Looking Back On The WCW / NJPW Event In North Korea: 25 Years Later

The Aftermath

After the main event finished, Flair would be asked to basically say how much better North Korea was compared to the USA. Of course Flair declined this request but did go on to give a speech praising the late supreme leader Kim Il-Sung. Photos of a beat up Ric Flair would later be used as propaganda in North Korea.

Outside of North Korea, the event garnered very little attention. Antonio Inoki would fail to be re-elected to Japanese congress. In the US, Bischoff's idea didn't really materialise. When WCW choose to air the event on pay-per-view, it only managed 30,000 buys. This was a terrible number in comparison to the numbers other WCW PPVs were getting at the time. Of course in the end WCW would be bought out by the WWE proving this experiment as a fail.

No matter what your thoughts on the event are, it's hard to argue that this wasn't an historical event in wrestling. It will likely be the only time a major American wrestling brand holds an event in North Korea. Despite the fact many fans may have been told to attend, 350,000 people came to the stadium to watch pro-wrestling and that's "a phenomenal achievement" as Eric Bischoff said.