History Wrestling / AlljapanWomensProWrestling

'''All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling (AJW)''', better known in it's native language as "全女" ('''Zenjo'''), was a Japanese Women's ProfessionalWrestling (''joshi puroresu'', often shortened to just ''joshi'') promotion that was founded in 1968 by the Matsunaga brothers and folded in 2005. AJW was the largest promotion during the glory days of ''joshi'' in the [[TheEighties 1980s]] and [[TheNineties 1990s]].

* CostumePorn: During the 1980s and 90s Joshi promotions were infamous for overspending on ring gear, making sure it was not only sturdy enough to last for years but also really eye catching, and Zenjo in the wake of the Beauty Pair was the driving force behind that. In the event someone like The Crush Gals opted to wear unremarkable leotards or singlets Zenjo would still buy they really entrance gear to wear over before the bell rang.

* TheDreaded: When Wrestling/{{FMW}} established a women's division, the wrestlers it employed became feared by all but the bravest of Zenjo.

* LicensedGame: ''Body Slam'' A Sega Arcade game starring Dump Matsumoto with {{captain ersatz}}es of her rivals on the Zenjo roster.

* PortmanteauSeriesNickname: '''Ze'''n '''N'''ihon '''Jo'''shi Puroresu: Zenjo

* SpiritualSuccessor: Most obviously to the All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling Federation, which it is only one word removed from but also to the All Japan Women's Wrestling Club, the very first women's pro wrestling organization in Japan and the first company to treat women's pro wrestling as serious competition. Zenjo's most obvious successor is Wrestling/WorldWonderRingSTARDOM, which went as far as to use the same red\white motif the WWWA title belts had.
* TournamentArc: The Japan Grand Prix for starters. The premier tournament was Tag League The Best, which ended up being continued by JWP after Zenjo's closing.

* TheVerse: The WWWA and AGWA titles from the United States and the IWA Women's title from Canada were regularly defended in AJW. The former two were revived as AJW's title belts after the promotions went under, a WWWA belt being considered the top prize for Zenjo wrestlers in any division and by extension, the top titles in women's pro wrestlers in general.

* MartialArtsUniform: Chigusa Nagayo used a gi as her warm up gear and entrance attire.

The first major stars of AJW were the "Beauty Pair" of Jackie Sato and Maki Ueda in the [[TheSeventies 1970s]]. These paved the way for the stars of the 1980s, including Jaguar Yokota, the Wrestling/CrushGals (Wrestling/LionessAsuka and Chigusa Nagayo), and the Wrestling/JumpingBombAngels (Noriyo Tateno and Itsuki Yamazaki, who also appeared in the WWF in the 1980s). The Crush Gals in particular gained massive popularity, and their feud with mega-heel Dump Matsumoto and her gang generated nuclear levels of heat, packing arenas with screaming schoolgirls (some of whom would go on to become the next generation of joshi wrestlers) and drawing a bigger television audience than Wrestling/{{WWF}} and Wrestling/{{WCW}} ''combined'' at their peak of popularity.

** The Beauty Pair served as the inspiration for the LightNovel/DirtyPair. Mixing up tag partners with Golden Pair to dethrone Black Pair and Golden Pair mixing with Queen Angels against their successors were even more obvious examples.

* ChristmasCake: The "retire at 25" policy.

* OneSteveLimit

* TheDreaded: When Wrestling/{{FMW}} established a women's division, the wrestlers it employed became feared by all but the bravest of Zenjo.
* TheVerse: The WWWA and AGWA titles from the United States and the IWA Women's title from Canada were regularly defended in AJW. The former two were revived as AJW's title belts after the promotions went under, a WWWA belt being considered the top prize for Zenjo wrestlers in any division and by extension, the top titles in women's pro wrestlers in general.

* WorldOfActionGirls: Not just an all women's promotion but from the 1980s to mid 2000s, also considered the world's greatest women's promotion. Any rookie that came out of their dojo and wasn't immediately lost in the sea of talent by a year's time would already be considered among the best in the world.

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent
** In the early 1990s they started putting men with silly gimmicks like Mr. Buddhaman and [[Wrestling/TheGreatMuta The Great Little Muta]] in the opening match. This may have been the result of deciding to use the midgets titles that were held over from the WWWA but at the ''AJW Wrestlemarinepiad II'' in 1990, Xóchitl Hamada's father teamed up with Kendo and Wrestling/UltimoDragon to take on Los Brazos for the UWA trios titles, which was especially different since Zenjo had no division for tercia matches.
** Zenjo's hosted shoot fights, boxing matches, kick boxing, amateur wrestling matches and mixed style fights in addition to it's primary bread maker of traditional joshi wrestling alongside each other on the same cards, most famously at ''Super Woman Great Big War'' which had JWP, Shoot Boxing and Wrestling/MichinokuProWrestling athletes all booked.

The first major stars of AJW were the "Beauty Pair" of Jackie Sato and Maki Ueda in the [[TheSeventies 1970s]]. These paved the way for the stars of the 1980s, including Jaguar Yokota, the Crush Gals (Wrestling/LionessAsuka and Chigusa Nagayo), and the Wrestling/JumpingBombAngels (Noriyo Tateno and Itsuki Yamazaki, who also appeared in the WWF in the 1980s). The Crush Gals in particular gained massive popularity, and their feud with mega-heel Dump Matsumoto and her gang generated nuclear levels of heat, packing arenas with screaming schoolgirls (some of whom would go on to become the next generation of joshi wrestlers) and drawing a bigger television audience than Wrestling/{{WWF}} and Wrestling/{{WCW}} ''combined'' at their peak of popularity.

