The Beast in the East 2015

The Beast in the East was a professional wrestling event produced by WWE. It took place on July 4, 2015 at Ryōgoku Kokugikan in Sumida, Tokyo, Japan. It aired live on the WWE Network and live on J Sports in Japan. Replays will air on J Sports 4 in Japan. Additionally, it will be available on demand on both the WWE Network and J Sports. It was the first WWE event to be broadcast live from Japan. The Beast in the East was available for free to new subscribers on WWE's monthly subscription service, the WWE Network in over 140 countries.

Background
The Beast in the East featured professional wrestling matches that involved wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds, plots, and storylines that played out on WWE's primary television programs, Raw, SmackDown and NXT. Wrestlers portrayed heroes or villains as they follow a series of events that build tension and culminate in a wrestling match or series of matches.

On May 28, 2015, it was revealed that Brock Lesnar was scheduled to appear at the July 4 live event in Japan. This would mark Lesnar's first non-PPV match for WWE since 2004. Lesnar reportedly requested a spot on the show so he and Brad Rheingans could go to Tokyo to visit Masa Saito, who was in bad health. WWE then released a promotional video announcing that the show would no longer be a house show, and would be broadcast live on the WWE Network. One day later, WWE revealed the entire match card for the show. One of the matches scheduled for the event, The New Day vs. Tyson Kidd and Cesaro, will no longer take place due to Tyson Kidd suffering an injury, which is expected to take him out for over a year. It was later announced that The New Day would face The Lucha Dragons. On the June 3rd edition of NXT, William Regal announced that NXT Champion Kevin Owens will defend his title against Finn Bálor at the event.

Hideo Itami and Tatsumi Fujinami were advertised to appear at the event.

Matches

 * Numbers in parentheses indicate the length of the match.
 * (c) refers to the champion(s) heading into the match.


 * Dark match: Cesaro defeated Diego by submission


 * Dark match: The Lucha Dragons defeated The New Day (Big E and Xavier Woods)


 * Chris Jericho defeated Neville by submission


 * Nikki Bella (c) defeated Paige and Tamina in a Triple Threat Match to retain the WWE Divas Championship


 * Brock Lesnar defeated Kofi Kingston


 * Finn Bálor defeated Kevin Owens (c) to win the NXT Championship


 * John Cena and Dolph Ziggler defeated Kane and King Barrett