Back to the Yokohama Arena

On November 6, 2013, Bushiroad, the owners of NJPW, announced a special project celebrating their seventh anniversary; a return to Yokohama Arena with the Back to the Yokohama Arena event on May 25, 2014. This would mark NJPW's first event at the arena since November 3, 2003, and the Yokohama Dead Out show.[4][5][6] The entire card for the event was released on May 4, the day after Wrestling Dontaku 2014.[7][8]

Yokohama Arena

Back to the Yokohama Arena featured ten professional wrestling matches involving different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds, plots, and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed villains or heroes as they followed a series of events that built tension, and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches. Four of the matches were contested for championships.[7]

Back to the Yokohama Arena was the final event before the start of the 2014 Best of the Super Juniors tournament and as part of the build-up to it, the opening match of the show featured eight participants in a multi-man tag team match.[7] The first title match would feature Tencozy (Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima) defending the NWA World Tag Team Championship against former champions, K.E.S. (Davey Boy Smith Jr. and Lance Archer), and representatives of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) Rob Conway and Wes Brisco in a three-way match.[7] Conway, who is also a former NWA World Tag Team Champion alongside Jax Dane, had made sporadic appearances for NJPW since Invasion Attack in April 2013, while Brisco made his debut for the promotion at Wrestling Dontaku 2014.[9][10] The villainous NWA side, led by president Bruce Tharpe, had been involved in a storyline rivalry with Tencozy and especially Satoshi Kojima ever since Invasion Attack.[11] During the first half of 2014, both Conway and Brisco had unsuccessfully challenged Kojima for his NWA World Heavyweight Championship.[10][12] The second title match would see Tomohiro Ishii defend the NEVER Openweight Championship against IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Kota Ibushi as part of a rivalry that dated back to previous August's G1 Climax.[7] Also on the card was a tag team match between the teams of Meiyu Tag (Hirooki Goto and Katsuyori Shibata) and Ace to King (Hiroshi Tanahashi and Togi Makabe). On May 5 at Wrestling Dontaku 2014, both teams asserted themselves as the next challengers for Bullet Club's (Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson) IWGP Tag Team Championship, which led to this match, where the winner will be getting the next title shot.[7] In the build-up to the match it was insinuated that there were problems between Goto and Shibata due to Shibata showing more interest in settling a grudge with Tanahashi than another shot at the IWGP Tag Team Championship.[13]

During the event mixed martial artists Daniel and Rolles Gracie would be working their first singles matches in NJPW. Since starting with the promotion in January 2014, the Gracies had worked only tag team matches and have taken advantage of the "ishu kakutōgi sen" rules of their matches, which had allowed them to use their gis to choke their opponents and secure submission victories.[14] Ever since their debuts for the promotion, the Gracies had feuded with Kazushi Sakuraba, who gained fame in the MMA circles as "The Gracie Hunter" for his victories over members of the Gracie family.[15] However, in NJPW the Gracies had dominated Sakuraba, with Rolles twice submitting him with a gi choke.[10][14] In the second of the losses, Sakuraba teamed with Shinsuke Nakamura, who also had a history with the Gracies, losing to Daniel in a legitimate MMA fight in December 2002.[16] Following the match at Wrestling Dontaku 2014, Daniel challenged Nakamura to a match for his IWGP Intercontinental Championship, leading to Back to the Yokohama Arena, where the title match, along with a singles grudge match between Sakuraba and Rolles, was set to take place.[7] Both matches were worked under "ishu kakutōgi sen" rules, but were scripted professional wrestling matches and not legitimate MMA fights.

Wrestling Dontaku 2014 marked a rebirth for the villainous Bullet Club stable, when Yujiro Takahashi turned on the Chaos stable and joined Bullet Club by helping A.J. Styles defeat Kazuchika Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.[10] The undercard of Back to the Yokohama Arena would feature Takahashi's first match as a member of Bullet Club, when he teamed with his new stablemates in an eight-man tag team match.[7] The event also featured Bullet Club's Bad Luck Fale taking on Tetsuya Naito in a match, where NJPW suggested the winner could enter a singles title picture.[7] The two previously faced off in the second round of March's New Japan Cup, where Fale was victorious.[17] In the main event of the show, Okada would receive his rematch for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. His opponent would be the winner of a title match between Styles and Michael Elgin at War of the Worlds, a NJPW and Ring of Honor (ROH) co-promoted event in New York City on May 17.[7][8] Okada was eventually added to the match, making it a three-way. Styles, however, retained his title by pinning Elgin, making the match between him and Okada official for Back to the Yokohama Arena.[18][19]