Now that the tour has concluded, I can put together the attendance breakdown. As usual, I will focus primarily on returning venues. While the wrestling on the tour was great, attendance was a little shaky. The tour drew a total of 18,674 fans, surpassing last year's tour by 2.75% or 513 people. However, it is important to note that this tour had an extra two shows on top of last year's.
Night #1
Venue: Korakuen Hall
Attendance: Down 32.75% (1,136 fans total, 372 fan drop)
Main Event: O-Khan vs Uemura
This year's Korakuen Hall show drew relatively low attendance, not dropping below 1000 but not close to a sellout. Part of the drop from last year can be attributed to the shift from a Saturday show to a Wednesday show. This year's Korakuen Cup shows are the lowest drawing since 2022, but this is the first time in a number of years that the company has held two shows at the venue rather than just one, which may also have impacted attendance.
Anniversary Event
Venue: Ota City General Gymnasium
Attendance: Down 13.09% (2,949 fans total, 386 fan drop)
Main Event: DOUKI vs Wato (IWGP Jr Heavy)
This year's Anniversary event was put in a somewhat difficult position when comparing it to last year's show, as last year the company was hot off the Goto Revolution, and on this show, Goto was defending his title against Tanahashi in Tana's last ever match for the world title. With the Juniors on top, the show still drew close to 3,000 people to the building.
Night #3
Venue: Baycom Gymnasium
Attendance: Up 3.94% (2,511 fans total, 99 fan gain)
Main Event: Ice vs Oiwa
The highest drawing of the first round shows (not counting the anniversary event), Ice and Oiwa grew the third largest crowd of the tour, and the shift from a Tuesday to a Sunday also helped.
Night #4
Venue: ZIP Arena Okayama
Attendance: Down 6.41% (1,233 fans total, 79 fan drop)
Main Event: Moloney vs Uemura
The opening of the second round saw a soft drop from last year but nothing major last years Okayama show had the EVIL vs Finlay clash and therefore had more stakes in the main event, both shows were held on the same day so there was no day to day drift between the two.
Night #6
Venue: Osaka Kanaoka Park Gymnasium
Attendance: Down 33.63% (800 fans total, 269 fan drop)
Main Event: Goto vs Lee
This show saw the largest percentage drop among all returning venues and was one of three nights that drew fewer than 1,000 people (the others were nights 5 & 9). I will admit I was expecting a larger number as Lee main evented New Beginning in a sold out arena, but I was mistaken. This show also when head to head with Cobb vs Naito and Naito tended to be a larger draw.
Night #9
Venue: Big Pallette Fukushima
Attendance: Down 2.12% (707 fans total, 15 fan drop)
Main Event: Sabre Jr vs Umino
From the largest percent drop to the smallest, typically Big Pallette Fukushima caps at around 750 to 800, so this is below average however, it is far from a drastic drop in attendance over last year.
Night #11
Venue: Aore Nagaoka
Attendance: Down 8.71% (3,009 fans total, 262 fan drop)
Main Event: Newman vs Uemura
This year was the first in a few years where, like the Korakuen shows, there were two shows held in Nagaoka. The attendance drop was there, but not steep and this show was sold out (the only show of the tour). It still drew 3,000 fans and sold out the seating that was availible.
The Misc
Aimesse Yamanashi was not visited last year but was in 2024. This year's show had a 41.61% gain on that show with the same main event (Takagi vs Uemura)
Uemura main evented the most shows with four, Oiwa, Sabre Jr, Umino & Newman are in a second tie with two each.
Conclusion
This year's Cup tour fell a bit flatter than last year's. It outdrew last year's, but that is largely due to the extra two shows held. The tour ended with an average drop of 13.25% (183 fans) in returning venues and, overall, drew an average of 260 fewer fans per show. However, it is important to note that last year's Cup tour was unique in that it featured two IWGP World Heavyweight title matches (Tanahashi & Nagata). To put it into perspective, 2024 had a lower average number of fans per show, lower overall attendance, and an extra show on the tour, and this year outdrew that. Naito, EVIL, Cobb, Tanahashi, Kidd, and Finlay were all involved in the main events last year and are gone this year. Overall, this year's tour had the "young" guys putting on a show to establish themselves as names the fast will know. And we will have to wait a watch as they become bigger names in the industry.
by moagrieve