Wrestle Kingdom 9
Wrestle Kingdom 9 drew 36,000 fans to the Tokyo Dome, reportedly (accordingly to "Wrestleview.com" and the "Wrestling Observer Newsletter") the best attendance for a NJPW January 4 Tokyo Dome Show in 13 years. The event reportedly had 12,000 to 15,000 purchases in North America.
Wrestle Kingdom 9
According to the "Wrestling Observer Newsletter", although several early matches were "rushed", the final two were candidates for "match of the year". Readers of the publication voted Wrestle Kingdom 9 the Best Major Wrestling Show of 2015; they also named the match between Ibushi and Nakamura the 2015 Pro Wrestling Match of the Year, and the match between Okada and Tanahashi was voted the fourth best of 2015. Dave Meltzer gave commentary for the result in January 2016, describing Wrestle Kingdom 9 as "the blow away show of" 2015 and "the peak show of the rise of New Japan Pro Wrestling from very low levels for much of the late 00s".