Wrestle Kingdom 9
On August 10, 2014, NJPW made two announcements. Firstly, Wrestle Kingdom 9 would be held at the Tokyo Dome on January 4, 2015. Secondly, NJPW revealed a partnership with Jeff Jarrett's Global Force Wrestling, which it approached about bringing the event to a new market. On November 4, GFW announced that it would present the event live on American pay-per-view television and that it had a PPV market of 125 million homes.
Wrestle Kingdom 8
The event featured ten matches, six of which were contested for championships. For the first time in twenty years, the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) World Heavyweight Championship was defended during the event with NWA representative Rob Conway defending against Satoshi Kojima. The event was headlined by a double main event; Shinsuke Nakamura defending the IWGP Intercontinental Championship against Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kazuchika Okada defending the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against the winner of the 2013 G1 Climax, Tetsuya Naito. A fan vote decided the order in which the two matches took place during the event; the Heavyweight Championship match went first and the Intercontinental Championship match was the final match of the event. The event also featured outside participation from Wrestle-1 representative Keiji Mutoh, who worked under his Great Muta character. The event also featured appearances by Harley Race, Marty Friedman and Stan Hansen.