Moments in history come in some of the most unexpected way, and this day in wrestling history is one of those as it began as a promotional match to further Antonio Inoki’s political career and get more eyes on WCW.
While the event and the stories surrounded it have been widely reported and commented on, and one thing that often gets lost in the shuffle is that one of, if not the greatest wrestling match in history happened there.
Originally, it was supposed to be Antonio Inoki against Hulk Hogan, but Hogan declined to go with the political climate and other reasons, so Ric Flair was the next man up for Eric Bischoff.
Different world
While wrestlers travel all over the world, this was different as North Korea was in a bubble of sorts to keep the western influences out, so when the matches started if was an odd feeling in the air.
The wrestlers in attendance all noted how there wasn’t a sound coming from the crowd, and no matter what they did or tried they couldn’t get a pop.
In a business where they feed off the audience, it was one of the weirdest things to watch (it’s available on NJPW World).
But that changed when the main event started, as Ric Flair explained in a Sports Illustrated interview on April 27, 2015.
Special thanks to @awrestlinghistorian for the excerpt.
“I worked for Bischoff. They wanted me to go, so I said yeah. The crowd didn’t respond to anything that I can remember until he came out there. It certainly wasn’t because I was overwhelmingly popular with them. They probably said, ‘Who’s this guy?’ But Inoki appealed to them. I had never met Inoki. I had never even seen him wrestle. We didn’t get to talk before the match. It ended up being okay for two guys that had never been in the ring together. Actually, it was decent. I don’t have any fond memory of that trip whatsoever.”
While the match was the highlight of the trip April 29, 1995 made history for a pretty interesting reason as it set the record for the largest wrestling audience in history with 180,000 people in attendance.
Granted, there are reports that say they were forced to be there. But it’s still an impressive record and the success of this let to Starrcade 1995.
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