Champion Carnival
From 1959 to 1972, the Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance (JWA), run by Rikidōzan, held a tournament called World League (also known as the "World Big League"), which featured both Japanese and foreign professional wrestlers. Rikidōzan himself dominated the annual tournament early on, however, after his death in 1963, the tournament was won six times by Giant Baba and once by Antonio Inoki. JWA folded shortly after both Baba and Inoki left the promotion to create All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) and New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), respectively. Both men took the concept of World League with them to their new promotions, with Baba creating the "Champion Carnival" in 1973 and Inoki creating the World League in 1974, later renaming it G1 Climax.
History of professional wrestling
The dominant styles of Japanese professional wrestling were set in place by the two dominant promotions in Japan. New Japan Pro Wrestling, headed by Antonio Inoki, used Inoki's "strong style" approach of wrestling as a simulated combat sport. Wrestlers incorporated kicks and strikes from martial arts disciplines, and a strong emphasis was placed on submission wrestling. All Japan Pro Wrestling, under the direction of Shohei Baba, used a style referred to as "King's Road". The "King's Road" style was in large part derived from American wrestling, particularly the style of top wrestlers in the National Wrestling Alliance, such as Dory Funk, Jr., Terry Funk, and Harley Race, all of whom wrestled for Baba in Japan. As such, "King's Road" placed a heavy emphasis on working of holds, brawling, and the storytelling elements of professional wrestling. Throughout the 1990s, three individual styles — shoot style, lucha libre, and "garbage" — were the main divisions of independent promotions, but as a result of the "borderless" trend of the first decade of the 21st century to have interpromotional matches, the line between rules among major-league promotions and independents has for the most part been blurred to standardization.
Puroresu done by female wrestlers is called "joshi puroresu". Female wrestling in Japan is usually handled by promotions that specialize in "joshi puroresu", rather than divisions of otherwise male-dominated promotions as is the case in the United States (the only exception was FMW, a men's promotion which had a small women's division, but even then depended on talent from women's federations to provide competition). However, "joshi puroresu" promotions usually have agreements with male puroresu promotions such that they recognize each other's' titles as legitimate, and may share cards. All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling was the dominant "joshi" organization from the 1970s to the 1990s. AJW's first major star was Mach Fumiake in 1974, followed in 1975 by Jackie Sato and Maki Ueda, known as The Beauty Pair. The early 1980s saw the fame of Jaguar Yokota and Devil Masami. That decade would later see the rise of Chigusa Nagayo and Lioness Asuka, known as The Crush Gals, who as a tag team achieved a level of unprecedented mainstream success in Japan, unheard of by any female wrestler in the history of professional wrestling all over the world. Their long running feud with Dump Matsumoto and her Gokuaku Domei (loose translation: "Atrocious Alliance") stable would become extremely popular in Japan during the 1980s, with their televised matches resulting in some of the highest rated in Japanese television as well as the promotion regularly selling out arenas.