National Wrestling Alliance
The NWA’s presence in Japan was established in 1953, when Japanese wrestler/promoter Rikidozan founded the Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance, (JWA) which quickly became the main promotion in Japan. In 1972, the JWA’s two top draws Giant Baba and Antonio Inoki left to form their own promotions, All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) and New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) respectively. As a result, the JWA soon folded. AJPW became an NWA member upon its inception in 1973 and stayed until the late 1980s. NJPW was also a member of the NWA at various points between 1975 and 1985, mainly in order to gain control of the NWA Junior Heavyweight Championship. In 1992 and 1993, NJPW joined with the NWA once more to re-establish and promote the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, but left the NWA when WCW withdrew. NJPW returned to the NWA in 2004, again mainly for the NWA Junior Heavyweight Championship, and it is not a connection that is strongly emphasized. Between NJPW's departure in 1993 and its return in 2004 NWA representation in Japan was scattered among a few independent promotions: the International Wrestling Association of Japan (1994–1996); the Wrestle Yume Factory (1995–1997), the Universal Fighting Arts Organization (1999–2000); and Pro Wrestling Zero-One (2001–2004). In June 2007, the Inoki Genome Federation replaced NJPW as the Japanese affiliate of the National Wrestling Alliance. In February 2008, however, New Japan returned to the NWA. At the annual meeting in 2010, New Japan did not renew its membership and left the NWA yet again. In 2011, Pro Wrestling Zero1 returned to the NWA as their Japanese territory.
Wrestle Kingdom I
When New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) held the 2006 January 4 Tokyo Dome Show, Toukon Shidou Chapter 1, some saw it as a possible "end of an era". In recent years, the January 4 show, held annually since 1992, had been suffering from a drop in both interest and attendance and while the 2006 show drew 31,000 fans to the Tokyo Dome, only around 10,000 of them paid for their ticket. The show, however, was still considered a success due to high merchandise sales, allowing NJPW to keep the tradition alive for another year. NJPW had previously had success promoting interpromotional shows with All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), and decided to partner with them again for the 2007 Tokyo Dome show in an effort to boost attendance numbers. The partnership was officially announced in a press conference on November 15, 2006. AJPW had recently partnered with Yuke's, the owners of NJPW, for the video game "Wrestle Kingdom". As a result, the 2007 January 4 Tokyo Dome show was dubbed "Wrestle Kingdom in Tokyo Dome". The name stuck and the annual January 4 Tokyo Dome show has been known as Wrestle Kingdom ever since.
The main event of the show was booked as a tribute to Shinya Hashimoto, who had died from cerebral hemorrhage on July 11, 2005. In the match, Hashimoto's Three Musketeers partners Keiji Mutoh and Masahiro Chono would take on Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima. Both teams had actually disbanded years earlier due to Mutoh and Kojima having jumped from NJPW to AJPW at the start of 2002, but Kojima and Tenzan had recently reunited for AJPW's 2006 Real World Tag League. Mutoh was said to have been negative towards the idea of turning the match into a Hashimoto tribute, but was convinced to go along with it on the day of the show.