World Wonder Ring Stardom is the biggest womens wrestling company in Japan. They were recently bought by New Japan Pro Wrestling’s parent company of Bushi Road. This has come at the same time as Stardom perhaps hitting their peak of popularity.
Gone are the days of them barely filling small venues across Japan, as they have just sold out the iconic Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan for their 9th anniversary show. Despite losing many top names over the years like Act Yasukawa, Kairi Hojo, Io Shirai, & Kagastu among others, they have pressed on. They are always doing whatever they can to create new stars to fill any gaps in their roster.
Stardom & The Success In Korakuen Hall is Huge
They ran Korakuen Hall for their 8th anniversary show back in 2019, and they brought in 910 fans, but this year they nearly doubled that. They brought in 1,602 fans for the card, some of the biggest attendance in company history. This is a sell out in the venue, as capacity is generally 1,600. This has beat out Stardom Goddesses Of Destiny on June 17, 2018, which was Io Shirai’s last match in the promotion to date. That event drew 1,571 fans as they gave one of their biggest stars a proper send off.
The only show that tops this is Stardom Ryogoku Cinderella Champions Fiesta from 2013, which drew an astounding 5,500 fans. People are skeptical about this number, as at that time it wasn’t odd for companies in Japan in heavily inflate their attendance figures to make companies feel more impressive. With Stardom not even coming close to matching those numbers since, it was either a fluke or a fake number. Regardless, at their current rate they will be making this level of attendance without issue in no time.
Are They On A Similar Level To New Japan?
What makes this even more impressive is that the only other companies who are generally pulling in these kind of numbers for Korakuen Hall are New Japan Pro Wrestling and Dragon Gate, arguably the two most popular promotions in all of Japan. All Japan Pro Wrestling isn’t far off, getting 1,445 fans for AJPW New Year Wars 2020 – Tag 1 in December of 2019, but they haven’t quite been able to sell the venue out.
Stardom has become one of the major companies to watch out for in 2020, and you can keep up on their action with their streaming service StardomWorld. The Overtimer will also do our best to keep you up to date on all major happenings within this company as they rise.
