NJPW Announces July U.S. Return at Legendary San Francisco Venue

It didn’t take long for New Japan Pro Wrestling to announce their next United States show.

During Sunday night’s big Strong Style Evolved show in Long Beach, California it was revealed that NJPW will be returning to the U.S. this summer. The announcement, from the president of New Japan Pro Wrestling, was read by the ring announcer to much excitement from the crowd.

They announced that the company will hold a show on July 7th in San Francisco, California at the legendary Cow Palace. This will be a much larger venue for the company as they hedge their bets that they can draw an even bigger house than they did for Sunday’s show at Long Beach State University. Sunday’s Strong Style Evolved show sold out in less than 20 minutes a couple of months ago.

Strong Style Evolved was the third show NJPW has held in the U.S. during the last year, part of their on-going plans to expand into North America. The company also recently opened a dojo in Los Angeles. Last July, New Japan held two G1 Special shows at the Long Beach Convention Center that drew about 2,300 fans each. Strong Style Evolved on Sunday night drew approximately 5,000 fans.

For comparison sake, the Cow Palace in San Francisco will seat in excess of 10,000 fans. The venue has been a legendary home of professional wrestling for decades, notably in the heyday of Ray Stevens and Pat Patterson. When WWE ran the venue in recent years, they usually set the venue up for about 11,000 fans. One of the most famous WWE events held at the venue was No Way Out 2004 where Eddie Guerrero defeated Brock Lesnar for the WWE championship. In the 1980s, WWE shows drew north of 14,000 fans at the Cow Palace.

The July 7th New Japan Cow Palace show will be dubbed Fighting Spirit Unleashed.