Underground Spotlight: All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling: The Dawning of a New Era (Part 1)

Today, women's wrestling is given a platform to succeed in a male-dominated world but did you know about the first company where women took that big step to prove themselves to be on the men's level? It wasn't in the United States. 

The Beginning

In 1968, Zenjo Corporation(All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling Corporation) was formed by and his brothers. It was the successor to the Zenjo Association which was formed officially in 1955 to oversee the Zenjo promotions that were brought up after Mildred Burke's World Women's Wrestling Association's tour in November 1954.

The Zenjo Association suffered through conflicts between the promotions within, sadly the wrestling was relegated to being sideshow acts at striptease theatres. In 1967, another attempt to organize the sport of women's professional wrestling was made with a new Zenjo Association. This time The Fabulous Moolah, the NWA World Women's Champion came across from the United States and traded her title with Yukiko Tomoe who dropped the title back to Moolah 23 days later to start the longest reign of that title and 2nd longest of any other Women's title. This lent national legitimacy to the promotion.

Takashi Matsunaga, who was the promoter of the Zenjo federations started the corporation alongside his brothers. The first card was held on June 4th, 1968 and within no time was picked up by Fuji Tv later that year.

In the '70's, the championship booking was dominated by Japanese vs North American heels, this was no different from how things were done in the male promotions, this style of booking helped spark the popularity of Rikidozan. Rikidozan defeating American talent sparked his meteoric rise because this was fresh after World War II and the bombing of Hiroshima, so it was important to understand the significance of these rivalries because legitimate heat between Americans and Japanese were still present.

The Drama And Birth of the WWWA

Mildred Burke won the original World Women's Championship for the 3rd time on December 1st, 1938. For those of you that don't know, this particular championship was created in the 1890's, so this title was created in the 19th century and existed longer than it's male counterpart. She also became the first NWA World Women's Champion by defeating Clara Mortensen who was the original World Women's Champion at the time in 1935. Burke had a falling out with her husband Billy Wolfe(A promoter who also became a member of the NWA board in 1949) and she left his company leaving the original World Women's Championship to be vacated in 1952. June Byers(Billy Wolfe's daughter in law) would become the final champion in the following year.

Burke would defend her NWA Women's World Championship against June Byers in a two out of three falls match. The two had legitimate heat with each other so this match quickly turned into a shoot. June was given the first fall and Burke won the second fall. NWA Officials called off the match and Burke left the ring believing that her title was safe because she had not lost two falls. The match was awarded to Byers who would later be recognized as the first NWA Women's Champion as Burke's reign was no longer recognized for many years after.

Burke left the NWA angry and formed the World Women's Wrestling Association. Burke continued to acknowledge herself as the true and first Women's Wrestling Champion since she was never pinned either of her belts. She would officially vacant the championship after announcing her retirement in 1956. 14 years later, Marie Vagnone won the revived WWWA World Championship in a tournament held by the WWWA. She would host shows for American Girls Wrestling Association, AJW(Zenjo) began contesting their matches and on October 15th, 1970, Aiko Kyo defeated Marie Vagnone to become the first Japanese WWWA World Champion. The WWWA would stay connected to AJW with their titles becoming the top in the company. The WWWA Tag Titles were formed the next year when Aiko Kyo & Jumbo Miyamoto defeated Patty O'Hara & Texas Red and were awarded the titles. Feeling unsatisfied with their win, both women refused the belts and on the following night, Patty O'Hara & Texas Red defeated them in the rematch for the belts.

The Rise Of The Beauty Pair/National Success

In March 1974, a teen idol that went to the finals on "Star Tanjō!" "Mach" Fumiake Watanabe joined AJW. One year later, she defeated Jumbo Miyamoto to become the youngest WWWA World Champion at the age of 16 breaking the American/Japanese champion cycle completely, afterward there would only be three non-Japanese talents to hold that title. Fumiake was also the first female wrestler in the country to release a song record, something that would become quite common in the Joshi world.

Fumiake left the company three years later to pursuit success outside of wrestling, at the time she was one half of the WWWA World Tag Team Champions with Mariko Akagi(The second Mariko Akagi and another huge star of that era as part of White Pair with Silver Satan). The next champions became huge stars, Jackie Sato Maki Ueda known as The Beauty Pair. Most fans of Joshi puroresu are very familiar with the importance of their names, the team went on to become a very successful and popular team and also experienced singles success with both winning the WWWA World Championship and Maki winning the WWWA All Pacific Championship. The Beauty Pair released a song title called "Kakemaguru Seishun" and sold 400,000 copies in 1976. The duo would receive huge fame which lead to a bigger TV deal, movies, and music awards. The Beauty Pair also ushered in a huge wave of new fans, mostly teenage girls which became the targeted demographic for AJW.

With the success of The Beauty Pair came the idea to incorporate more of these teams. The Beauty Pair had a foil called The Black Pair(Yumi Ikeshita, Shinobu Aso & later Mami Kumano). The Black Pair was the perfect heel counterpart of the Beauty Pair bringing the fans behind Sato & Ueda with their dirty heel tactics. The Beauty Pair mostly came out on top but it was the Black Pair duo of Ikeshita & Aso that ended the Beauty Pair's second and final Tag Team title reign in 1977.

This formula continued throughout AJW with the formation of The Golden Pair(Nancy Kumi & Victoria Fujimi), The White Pair(Mariko Akagi & Silver Satan) & Queens Angels(Lucy Kayama and Tomi Aoyama). The White Pair was to the Golden Pair what the Black Pair was to The Beauty Pair except The White Pair were the only team of these pairings that didn't win the tag titles because of Mariko Akagi retiring in 1979. The Golden Pair, Queens Angels & Black Pair would keep the tag division booming throughout the late '70's. The Golden Pair & Queens Angels much like The Beauty Pair dropped singles and had live performances.

The Beauty Pair lead the new wave but now it was time to go their separate ways. On February 27th, 1979, Jackie Sato successfully defended her WWWA World Singles Championship against Maki Ueda with the loser having to be the one to retire. This marked the end of Maki Ueda's career and the end of The Beauty Pair and for the next two years AJW went into a steady decline. However, the company would rise again and become bigger than ever. Part 2 will feature the height of its popularity and success period, if you have any questions, feel free to drop a comment below.