Wrestle Kingdom 9
Wrestle Kingdom 9 in Tokyo Dome was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) promotion, which took place at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan on January 4, 2015. It was the 24th January 4 Tokyo Dome Show and the first event on the 2015 NJPW schedule. The event featured ten professional wrestling matches and one pre-show match, six of which were for championships.
Wrestle Kingdom 10
Both of NJPW's junior heavyweight titles were also be defended at Wrestle Kingdom 10. In the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship match, Kenny Omega was set to defend against Kushida in the third title match between the two. The first took place on July 5, 2015, at Dominion 7.5 in Osaka-jo Hall, where Kushida, the winner of the 2015 Best of the Super Juniors tournament, defeated Omega to win the title. A rematch took place on September 23 at Destruction in Okayama, where Omega regained the title with help from his Bullet Club stablemates. On November 1, Kushida challenged Omega to a "one more match", which was made official for Wrestle Kingdom 10 on November 9. The IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship would be defended in a four-way match, where the reigning champions reDRagon (Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly) were set to take on Matt Sydal and Ricochet, Roppongi Vice (Baretta and Rocky Romero) and The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson). Sydal and Ricochet earned their title shot on November 7 by defeating Roppongi Vice to win the 2015 Super Jr. Tag Tournament. However, after the match both Roppongi Vice and The Young Bucks also laid their own claims on a title match with reDRagon. Roppongi Vice had eliminated the reigning IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions from the tournament, while The Young Bucks felt they deserved a rematch with reDRagon, having lost the title to them on August 16. This led to NJPW announcing a title match with all four teams on November 9.
Wrestle Kingdom 10 also featured a match for the IWGP Tag Team Championship with Bullet Club's Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson defending against G.B.H. (Togi Makabe and Tomoaki Honma). Makabe and Honma earned their title shot on December 9 by defeating "Los Ingobernables de Japon" (Evil and Tetsuya Naito) to win the 2015 World Tag League. That same day ROH World Champion Jay Lethal appeared in a video, requesting a challenger for a title match at Wrestle Kingdom 10. The challenge was accepted that same night by Michael Elgin, an ROH wrestler who had taken part in the World Tag League. Elgin had made his NJPW debut during the previous summer's 2015 G1 Climax, quickly becoming a fan favorite. The following day, NJPW backtracked on the title match announcement, instead announcing a "special singles match" between the two with the possibility of it being turned into a title match, provided that Lethal was still the champion on January 4. ROH had previously announced that Lethal would defend the title against A.J. Styles on December 18 at Final Battle. Elgin had earned the title shot by winning ROH's Survival of the Fittest tournament on November 14, stating afterwards that he wanted his shot in Japan. The match continues a working relationship between NJPW and the American ROH promotion, which started in 2014 and was set to continue later in 2016 with ROH holding shows in Japan and NJPW holding shows in North America. On December 18, Lethal retained the ROH World Championship against A.J. Styles, making the title match official for Wrestle Kingdom 10.