Bushiroad Owner Is Grateful To Mercedes Mone, PROGRESS/DEFY Events Set

In a recent interview with Kakutolog, the founder and representative director of Bushiroad Takaaki Kidani praised Mercedes Mone and her brief IWGP Women’s Title reign.

You can take out some highlights from the interview below:

On if STARDOM will return to the Yokohama Arena: “Oh, that’s right. It’s easy to see, and it’s a very good venue, so if possible, it would be better to hold it at this time every year.”

On Mercedes Mone: “Yes, I am very grateful to her. She is very easy to talk to. I want her to be involved in something from now on. It seems that she likes Japan very much. You’ve been here for quite a long time this time too. I think that the IWGP girls have also raised their rank.”

On STARDOM in the Tokyo Dome: “No… it’s probably still impossible. After reaching a level that fills in here firmly. But that may not be too far off. After all, if New Japan is not in good shape, the audience will decrease, and if it gets better, the number of spectators will increase. It’s a quick recovery, isn’t it? The reason why recovery is so fast is because in the past 10 years, 20 years, 30 years and 40 years, many people have watched New Japan Pro-Wrestling, including when they were children. That’s why when it gets interesting, they come back right away, and when they come back, they invite people, so the number of people who haven’t seen it increases. After all, not only Stardom, but I think there are few people who have seen women’s professional wrestling itself even once. I think that stardom has no choice but to surpass the “large scale” one by one. This time we have firmly brought the threshold to the 5000 level, so it was very big. After all, there are 2000 walls, 3000 walls, 4000 walls, 5000 walls… you have to overcome them one by one.”

In other news, PROGRESS and DEFY Wrestling have announced two shows for August 26 in London, the same weekend as AEW All In.

DEFY ‘The Slendid & The Vile’ takes place at 12:00 PM while PROGRESS; ‘It’s Clobberin’ Time’ transpires at 4:00 PM. Both events will emanate from the Electric Ballroom.

AEW All In 2023 takes place on August 27, 2023, at Wembley Stadium in London, England.

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