Kingdom's popularity did not reach or surpass that of the UWF International. Attempts to rectify this by using talent from other shoot-style promotions including
Battlarts did little to help, and it seemed that in the eyes of the Japanese fans the era of
shoot style wrestling had ended. As a result, Kingdom would go out of business in March 1998. In the aftermath, Matsui, Sakuraba, Sano and Takada focused on competing for
mixed martial arts promotion
Pride as part of the
Takada Dojo camp. Yamamoto and Kanehara jumped to
Rings, which had been a splinter promotion formed from the
UWF much like UWF International had been. Meanwhile, Kakihara and Takayama joined
All Japan Pro Wrestling as free agents, while Anjo dabbled in
K-1 before later reappearing in
All Japan Pro Wrestling and Dream Stage Entertainment's
Hustle as "Commander Anjoe". A former trainee of the Kingdom dojo, Hidetada Irie, who debuted at Kingdom's final event, formed a successor promotion called "Kingdom Ehrgeiz", with himself as the top star. The promotion, however, is very obscure and only promotes cards periodically. ==See also==