mrsharkbear

I can't speak for NJPW at the time, but AJPW had a one hour TV show that was usually the upper card of a bigger tour show, sometimes a comp of multiple shows. I think if having a weekly show and house shows would make them profitable, it would be a solution not too far off the reality. I'm no expert but that's my two cents.

My bad on the start date. Even with April in the thread title, I still assumed it was a January start date. As far as AJPW is concerned, an April date wouldn't change anything major as Tenryu worked the AJPW/NJPW/WWF show in early April before leaving.

This would be a very interesting start date for AJPW. At this point Genichiro Tenryu was the second most popular wrestler in the company and was being established as the potential successor to Jumbo Tsuruta. In the middle of 1990, Tenryu and some other key talent left to join the new SWS promotion. This forced Giant Baba to create new stars fast. Mitsuharu Misawa shed the Tiger Mask gimmick and led the Super Generation Army faction (Kobashi, Kawada, briefly Taue, and Kikuchi) to war against Tsuruta-gun. As someone who is currently watching through the AJPW archives for the first time, a January 1990 start date is perfect for fantasy booking an All Japan where Genichiro Tenryu, Yoshiaki Yatsu, Great Kabuki, and others stay with the company and figuring out how the four pillars fit into that story.

Now that's good stuff.