NWA side, led by president Bruce Tharpe, had been involved in a storyline rivalry with Tencozy and especially Satoshi Kojima ever since Invasion Attack. During the first half of 2014, both Conway and Brisco had unsuccessfully challenged Kojima for his NWA World Heavyweight Championship. The second title match would see Tomohiro Ishii defend the NEVER Openweight Championship against IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Kota Ibushi as part of a rivalry that dated back to previous August's G1 Climax. Also on the card was a tag team match between the teams of Meiyu Tag (Hirooki Goto and Katsuyori Shibata) and Ace to King (Hiroshi Tanahashi and Togi Makabe). On May 5 at Wrestling Dontaku 2014, both teams asserted themselves as the next challengers for Bullet Club's (Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson) IWGP Tag Team Championship, which led to this match, where the winner will be getting the next title shot. In the build-up to the match it was insinuated that there were problems between Goto and Shibata due to Shibata showing more interest in settling a grudge with Tanahashi than another shot at the IWGP Tag Team Championship. During the event mixed martial artists Daniel and Rolles Gracie would be working their first singles matches in NJPW. Since starting with the promotion in January 2014, the Gracies had worked only tag team matches and have taken advantage of the "ishu kakutōgi sen" rules of their matches, which had allowed them to use their gis to choke their opponents and secure submission victories. Ever since their debuts for the promotion, the Gracies had feuded with Kazushi Sakuraba, who gained fame in the MMA circles as "The Gracie Hunter" for his victories over members of the Gracie family. However, in NJPW the Gracies had dominated Sakuraba, with Rolles twice submitting him with a gi choke. In the second of the losses, Sakuraba teamed with Shinsuke Nakamura, who also had a history with the Gracies, losing to Daniel in a legitimate MMA fight in December 2002. Following the match at Wrestling Dontaku 2014, Daniel challenged Nakamura to a match for his IWGP Intercontinental Championship, leading to Back to the Yokohama Arena, where the title match, along with a singles grudge match between Sakuraba and Rolles, was set to take place. Both matches were worked under "ishu kakutōgi sen" rules, but were scripted professional wrestling matches and not legitimate MMA fights. Wrestling Dontaku 2014 marked a