Thank you for fighting the system and getting these documentaries up kim! Theres a serious demand for old school puroresu content and you fill that gap! Thank you!!
One of the most amusing things I've seen was that beer was guaranteed to be provided for AJPW talent inside their contracts. Considering how much a lot of wrestlers like to drink, that was probably a nice bonus lol.
A wild and young Haku without a beard! Anyway, it's sad that AJPW is now an Indy fed rather than a major promotion and Giant Baba is very missed by people who endear him.
I wouldn’t call it independent because it has a corporate structure and talent contracts, and frankly I don’t think there’s much of a gap between AJPW and NOAH currently But yes the top three promotions in Japan are probably NJPW, Stardom, and DDT
@joeyjoejoe1394 If I were a pro wrestler, I would want to train all over the world including Japan as I want to combine all styles into one as my ring name will be Antonino Garea (named after Argentina Rocca's first name and Anthony Gareljich's last name of his professional persona). I'll try to have a strong style in New Japan while going to DDT to be part of the shit and giggles of the Ironman Heavyweight Championship division! Obviously I can't go to Stardom because I'm not a cute but tough female wrestler, but I want to see their matches because World Wonder Ring Stardom and NJPW are owned by Bushiroad.
As a Noah fan, this reminds me of the hazy green summertime that was Noah’s early days. We’re on better footing now, we have indeed returned to the Dome, but it’ll never be the same as it was over 20 years ago. I also lived in Japan for a few years. When the topic came up, older people I worked with still called him simply, “Baba-san.” That’s how revered he still is.
@@zafarafay it’s a pretty long and complicated story. But in short, Noah habitually don’t pull the trigger on up and coming talents enough. They also don’t seem to be well-run, financially. The wrestling is almost always good, but they need personalities that they haven’t had much since Kobashi retired. Now we’ve got some good talent leaving, chief among them Katsuhiko Nakajima. He’s always been around the top of the card, but hasn’t had a truly big run with the GHC Heavyweight belt since 2016, when he was a bland babyface. There’s a lot that needs fixing with Noah’s business practices, and a lot wrong with the book, hence why Noah will never be what they were from 2000-09.
@@SoftBank47 well that's saddening to hear. I find NJPW booking to be stale and repetitive hence why I started watching NOAH. Also the production is really good of NOAH and I'm sure you know they ran the Dome as well this year. You don't think they can run the Dome every year? And what could be the reason behind Nakajima's sudden departure? He was a star for NOAH as you said. Do you think it has to do with the booking? Many NOAH fans are criticizing Nosawa. I might come across as naive here but is there actually a chance NOAH surpasses NJPW? With CyberAgent is there any hope?
@@zafarafay not a chance NOAH surpasses NJPW. The latter has too much of an international appeal and presence. NOAH got back to the Dome on the replaced knees of old-ass Mutoh, so returning to the Dome is a pipe dream at best.
@@SoftBank47 so the impression I'm getting is NOAH can't really do much apart from improving their booking and creating more younger stars. I was told CyberAgent has really good finances so they might be able to offer lucrative contracts to attract better talents. But they can only do so much to improve the international appeal. It's down to booking after all. I firmly believe NOAH can turn things around and be a solid competition to NJPW. But it's going to be a very slow and long process.
Giant Baba is the complete Anti-Thesis of Antonio Inoki. While the latter was known for being the most strict mentor, Giant Baba was well-known for being the most wholesome. He had eye for young talents and was known to be the prime example of Veteran Sympathy in wrestling history. As he would go through great lengths to cultivate future generations of wrestlers in his stable, like a father to his sons. This was one of the reasons why Giant Baba was well-loved by Japan itself. Because when he died, they didn't just lost a legend, they lost a father figure they've always looked up to.
I think Baba’s only major downsides were his King’s Road style ultimately proving to dangerous for a wrestler’s long term health The other would be the slow burn to the top which upon being handled after his passing caused part of Noah’s creation. That being lack of pushing younger and healthier talent The last one would be his handling of a juniors division would be comparable to how lacking WWF’s was compared to WCW with NJPW. That being mentioned quite a few times in by Kim in other videos like the M Pro video for These Days
I've always believed that if Motoko hadn't been so stubborn by clinging onto her husband's philosophy of wrestling, then maybe the NOAH exodus would've never happened and All Japan wouldn't have damn near capitulated the way it did. I'm not saying Misawa was completely faultless, but all he wanted was to start pushing younger talent and help take better care of the wrestlers and Motoko wouldn't listen to anything.