During this time, AJW had a policy that all of their wrestlers had to retire once they reached the age of 25 (they were also the only ''joshi'' promotion in Japan until JWP was formed in 1986). This meant the Crush Gals retired in 1989, which was a huge blow to AJW's popularity. However, it also cleared the way for a new generation of stars who quickly became certified ''Joshi'' legends in their own right: Wrestling/ManamiToyota , Wrestling/AjaKong, Akira Hokuto, Kyoko Inoue, Takako Inoue, and LCO (Las Cacchoras Orientales), Mima Shimoda and Etsuko Mita.

Better known in the native language as "Zenjo", All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling (AJW) was a Japanese Women's ProfessionalWrestling (''joshi puroresu'', often shortened to just ''joshi'') promotion that was founded in 1968 by the Matsunaga brothers and folded in 2005. AJW was the largest promotion during the glory days of ''joshi'' in the [[TheEighties 1980s]] and [[TheNineties 1990s]].

During this time, AJW had a policy that all of their wrestlers had to retire once they reached the age of 25 (they were also the only ''joshi'' promotion in Japan until JWP was formed in 1986). This meant the Crush Gals retired in 1989, which was a huge blow to AJW's popularity. However, it also cleared the way for a new generation of stars, including Wrestling/ManamiToyota (now a practically-certified ''joshi'' legend), Wrestling/AjaKong, Akira Hokuto, Kyoko Inoue, Takako Inoue, and LCO (Las Cacchoras Orientales), Mima Shimoda and Etsuko Mita.

By the mid-1990s, there were several joshi promotions, and the "retire at 25" policy was abandoned, allowing the Crush Gals (among others) to return ([[BecameTheirOwnAntithesis ironically]], given their famous feud with Dump Matsumoto, as monster heels that beat up the new generation of cute, young faces). However, this meant AJW had the same problem as many other wrestling promotions: the veterans wanted to hold onto their spots at the top of the card, and they weren't willing to give them up to newer wrestlers. This, combined with financial mismanagement by the owners and the general decline in the popularity of pro wrestling in the early [[TurnOfTheMillennium 2000s]], led to AJW losing its TV deal in 2002, and eventually folding in 2005. However, its legacy of housing arguably the greatest women's wrestlers - and some of the best women's wrestling matches - in the history of the industry remains.

* SpiritualSuccessor: Most obviously to the All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling Federation, which it is only one word removed from but also to the All Japan Women's Wrestling Club, the very first women's pro wrestling organization in Japan and the first company to treat women's pro wrestling as serious competition. Zenjo's most obvious successor is World Wonder Ring STARDOM, which went as far as to use the same red\white motif the WWWA title belts had.

The first major stars of AJW were the "Beauty Pair" of Jackie Sato and Maki Ueda in the [[TheSeventies 1970s]]. These paved the way for the stars of the 1980s, including Jaguar Yokata, the Crush Gals (Wrestling/LionessAsuka and Chigusa Nagayo), and the Wrestling/JumpingBombAngels (Noriyo Tateno and Itsuki Yamazaki, who also appeared in the WWF in the 1980s). The Crush Gals in particular gained massive popularity, and their feud with mega-heel Dump Matsumoto and her gang generated nuclear levels of heat, packing arenas with screaming schoolgirls (some of whom would go on to become the next generation of joshi wrestlers) and drawing a bigger television audience than Wrestling/{{WWF}} and Wrestling/{{WCW}} ''combined'' at their peak of popularity.

* TrainingFromHell: Their dojo was infamous for its toughness. American wrestler Leilani Kai, who trained there, said:

The first major stars of AJW were the "Beauty Pair" of Jackie Sato and Maki Ueda in the [[TheSeventies 1970s]]. These paved the way for the stars of the 1980s, including Jaguar Yokata, the Crush Gals (Wrestling/LionessAsuka and Chigusa Nagayo), and the Jumping Bomb Angels (Noriyo Tateno and Itsuki Yamazaki, who also appeared in the WWF in the 1980s). The Crush Gals in particular gained massive popularity, and their feud with mega-heel Dump Matsumoto and her gang generated nuclear levels of heat, packing arenas with screaming schoolgirls (some of whom would go on to become the next generation of joshi wrestlers) and drawing a bigger television audience than Wrestling/{{WWF}} and Wrestling/{{WCW}} ''combined'' at their peak of popularity.

** Acknowledged but not used with Kyoko Inoue and Takako Inoue, who had no relation beyond teaming as Double Inoue.

* SpiritualSuccessor: Most obviously to the the All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling Federation, which it is only one word removed from but also to the All Japan Women's Wrestling Club, the very first women's pro wrestling organization in Japan and the first company to treat women's pro wrestling as serious competition. Zenjo's most obvious successor is World Wonder Ring STARDOM, which went as far as to use the same red\white motif the WWWA title belts had.

* EvilCounterpart: The original Black Pair were this to The Beauty Pair...even though Beauty Pair themselves frequently wore black... while the second Black Pair were this to Golden Pair. Distressingly both Black Pairs proved to superior tag teams to their good counterparts, although Jakie Sato and Nancy Kumi were able to defeat the original Black Pair for the belts [[EnemyMine by teaming with each other]] instead of their regular partners. Kumi used the trick again with her Queen Angels rival Lucy Kayama to win the belts from the second Black Pair.