Professional wrestling in Japan besides New Japan and All Japan Pro Wrestling?
Are there any other "Major" wrestling promotions in Japan besides New Japan Pro Wrestling and All Japan Pro Wrestling that currently exist or have existed in the past?
I know other top promotions like Pro Wrestling Noah, Dragon Gate etc exist in Japan but when I say "Major" I mean the equivalent to the likes WWE, WCW, TNA in the USA and AAA and CMLL in Mexico. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_wrestling_promotions_in_Japan#Puroresu
BQ1: Was All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling the sister promotion to All Japan Pro Wrestling? BQ2: Were either or both of All Japan Pro Women's Wrestling and Gaeda Japan reqarded as "Major" promotions?
My curiosity for both BQ's comes from the fact that I read Shimmer is regarded as the sister promotion to Ring Of Honor and Shimmer's titles are sometimes defended at Ring Of Honor pay per views and are regarded as "Major" championships by Ring Of Honor. Similar to the WWE Divas Championship, TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championships etc.
Suriel2013-02-13T15:31:24Z
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There have been, yes.
JWA (Japan Wrestling Alliance) was the first promotion in Japan and was based around national hero Rikidozan. Rikidozan's match with Lou Thesz in 1957 drew an 87.0 rating and his 1963 match with the Destroyer drew a 67.0 rating and the largest viewing audience in Japanese history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rikidozan
FMW (Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling) was a major promotion during Atsushi Onita's heyday (1990-1997). They regularly drew thousands of fans to see crazy death matches that no other organisation put on. Apparently their largest crowd was 48,221. http://fmwwrestling.us/FMWHistory.html
Pro Wrestling NOAH and ZERO-1 were both major companies for much of the 2000s. At one point, NOAH was undisputedly doing the best business and even the smaller ZERO-1 was doing better than All Japan. Even at this juncture, NOAH has to be considered on an equal level to the floundering AJPW.
BQ1: No. All Japan Women was a completely different company, founded 4 years before Giant Baba's AJPW. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Japan_Women
BQ2: Not really, though there were a couple of big Tokyo Dome shows. AJW and GAEA were second tier promotions, succesful but not as much as NJPW and AJPW. They were kinda like TNA is now - a succesful national promotion, but not on WWE's level.
Ring of Honor had several other promotions defend their titles at their live events before be it AJ Styles as NWA World Champion, the champion of FIP was treated as the secondary title for a period, and Shimmer title was considered the Woman's champion at one time.
NJPW and ALL Japan are the top 2....like WWE and WCW is in USA or AAA and CMLL are in Mexico. The other promotions that were "big" are Pro Wrestling NOAH which were the top stars of All Japan leaving as lead by Misawa. FMW and W*NG were the hardcore promotions during the late 90's. Big Japan had some events that was repackaged for American PPV which featured Shadow WX. Dragongate, Toryumon, M-Pro, Osaka Pro, DDT were some of the popular "lucharesu" style promotions that combined lucha libre with Japanese junior heavy style of wrestling. And then there are the work shoot style promotions like SHOOTO, PANCRASE, RINGS, UWFi, BattleARTS which is either catch or MMA style of matches.
The Economic Downturn in The 1990's crippled Professional Wrestling in Japan and drove many companies out of business including All Japan Women and GAEA. The rise in popularity of Mixed Martial Arts also crippled Professional Wrestling in Japan.
None of the other Japanese Wrestling Promotions fit your definition of "Major". You would consider them to be Independent Wrestling Promotions.
Yes, All Japan Women was considered The Sister Promotion to All Japan Pro Wrestling.
Yes, they were Major Wrestling Promotions and the two best Women's Wrestling Promotions in the entire world during the 1990's.
Yes, I've been to Ring of Honor Shows that have had top Women Wrestlers from both The United States and Japan.
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