Sakura Genesis 2017 was a professional wrestling event promoted by New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), which took place on April 9, 2017, in Tokyo at Ryōgoku Kokugikan.

Traditionally, the title match has taken place at the April Ryōgoku Kokugikan show, previously known as Invasion Attack and now as Sakura Genesis.

[13] The semi main event of Sakura Genesis 2017 would see Hiromu Takahashi make his third defense of the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship against previous champion Kushida.

[13][16] After capturing the title from Kushida on January 4, 2017, at Wrestle Kingdom 11 in Tokyo Dome, Takahashi successfully defended it against Dragon Lee on February 11 and Ryusuke Taguchi on March 6.

[13][16] Sabre made his NJPW debut on March 6, defeating Katsuyori Shibata with help from Davey Boy Smith Jr. and Minoru Suzuki to capture the British Heavyweight Championship, joining the Suzuki-gun stable in the process.

[13] War Machine made their NJPW debut in late 2016 during the 2016 World Tag League and put themselves in title contention in February 2017 by defeating The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson) and Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa) during the NJPW and ROH co-produced Honor Rising: Japan 2017 shows.

[22] Other matches at Sakura Genesis 2017 would include Los Ingobernables de Japón (Bushi, Evil, Sanada and Tetsuya Naito) taking on Taguchi Japan (Hiroshi Tanahashi, Juice Robinson, Ricochet and Ryusuke Taguchi) in an eight-man tag team match, which followed Tanahashi, Ricochet and Taguchi defeating Bushi, Evil and Sanada for the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship on April 4,[23] as well as a tag team match between the Bullet Club duo of Bad Luck Fale and Kenny Omega and the Chaos duo of Tomohiro Ishii and Toru Yano, which stemmed from the New Japan Cup, where Ishii eliminated Omega in the first round and Fale eliminated Yano in the second.

[13] In the first title match of the event, Suzuki-gun's Taichi and Yoshinobu Kanemaru made their first successful defense of the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship against Jado & Gedo with help from their stablemate El Desperado.

[24][27] The fourth title match saw Hiromu Takahashi defeat Kushida in just 116 seconds to make his third successful defense of the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship.

[28] In the main event, Kazuchika Okada made his fourth successful defense of the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against New Japan Cup winner Katsuyori Shibata.

Meltzer also praised Tetsuya Naito and the booking around the match between Los Ingobernables de Japón and Taguchi Japan, stating that Juice Robinson was made a star in one night.

[36] Shibata made an emotional surprise appearance at the 2017 G1 Climax finals on August 13, walking to the ring and simply stating "I am alive.

[37] At the G1 Climax 31 finals on October 21, 2021, Shibata had an unannounced 5-minute UWF Rules exhibition match with Zack Sabre Jr. which ended in a time limit draw.