It's awesome to see someone doing in depth looks at All Japan/NOAH. I think it's one of the most fascinating eras in wrestling and there are so many things to talk about. I don't think Giant Baba gets as much credit for booking and general promotion as he deserves. The stability he brought to his promotion and the ability to create stars in Tenryu, Tsuruta, Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, and others over the years is hard to beat, and his ability to book the Champion Carnival to not only protect the top stars, but also help make new ones is probably only rivaled by Gedo's G1 booking in recent years. Although All Japan by the 90's was the most conservative of the major wrestling promotions, it's important to remember that some of the production choices made by Baba with the introduction of entrance music and lighting for wrestling shows was, at the time, revolutionary. All Japan also pioneered the merchandising of wrestling in the 70's with T-shirts, music, and other souvenirs. I think it's a shame that Motoko and Misawa weren't able to work together because the split probably damaged the popularity of wrestling long term. Motoko probably gets more criticism because she was not well liked by the locker room or in the media but she was somewhat justified in wanting to keep things the way they were. Sure house show business wasn't doing great, but the Tokyo-centric All Japan was still selling out the big Budokan shows which were really the big money makers, the TV ratings were excellent given the poor time slot the promotion had, and the promotion was overall still very profitable. In the end I don't blame Misawa and Co for leaving though since she apparently was unwilling to negotiate at all.
Over all I absolutely love this but one thing you got wrong here is that Tenryu did win the Triple Crown in his first run in the company. June 5th 1989.
It makes one wonder if Triple H and Stephanie haven’t contemplated this in the later 2010s and do their own Exodus with everything Vince has done with his allies in Bruce and Dunn. Though with everything that came upon the changing of the last few years any POSSIBLE thoughts were likely dashed: Nick Khan’s hiring and later promotion, selling of The Network, Triple H losing control of NXT, Covid, Triple H’s heart issues and forced in-ring retirement, Stephanie’s retirement, Vince’s legal issues and retirement, Stephanie’s return, Triple H and Stephanie taking over, all the rehirings, Vince’s return after several months, Stephanie leaving again, and finally the selling of WWE to UFC …it’s insane to think all that and quite a bit more has happened in just that ONE company in the span of nearly just 5 years
I've been waiting for English-language vids summarizing this era. Good to finally see a good one. [Edit] NOAH exodus was my #1 topic, but the rise and fall of Inoki-ism would be my #2
we need a video on Misawa from this time frame, from the Heir Apparent, denied his destiny in All Japan. to the Emerald Dynasty that he built brick by brick at the Differ Ariake.
Honestly the fact that were able to distance themselves from Kings Road helped them rebuild into a different style, Noah had trouble building up a new regime & continuing that style brought over by the exodus after Misawa passed. The first exodus they were rebuilding with disgruntled NJPW talent who had their own quiet exodus of sorts because of Inokism so replacing the talent was fine, it was the loss of identity that hurt the most, losing Baba.
This is a wonderful video. I got into Puroresu in 2005 and then kind of dropped out of following wrestling altogether in about 2013 but NOAH (whose first UK show I went to in 2008) and 1990s AJPW were by far my favourite promotions. I do have a few points to add: -I've read (and it could be wrong) that part of the reason Kawada didn't get pushed as hard was due to the fact he upset Baba by criticising the fact he wouldn't work with other promotions at a time when NJPW was raking in tons of money with the UWFi feed. This apparently landed him in the doghouse and is the reason Taue won the Triple Crown in 1996 off Misawa when the original plan was for Kawada to win it. Being in the Doghouse would probably explain some of the baffling booking decisions they made even as late as 1998 when they had Kawada drop the title right after winning it in that huge Tokyo Dome match from Misawa! (Funnily enough, the UWFi ran a show at Jingu Stadium in September 1996 which Kawada did work on, facing Takayama so Baba must have given him the OK to do that?) -There's a website called Quebrada (dot net) which has an AJPW news archive (as well as news archives for other Japanese promotions) going from late 1999 to mid 2001. Some of the links don't seem to work properly so you have to type the address in manually but it's interesting with hindsight seeing a Western fan criticising some of Misawa's booking decisions in AJPW at that time and pointing out how the company was struggling to draw outside of Tokyo. Here's a paragraph the site owner wrote in December of 1999 when the cards had been announced for the then upcoming "New Years Giant Series 00" tour: "Someone was asking whether '00 Giant Series is going to draw due to the new/different matches. Obviously it's very important for AJ to improve upon the poor (for a major company) business, aside from Tokyo, that they did in 1999. However, that can't happen based on the way they are continuing to 1) roll out matches left and right for no logical reason and 2) book all the guys that have come from other promotions (meaning outsiders and guys like Hase, Kakihara, etc. that were already stars with other Japanese promotions prior to coming to All Japan) except Vader into oblivion. When you look at their lineups, you just have to shake your head. It's the same old problems 1) lack of continiuty 2) only a few guys with a meaningful "role" 3) the same old results 4) new things becoming old immediately because the same guys always win, killing off any potential business the new blood could do. In the end, business will not improve in the foreseeable future because they more new things they try to do on each tour, the less new things are available in the future. Don't get me wrong, doing new things is good, but it has to open new doors that could have a pot of gold behind them rather than slam them in the faces of anyone that could potentially move into their small elite group." -In the latter part of the video, you mention Tenryu didn't have the chance to win the Triple Crown during his first time round in AJPW. He was actually the second man to hold it, defeating Jumbo on June 5th 1989 before losing it back to him in October that year. Funnily enough, Tenryu's last match in AJPW before leaving for SWS was a Triple Crown match against Jumbo in April 1990 after which Stan Hansen came out and attacked Jumbo to switch the focus away from Tenryu leaving (at least I think I read that somewhere many moons ago). Keep up the great work!
