Unification Match 1

So as we noted, Giant Baba has decided to create his own World Heavyweight Championship. He is doing so by unifying his three main titles. The first "attempt" at unification was held on 4/15/1988 between the NWA International Heavyweight Champion Bruiser Brody and the PWF Heavyweight and NWA United National Heavyweight Champion Genichiro Tenryu. Tenryu had been the United National Champion for over two years and had earlier in 1988 defeated Stan Hansen for the PWF title (in what was probably the first true unification match).

This was a so/so match. It's basic structure was great and the kind of wrestling I enjoy. Stiff strikes, hard kicks, good wrestling building to big moves. Matches filled with good ring psychology and a story to be told. I much prefer a match like this, to many of today's matches that tend to be filled with high spot after high spot. What killed this match was a terrible ending. I know that Baba wanted to build up over the course a year some drama and excitement over any type of unification of the titles. So this match was booked with a double count out, to progress the unification storyline.

Now at the time in 1988, double counts where common in All Japan. It wasn't until the summer of 1990 that Baba moved to an all clean finish approach. So at the time of this match, protecting stars without having to loose was common practice in All Japan.

One of the most under-appreciated aspect of many of the All Japan matches I have watched over the years is a very subtle approach to counters. Wrestlers work hard to avoid the strikes and kicks of their opponent. If a big move is attempted, such as a Suplex or Power Bomb, an all out attempt is made to avoid it. That subtle ring psychology is something I really enjoy and find absent in almost all other promotions. But All Japan in the 1980's and 1990's utilized it masterfully. And this match featured great use of both Brody and Tenryu working hard to avoid the kicks and strikes of the other.

The main story of this match was eventually Tenryu gaining control and starting to work over Brody's legs. The popular opinion of Brody is he just didn't sell for his opponent. In this case, he did a real strong job of selling Tenryu's leg work. That is, until it was time for his offensive comeback, at which point he stopped any sort selling.

On a separate note, I had not seen a Brody match all that recently and I simply forgot how good he could be for such a big man. He moved so well and was so athletic. His kicks were a thing of beauty. His strikes as hard as I remember. And his drop kick was amazing for someone so big.  There are plenty of matches were Brody does a really terrible job of selling, or just brings the match down with his ability to not cooperate all that well.  Luckily this is not one of those matches. 

So as noted, eventually Brody regained the offense and eventually went for his King Kong Knee Drop off the top rope. He hit it, but sold it like he had been hurt as well. He then rolled to the outside, selling being in pain (I guess from the early leg attacks that he stopped selling for a good 5 minutes). Meanwhile, Tenryu selling the Knee Drop also rolls to the outside. The two stagger towards each other and Tenryu hits a really weak Power Bomb or Piledriver (I could not tell which one it was supposed to be, but either way it was bad). Then they are both counted out.

So good match, weak ending and the first attempt at unifying the titles fails.

The Titles

Here is a brief description of the titles themselves.

NWA International Heavyweight Championship

In 1957 Lou Thesz had been NWA World Heavyweight Champion for most of the previous 8 years. At this point Thesz is tired of the rigors of being the traveling world champion and wants to take a break. He also foresees (correctly I might add) wrestling in Japan becoming a booming business, and wants to bring them into the NWA fold. He wanted to give Rikidozan a short run as NWA World Champion as a way to foster relations and help capture the market. However, promoters like Sam Mushnick are rather shortsighted and simply don't trust other promoters, especially ones as far away as Japan. (What happens next is somewhat disputed.) So Thesz's intention is to pass the world title along and create an International title and take a working vacation to Japan. He then does a controversial title change to Edouard Carpentier. But issues with Carpentier and his promotor force the NWA to not acknowledge the disputed title change and Thesz is brought back.

Eventually Thesz drops the title again and is given the created NWA International Heavyweight Championship that he defends all over the world promoting the American style of wrestling. As he planned, he eventually looses the title to Rikidozan in Los Angeles who takes the title back to Japan where it becomes the countries top championship. It is defended for years in the Japan Wrestling Association (JWA), and most often worn by Giant Baba.

After Baba had left JWA, and onto when the JWA closed, the title was essentially vacant but revived in 1981 by Giant Baba and All Japan. There it has remained since and due to it's long lineage, essentially the top title in All Japan.

Pacific Wrestling Federation World Heavyweight Championship

When Giant Baba formed All Japan, he needed to create a title since the JWA still held the NWA membership for Japan. He created his own sanctioning body, the Pacific Wrestling Federation (PWF), and then awarded himself the championship after winning a sequence of ten matches against some of the biggest stars in the world. In 1981, when All Japan formerly joined the NWA, he downgraded the PWF title, by removed the "World" from its name. Throughout the 1980's it served as one of the two major championships within All Japan.

NWA United National Championship

This has always been the least prestigious of the three titles. Think of it as the WWF Intercontinental Title to the WWF World Title during the 80's and 90's. Brought to Japan and the JWA by Antonio Inoki to give him a title lesser in statue to Giant Baba and the International Heavyweight Championship. During the late 70's and then into the 80's it was used to give Jumbo Tsuruta a championship while Baba held the PWF Title. When Baba removed himself from the title pictures, Tsuruta moved up to challenge for the International and PWF Titles and the United National title was used to get the likes of Genichiro Tenryu over.

The Triple Crown

So what is the Triple Crown? It is the unification of three All Japan recognized championships: the NWA International Heavyweight Championship, the NWA United National Championship and the PWF World Heavyweight Championship.

Many won't believe it, but Vince McMahon is indirectly responsible for the creation of the Triple Crown. Here is how:

By the mid 1980's Vince and the WWF were expanding nationally and putting almost all of the old NWA territories out of business. In response, Jim Crockett attempted his own national expansion. He used his Mid Atlantic territory as the basis of his national expansion and began to absorb many of the resources of the existing NWA territories as they went out of business, no longer able to compete with McMahon. And in doing so, the NWA World Heavyweight Champion stopped being a touring champion, as almost all of the old territories where he would travel to were gone.

Now Giant Baba (All Japan owner and promotor) and All Japan had been long time members of the NWA. The Champion often traveled to Japan and would defend the belt, often as one of the main events at All Japans quarterly shows at Budaken Hall. In fact, as a condition of joining the NWA, Baba had for a time downgraded the PWF World Heavyweight Championship to just the PWF Heavyweight Championship, and recognized the NWA Champion as the only World Champion. Yes, semantics mean a great deal within the world of professional wrestling.

By the late 1980's, Baba and All Japan were one of the few remaining NWA members. And with Jim Crockett fighting McMahon and the WWF, the NWA Champion was traveling and defending the title less and less. Crockett canceled a few scheduled Ric Flair (NWA Champion at the time) tours of Japan and Baba had had enough. Unable to get dates on the world champion, Baba decided to create his own, and thus with the merging of his three singles championships into a unified title, the greatest wrestling championship, the Triple Crown was born.