Welcome to another eWrestlingNews Question of the Day!
Tomorrow, New Japan Pro-Wrestling will have its annual biggest show of the year with Wrestle Kingdom 19. Every year, no matter what day it falls, it always takes place on January 4th, while WWE and AEW, for example, are much more flexible with their dates. WrestleMania is always in March or April (almost always the last week of March or the ifrst of April), but if it lands on the same day as another year, that’s just how the math works out. Other than being on Saturdays and Sundays outside of rare occasions, that’s just how all WWE and AEW events work out.
My question for you today is “Should New Japan stop doing this? Or, if you love it, should WWE or AEW adopt the same approach for any of its shows?”
Remember to answer with your response in the comments below.
As far as my answer…
Maybe I’m completely unaware of something that ties it to January 4th specifically, but unless that’s the case, I absolutely think New Japan should switch it up to a Friday/Saturday/Sunday at the start of the year approach—provided the numbers actually make sense for them.
For all I know, doing it on January 4th always ensures that people know exactly when it will take place, and it’s baked enough into the culture that changing it now would cause an uprising and even result in people just not tuning in if it were January 6th or something.
I’m ignorant of their buy rates and the logistics. Plus, I’m approaching this from an American’s perspective, and things could be wholly different over in Japan. It’s well within reason that they could simply not care whatsoever if it is taking place on a Wednesday or whatever. And by all means, if that’s the case, they should just stick with what’s working for them.
As an American, though, I do lean toward the idea that we’re much more likely to watch something and make an event out of it if it is on the weekend. Super Bowl is on Sunday, after all.
Now, as far as the second part of the question is concerned, I do think WWE and AEW should adopt this tactic in some ways for some of their shows. Specifically, I think it’s absolutely ridiculous how in 2024, WWE hosted Heatwave on July 7th and Great American Bash on July 30th and August 6th. WTF?
If you’re going to do a show—whether it’s an NXT special episode, an NXT premium live event, or a main roster pay-per-view—and it falls within 7 days of July 4th, then that should always be Great American Bash.
The same applies to Halloween Havoc. That should always be the name of the show that is closest to October 31st. Vengeance Day should always be the show that is around Valentine’s Day. Roadblock doesn’t need to be a specific day, but if you’ve got a special episode or event at some point between Royal Rumble and WrestleMania that isn’t already Elimination Chamber or Vengeance Day, then that should be Roadblock.
Other than SummerSlam obviously taking place in the summer, everything else from the current active list of events can be moved around the calendar in all sorts of ways and it wouldn’t bother me.
When it comes to AEW, they don’t have any shows that would fall on a specific day from what I can see, other than that if they’re doing a special episode of Dynamite or Collision around St. Patrick’s Day, they might as well call that one St. Patrick’s Day Slam. It’s not my favorite name, but they’ve done it enough times that they might as well use the trademark just as they would New Year’s Smash, Holiday Bash, and so on.
There aren’t any shows in AEW or WWE that I would say needs to be on a specific single date any time of the year, though, and that includes even WWE Day 1, as I think that can just be used for whatever the very first show of the year is—not necessarily that it has to be January 1st.
What do you think? Drop your thoughts below!
