I waned to give a little context to All Japan at the time of these shows. I'm a big context guy, hence why I'm going through the TV instead of just watching the big matches, so I just want to provide an idea of where All Japan is at during this time period, who the champions are and the hierarchy of the main singles championships.
Giant Baba has started to decline physically in the 1980s. His awkward body is starting to catch up to him. He's getting slower, his offense is starting to look a little worse and he knows it. Unlike a lot of promoters, Giant Baba actually willingly steps aside and moves down the card before he becomes counter-productive to the ability of the promotion to draw. When you look at the history of professional wrestling, this is a fairly unique event. Wrestling is littered with promoters and bookers putting themselves over at all costs but here you had a promoter setting up his successor over a long period of time and there being a pretty seamless transition of the company ace.
Enter Jumbo Tsuruta. Jumbo was the no. 2 guy for the late 70s and early 80s and has now become the top star in AJPW. There isn't a single event that you can point to and say, that's where Jumbo became the no. 1 guy in the company. It was a gradual series of events over a number of years. But 1984 is definitely the year where Jumbo is the no. 1 guy in the company and Baba has slid his way down to being the no. 2 guy. I'm going to pin the official start of the Jumbo era of AJPW to two events in 1983. On 8/31/1983 Jumbo Tsuruta defeated Bruiser Brody to become the NWA International Champion and then on 9/8/1983 Stan Hansen defeated Giant Baba to become the PWF Heavyweight Champion.
Speaking of those championship belts. There are three singles championships in AJPW at this time. The NWA International Championship, PWF Heavyweight Championship and United National Heavyweight Championship. These belts will eventually be unified into being the Triple Crown Championship that still exists to this day.
At this time the NWA International Championship is the top singles belt. It dates back to the Japan Wrestling Association and dates back to the late 50s. The belt laid dormant after the JWA closed in the early 70s. Giant Baba purchased the title in the early 80s. This move was designed to give Jumbo a belt to chase and win.
The PWF Heavyweight Champion is the second most important title of the bunch. This would be the equal of the World Heavyweight Championship in the WWE during the 00s. This was the most important AJPW belt of the 70s but it took a backseat to the International belt once Jumbo won that and Baba was no longer holding this belt. So these belts just flip flopped position right before the TV is going to begin for this blog.
The United National belt was always a secondary championship. Jumbo was winning and contending for this belt as he was moving up the card and during this time frame Genichiro Tenryu will be doing the same thing. It seems like they use this belt to groom future main event native talent. Which is smart booking. Give the up and coming talent a chance to work in championship caliber bouts without doing jobs.
The NWA World Heavyweight Champion will also stop by well into 1989. I haven't mentioned it yet but AJPW is a member of the NWA until 1989. So you'll see the likes of Ric Flair or Harley Race pop in to make some title defenses. They also have a working agreement with the AWA and the AWA Champion will stop in to make some title defenses as well.
Before I close out this post let's do a champion roll call:
NWA International Champion: Jumbo Tsuruta
PWF Heavyweight Champion: Stan Hansen
United National Heavyweight Champion: Ted Dibiase
NWA International Junior Heavyweight Champion: Chavo Guerrero
NWA International Tag Team Champions: Giant Baba and Jumbo Tsuruta
All Asia Tag Team Champions: Ashura Hara and Mighty Inoue
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