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The 4/6/19 Ring of Honor/New Japan Pro Wrestling G1 Supercard will officially going on sale to the general public via Ticketmaster.com this morning at 10 AM. The show will likely sell out rather quickly, making it one of the most historic moments in the history of ROH.
The 4/6/19 event at MSG will go head to head with WWE NXT Takeover that evening and is being held the night before Wrestlemania 35. ROH first began running the night before Wrestlemania in 2004, when they ran Elizabeth, NJ opposite the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony.
The WWE ceremony sold out immediately and when PWInsider.com was contacted by fans looking for something to do while in NYC, I called ROH official Gabe Sapolsky and asked why they weren't running the Rexplex in New Jersey, suggesting it as a place for fans to go that night. An hour later, Ring of Honor had booked a date there, which sold out thanks to scores of out of town fans who had never before attended a Ring of Honor event. The event become one of, if not the best, money making night for ROH merchandise sales up to that point in the company's history.
With the exception of 2005 in California, ROH has consistently run Wrestlemania weekend ever since with Supercard of Honor events, setting off a snowball effect that has led to the madness of independent wrestling promotions that surrounds Wrestlemania week annually.
Already announced for the event are Kazuchika Okada, Marty Scurll, Bully Ray (who will become the trivia answer to who was the first wrestler to work for both WWE and ROH in the Garden), Hiroshi Tanahashi, Matt Taven, The Briscoes and Tetsuya Naito.
The belief is that G1 Supercard will stream live online as a paid iPPV event, although that has yet to be officially announced. It will be the biggest crowd in ROH history, and the most expensive undertaking in the history of Ring of Honor, but also the company's first-ever seven figure live gate.
G1 Supercard will be the first non-McMahon related pro wrestling date since the 1960s, it's also going to be the most historic date in Ring of Honor history as they will have officially broken the long-standing no compete policy WWE has had with the Garden. Shortly after the plan for ROH to run the Garden was announced, the date was pulled.
At the time, ROH COO Joe Koff told PWInsider.com, "You know, I’m going to tell you Mike because you are asking. I’m not going to discuss beyond this statement because I am not going to litigate this in the press. We had a deal with [Madison Square] Garden and they then told us they were backing out after communications from the WWE. We are not able to get any other dates in any kind of discussion. I’m expecting that our lawyers will be contacting all the parties involved and the best we can hope is that we can find a resolution, so we can bring the kind of energy and excitement that ROH and our partner New Japan to a bigger audience and to bigger arenas and to the fans of New York City."
Several weeks later, Ring of Honor officially announced the date and that New Japan would partner with them on the show. The implication has been that MSG changed their mind on pulling the date once lawyers got involved, but ROH has consistently declined to comment with Koff explaining that it's MSG's story to tell, if they ever do.
Whether that explanation comes or not, ROH has already moved 12,000 tickets via pre-sales for the event and very shortly, will move even more.
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