Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA
Idle musing prompted by Will's current trip (he saw NOAH last night, going to GLEAT show tonight, has NJPW Dominion coming up this weekend)
In Japan, Korakuen Hall is sort of "the mother Church" for pro wrestling.
Built in 1962, seats around 2,000, it's basically a sports venue, mostly used for various combat sports. Wrestling, kickboxing, boxing, etc. It's like playing The Apollo, or for rock/metal like playing The Whiskey or the other big Sunset Strip nightclubs of the era. It's not Madison Square Garden or Carnegie Hall, it's more the right of passage before you get there.
Anyhow, until this trip I don't think I realized just how busy the venue stays. On average, it looks like there's 3-5 puroresu shows a week there, with other combat sports other nights. And I started thinking about how very different that is versus the U.S.
I know, different geographies, different status & structure for pro wrestling, all that. But still ... there's not a city in the U.S. that I can think of where you could easily see 150 wrestling shows a year, and there never has been. At most, some places had weekly and additional irregular events, but I'd think that even Atlanta, Memphis, etc in the prime years topped out around 75-100 shows a year.
Tokyo, the epicenter of puroresu, with soooooo many companies using it as their primary base, it's just a really different situation that I almost struggle to get my head around when I try to actually think about it.
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