All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling

Acronym	AJW
Founded	1968
Defunct	2005
Style	Joshi puroresu
Headquarters	Japan
Founder	Matsunaga brothers
Predecessor	All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling Association
Successor	New AJW (unofficial)

All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling (全日本女子プロレス,Zennihon Joshi Puroresu), nicknamedZenjo (全女: 全 meaning "All", 女 meaning "Woman") was ajoshi puroresu (women's professional wrestling)promotion established in 1968 by Takashi Matsunaga and his brothers. The group held their first card on June 4 of that year. For close to 33 years it had a TV program onFuji TV calledWomen's Professional Wrestling.

TheAll Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling Corporation, established in 1968, was the successor to theAll Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling Association, which had been formed in August 1955, to oversee the plethora of women's wrestling promotions that had sprung up in Japan following a tour in November, 1954, byMildred Burke and her World Women's Wrestling Association (WWWA). These promotions included theAll Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling Federation, and theAll Japan Women's Wrestling Club, started in 1948, which was the first women's wrestling promotion in Japan. For a time the Club pushed female wrestling as a legitimate sport, booking sporting arenas.

By the mid-1960s, the association had fallen apart, due to infighting between the member promotions, and female wrestling was relegated back to being a sideshow act in strip-tease theaters. In 1967, another attempt to organize the sport of women's professional wrestling was made with a new All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling Association. This timethe Fabulous Moolah, theNWA Women's Champion, came across from theUnited States and traded her title withYukiko Tomoe, to lend legitimacy to the promotion. The new Association broke up later that year. Finally, in 1968, Takashi Matsunaga, who had been thepromoter for All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling Federation, formed the All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling Corporation (AJW) with his brothers Kenji, Kunimatsu and Toshikuni.^[1] The promotion held its first card on June 4, 1968, and got a television deal withFuji TV in the same year.

In the fall of 1970, AJW, which had been contesting the American Girls' Wrestling Association Championship since the previous year, hostedMarie Vagnone, new holder ofMildred Burke'sWWWA World Single Championship which had been revived in a WWWA tournament earlier that year inLos Angeles. On October 15, 1970, inTokyo, Vagnone lost the WWWA title toAiko Kyo, and AJW had a new world championship singles belt. The next year, AJW acquired theWWWA World Tag Team Championship as well, whenJumbo Miyamoto and Aiko Kyo were made the first champions on June 30, 1971.

During the early 1970s, AJW's championship booking was dominated by the traditional trading between a Japaneseface and a foreign (usually North American)heel. The tag belt, for example, was traded fifty-six times between 1971 and 1975, each time between a Japanese team and an American team. This pattern began to change in 1975 with the new stardom of Mach Fumiake andthe Beauty Pair (Jackie Sato andMaki Ueda). On March 19, 1975, Mach Fumiake won the WWWA Championship from Jumbo Miyamoto, breaking the pattern in the singles division. After that, only three non-Japanese women ever won the belt, the CanadianMonster Ripper, on July 31, 1979, and March 15, 1980, the MexicanLa Galactica, on May 7, 1983, and the AmericanAmazing Kong, on June 4, 2004.

On July 6, 1980, the promotion had enough popularity to run more shows throughout the country, which resulted in AJW splitting into two teams. Team A featured wrestlers such asJackie Sato,Jaguar Yokota andMimi Hagiwara while Team B featuredNancy Kumi,Lucy Kayama andChino Sato. This lasted until June 1981.^[2]

During the 1980s, AJW continued to feature extraordinarily talented and popular female wrestlers, includingWrestling Observer Newsletter (WON) Hall of Famers,Bull Nakano,Jaguar Yokota,Devil Masami,Dump Matsumoto, and theCrush Gals (Chigusa Nagayo andLioness Asuka). The feud between the pop culture sensations, the Crush Gals, and the heel stable, Gokuaku Domei, led by Matsumoto, was possibly the most popular angle in all of Japanese wrestling during the 1980s, bringing very high ratings to AJW's weekly television program which caused the show be aired during prime-time. This also resulted in record numbers of girls wanting to become wrestlers with the 1984 auditions having 2,000 candidates.^[3]

Up until 1986, AJW had been the only major women's wrestling (joshi puroresu or simplyjoshi) promotion in Japan. Then, on August 17, 1986,Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling (JWP) was started, by former AJW stars Jackie Sato and Nancy Kumi, as well asboxerRumi Kazama and others. As All Japan Women's popularity cooled off after the Crush Gals retired, the promotion's television show was moved to midnight.