For your second point, it really isn’t hard to see why Misawa booked NOAH into a corner and led it into a downturn. I can’t exactly remember where I saw this, but apparently Kawada publicly criticised Misawa’s booking at some point and suggested Masanobu Fuchi as booker instead, on the basis that he was the one who assembled the absolute masterpieces of 6 man tag matches between Super Generation Army vs Tsuruta-gun.
This is an awesome video and hearing Toryumon (what would later become Dragon Gate) and Michinoku Pro being mentioned makes me want to see a video about those two fairly obscure promotions. (at the time) Out of curiosity, does anyone know the sort of old school country song playing in the last portion of the video when talking about Makato Baba? It's also really cool seeing Fuchi get the credit he deserves.
My Brother and I went to The Dragon Gate USA Shows in Philadelphia in 2009 and 2010. That's where we first saw Pac, Jon Moxley Brodie Lee and many others some of whom we see in NJPW, AEW and other Professional Wrestling Promotions.
Still blows my mind that All Japan Pro Wrestling and Pro Wrestling NOAH are still in business, they are both in their own way, the Impact Wrestling of Japan, lol. Seriously and not joking, both brands have survived incidents that ended much smaller brands, see the death of David Von Erich and World Class Championship Wrestling as an example. To be frank, I think what occurred to Pride and other Japanese MMA brands in the early 2010's, helped Pro Wrestling in Japan.
Kawada’s run post split is incredible. His matches against Sasaki, especially the first where Kawada gets the pin, is THE most underrated run in wrestling history
Insane to think we're going on almost 25 years and All Japan isn't even in the top 3 let alone 4, it's like a super indie the size of ROH at its mid 2010s days. It even had to change names as a company and keep the AJPW name as a sort of mask to hide the fact they moved office and priesidents after Muto's own exodus of talent to form Wrestle-1 and finally the recent humiliation of having one of there top heels leave for Noah in the form of Jake Lee who's name and stock has gone drastically up all the way to the upper card.
Great video. This period of wrestling was crazy to me, as I was just starting to get onto the internet. Learning and loosely following it was such a time. With everything going on with WWF, WCW, and ECW, it lined up perfectly with the madness happening in AJPW. What a time. Curious to see if there's a video made of Keiji Muto's AJPW era. The tape trading/early IWC hated so much of it, but it was easy to transition over to if you were a WWE fan.
Jun Akiyama makes me think of Hangman Page more than Roman Reigns, since the latter's gimmick nearly always had go-away heat as a babyface. I think it is more that the chase for Gold wasn't handled properly, overbooked, which is why it doesn't pay-off once they actually carry a world title. Both Adam Page and Jun Akiyama had tepid runs with a world title because there was no idea where to go once either guy had it.
