Big Japan Pro Wrestling
(BJW) is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion established in 1995. It is most famous for its deathmatch style contests. History Big Japan Pro Wrestling was founded in March 1995 by former AJPW wrestlers Shinya Kojika and Kendo Nagasaki, during the boom period for Deathmatch wrestling in Japan. Kendo Nagasaki left in 1999; Shinya Kojika is still president of the company to date. The promotion followed in the footsteps of organizations such as Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW), Wrestling International New Generations (W*ING), and the International Wrestling Association of Japan (IWA Japan), who helped popularise a hard-hitting, violent and bloody style of wrestling known as the Deathmatch, or in more recent years, "hardcore" wrestling. These matches are usually weapon filled, using both "conventional" weapons (such as chairs and tables), as well as "extreme" weapons not usually seen in mainstream wrestling, and previously unused in wrestling at all. These weapon ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hardcore Wrestling
Hardcore wrestling is a form of professional wrestling where disqualifications, count-outs, and all other different rules do not apply. Taking place in usual or unusual environments, hardcore wrestling matches allow the use of numerous items, including ladders, tables, chairs, thumbtacks, barbed wire, light tubes, shovels, glass, baseball bats (sometimes wrapped in barbed wire) and other improvised weapons used as Foreign object (professional wrestling), foreign objects. Although hardcore wrestling is a staple of most wrestling promotions, where they are often used at the climaxes of Feud (professional wrestling), feuds, some promotions (such as Big Japan Pro Wrestling, International Wrestling Syndicate, IWA-MS, Game Changer Wrestling, Combat Zone Wrestling) specialize in hardcore wrestling, with many matches performed in this manner. Hardcore wrestling was first acknowledged as a major wrestling style in Japan with promotions such as Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling and W*ING. It ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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BJW World Strong Heavyweight Championship
The is a professional wrestling world heavyweight championship owned by the Japanese Big Japan Pro Wrestling (BJW) promotion. It is one of two heavyweight championships promoted by BJW, the other being the BJW Deathmatch Heavyweight Championship. The two titles symbolize the two sides of BJW; the Deathmatch Heavyweight Championship the hardcore wrestling side and the World Strong Heavyweight Championship the strong style side. The title has a lower weight limit of . Like most professional wrestling championships, the title is won as a result of a scripted match. There have been nineteen reigns shared among eleven different wrestlers. Hideyoshi Kamitani is the current champion in his second reign. History On March 26, 2012, Yoshihito Sasaki defeated Daisuke Sekimoto in the finals to win the 2012 Ikkitosen Strong Climb tournament. Following his win, Sasaki requested that BJW establish a new championship that would symbolize the "strong" side of the promotion. BJW already had on ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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United Japan Pro-Wrestling
, officially the , is an association of several professional wrestling promotions in Japan, acting as an industry group in order to facilitate the sharing of resources and practices as well as strengthen connections to other sectors. History Background On April 15, 2020, due to the self-imposed restrictions of events in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Takaaki Kidani (owner of New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and Stardom through his company Bushiroad) led a delegation of representatives from seven promotions to send a formal request for compensation for business suspension to then House of Representatives member Hiroshi Hase (an NJPW alumnus himself), the Japan Sports Agency, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. This led to the formation of the in the House of Representatives on November 19. Founding Prompted by Hase's call to establish a unified commission of wrestling promotions and recognizing the necessity for collaboration between the government, local authorit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Union Pro Wrestling
is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion based in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Shinjuku, Tokyo. Its name is an initialism of Dramatic Dream Team, which was the promotion's original name from 1997 to 2004. Founded in March 1997 by Shintaro Muto, the promotion was eventually bought and managed by Shoichi Ichimiya until December 2005, when Sanshiro Takagi took over as the new president. In 2017, DDT was sold to CyberAgent. Takagi retained his position, while Takahiro Yamauchi took over as the new DDT director. DDT became one of the top promotions in Japanese independent wrestling by creating a unique sports entertainment style, often parodying WWE, with a Japanese puroresu flair to the matches. DDT's biggest event is DDT Peter Pan, Peter Pan, held each year since 2009. The cards' matches tend to be a mixture of Japanese lucharesu (a mix of lucha libre and traditional puroresu), worked shoot-style, hardcore brawling and comedy matches. DDT is in many ways a parody of American pro wrestli ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Westside Xtreme Wrestling
Westside Xtreme Wrestling, commonly shortened to wXw, is a German professional wrestling promotion based in Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia. wXw has been one of the leading professional wrestling promotions in Germany, and most of its events have been held in the Ruhr, Ruhr district, primarily in Oberhausen.CagematchWestside Xtreme Wrestling/ref> Since 2013, wXw regularly tours throughout Germany, adding tour stops outside the country including Switzerland, the Czech Republic and England History Westside Xtreme Wrestling was founded on December 24, 2000, by Peter Wiechers, a professional wrestler with the ring name Hate.Cagematch History">Westside Xtreme Wrestling > History/ref> Together with SigMasta Rappo, Tyrant, Mark Hammer, Blue Adonis, Barish, Thunder and Claudio Castagnoli, he held an event called "wXw Extreme Wrestling Party" in the disco "Roxy" in Essen. wXw has become one of the most notable professional wrestling promotions in Germany. In 2016, wXw became the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chikara (professional Wrestling)