While AJW remained the top promotion through the early 1990s, due to talent includingAkira Hokuto,Aja Kong,Manami Toyota andKyoko Inoue, the number ofjoshi puroresu promotions kept increasing, withLadies Legend Pro-Wrestling andJWP forming in 1992 after the collapse ofJapan Women's Pro-Wrestling. This created an unprecedented era of co-operation between the various companies which resulted in many inter-promotional shows includingBig Egg Wrestling Universe, the first ever all women's show at theTokyo Dome.^[1] Competition increased again asGaea Japan formed in 1995 andJDStar formed in 1996 with both promotions having former All Japan Women's stars includingChigusa Nagayo,Akira Hokuto,Lioness Asuka andJaguar Yokota.

1997 would prove to be a nightmare year for All Japan Women as the owners of All Japan Women's went bankrupt after losing money in real estate, the stock market and other business ventures. Due to this, they lost 14 wrestlers from July to September 1997.Kyoko Inoue,Etsuko Mita,Mima Shimoda, Chaparita Asari,Yoshiko Tamura and others left to formNEO Japan Ladies Pro-Wrestling.Toshiyo Yamada left forGaea Japan.Aja Kong,Mariko Yoshida,Reggie Bennett, Yumi Fukawa and Rie Tamada left to formArsion. In October 1997, the promotion's building which held the AJW office, the wrestler dormitories, the training area, the garage (where small events were sometimes held) and a restaurant where the younger wrestlers worked was handed over to creditors.^[4] In October, they also lost their television show onFuji TV which they later regained in July 1998.

In 2002, AJW lost its television spot again and the promotion closed its doors in April 2005 after 37 years, making it the longest-running promotion in Japan up to that time (Men's promotionsNew Japan Pro Wrestling andAll Japan Pro Wrestling have since reached 50 years as of 2022).

Promotion company Tajima Kikaku re-established "New" AJW in 2006, however they only acquired the rights to the promotion's name and logo from the Matsunaga family, not the titles. The talent was mostly borrowed fromJWP Project and the cards were sporadic. In 2012 the "New" AJW stopped promoting cards.^[5]

The most notable annual events in AJW were theJapan Grand Prix andTag League the Best. TheJapan Grand Prix was held each summer, from 1985 to 2004, and was a tournament to determine the number one contender for theWWWA World Single Championship, similar to theG1 Climax orChampion Carnival seen in the men's promotionsNew Japan Pro-Wrestling andAll Japan Pro Wrestling, respectively.Tag League the Best was held each fall, also from 1985 to 2004, and was a tag team tournament.

AJW also held several regular annual events during the 1990s. The first wasWrestlemarinpiad, which was held in the fall or spring from 1989 to 1997, and for the last time in 2000. Also prominent wasWrestling Queendom, held from 1993 to 1997, the first held in November and the rest in the end of March.

The AJW Hall of Fame had its first inducted class enshrined on November 29, 1998, at theYokohama Arena inYokohama, Japan. This was at AJW's 30th anniversary event. All but two members of the Hall of Fame (indicated with a†) were inducted at the initial ceremony.

• "Archived Official Website". Archived from the original on October 18, 2000. RetrievedMarch 21, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
• Information about All Japan Women's
• All Japan Women's title histories
• AJW Hall of Fame
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• All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling
• Japanese women's professional wrestling promotions
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• 1968 establishments in Japan
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• 2005 disestablishments in Japan

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