There's foldable cup holders on the back of the seats at Korakuen Hall. Not a detail I'd ever noticed in the countless hours of footage I've consumed watching pro wrestling held within that venue. It's a practical one, though, especially for the unabashedly touristy foreigner that I am.

The plastic mineral water bottle I've been lugging around all day fits nicely into the holder. The others at Korakuen on that day favor beers purchased at the concession stand right outside the gates into the main performance hall.

I myself don't drink, but I do like to eat. The concession stand serves a variety of fun show foods. Tonight's event overlaps with dinnertime, so I make sure to grab something before bell time. I opt for the fried chicken bites, served in a handy paper cup and best enjoyed with the included toothpick. 

It's decent — certainly no Chickenjoy — but it's hot and hits the spot before the action gets going. The breading isn't quite as crispy as other Japanese-style karaage I've eaten in Japan and abroad, but that actually works for me. The real stuff always tends to cut up the roof of my mouth.

It's all very humble and serviceable here in Korakuen Hall, the home of Japanese pro wrestling. 

It's easy to mythologize a place like Korakuen Hall, especially when seeing it through a foreigner's eye. That's an understandable impulse, one that I truly empathize with as a long-time lover of professional wrestling. Opened in 1962, and nestled in the heart of Tokyo right in the shadow of the iconic Tokyo Dome, Korakuen Hall has been synonymous with pro wrestling for much of its existence. 

On the basis of sheer volume, it may just be the most important pro wrestling venue in the entire country, and even the world. Take the enduring iconography of a Madison Square Garden or even Arena Mexico but strip away the powerful associations to a primary partner company, and you get Korakuen Hall. 

No one company lays claim to this building, which means that memories of it are as likely to conjure up the epic King's Road six-man tags of the 90s as they are the fiery deathmatches of FMW. Any pro wrestling company in Japan worth its salt runs Korakuen Hall while they're in Tokyo. It's no wonder then that it's a place Eddie Kingston once called "holy ground for pro wrestling."

The infrastructure itself invites no such reverence. Its outer edifice is a wall of brown without a flashy marquee or blown-up billboard-size posters advertising events. Everything around the building is much brighter and alluring. Beside it stands the intimidating mass of the Tokyo Dome itself, the central hub around which the aptly named Tokyo Dome City is built. 

Across from Korakuen Hall, there’s a combination mall/amusement park boasting branded stores, a Ferris wheel, and even a rollercoaster. It’s bright and flashy, perfect for tourists like me. There's nothing, really, to indicate that the plain brown building in the corner is a combat sports mecca.

A poster for the night's event is on display in a small ticket booth, and beside it, a few pre-show photographs of a ring are the only hints that pro wrestling happens here. Inside, the interiors are plain and well-worn like many other older venues. It's a quality that works in Korakuen's favor — you don't feel much distance at all from the venue in the moment and the histories captured on film throughout the years. 

Nowhere is that clearer than in the main space itself. Korakuen's never been a fancy venue, but its long history has made icons of the simplest things. I'm seated by the two gates that lead to the upper rows through ascending stairs that have been the sight of a million different wild leaps through the years, as wrestlers spring off the higher ledge to an opponent waiting at the top of the steps. Behind me, on the furthest row, I see the metal steps leading up to a small perch where Lionness Asuka once jumped off to crash onto an awaiting KAORU. 

Overlooking the floor are two balconies on either side, the sight of many precarious danglings and near-hangings throughout the years. On this night, Kuroshio Tokyo Japan (better known to many as Ikemen Jiro), does as much when Shiro Koshinaka threatens to throw him over. He doesn't have the balls that many a GAEA legend did in the past to hang or even drop from up there.

Korakuen starts filling up. 

It's Tatsumi Fujinami's Dradition Dragon Expo. He's wrestling Zack Sabre Jr. in the main event, and people are dying to see it. The show is a celebration of Dradition’s long history, dating back to 1995 when Tatsumi Fujinami began promoting shows under the Muga promotional name. 

