 1991. St. Petersburg, Florida)". PWI Presents: 2007 Wrestling Almanak and book of facts. Kappa Publications. p. 156. 2007 Edition.
- ↑ "SuperBrawl "Return of the Rising Sun"". Pro Wrestling History. May 19, 1991. Retrieved March 23, 2015.
- ↑ Cawthon, Graham (2014). the History of Professional Wrestling Vol 4: World Championship Wrestling 1989-1994. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 1499656343.