Chikara (stylized in all capital letters and sometimes referred to as Chikara Pro) was an American professional wrestling promotion based in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The company took both its name and logo from . It was founded in 2002 by professional wrestlers Mike Quackenbush and Reckless Youth, who also served as trainers and in-ring performers. The promotion held multiple House show, live events per month, with the majority taking place at the #Chikara Wrestle Factory, Chikara Wrestle Factory school. Two of their major events, September's King of Trios, the promotion's premiere event, and April's Tag World Grand Prix were centered on tag team and ''Six-man tag team match, trios'' matches. Their other major events included Aniversario, held in May, and the Chikara Young Lions Cup, Young Lions Cup tournament, held between June and August. In 2011, Chikara introduced the Chikara Grand Championship, Grand Championship, the promotion's primary singles championship. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tomoaki Honma
is a Japanese people, Japanese professional wrestler primarily working for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). In NJPW, he is a former List of IWGP Tag Team Champions, one-time IWGP Tag Team Championship, IWGP Tag Team Champion and a two-time G1 Tag League, World Tag League winner with Togi Makabe. Professional wrestling career Big Japan Pro Wrestling and All Japan Pro Wrestling (1997–2007) During his second year of high school, Honma initially had aspirations of joining the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) dojo and took part in a tryout, but was unsuccessful and sought training elsewhere.『ゴング』新装刊2号 pp86 -91掲載のインタビュー He eventually trained with Michinoku Pro Wrestling for 1 year, but did not debut in Michinoku Pro and instead spent his early career in Big Japan Pro Wrestling (BJW), debuting for the promotion in May 1997. After spending time wrestling in opening matches for the promotion, Honma began to compete in BJW's Hardcore wrestling, deathmat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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January 4 Tokyo Dome Show
The January 4 Tokyo Dome Show is a professional wrestling event produced annually on January 4 in the Tokyo Dome by New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), a Japan-based professional wrestling promotion. NJPW has promoted events in the venue every January 4 since Super Warriors in Tokyo Dome in 1992. Since its debut on pay-per-view in 2007, the January 4 show has been branded as Wrestle Kingdom. The January 4 Tokyo Dome Show became NJPW's premier annual event and the biggest event in Japanese wrestling, similar to what WrestleMania is for WWE and American professional wrestling. It has been described as "the largest professional wrestling show in the world outside of the United States" and the "Japanese equivalent to the Super Bowl". Since 2014, NJPW has scheduled supporting shows on the days before or after January 4, including a second Wrestle Kingdom show in the Tokyo Dome between 2020 and 2022. The first two January 4 Tokyo Dome Shows were also the last two WCW/New Japan Supersh ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wrestling World 1997
Wrestling World 1997 was a professional wrestling event co-produced by the New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and Big Japan Pro Wrestling (BJW) promotions. It took place on January 4, 1997 in the Tokyo Dome. Officially, the show drew 62,500 spectators and $5,000,000 in ticket sales. The show featured 12 matches, including four matches that were promoted jointly with the BJW promotion and presented as a rivalry between the two promotions. The show featured 12 matches in total, including three title matches, two of which saw new champions crowned. Production Background The January 4 Tokyo Dome Show is NJPW's biggest annual event and has been called "the largest professional wrestling show in the world outside of the United States" and the "Japanese equivalent to the Super Bowl". Storylines Wrestling World 1997 featured professional wrestling matches that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed villains, heroes Heroes or Hér ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kayfabe
In professional wrestling, kayfabe (pronounced ) is the portrayal of staged events within the industry as "real" or "true", specifically competition, rivalries, and relationships between participants. The term has evolved to become a code word of sorts for maintaining this "reality" within the direct or indirect presence of the general public. In the United States, kayfabe is often seen as the suspension of disbelief that is used to create the non-wrestling aspects of promotions, such as feuds, angles, and gimmicks in a manner similar to other forms of fictional entertainment. In relative terms, a wrestler breaking kayfabe would be likened to an actor breaking character on-camera. Since wrestling is performed in front of a live audience whose interaction with the show is crucial to its success, kayfabe can be compared to the fourth wall in acting, since hardly any conventional fourth wall exists to begin with. Because of this lack of conventional fourth wall, wrestlers we ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Combat Zone Wrestling
Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW) is an American independent professional wrestling promotion founded in 1999 by John Zandig. Commonly associated with the 2000s hardcore wrestling genre, early CZW shows showcased a brand of wrestling dubbed by the promotion as "ultraviolence". Early CZW matches featured items such as ladders, tables, steel folding chairs, thumbtacks, barbed wire-covered baseball bats, weed whackers, light tubes, and panes of glass. The promotion filled a niche for hardcore wrestling fans that had been left open by the folding of Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) in 2001. In 2009, CZW's founder John Zandig sold the promotion to CZW wrestler D. J. Hyde. Although hardcore wrestling continued to be a prominent part of CZW shows, under Hyde the frequency of hardcore matches would gradually decrease. By the start of the 2010s, CZW had diversified its image by mixing its roster of homegrown wrestlers with international talent and began to showcase additional sty ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New Japan Pro-Wrestling
(NJPW) is a Puroresu, Japanese professional-wrestling Professional wrestling promotion, promotion founded on January 13, 1972, by Antonio Inoki, and based in Nakano, Tokyo. It is currently majority owned by card-game company Bushiroad, with TV Asahi and Amuse Inc. owning minority shares of the promotion. Naoki Sugabayashi has served as the promotion's Chairman since September 2013, while Hiroshi Tanahashi has served as the president of the promotion since December 2023. Owing to its TV program aired on TV Asahi, NJPW is the largest and longest-running professional wrestling promotion in Japan. Their biggest event is the January 4 Tokyo Dome Show (currently promoted under the Wrestle Kingdom banner) held each year since 1992. In addition to promoting professional wrestling matches, NJPW has also showcased mixed martial arts fights on some of its live events. The promotion was owned by Yuke's from 2005 until 2012. It was then sold to Bushiroad in 2012, which parlayed its entry to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |