The G1 Supercard Sells Out Madison Square Garden

April 6, 2019, New York, New York

Ring of Honor & New Japan Pro-Wrestling make history when they co-promote the G1 Supercard at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The event, which marked the 13th anniversary of ROH’s Supercard of Honor show, quickly sold-out its 16,500 tickets and was streamed live on several internet carriers as well as traditional pay-per-view television. Although it was notable due to the cooperation between ROH and New Japan in promoting the event, the 2019 Supercard of Honor made headlines & history when it became the first professional wrestling card at MSG in more than seventy years to be promoted by someone outside of the McMahon family.

When news broke that The Garden had been booked by someone not named McMahon, it raised quite a few eyebrows around the world of wrestling. While WCW had held events in New York City at the adjoining Felt Forum (now known as the Hulu Center) in 1993 and again in 1996, it was never able to negotiate a deal that allowed it to promote The Garden. Of course, this was due, primarily, to MSG’s long standing relationship with WWE and the McMahon family. Taking that into consideration, it was not a huge surprise when, one month after word had leaked that ROH would be running WWE’s home arena, it was announced that the ROH event had been cancelled. However, facing the very real possibility of legal repercussions, MSG management quickly agreed to give Sinclair Broadcasting’s promotion a date at The Garden the night before WrestleMania 35, which was being held at MetLife Stadium in neighboring East Rutherford, New Jersey.

The G1 Supercard featured twelve matches, with each promotion offering its best individual bouts as well as combining to book several inter-promotional matchups. The card’s lineup included Kenny King winning a 30-man Honor Rumble (and earning a future shot at the ROH World title) by eliminating Jushin Liger, while Kelly Klein defeated Mayu Iwatani for the Women of Honor World title, The Guerrillas of Destiny won a four-team, winner-takes-all match for the ROH and IWGP World Tag Team championships, Zack Sabre, Jr. (with Taka Michinoku) defended his British Heavyweight title against Hiroshi Tanahashi, and, in another winner-takes-all title match, Jeff Cobb defeated Will Ospreay for the NEVER Openweight and ROH World Television championships. All total, the G1 Supercard saw no less than five new champions crowned in The Garden.

The three featured matches of the event consisted of Kota Ibushi defeating Tetsuya Naito for the NJPW Intercontinental championship, a three-man Ladder Match for the ROH World Heavyweight championship that saw Matt Taven become the new titleholder when he bested Marty Skurll and the reigning champion Jay Lethal, while, in the main event of the evening, IWGP champion Jay White faced New Japan Cup winner Kazuchika Okada, with Okada defeating White to become the new IWGP World Heavyweight champion.