News on WWE Seeking Exposure in Japan, Antonio Inoki & Yoshi Tatsu

Posted by Marc Middleton on Thursday, April 1st, 2010

Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter

- Japanese stars Gedo, Jado and KENTA were all at WrestleMania 26 weekend for the Antonio Inoki Hall of Fame induction. Inoki did a lot of photo ops for the Japanese media, including congratulating RAW’s Yoshi Tatsu on winning the pre-show battle royal.

There was already some Japanese media in town because Major League Baseball star Hideki Matsui is playing pre-season baseball there. This helped out with the coverage from Japan on Inoki’s induction. Part of the reason why Inoki was chosen for this year’s Hall is because of the exposure WWE would be getting in Japan. The media took photos of Inoki with Vince McMahon, where Vince thanked Inoki for the friendship with Vince Sr.

With WWE aiming for maximum exposure in Japan, that could very well be part of the reason why Yoshi Tatsu won the WrestleMania pre-show battle royal.

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Comment

9 Responses to News on WWE Seeking Exposure in Japan, Antonio Inoki & Yoshi Tatsu:

  1. Scooter

    Date: Apr 01, 2010 at 10:08 PM

    wwe just wouldn’t draw in Japan the matches just don’t have the same pace

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  2. Moe

    Date: Apr 02, 2010 at 12:56 AM

    not to mention if you have jericho and edge (2 of your best) go 14-15 min at wrestlemania was a joke. 2 of the best in the company and they are forced to go out there for only 15 min. Give your head a shake WWE!

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  3. ice

    Date: Apr 02, 2010 at 1:32 AM

    they have been in japan before and drew 30000 each night

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  4. !?

    Date: Apr 02, 2010 at 1:53 AM

    Agree with Ice

    I don’t think people realize just how popular WWE is overseas (not just talking about Japan of course) but just about everywhere except the US.

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  5. TheViolentOne

    Date: Apr 02, 2010 at 2:08 AM

    30000 really isnt a big draw in japan guys it actually pretty low numbers to be honest when you look at any fmw or new japan shows that ran in the tokyo dome or anyother palce they found to fill baseball staduims ect look up the numbesr they did

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  6. myk

    Date: Apr 02, 2010 at 5:04 AM

    30,000 is a big WWE number when the pre-wm26 supershow that did the taping of all 4 shows in one nite only had about 16,000-17,000. But yes to compare to New Japan and FMW its crap.

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  7. Al

    Date: Apr 02, 2010 at 5:27 AM

    it all depends how much $$ wwe makes, its all about the dollars…

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  8. Tom... just Tom

    Date: Apr 02, 2010 at 2:35 PM

    Gaijin (non-Japanese) wrestlers are very popular in Japan. Take a look at how big the Road Warriors, Stan Hansen and Bryan Danielson were overseas.

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  9. Vampi

    Date: Apr 04, 2010 at 7:38 AM

    WWE needs mexican and japanese wrestlers. Could be cool, they need to put the cruseirweight division up again and make great matches. Man, Evan Bourne or Yoshi or Dos Caras jr as cruseir champ can be awesome.

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