As late as this is a response I wanted to still bring it up anyways While I can agree your comparison fits well, I do believe the one with Roman is still applicable In the case of Page he was acknowledged from the onset to be the initial project, but probably realizing it be to soon had him lose to Jericho and then take the long road to his title win involving numerous storylines to get there With Roman it became obvious from the start as well he was Vince’s big project made even more so when he kept ALL the SHIELD stuff sans the lyrics for the entrance music once the group splintered From there he got everything without much to his character being changed from SHIELD Roman to Next Big Face Roman Akiyama had initial development and interactions with the 4 Pillars and others like Hansen and Vader Roman had slightly similar with the SHIELD vs Evolution feud But ultimate he was the one getting major show matches like MitB, Royal Rumble, and fights with long established stars solo (Triple H, Orton, Cena, Bryan, Undertaker, and Brock) and unlike Seth who had heel cheap wins Or Moxley who got shaky wins or just total loses Reigns got numerous wins or success in loses Jun got slotted right in the main event from the word go not to dissimilar to Roman post SHIELD breakup And to add to your title reign point, most recall Roman’s early wins as either short or bogged down by terrible matches (Mania match with Triple H did him no favors) and even his most prominent and best reign recently as Tribal Chief took MONTHS to really get there since it involved some really bad booking and matches (his title defense against Demon Finn with the constant music, heart restart nonsense, and ridiculous turnbuckle collapse bit)
Giant Baba set the stage for MANY Japanese talents getting recognized in the states. Especially, with his working relationship with Fritz Von Erich and his Texas territory. The same can be said for the Funk's with Terry & Dory Jr. These two families were VERY influential in the Japanese/American exchange of talent. Japanese Puroresu as a whole in my opinion is probably THE BEST pro wrestling in the world. It is a little bit of amateur wrestling, martial arts, all mixed together. Many of these talents working for NOAH, All Japan, New Japan, etc...Have extensive amateur backgrounds from high school/college. And of course martial arts backgrounds. That's why it's often difficult for gaijin talent to assimilate over there. It's a completely different style of wrestling. Extremely stiff and very competitive. And they have stuck with those roots to this day. Unlike American companies which have swayed more towards entertainment. Which is sad in my candid opinion.
Hey Kim, love the channel, i was wonder if you ever considered doing a video about World Wrestling All stars? It was a company from Australia. I only remember them because a friend of mine ordered a ppv (from 2002) that had sabu on it. That company seemed very erratic to say the least...... anyways thank you for all the wrestling content. And LONG LIVE MISAWA!!!!
Im glad you said it , Hard Luck Kawada is one of my tippy top favorite wrestlers too ! And yes he was a brilliant sell artist , striker , wrestler and helped produce in ring drama in some of my favorite matches ever ! Legend . Once again thanks for the great content . I truly appreciate it .
YO! you've become my GO TO channel for Purosou and it's RICH history, I'm hoping someday you'll do a Akira Towe video where you've said he's the (paraphrasing) smallest piller
From what I read back in the day, initially Misawa wasn't interested in having any foreigners in NOAH. I'm guessing influence from NTV persuaded him otherwise.
Awesome documentary 💯 I'm a big fan of AJPW & Noah and this time of the Exodus and the formation of a new competition has always interested me I hope you keep doing more videos on All Japan during the 2000s 💪
A tremendous video Kim. I enjoy all of your videos but I think this one is the best you've done. Also loved the one about my favorite wrestler of all time Kenta Kobashi:s GHC title reign. I have read a couple of books on this particular subject and this video is a great companion piece. Keep up the good work my man.
In the US at least, Mrs. Baba would have had a strong argument that Misawa breached his fiduciary duty to AJPW by working against it while still president.
I thought the same thing. It's bizarre to me that he remained company president while doing all that. He should have resigned his position and just held onto the book and had matches.
I know next to little or nothing about Japanese wrestling. Especially not the history or backstage goings on. I know a little bit more now. Fantastic video and thank you for the information. Keep up the good work 👍
Kawada’s overall character arc is this, he refuses to be overshadowed by Misawa and he’ll do whatever it takes to become the ace of All Japan, even if it means whooping Misawa and take everything that he holds dear in his heart.
That was amazing: Thank you for this piece of nostalgia magic. AJPW of the 90’s is my favorite wrestling era/promotion of all time. Still re watching to this day the matches people upload on YT. I wish wrestling was still like this but sadly wrestling’s just dead to me. And I wasn’t aware of all the shenanigans power struggle stuff you mentionned even though I’ve been watching AJPW more than 20 years ago. Thank you for this fine mini documentary. 🤜🏽💥🤛🏽
On a side note, I too like Kawada. I can totally identify with him as a success in life, but often overlooked to the point that each of us was thought of as "The Other Guy". As for other favorites in Pro Res include Tatsumi Fujinami, Keiji Muto in the 1990s, the other three Pillars, Jumbo, the Funks, and Vader.