On that first show, Fujinami wrestled 80s NWA legend Tully Blanchard, a fact that should demonstrate the breadth of what Fujinami’s accomplished throughout his career. It's surreal to think that his catalog includes both wrestling Tully Blanchard in the 1990s and Zack Sabre Jr. in the mid-2020s.

Fujinami still has that draw. His loyal fans have been riding with him for decades now. To that point, I appear to be one of maybe two of the youngest fans in my row. All the men in my row appear to have known Fujinami — and by extension Korakuen Hall — for a couple of decades now.

They bring a reserved energy to the event, humming in approval at a crisp lariat, and only really coming alive for the worthiest moments of the evening (as well as Kuroshio's extended entrance and stalling). 

The other, more involved fans are seated closer to ringside. One man a few rows down from me spends the night enthusiastically attempting — and often failing — to get many chants going.

A child somewhere in the floor seats gets especially invested in LEONA's potential success against Manabu Soya, and their high-pitched encouragement earns an amused return from the rest of the crowd. 

Meanwhile, a squat man dressed in a white tracksuit with a matching hat spends most of the show on his feet with a cup of beer in his hand, directing the traffic of movement for his row of fans. 

I'm seated in Row N with a clear view. I doubt there's a bad seat anywhere in the venue. I even ran up to the farthest corner of the back row to check, and it provided an overview of everything that I would have been happy with as a pro wrestling fan. It's another tick in the column of Korakuen's straightforward design that it's intimate enough to offer a great experience from basically any seat while still large enough to induce a sense of grandeur when necessary. 

It's a perfect venue for someone still working in the twilight years of his career, like Tatsumi Fujinami. His work in 2025 has that same aged quality to it — humble, but rife with meaning and iconography. At 71, he doesn't have that spry, boundless energy that characterized his babyface work in the 70s and 80s. 

Instead, he chooses to work tight and simple, which functions exceedingly well against someone like Zack Sabre Jr., who can get lost in his own shifting focuses. Fujinami makes Sabre earn things a little more than usual, forcing Zack to actually take some steps to escape a tight headscissors. 

Against Fujinami, Sabre doesn't carelessly transition between every conceivable hold in the world. He zones in. His primary tactic here is to go for the arm, while Fujinami tries to wear down the leg.

And much like Korakuen, the iconography of Fujinami's work speaks for itself. When Zack goes for a kick and Fujinami hooks his leg, the anticipation in the building is palpable. There's an immediate rise in energy as everyone waits for Fujinami to snap back on that famous dragon screw leg whip. 

Ever the pro, Fujinami denies the first attempt, transitioning into a hold instead. It's only later, deep into his final comeback of the match, that he nails the dragon screw, activating everyone in attendance. It's just the one move, but it's enough to get the "D-ra-gon!" chants going, even waking up those stoic salarymen lining my row.

Fujinami's booking throughout the night follows a very simple pattern. Several of the matches pit Dradition regulars against bigger names, and they all follow the same general structure: The big name will often work an extended control, we'll get a big feel-good comeback from the Dradition worker, and then a quick final blow snatches it for the outsider. 

It worked best in a match between LEONA and Manabu Soya, with LEONA putting in a real charming babyface performance that gets cut off right at the end with a big lariat. Masakatsu Funaki similarly just catches AKIRA at the finish of their match. 

Fujinami doesn't stray far from this idea himself. After denying an initial attempt at a Zack Driver and chipping away at Sabre's leg in a figure four, Zack finally ends the night by catching Fujinami with the Zack Driver to get the win.

It's a very good match. Already, I've seen many online bemoan the fact that footage of this will be hard to come by. I personally doubt it would make many match of the year lists other than the most esoteric. Perhaps, there's something to how it can be mythologized in people's heads now that it's unseen. 

Much like Korakuen itself, your memories and imagination bring this match to life. The reality of the actual thing is much simpler in design and function. Most importantly? It works, and I'll remember it forever.

Though the memories remain, I can't. There's other places to be on a busy Friday night in Tokyo. I grab my water and fold the cup holder back up against the seat in front of me.

Joseph Montecillo is a writer, video essayist, and stand-up comedian based in the Philippines. He is also a contributor to the BIG EGG wrestling blog.