| Wrestle Kingdom 9 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 Promotional poster for the event, featuring various NJPW wrestlers | |||
| Promotion | New Japan Pro-Wrestling[1] | ||
| Date | January 4, 2015[2] | ||
| City | Tokyo, Japan[2] | ||
| Venue | Tokyo Dome[2] | ||
| Attendance | 36,000[3] | ||
| Pay-per-view chronology | |||
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| Wrestle Kingdom chronology | |||
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| New Japan Pro-Wrestling events chronology | |||
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Wrestle Kingdom 9 in Tokyo Dome was a professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) promotion, which took place at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan on January 4, 2015. It was the 24th January 4 Tokyo Dome Show and the first event on the 2015 NJPW schedule. The event featured ten professional wrestling matches and one pre-show match, six of which were for championships.
In the double main event, Shinsuke Nakamura successfully defended the IWGP Intercontinental Championship against Kota Ibushi, and Hiroshi Tanahashi successfully defended the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against Kazuchika Okada. A Tanahashi–Okada heavyweight title match had headlined Wrestle Kingdom 7 two years earlier and was also the main event the following year at Wrestle Kingdom 10. Although the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship was successfully defended, the IWGP Tag Team Championship, IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship and NEVER Openweight Championship changed hands. The appearance of Pro Wrestling Noah wrestlers led to a storyline in which NJPW's Suzuki-gun group began wrestling at Noah events starting the week after Wrestle Kingdom 9.
The event was attended by 36,000 people. Through NJPW's partnership with Global Force Wrestling (GFW), the event was broadcast with English commentary as a GFW event. It was available on PPV television in the United States and Canada, and broadcast worldwide on the Internet via Flipps and NJPW World. Critics issued positive reviews; Philly.com said it featured "good, quality wrestling", while Paste magazine said it presented "some of the most passionate and poignant performance art today". Readers of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter voted Wrestle Kingdom 9 the Best Major Wrestling Show of 2015; they also named the Ibushi–Nakamura match as the 2015 Pro Wrestling Match of the Year.