As somebody who was late to Japanese wrestling. Admittedly, not getting involved and watching regularly until the Ricochete - Osprey match from 2015 that went viral. A few mo mn😮iiths later I watches Omega v Okada 1 and my goodness I was hooked on NJPW. I fell off around the pandemic. I was so disappointed that Naito finally got another run towards the main title and that it was going to happen during the pandemic and thereby in an empty arena. Just a huge letdown. Naito had 2 majorly dissapointing title wins. Bummer
14:56 Johnny Ace (John Laurinaitis) always one of a sad case to me. Very talented wrestler in Japan, But always ended up as a joke in American Wrestling scene both as wrestler and backstage roles. And ended up screwing himself in WWE. Still wondered why he choose to back to America instead of staying in Japan.
From what’s available on the internet it looks like he left after the ajpw/Noah split. He probably realized ajpw was in trouble, probably also had a list of injuries over the years and then also probably got a sweet deal from WcW before they went belly up to be a behind the scene guy and not have to wrestle. Just my goofball theory though so who knows
The one thing I didn't like about this video is how it presented New Japan's feuds with other promotions as them killing the other fed. It was them being in the mud so badly that forced them to beg at NJPW for some relevancy as the ultimate desperate measure. UWFi was going under no matter what, it wasn't the NJPW feud that killed it, if anything it bought the company time to try to stay alive. Same with any other promotion they partnered with, the reason why NJPW won all the feuds is because they were so clearly superior any other result would not have been accepted by the public, either due to failings of the opponents or them not ever being in the same league in the first place. There's a reason why it's always seen as a last resort to do these interpromotional feuds. The modern feud with NOAH the mid 2010s was the exact same, a company in the mud needing help to draw anything practically begging to be helped by the much healthier promotion who had much less to gain from facing opponents seen as inferior by their audience. Interpromotional feuds with the major promotions are the signs of either one promotion doing terribly (UWFi, AJPW in 2000, NOAH in 2015), simply being much smaller and needing help (WAR) or the entire scene being in the mud (the 2000s general state with all the big matchups, especially from the mid 2000s onwards until Bushiroad bought NJPW basically, and the current pandemic era of general industry wide crisis). As soon as NJPW gets on its feet all these deals are going in the bin too, except the Stardom one since it benefits a sister company and maybe AJPW since they are so below them and might need the help a lot. Actually the NOAH one may continue since it seems to be an ABEMA operation and both of their tv partners are in on it, but reduced to a once a year thing.
It's comical to me, how especially North American Wrestlers diss Inoki and Praise Baba. Inoki really was Japanese Vincent K McMahon. Even Tanahashi who rarely disses anyone, did not have many kind words to say Inoki before or after Inoki became deceased.
For all the hate, both Inoki and McMahon put wrestling into another level to people who was not familiar to them before. There's a reason fans outside Japan more familiar with the term of "Strong Style" than King's Road".
@@dodykusumanto8377yeah but strong style is dead when inoki was fired from NJPW. NJPW now is using royal road with ark style (the Noah's rendition of Kings road style)
@@dashtoroya2838Yeah because if wrestlers in New Japan used traditional All Japan King's Road Style, half the roster would need Spinal Fusion, that's if they're lucky. 😅
@@dodykusumanto8377Inoki's version of Strong Style looks absolutely ridiculous nowadays to people who have been watching MMA for years. It turns out it's really dumb to just stand still and let someone kick you. You can try to get out of the way or block.
Very few promoters and bookers can say they have built multiple young generations of mega stars. Giant Baba and Vince McMahon can say they did and that makes them the greatest in the history of the business.
Wasn't another component of the locker room turning was Misawa discovering that Baba kept their licensing money and used it as a slush fund for a decade?
While Baba was very generous with his gaijin talent, he underpaid his native workers. The highest paid native (Misawa) was making the same money per annum ($250k) as the NJPW Jr. Heavyweight Koji "Tiger Mask III" Kanemoto. The natives were so impoverished that many of them had take out loans from Baba. One of the many reasons Kawada stayed loyal was because he was heavily financially indebted to Baba's estate.
@@blitzerblazinoah6838$250K in the late 90s is actually really good pay for a wrestler, especially considering AJPW's revenues mostly came from ticket sales. That's $456000 in 2024 dollars.
Its interesting in Japan it seems the top wrestlers have more power then the office while in the United States the office has all the power and the wrestlers could be left in the streets with no say.
It depends on the company really. AEW still has wrestlers as executive VPs after all. In terms of the wrestler contracts itself I don't know if they become actual employees of the company when they sign or are classified as independent contractors like they are in the US. Given the US influence on Japanese business I'd guess it's the later.
