For Giant Baba's last wish - AJPW 2000 and beyond diary.

[ImWreck]

Giant Baba's passing on January 31, 1999, was a huge blow for AJPW. With Baba gone, the company was given to his widow Makoto who became Majority owner of AJPW along with that Misawa became Baba's successor as president of the company. Tensions were apparently clear in the first meeting between the two, Misawa wanted to create a new group of musketeers as he saw himself and his fellow musketeers (Kobashi, Kawada, Taue) as aging stars who might need to step aside soon rather than later. But that plan was scratched by Makoto in favor of sticking with the old rather than the new.

 

In May 28 of 2000, Misawa was removed as president of AJPW by a majority vote by the board of directors and that became the last straw for Misawa.

 

But that wasn't the worst thing to happen for AJPW.

 

At a regular All Japan board meeting on June 13, 2000, Misawa, Mitsuo Momota (co-vice president, member of directory), Kenta Kobashi (member of directory), Akira Taue (member of directory, chairman), Kenichi Oyagi (member of directory) and Yoshihiro Momota (member of directory) resigned from their board positions. A day later, Motoko Baba released a two-page written statement, which claimed that Misawa "took no responsibility and abandoned his duty." In addition, she hinted that Toshiaki Kawada and Masanobu Fuchi would be the only two native wrestlers to stay with All Japan, as "Kawada and Fuchi have sworn to carry out Baba-san's last wish: to keep All Japan Pro Wrestling alive"; this was confirmed a day later when Kawada and Fuchi both renewed their contracts with All Japan, along with referee Kyohei Wada.

 

On June 16, 2000, 24 out of the 26 contracted native wrestlers for All Japan were led by Misawa for a press conference, where it was announced that they would be leaving the promotion; more than 100 reporters and photographers attended, and Misawa expressed his wish for the promotion to debut in August, with the Differ Ariake being the site of the unnamed promotion's debut. When asked what his reason for leaving All Japan is, Misawa claimed that it was so he could do things in a "modern style." A day later, Misawa announced the promotion's name: Pro Wrestling NOAH, which was inspired by the Biblical story where Noah built an ark and put two of every kind of animal in the world in the ark before God destroyed the world (causing it to rain for forty days and forty nights).

 

On June 19, 2000, it was confirmed (at a press conference at All-Japan's dojo held by Toshiaki Kawada and Masanobu Fuchi) that NTV has decided to discontinue broadcasting All Japan after 27 years. However, NTV maintained their 15% stock in All Japan (as Motoko Baba held the remaining 85%), and would prevent All Japan from being put on another network. On June 20, twelve All Japan office employees resigned from their positions with the promotion, with intentions to follow Misawa to NOAH. NTV also announced that they will carry weekly tapings of Misawa's NOAH promotion, with the title of the program being called "Colosseo." NOAH took All Japan's 30-minute timeslot on Sundays at midnight. Misawa was interviewed in Tokyo on June 21, where he announced that he and the other wrestlers leaving to form NOAH would compete on four of the sixteen shows in All Japan's Summer Action Series 2000 tour, which began on July 1. NTV also aired the final All Japan TV show on the network, which aired for 45 minutes and featured footage from Jumbo Tsuruta's funeral, the NOAH wrestlers' press conference from the July 16, Kawada's press conference from the July 19, highlights of the first ever Kawada vs. Misawa Triple Crown match from October 21, 1992 and Toshiaki Kawada and Akira Taue vs. Yoshihiro Takayama and Takao Ōmori for the AJPW Unified World Tag Team Championship from All Japan's Nippon Budokan show from June 9.

 

Kawada would start running the company as both Ace and President. Right of the bat fans knew that Kawada's run as prez wouldn't be as great, Toshiaki Kawada was a wrestler and thought like one. As a technical mastermind, he could do no wrong but running a company as President wasn't meant for him, there was a reason why Misawa was given the president of AJPW position after Baba passed away, he knew what it took to run AJPW but Misawa wasn't here in AJPW. Kawada was stuck running the promotion on his own with only Masanobu Fuchi and Makoto Baba left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

but what if....

 

What if the Ark of NOAH never set sailed, what if Makoto Baba would have accepted the idea of the new guard? And what if Makoto and Misawa could coexist for Giant Baba's wish of keeping Zen Nihon Puroresu alive for generations to come?

 

This diary is to see how things would turn out for AJPW if Misawa and the 24 other wrestlers didn't leave All Japan Pro Wrestling in June 2000.

 

{A/N: What a time in Japanese wrestling and really wonder as a fan of all forms of puro, what that AJPW would look like if Misawa never left AJPW with his future NOAH guys. I absolutely love this roster of stars I have for this diary. Probably the strongest one when you look at star power and future stars. Hopefully you people enjoyed the intro post for this diary and stay around for the diary. Info of this AJPW will be posted soon on this post and the rest of the reserved posts are going to be filled by the time, I can get my first show's card up.}

 

Fun Fact: I actually wanted to write this diary after seeing a AJPW/NOAH split music video made by Hans Meier.

[ImWreck]

Reserved for roster, teams, stables

[ImWreck]

Reserved for champs and titles

[ImWreck]

Reserved for schedule and etc.

[Infernalmiko]

<p><span style="color:#4B0082;">Ok, let's see how this goes. Next time we should get a better feel for what the diary is about and fewer attention given to stuff that's not actually going to happen. TEW needs more puro, get to it!</span><img alt="" data-src="//content.invisioncic.com/g322608/emoticons/smile.png.142cfa0a1cd2925c0463c1d00f499df2.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" /></p><p><span style="color:#4B0082;"> </span></p><p><span style="color:#4B0082;">

#puroresumafia</span></p>

[Icecold]

Hope this isn't dead... love the idea...

[tg01]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Icecold" data-cite="Icecold" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="43899" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Hope this isn't dead... love the idea...</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Agree 100% with this! Really want to see this dynasty go somewhere because the roster would be just off the hook!!</p>

[Perpetual Nirvana]

I want to know the mod being used. I've been looking high and low for a good 2000 mod. All I have is The New Millenium converted from TEW2013 and that so barebones because the modder never finished it.