>>4892653Typically the reason cards are filled with tag matches in Japanese wrestling is because they do a lot of shows but they still want their top guys to be on every show in some way, if possible, to give everyone the most value for their ticket. Most of their revenue comes from attendance in Japan so it's important. And obviously, you can't have guys working 20 minute plus singles matches every night, 200 nights a year, they'd be broken to shit.
So the solution is to put them in multi-man tag matches. They use them to preview upcoming singles matches, like if Okada and Naito are wrestling the next day, it'll be an LIJ vs. Chaos tag match or something and it's how they move stories forward.
But in this instance, OP's example, this is a cross-promotional show and the reason they do so many tags is entirely different. It makes it a lot easier to decide who goes over and prevents any arguments. If you made the biggest NJPW vs AJPW match, like Jake Lee vs. Okada or something I guess, Okada would clearly go over because NJPW is the much stronger promotion but that's not really great for AJPW's top guy. So, they'll put them in tags with a lesser guy on each team, somebody to eat the pins. And the card will end up being balanced around that, though it will still heavily favor NJPW in wins/losses I'm sure.
