The third night aired live on pay-per-view (PPV), while the fourth night was taped for four future episodes, including the 300th overall episode, of ROH's weekly television program, Ring of Honor Wrestling.[3] 2017 was the fourth year in which ROH and NJPW co-produced events under the War of the Worlds name. During the third night of the tour, NJPW announced the creation of the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship.[4]
Production
Background
In 2014, Japanese promotion New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and Ring of Honor (ROH) formally forged a relationship, which saw them present the first War of the Worlds show on May 17, 2014, at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, New York. The following year, War of the Worlds was held over two days at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and in 2016 it was expanded to a three-show tour with shows taking place in Dearborn, Michigan, Toronto, Ontario and New York City.[5] The 2017 War of the Worlds tour was officially announced in January 2017, when ROH put tickets on sale for the events. At that point, ROH announced a three-show tour with events taking place on May 7 in Toronto, May 10 in Dearborn and May 14 in Philadelphia with rumors of a fourth show to be added later.[6][7] The fourth show, taking place on May 12 in New York City, was officially added to the tour in March.[8] It was also announced that the show would air on pay-per-view (PPV) as well as the FITE TV application, PlayStation Network and ROHWrestling.com.[9][10] In Japan, the show would also air live on NJPW's internet streaming site, NJPW World.[11] These would mark the fourth annual shows co-promoted by NJPW and ROH.[7]
On April 14, ROH announced the first match for the tour, which would see Christopher Daniels defend the ROH World Championship against Matt Taven on May 10.[21] Taven earned a title shot by winning the Honor Royale on March 4, announcing shortly thereafter his intention of challenging Daniels on the War of the Worlds tour. Daniels and Taven had a history involving the ROH World Tag Team Championship with Taven and Michael Bennett winning the title from Daniels and Frankie Kazarian in 2015.[22] The Dearborn show would also feature a match for the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship with defending champions, Bully Ray and The Briscoes, defending against NJPW's reigning NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team ChampionsLos Ingobernables de Japón (Bushi, Evil and Sanada).[23]
The May 12 show would be main evented by the ROH World Championship being contested in a three-way match with Daniels defending against Cody and Jay Lethal. Cody's challenge had been accepted by Daniels prior to the match with Taven,[24] while Lethal earned a spot in the match on April 8 by winning a four-way match, also involving Hangman Page, Jay White and Silas Young.[25] Cody and Lethal had been feuding with each other in the months prior to War of the Worlds with Lethal defeating Cody in a Texas bullrope match at Supercard of Honor XI.[26] Other title matches would include Marty Scurll defending the ROH World Television Championship against Matt Sydal and Bully Ray and The Briscoes defending the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Championship against the Chaos trio of Beretta, Hirooki Goto and Rocky Romero.[27]
The tour concluding Philadelphia show would be headlined by a Philadelphia Street Fight between Adam Cole and Marty Scurll.[3] Cole's ROH contract had expired on May 1 and it was reported that the Philadelphia show would be his final scheduled appearance for the promotion.[28][29] ROH set up the storyline behind the match at the New York City show, where the Bullet Club stable turned on Cole and replaced him with Scurll.[4] Earlier in the Philadelphia show, Cole cost Scurll the ROH World Television Championship in his match against Kushida, leading to the main event street fight.[3] Instead of being taped for Ring of Honor Wrestling, the main event was taped to be released later on ROH's official website.[3]
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