— The New Year’s Eve episode of RAW drew an average of 3,552,000 viewers. That number is up from the 3,143,000 the week before. The show did hours of 3.40 million, 3.64 million and 3.61 million. The final rating will be out shortly.
— The annual Tokyo Dome show for New Japan is set for Friday, January 4. The event will be available for the first time in the US on iPPV through uStream.TV. The show will begin at 3AM ET/12AM PT on Friday morning.
The event is set to be headlined by Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Okada for the IWGP heavyweight title. The undercard will have appearances by Bob Sapp, Akebono, and many US stars including MVP, Shelton Benjamin, Low-Ki, Lance Hoyt/Archer, Davey Boy Smith, Jr. (formerly D.H. Smith), and “Machine Gun” Karl Anderson.
Here is the full line-up:
(a) Wataru Inoue & Captain New Japan & Tama Tonga vs. Jado & YOSHI-HASHI & Tomohiro Ishii.
b) Jushin Liger & Tiger Mask IV & Hiromu Takahashi vs. Ryusuke Taguchi & KUSHIDA & BUSHI.
(1) MVP & Akebono & Manabu Nakanishi & Strongman vs. Bob Sapp & Toru Yano & Takashi Iizuka & Yujiro Takahashi in an eight-man tag match.
(2) Masato Tanaka vs. Shelton Benjamin for the NEVER Openweight Title.
(3) Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith, Jr. vs. Hirooki Goto & “Machine Gun” Karl Anderson for the IWGP Tag Titles.
(4) Yuji Nagata vs. Minoru Suzuki.
(5) Prince Devitt vs. Low-Ki vs. Kota Ibushi for the IWGP Jr. Hvt. Title.
(6) Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs. Keiji Mutoh & Shinjiro Otani.
(7) Togi Makabe vs. Katsuyori Shibata.
(8) Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kazushi Sakuraba for the IWGP Intercontinental Title.
(9) Main Event: Tanahashi vs. Okada for the IWGP World Hvt. Title.
